Road to Raleigh And Beyond

Joe and Juniper at the party on Saturday night

2019-08-17/18 Saturday/Sunday

As anticipated, our day yesterday was as hectic as anticipated, and a little bit more. As we finished packing up the Jeep in the morning to pull out at 9:30 right on schedule, we discovered the Jeep battery was completely dead. We had to do a bit of scrambling with Beth’s fancy new keyless-entry, all plastic car, trying to find somewhere on the car’s frame to attach the jumper cables.  In the end, we were about 20 minutes past schedule when we said a very hasty goodbye to everyone and rushed off to collect our RV. Of course, the drive there seemed far longer than I remembered from the week before. Fortunately, we were able to get into the storage yard with only a brief delay due to flustered nerves, and the RV was ready to go in 5 minutes. The on-and-off rain showers which we’d already encountered (it rained all night and before 9:30 a.m. it was pretty rainy) fortunately held off for a little bit.

With the delay, I was worrying that we would miss the 11:00 a.m. cut-off time to pick up Cassie. We didn’t have time to transfer stuff out of the Jeep, and we couldn’t just leave the Jeep parked like we did a week ago and go in the RV, because we were afraid to turn off the Jeep in case the battery died again. We didn’t want to have to take the time to jump it. So we drove (separately) in BOTH vehicles to the kennel, apologized for filling up their meager parking area with our vehicles (and one of them left running), and collected Cassie and her belongings. She was all fluffy from the extra humidity, and very happy to see us! And, we were happy to see her too.

From there, we returned to the Lowe’s parking lot as planned. The transfer of our beach clothing, gear, and food (almost all staples— i.e. nothing to actually EAT) went quickly and smoothly—the rain seemed to have stopped. I decided to run into the Lowe’s and buy a few things to actually consume, i.e. coffee and half-and-half for Joe’s morning needs. I also grabbed a few items which were on my RV grocery list, including nosh, water, and yogurt. As I checked out and walked to the door, I discovered it was just starting to rain again—and between the door and the RV, the heavens opened up.

We decided to eat some lunch—we still had an hour on my planned schedule—while it rained, because we hadn’t yet hooked the Jeep up to the RV and didn’t want to do it in the rain. That was when we realized, I hadn’t bought any bread, and we had none— absolutely nothing—to make a sandwich. It was still pouring. There were no fast food places by the Lowe’s. So Joe took an umbrella and after asking what I wanted (some kind of baguette thing), he went to buy bread. I realized right after he left that I should have told him, “And grab a loaf of something for later,” and of course he didn’t think of that himself. So he returned with “exactly what you TOLD me to get!”, a baguette.

We made and ate lunch, by which time the rain had let up again. We then hooked up the Jeep, and, as it started to rain yet again, pulled out of our last Oak Island stop to head for Raleigh. We went through several more deluges, and it was frightfully hot and humid. Plus Cassie pitched a fit in the middle of the drive, and we had to stop in a pouring rain to walk her (it was a semi-false alarm... maybe it was just the thunder that worried her.) However, the skies cleared up around 4pm, and it was bright and sunny when we pulled into the NC State Fairgrounds Campground at 4:30,  and happily hooked up to electricity so we could run our AC in the clawing hot mugginess. By the time we’d unhooked the Jeep, walked the dog, paid for the site, and arranged ourselves, it was time to dress “up” (i wore a dress and Joe wore chinos and a nice shirt—NOT our usual camping attire).

We drove the Jeep to a local restaurant to meet up with Beth, Joe and Juniper, as well as a crowd of about 20 family members gathered to celebrate the 70th wedding anniversary of Dot and Ed. They and Joe’s parents were best buds from dental school on, and they moved to Dad’s little hometown of Highland Park after graduation. Their daughter Margie became my BFF about 50 years before the phrase “BFF” was invented (back when we were in kindergarten), and of course she and her brothers grew up with Joe and his siblings. She  invited us to the lovely celebration she threw for her parents. We got to see Margie’s two brothers, all the first cousins and their significant others, and catch up with everyone. 70 years is really something special, and it was an honor to be included.  We especially enjoyed exchanging RVing adventures and information with Margie’s younger brother, who with his wife was parked right next to us at the Fairgrounds in their own RV.

It was a long day, and when we got home at 10:30 or so, we quickly jumped into bed. We woke up on Sunday at about 8 a.m., maybe the best night’s sleep I had for days! It was nice being back in our own bed again. While we waited for Margie to call us, we unpacked more beach things and our clothes, walked the dog, and did some general planning. Joe messed around with the Jeep, and decided we need a new Jeep battery—it is going dead too easily (it was dead again when we arrived at the campground, but this time we had our small portable jumper handy.) Margie came by to get us at about 10:30, and we all went out for some brunch and to catch up a bit more. I can’t believe we forgot to take a photo of ourselves, both the night before and on Sunday morning. Huge oversight!

Around noon or so, we finally had to say goodbye. She took us back to the RV, we hugged goodbye, and Joe and I hooked the Jeep up, battened down all loose items, and found our way to I-40 west.

The rest of Sunday was just driving. We were hoping to get as far as Knoxville, TN, but by 9:00 it was already a long day and I was tired. We had difficulty deciding where to spend the night, because there were no legal free overnight places near Knoxville—Walmarts were “no overnight parking”, and even the interstate rest areas were two-hour parking only. We finally stopped at the last rest area on I-81 (we’d detoured off I-40 to avoid the steep mountain switchbacks through the Asheville area) before rejoining I-40, and decided to take a chance. I wasn’t even hungry (we’d had a hefty snack break at 5pm) and we hardly had any food other than staples. So we had cereal for dinner, walked the dog, and fell fully dressed onto our bed. We figured if anyone DID tell us we had to move, we’d look like we were “just napping” and overslept. But no one disturbed us all night, and I slept soundly until 8am again. Joe was up much earlier, but he too slept well until then. We got dressed, walked the dog, and hit the road by 9am Monday.