Blacksburg SC a nice place to visit...

It's our third night here at the Cherokee RV Park and it really is a good campground. It's quiet and very peaceful still only about half full. We have neighbors directly behind us, an older couple who keep their camper here year round and just come out here every so often.  The grounds are well kept and the staff friendly and helpful.  Although it's not as nice as some of the state parks we've been to, it has all the amenities we need. Blacksburg is a small town just off I-85 about 5 miles south of the North Carolina border. It too has what we need to get by as far as groceries and things. If the other RV parks we happen upon are half as nice we'll be happy campers (pun intended).

  Wonder and Squeaky are not as thrilled with the location. We've left them in the camper each day since we've been here to go visit Miranda and Lexi, sometimes for several hours and they're not used to it. They haven't shown their displeasure too much yet, but we can tell they would rather us not go or take them with us. Squeaky more so than Wonder. Wonder would just sleep until we returned except Squeaky tends to get him riled up and excited.

  We're looking at somewhere around Knoxville TN for our next stop. Specifically The Beanpot Campground near Crossville. The website doesn't look too bad, but we'll see. For now it'll be Blacksburg SC at least for the next 6 days. And I kinda like it. I'll leave you with a night time view of the campground.

Blacksburg South Carolina

  We have arrived. We are in the quaint little town of Blacksburg South Carolina for the next 7 days. We're staying at the Cherokee RV Park. It's a nice little campground about 40 minutes away from Miranda's apartment in Mt Holly North Carolina, the closest we could find. It's much better than the last place, which wasn't exactly bad just more of a mobile home park with most of the people there living rather than visiting there. We were put between two other RVs with about 5-10 feet of space between us and them. Here the sites are spaced out a little further and it's not nearly as full. We have been finding and booking our spots online and you really never know what you're going to find till you arrive. One of the pitfalls of full time RVing I guess and not that big of one in the grand scheme of things. 

 We were able to have a nice dinner at Olive Garden with Miranda and Lexi last night. We also unloaded all the things we were bringing them from the old place in Texas. This has given us a little more breathing room in the camper, especially in the living room area.

South Carolina for a While.

  We arrived in Greenville South Carolina  Monday afternoon. It's now Wednesday morning and we're going to move on to Blacksburg South Carolina today. That's about an hour and a half away so a short trip comparatively speaking. Blacksburg is about 30 minutes away from Mt Holly North Carolina where Miranda and Lexi live and as close as we could find as far as RV sites go.

  We'll stay there until September 5th. We'll be "off loading" some of the weight we've been carrying since leaving Texas. This will give us the ability to spread out a little more in the camper. I'm really looking forward to seeing Miranda and Lexi. You never know how much you miss someone until they're gone. It's only been about a couple months since we saw them, but it seems like forever.

  On the 5th we'll head west towards Illinois. We hope to spend a couple days with my brother John and his lovely wife Marla in Normal around the 9th. We plan, and I use that word loosely, to make stops between Blacksburg and Normal in or near Knoxville TN, Hopkinsville KY and Effingham IL. For those of you who don't own a map, that is traveling an average of 200 miles a day or about 3 to 4 hours on the road a day. That may not sound like a lot, but when you factor in tearing down and setting up, and wanting to do both before 4pm, it can be a lot. So big brother look out here we come!

Beautiful Scenery!

  I realize that we just got started,  but the scenery at Cheaha State Park is fantastic. It is the highest point in Alabama. Getting the camper up here was a task as I'm sure getting it down will be, but it's worth it. I'll let some pictures tell the rest.

Mississippi is kinda muggy!

  We arrived at balmy Roosevelt State Park in Morton Mississippi around 5:10pm on the 21st. The trip from Louisiana took about 4 and a half hours including two stops, one for fuel and one for health. This journey was a safe and non-destructive one. Hopefully the rest will be the same. When we got here the office was closed so we had to search for our campsite. If we had come in after dark we'd still be searching. Note to all you full-time wannabes: Get to where you're going before the sun goes down. Unless you're familiar with the campground, selecting a site and setting up in the dark is NOT fun.

  The campground itself is really nice. Very thick forest surrounding a small lake. It has a lot of amenities including cabins, a lodge, a pool with a large water slide and of course lots of individual campsites. Ours is full hook-up, which for you uninitiated means it has a sewer up. Something that is not a must but it makes life a whole lot easier. Without it you're constantly watching how much water you're using, so as not to fill up your gray water tank to quickly.  Or God forbid your black water.

  It's been very humid since we got here. I'll bet humidity has been in the high 80s or low 90s, especially the day we got here. Fortunately our camper's A/C works quite well, in fact too well at times. We're off to Cheaha State Park in Delta Alabama on Friday.  I really enjoy seeing new parks throughout the country. They've all been great so far. I don't count Escapee's RV Park, it was just a mobile home park really,  but the stay there served its purpose.

  Well dear readers,  it's time for me to put this edition to bed. It's Friday morning and it's "moving day". Remember what I said "Get set up at your new camp before dark!".

Goodbye Louisiana, hello Mississippi!

It's late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning.  Our last day at Lake Bristineau State Park. And by the way they need to change their name here, cause there is no lake, hasn't been one for a while by the looks of things. Still it's a pretty park, when we got here Sunday there were only two other campers here, and as of this morning we're the only ones left.

  Before we started our new lives we bought an 8' ramp so Wonder would be able to get in and out with minimal trouble. So far only the Livingston site were we able to put it to any use. Here and Mineral Wells had their pads a little too high making it too steep to maneuver. It hasn't slowed him down at all. In fact since arriving here he has been outside more per day than in quite sometime. He's even started going on walks now, not long ones mind you, but he is getting some exercise.

  Roosevelt State Park near Morton Mississippi is where we're heading tomorrow,  we'll be there two nights. Alcohol is looked at differently by the states. In Mississippi it says "No Alcohol" period. They don't want you drinking in a Missi state park. In Texas it says "no public consumption of alcohol". They don't care if you drink as long as you hide it. In Louisiana it says "minors cannot have alcohol", but you can have all you want! We'll be in Alabama on Saturday,  remind me see how they feel about it. Paula, aren't you an Alabama girl? Do we need to do our drinking before Saturday?

Finally Out Of Texas

  We have managed to "go camping" somewhere other than Texas. We are at Lake Bristineau State Park near Minden Louisiana. It's a pretty park with lots of trees and Spanish moss. We even managed to get set up before dark which is a first since leaving the old residence. Our bike rack was the worse for wear, too many bumps on I20 in Louisiana. Other than that we are safe and sound.

Thursdays Have Been Berry Berry Bad To Us!

  Ok, if you remember, Thursday the 8th was not a good day for us. We spent most of it and until 4am Friday emptying the house and packing the house. Fast forward to Thursday the 15th. We packed and left Mineral Wells State Park and headed for Camping World on S. 35W to exchange a defective washer/dryer all, we thought, was well. While there I saw a man come into the store with a busted RV tv antenna. I knew all too well what happened. I thought "that guy pulled out of camp and forgot to put his antenna down and it got knock off by some low branch or underpass". Then I thought "OH SHIT I just did the same thing". I ran out to the camper and sure enough, there was our tv antenna in a twisted heap on top of the camper. Strike one.

 We get the new washer/dryer installed and off we head to Livingston Tx. 30 miles down the road Penny says she sees something flapping under the camper. About the same time someone pulls along side us and points to the ground. I take the next exit and pull into a rest stop to find this.

  What you're looking at is the bottom of our camper.  Two very large sheets of plastic that hold all those wires along with insulation for the holding tanks. The Friday before, you know the one when we stayed up until 4am packing and didn't get to the state park until 5am, we found that ALL of the holding tanks were at least 3/4 full. The gray water (sinks and shower), the black water ( toilet) and fresh water. Aside from us hauling about 1000lbs of extra weight it's also just nasty cause we didn't know how long they had been full. Let your mind cogitate a little on a full black water tank that's been that way for who knows how long. Anyway we decide to turn on the pump on to use what was in the fresh water tank to take showers. Unbeknownst to us the previous owner left the faucets to the outside shower head turned on. This shower head is in a little  compartment on the back of the camper. We didn't realize this was the case until we saw the water draining from the bottom of the camper. What we didn't realize at the time was that all that insulation in that was now soaked. It stayed that way until we left the park on the 15th to head to Camping World so I could see the man with the broken antenna. Well all that wet insulation and movement of the camper going down the road was just too much for the bottom to take, so, at about 3:00pm Thursday afternoon it collapsed (see above photo). Now, being forward thinking people we had already signed up for roadside assistance. So we called them and they promptly arrived at about 4:30pm. Upon my initial survey of the damage, I surmised I was f^@ked, however after further review, I could see that all the wet insulation had to go if I was to get the bottom off the ground, so out it went. Oh and before I forget it was right about then that my cell phone came out of my pocket and hit the concrete shattering the screen. Strike two.

  By the time the help showed up I knew that all I needed was an extra set of hands or two to get the bottom back into it's original position, as nothing was ripped or no bolts were gone, the plastic sheets just needed to be "popped" back into their grooves. So the helped arrived (two luckily) and the three of were able to get it back into place. It still was iffy if it would stay there, but we thought it would stay long enough to get it back to their shop where a more permanent fix could be made. We made it to the shop by about 5:30pm and by 7:00pm they had place two metal straps across the bottom of the camper to insure that the bottom remained there....forever. $175 and handshakes all around later we were off on our way to Livingston. A little tired, a lot dirty and a lot grateful it wasn't as bad as it first appeared. Strike three.

It was a dark and stormy night!

  And we found out two things, one good and one bad. Which do you want to read first the good or the bad? Some people prefer to get the bad news out of the way first so the story ends on a high note. While others tend to want the good news first.  Me, it doesn't matter really because they're both going to come out eventually. So I will let you, the readers decide. Go ahead, I'll wait. No, really, I've got all day, being retired and all. However others are waiting so I guess I'll do the deciding here. The good news is we found no leaks in the camper,  and it rained for a few hours, so that's a VERY good thing. The bad news is we discovered that our First Mate Squeaky does not like thunderstorms, at all. If he wasn't quivering in on of our laps he was hiding under the table. Some First Mate he turned out to be!

  We bought ourselves a portable icemaker today. In the Texas we were going through 3 10lb bags every other day. This is supposed to make 33lbs a day, so it should pay for itself relatively soon. One must have plenty of ice on hand for one's libations.

 

We're getting the hang of this!

  Although it's only been a couple days the four Rehders of the Lost Park are going to be just fine. Penny and I have both read blogs of others you have gone before us and they all say the same thing. "You quickly learn you packed too much". We figure to unload as we go further on our journey.

  We've decided to stay at Lake Mineral Wells State Park a little longer than the original plan 4 nights.  The first 2 were just a blur of fatigue and sleep.  We bought one of those combination washer/dryers before we moved out and used it the first time today.  We may need to take it back, it leaks and I have no handy man skills.  McGyver I mean Mitchel is coming by tomorrow to see if he can do his magic.  So we'll stick around here a few more days.

  Wonder is doing good for a first-time camper. He isn't thrilled about getting in or out of the camper, we're using a ramp for him and he hasn't yet gotten comfortable with it. We are looking forward to cooler weather when he can enjoy the outdoors more. Squeaky is a master camper and enjoys it all, especially bedtime when he gets to sleep in mom and dad's bed.

  I think retirement agrees with me. I've rarely thought about the office ( I know it's only been 10 days). I hope it agrees with my beautiful wife as well, I'm smart enough to know that I can be a pain sometimes. I am really looking forward to spending the rest of my life with her. She might argue the fact but I am a very lucky.

Seven Days Of Retirement Makes One Weak.

  Well,  I've been retired for a whole week now, at least retired from AT&T. But I (we) have been VERY busy getting things ready for the 8th day. We have only been in this house for a little less than 10 years, been together for 14, but we seemed to have collected quite a bit in that time span. Of course it's not ALL ours, sorry Miranda, look out for that on coming bus. All we have left to do now is to pack a few more things into our 5th wheel and then we are ready to roll.

  This little project would not be near as complete if it were not for the help of some others. Mitchel Davenport and his lovely wife Melissa have helped us out enormously. From helping us with a temporary storage location for the camper, to helping us "deload" the house. They have both been the best brother/brother-in-law and sister-in-law in the world.  

  So, we are finally on the road after the longest, hardest Thursday I can remember.  It didn't really end until around 9AM Friday. The worst part? We had to take our oldest boy, Choberman (Chobie) James Rehder to the bridge. For those not familiar with the term, we had to put him to sleep.  He was a tough little guy, would've been 14 in October,  but a tumor in his nasal passage took the quality of life away from him. We will miss him very much. We love you Chobie.