March in South Carolina

Well, here we are at Carolina Landing Campground, located almost smack dab on the border of Georgia near Fair Play, South Carolina. We arrived on a rainy day and initially set up in a temporary site because the park was packed. That was Friday. On Saturday we moved to our "permanent" spot where we'll be for three weeks.

It strikes me that camping in a place like this is not at all like camping. We're crammed in between two other RV's, separated by a few feet of grass. It's more like a temporary mobile home park than a campground. Am I complaining?? Maybe a little bit. In the end we have the power to decide where we're going to stay, and everything is a tradeoff. We can get the wide open rustic camping spots if we want them, but they don't come with power, water, and sewer. For those three gems, we put up with crowded parking. 

We have a fire pit! Yay!

Driving one's house around on the roadways can be precarious, and the best lessons, as we all know, are the ones we learn from experience. All our cabinet doors are fixed with locking fixtures. They don't actually lock anything, you just have to pull hard to open them, and they keep the doors from opening on the move except in extreme situations like crashing or slamming on the brakes. Since our crash of a few years ago, we learned to find a better way to secure our kitchen cabinet that houses all the dishes and glassware...just in case. No point in losing everything.

This is a bendable rubber covered wire 

But somehow we neglected to consider the pantry doors. The kitchen cupboard doors are more susceptible to opening in side-to-side motion, which fortunately doesn't happen very often, but the pantry doors, to our dismay can open when the driver (not naming any names here) slams on the brakes. And that's exactly what happened as we drove through Columbia, SC, in Friday afternoon traffic when a car suddenly pulled in front of us.

I had recently found a fantastic solution to store our wine in the pantry. This wine rack fits perfectly on the top shelf of our pantry...and only the top shelf. The bottom shelf is probably a safer place for it, but unfortunately it's not tall enough.

In normal traveling, the wine sits on the rack quite nicely without moving around. But with that sudden stop, the force of four bottles of wine against the cabinet door was enough to pop it open far enough to let the bottles escape. I heard the crash, and knew things were flying. And breaking. I looked back and saw red wine all over the tile floor, and knew we had to stop as soon as possible to clean up. A few more miles down the road we found a Home Depot and Mark pulled off the highway into the parking lot. While I cleaned up the mess, he went into Home Depot to look for a solution to make sure this never happens again. 

Much to my surprise, only one of the four bottles that fell actually broke. But one was enough to leave a big ole stain on my carpet. I swept up as much of the glass as I could from the space between the slide and the pantry and then put out the slide to finish the cleanup. It looks like we're going to need a carpet cleaner.

I didn't think to snap a picture until I was 
halfway through cleanup.

Mark found a perfect fix. These Velcro straps cost us less than $4. 

After we stopped for the night, we discovered another problem. The floor in the bathroom was wet. And the floor in the bedroom was wet-- soaked in fact. After thinking it over, Mark believes that somehow the fresh water tank, which was full, found a way to slosh into the house. We've seen it sloshing out on the outside of the RV as we travel, but never inside. Now we have another problem to solve, but such is the reality of living in an older home--whether it's mobile or stationary.

This week we'll be looking into what we can do or see in the area. Otherwise, we're just hanging out and enjoying the warmer dryer weather.

Wishing you all a happy Spring and safe travels wherever you are!

More pics...

Fuel prices are getting scary!

Our first campground after Gainesville--the closest we could
get to the ocean.

We thought we'd go sit on the beach for an hour or so. This
beach charges $8 a person. We turned around and left.

Lunch. The food here is great!

Nice view, even if it isn't the ocean.

Yes, that's battered, fried, shrimp in front of me.
I love that stuff...and once in a while I eat it.
(Mark's having shrimp tacos)

Summer Preview

Parked in Paul's driveway in Gainesville

 Here we are in March already! When I said we were getting a "slow start," I guess I meant it. 

We finally left Shreveport last week, heading for the "family reunion" in Gainesville at the home of my two Florida brothers, Paul and Lee. To our disappointment, the reunion fell apart once again. For last year's reunion, neither my sister, Doreen, nor Mark and I made it due to Mark's health. This year my younger brother, Mark (whom we have affectionately decided to refer to as "Bro-Mark, or B'ark for short, so as not to confuse with husband-Mark), and Doreen were unable to make it due to health. Our younger sister, Becky, never comes. But four out of the bunch are here and having an enjoyable visit talking about the ones who didn't make it. 

On our way, we stopped first in Mississippi to pick up Doreen, who was originally planning to ride with us in the RV to the get-together. Circumstances arose that made the trip impossible for her, but we stayed in a nearby campground and hung out with her and her family for about a week before heading out for Florida.

At Turkey Creek Water Park, Decatur, MS

Florida is as wonderfully warm as we had hoped. Most of the days have been in the 80's and still not terribly humid. Though most of this week was rainy off and on, we've been spending all our time on Paul's newly finished enclosed porch, protected from rain and bugs, so it doesn't matter. We won't see this much summer until...well, summer.

Lee and Amy

Left to right:  Paul, Bev, and George

...and me

There's not much to talk about this time. We (like you, I expect) are beginning to get concerned about fuel prices. Our last fill-up was about $4.25 a gallon and the next one will likely be another dollar-a-gallon more. And who knows how much the one after that will be? We have slowed down our movement considerably this year, but so far we're still moving and planning as though we'll be able to keep moving for a while longer. Time will tell, I suppose, how long we can maintain this lifestyle.

Our next campground is near the coast of South Carolina, where we'll stay for a few days next week before starting the slow move north again. 

That's it for now. Until next time, Happy Trails, and safe travels to all!