Day Three - South of the Border - South Carolina

January 16th - South of the Border 52 degrees

We left Roanoke Rapids this morning at 10:00 as planned. It was 22 degrees when we awoke this morning. Lou had unhooked our water last evening and probably was a good thing, as the hose was frozen solid.

It did warm up quickly as we drove down interstate 95, we noticed that the meridians had been tilled and some type of flowers had been planted there and along the forest lines on the other side. There they sat just awaiting warm temperature and sunshine to show their beauty to all of the passerby’s.

As we were rolling along we noticed a sign near Kenley, North Carolina telling of a Tobacco Farm Life Museum which was located in Johnston County. I mentally put that on my list of museums that I would like to attend. I have always been a huge fan of any museum and the problem here is Lou has already been to almost everyone that I can think of and his idea of visiting a museum is to quickly walk through and I like to read and almost study what I see, so we have to compromise on our visits.

We are enjoying the Frank Sinatra CD’s that Krista gave me for Christmas as we are traveling and as we were going through Goldsboro, NC we saw a sign for Ava Gardner Museum, well don’t you know that fit right in with the Frankie CD’s and that prompted discussion on movies that we had long ago enjoyed that he had starred in along with Ava Gardner. June is also a Frankie fan, so the guys are going to have a rough trip listening to “ole blue eyes”. In fact, June is borrowing my “coffee table book” of the life of Frankie to enjoy over the miles and we are sharing the CD’s.

We arrived at South of the Border at 1:30 this afternoon and found the temperature to be 52 degrees, we had driven 173 miles. We plan to be here two nights. We have stayed hooked up and will walk to a restaurant this evening and use these two days to get caught up on rest and regroup a bit.

We do not have internet service her, do have to go to the office to get on line and will do that to post the blog. Do have good cell phone coverage; however, my phone is on silence and we can not get it off, so I just check every now and then for messages and will call back.

When we leave here we will travel to King’s Bay, Georgia and will stay there for three days, we will be in their overflow camping. This is a Naval Submarine Base. We will have water and electric. Then we go to Mayport, Florida and stay at a Naval Station for eleven days and after that we have not made definite plans.

Day Two - North Carolina

January 15th - Sunday - Leesbury, VA - Roanoke Rapids, NC

We left Gettysburg, PA this morning at 9:00 this morning and it was a brisk 16 degrees, we drove through Maryland and into Virginia on route 15.

Virginia is one of my very favorite states even in the winter. The huge fields are filled with Black Angus, I have just read that the Black Angus was introduced to the United States from Scotland in the late 1800's and they replaced the long horned steers and were found to produce a much better piece of steak, as the long horned steer produced a stringy steak.

We also saw many fields of horses that were clothed with their warm coats. I love to see the miles of wooden fences that keep the livestock at home.

As we left route 15 and went onto route 95 we passed Quantico United States Marine Corp Reserve Base. Would loved to have toured that base, however, we did not see any of the NCIS vehicles in passing!!

We stopped in Ashland, VA at a Flying J for gasoline and found it was $3.16 a gallon and when you are putting in at least 60 gallons, you want the cheapest you can locate. We took advantage of the stop and had lunch in our RVs at the same time and were soon back on the road to our final destination at Roanoke Rapids, NC.

We arrived here at 3:30 pm and the timing, once again was perfect, we were able to set up camp before the sun went down and the temperatures went down also. When you are working with hoses and water, it is cold. It was 42 degrees when we arrived and supposed to get down to 22 tonight. We hooked up the sewer hoses tonight and can shower and really clean up tonight.

This is a beautiful site, only four years old and has pull through sites. We plan on leaving here at 10:00 in the morning. Next scheduled stop is South of the Border and will stay there for two nights.

We had roast beef, mashed potatoes,with gravy and asparagus for dinner and have enough left for another meal. June and Steve are coming over later for coffee and cake.

We gave thanks to God tonight for safe travels and asked for continual hedge of safety as we travel south.

On The Way

January 14th - Gettysburg, PA 21 degrees

We arrived here around 3:00 pm today. Our trip so far has been uneventful. We were supposed to meet the our traveling buddies, Steve and June Bahr in Shamokin Dam; however, they were running late, so we stopped there and fixed our lunch and then drove on to Round Top and set up camp and were all settled in before they arrived just before 5:00 pm.

We were glad that we had driven on in, as we were able to get set up in the day light and able to check all of our equipment and found everything was working well.

We noted that the ice had finally melted off our steps and we were both glad for that, even Estee was glad not to have to board with ice under her feet. Once we were past Williamsport we noted there wasn’t any snow, but the temperatures were still very cold. In fact, we never saw the thermometer go above 33 degrees. As I am writing this it is down to 19, so will be a cold night here also. Now we know why we are heading south, and by looking at the weather maps, it is cold there also.

We enjoyed a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, gravy, and peas for dinner and for dessert we enjoyed toasted coconut cake. I was so glad that I had prepared several meals in advance to bring with us for a quick meal on the road and it certainly tasted good tonight.

We plan to leave at 9:00 am tomorrow and will cover the state of Maryland and Virginia and stay in North Carolina tomorrow evening.

Heading South

.January 14th Saturday - Cold

We are packed and on schedule and ready to pull out of the drive way at 10:00 am.

We are meeting the Bahrs around Williamsport and God willing we will stay at Round Top this evening, which is near Gettysburg, PA.

I will post as we have internet service to keep everyone abreast to our travels.