A Little Slice of Heaven

8/7/21-8/14/21 We got up on Saturday morning after a night of constant heavy rainstorms. The pounding on the roof of the RV woke us up several times. During those times, I kept hearing the sound of a cat meowing. I finally decided there must be a cat hiding under the RV or Jeep, because it didn't stop and was very close by. I felt awful--the parking lot was streaming with water all night. I was VERY glad we had decided not to seek out a campsite at the nearby Nature Center; it was reassuring to know that the parking lot would shed the water and we wouldn't have to deal with mud as well as with wetness. In the morning, it was still raining lightly. We knew we couldn't get into our beach house on Oak Island before 4:00pm. We were planning to drop Cassie at the "Bed & Biscuit" at about 3:00. But there was no real point in hanging around at the Walmart. So we packed up to leave. Joe went out to make sure everything was okay with the Jeep and prepare to move it, and suddenly he heard the cat meowing again. He opened the hood of the Jeep and there it was--perched uncomfortably in the engine compartment. He came to the RV and said, "Deb, we have a big problem." When I went outside, the cat (it was actually a kitten) had moved back, deeper into the engine toward the windshield of the car. I got a long dowel from the RV and tried to "poke" it toward the way out, but instead it went even deeper, and wedged itself underneath a piece of the hood adjacent to the windshield. In the end, Joe got out his tool kit and had to remove the piece of the Jeep that the kitten was stuck under. When he lifted it up, the poor little thing sat up, looked at me, and then hip-hopped across the engine to the edge, leaped to the ground, and ran like lightning across the parking lot. It headed for a cluster of bushes, and I would like to think there was SOME kind of shelter there, but I fear it was soaking wet there too. The poor thing couldn't have been comfortable in the engine, with absolutely no surface flat enough for it to curl up onto, and the entire area was soaking wet. It's probably a good thing it ran, or we'd have ended up wanting to keep it! After that, we proceeded with our expected itinerary: we drove to Oak Island and decided to head for the Lowes parking lot, which has a great ice cream place and a huge empty area where we had room to disconnect the Jeep from the RV. We had some lunch there, got ice cream, then unhooked and took the dog (with both vehicles) to the kennel, drove to the RV storage lot, transferred anything we wanted at the beach into the back of the Jeep (it was literally filled to the roof), and drove the Jeep to the rental house, leaving the RV in storage. This all took so long that although we were the first of our group to reach Oak Island, we were the last ones to get to our home for the week, C&E At the Sea. The week at the beach was fantastic. We had perfect weather, we loved spending time with our family and dear friends, Joe got to cook a lot, I managed not to overeat, the ocean was like a bathtub,

and everything was just wonderful. As usual, it was hard to leave, but we had to be out of the place by 9:00 on the following Saturday. So we reversed our procedure: we loaded up the Jeep with all our stuff and several coolers of food, drove to the RV, hastily unloaded the Jeep into the RV without any planning, then drove to pick up Cassie in the Jeep. Then, back to the RV, where we spent a little while reorganizing. We left almost everything in the RV, taking only the dog and things we needed for a 2-day stay, plus both coolers, still filled with food. And then, leaving the RV again, we drove from Oak Island to Myrtle Beach.

Week at Oak Island

2019-08-16, Friday

We’ve spent the last 6 days at the beach for our annual family vacation on Oak Island, NC. It has been a lovely week— spending a lot of time with the family and friends, snuggling the baby, swimming in the bathtub warm ocean, and eating incredible meals Joe has been making for our pleasure (and at our command.) Today, our last day, turned out to be overcast with quite a bit of rain, although we are holding out hope for a last opportunity to swim before dinner. It doesn’t look very hopeful, though.

Luckily the house we are renting this year is so wonderful, we are all completely comfortable hanging out inside. It is a brand new house, built a couple of years ago, with 6 bedrooms (each with its own bathroom), including a great room for the 5 and 7 year old kids with two bunk beds. The kitchen is very nicely appointed, although we’ve been frustrated that it is lacking a teakettle (of course we have one in the RV, for all the good that does) and a few other items such as a dish drainer. But it is QUITE large and airy, and higher up off the ground, and then, the living room/dining room/kitchen area is on the top floor, which gives us a bird’s eye view of the beach. There are TWO outdoor showers, lots of comfortable furniture, a wine refrigerator, and a recessed deck on both levels, with couches on them so we can really relax while staying in the shade outside. All in all, we totally have loved the place.

Our fully stocked wine refrigerator

 We are already doing our final laundries (I wouldn’t pass up this opportunity) and Joe and I will certainly plan to make good use of the hot showers again at least once before we leave. We’ll probably do as much packing as possible tonight also. Tomorrow’s hectic schedule is: Wake up early, have breakfast, pack the Jeep, do as much house cleaning as possible before we leave at 9:30. 9:30– leave house and head for RV storage lot (~25 minutes). Open up RV, air out some of the heat, and then drive back along the same road to the Lowes parking lot we used last week. Then, either a) quickly transfer cargo to the RV or b) leave cargo in Jeep, park the Jeep, and drive the RV in order to pick up Cassie before 11 a.m.  Then we will come back to the Lowes, unpack the beach cargo into the appropriate RV storage areas, reattach the Jeep to the RV. Unless, that is, it happens to be close to noon by that time, in which case we will probably take the Jeep to the BBQ House for lunch before leaving Oak Island.

Relaxing afternoon

We’ll then head west to Raleigh, where we are parking for the night at the NC State Fairgrounds. This will be our first Fairground overnight (there are many fairgrounds in the country where you can do this) and it has full hookups, I believe, although all we really care about at this point is electricity. We are spending the night there so we can go to a celebration of Dot and Ed’s 70th anniversary. Their daughter, Margie, was my bff when we were growing up (and she still is!), and Dot and Ed were best buddies with Joe’s parents too. So our families are very fond of each other, and we, as well as Beth and Joe and the baby, are so happy to be able to celebrate the anniversary with them. Their son, Dan, and his wife also own an RV and will be spending the night at the fairgrounds too. We’re hoping to pick their brains a little bit about their trip last year to Alaska, which is something we may be interested in for some future trip. But in any case, the day will be LONG and busy, and we have a lot to do before we tuck ourselves in tomorrow night.

Catching Up with the Past Week

2019-08-15

A week has passed since the last blog entry, and most of it has been lovely. So I am going to catch up with my blog as quickly as possible.

Last Friday, we woke up in the RV and got a relatively early start toward Oak Island. Our goal for the night was to get to the Walmart in Leland, NC, for our overnight stay before checking into our beach vacation house. We really enjoyed our drive on Route 301 through Virginia— it is so green and pretty, and far preferable to taking the I-95 route. Far less traffic, too! Unfortunately, all good things must end, and eventually we segued onto I-295, parallel to I-95 (and still far preferable and prettier!) to bypass Richmond and Petersburg, VA, before inevitably having to join I-95.

Our GPS alerted us to some kind of construction backup about 20 miles north of the state line. We were happy to exit in a timely manner, especially because it was lunchtime. We were expecting to just find a parking lot and make some lunch, but we immediately noticed at the exit not only a huge parking lot with a sign for “truck parking”, but the same sign announced “Granny’s Fried Chicken”!  Joey immediately jumped out of the RV, with a cry of “FRIED CHICKEN,” and he disappeared into what looked from the outside like a gas station (which it was.) But he soon reappeared, with a box in his hand containing 6 pieces of delicious fried chicken. So we had a fast and very easy (also very inexpensive) lunch of chicken, before stretching Cassies and our legs. Then we stayed on the 301 route again until we passed the point of the I-95 tie-up, and rejoined the interstate for the rest of our journey.

We arrived in Leland without incident, and with the added advantage of going past some of our old scenic wayside markers such as the Battleship Memorial in Wilmington. The Walmart lot was surprisingly busy, but we parked at the outside perimeter as usual and went inside to do some brief shopping. When it came time for dinner, though, I was still too hot to be comfortable. So we ended up at TGI Friday’s just across from our RV, for a nice dinner and DRINKS. We followed that up with a stop at the Fuzzy Peach Yogurt Bar, where we sort of went overboard on yogurt and toppings. By that time, it was much quieter, and we crashed for the night.

Saturday morning we woke up and spent some time organizing our belongings. The idea was to identify what was coming with us to the beach house, vs. what was staying in the RV for the week.  A number of bags had ridden in the Jeep from NJ, but we had other things which had been with us in the RV. We seemed to have a surprising amount of stuff coming with us! Then we drove about 20 minutes further, to the Lowes parking lot not far from the Oak Island bridge. We unhooked the Jeep from the RV, and then, leaving the Jeep parked in the lot, drove the RV back up Midway Road to Adam’s Folly Bed & Biscuit, the kennel where Cassie was to spend her week. Our original plan had called for transferring all the Jeep items into the RV and taking Cassie to the Bed &Biscuit in the Jeep, but i realized it would make more sense—assuming the RV could fit into the parking area at the B&B—to just take her in the RV instead, and not have to transfer everything twice.

This plan worked well, although we were very glad we hadn’t tried to get into the B&B parking area with the Jeep attached— it was NOT large and we needed to K-turn the RV around in it. The people at the B&B seemed nice, and we left Cassie in her “suite” at the B&B, looking a little bit surprised that she was being left behind (i hate that!) Then for us, it was back to the Jeep again. We spent the next 30 minutes or so cramming a huge amount of STUFF into the back of the Jeep— it was totally full. We’d not only had to collect personal items, but take out all the food from the refrigerator and two cases of non-refrigerated food (staples etc) which we would need on our trip, but also at the beach. We left the auxiliary brake for the tow set up in the RV for the duration to give us more room. And then, finally, our last logistical task was to drive separately to the storage yard where we would leave the RV. This part all went smoothly, and after turning off the electrical connections inside the RV (so the battery wouldn’t drain) and making sure the refrigerator door was open (so it wouldn’t get moldy), we left the RV in storage and drove our packed-full Jeep to Oak Island. YAY!!!!

By this time, it was a little after noon, and we headed for our favorite island treat, the BBQ House. We knew we had time to kill, because we couldn’t check into our house before 3pm. So we thoroughly enjoyed our lunch, and also hydrated ourselves with huge cups of iced tea— i didn’t emphasize how incredibly HOT it was in the parking lot while we were transferring everything to the Jeep, and how sweaty we were. We left the BBQ House and, considering we really had nowhere else to go, went to our beach house to wait in the shade of the driveway (under the house) for our friends to arrive. We had actually planned to take showers meanwhile, in the outside showers under the house. But we were so tired, that when we discovered two lounge chairs and the lovely breeze which passed over us as we got out of the car, we just lay down on the lounges and relaxed until 2pm, when Howie and Lois arrived to keep us company. The house itself was locked with an automated lock, and the realtors stubbornly refused to release it until 3pm (even though we’d seen the cleaners leave as we arrived at 1:00). So the four of us hung out until we were suddenly allowed to enter, and our beach vacation could truly begin.