Barbara and Michel's Place

Arrived at Barbara and Michel's farmhouse on Friday evening after maneuvering the Beast through some pretty narrow roads of Easton. Got it parked in their drive OK; we'll find out Sunday if we can get it out!
Their house was built in 1820 of mostly brick and stone, including many of the interior walls. The first floor consists of 2 large rooms, with an add-on pantry and bath. The upstairs is mainly 2 large bedrooms. The property also holds several outbuildings, such as barns, chicken coops, etc. Gardens everywhere! And thick woods to the rear. A total of 8 acres, with about 6 of them being woods. All of us, including the dogs, made ourselves at home very quickly. Very beautiful property, and extremely quiet!
On Saturday we drove the Jeep south down the River Road (alongside the Delaware River) for about 20 miles to visit the Kinsman garden store, taking pictures along the way of the area. Lots of boating and tubing on the river.
Saturday night we took Barbara out to dinner (Michel wasn't feeling well) to a nice little restaurant down and across the river in Frenchtown, NJ.
Tomorrow, if we can successfully back the Beast out the driveway, we'll head into and up through New Jersey, New York State, and into good ol' New England.

Gettysburg

Wednesday morning we pulled up stakes and continued our northward travels, taking the Capitol Beltway around DC and on into Maryland. I swear the entire Beltway was under construction while we traversed it. We continued on into Pennsylvania, and stopped at a pretty nice campground outside of Gettysburg.
Most of Thursday was spent visiting the battlefield. We purchased a CD for a self-guided tour and drove around the battlefield in the Jeep, stopping at each checkpoint on the CD. Very well done and extremely educational. Doing this makes one stop and reflect on the absurdities of war, especially considering the carnage that took place over a three day period in July, 1863. Many of the fields and ridges are almost exactly as they were back then, so what you see today is virtually the same that those soldiers saw back then.
We left Gettysburg on Friday morning and made a detour through Bird In Hand and Intercourse, PA - Amish Country, and saw many horse-drawn carriages along the route.
While trying to get back on I-78 near Allentown, we got caught in a massive traffic jam due to a major accident that closed down the highway. At one point it took close to an hour to go about 500 yards! Finally got around it and made it to sister Barbara's place by around 5:30.

Oracoke Island

Sunday July 24 we made the drive to the end of Hateras Island and took the free ferry to Oracoke Island. It is 15 miles of beach highway from the ferry landing to the small village of Oracoke. The village streets are lined with quaint little houses, shops and restaurants. Most people get around by walking,bicycle,or golf carts. We walked around for awhile then had lunch at a little take-out sandwich shop then made the drive back to the ferry landing and back to Hateras Island. After dinner we decided to go to the beach for an early evening swim. Once again the sunset was foiled by clouds. I guess we will just have to take their word for it that the sunsets are spectacular.
Monday July 25 we headed north again in the motorhome. We thought we would stop and spend a couple of nights in Virginia Beach but could not get a campsite at the campground there so we drove on to Williamsburg,Va. We managed to get a nice site at the Williamsburg/Colonial KOA. It's located just a 10 minute drive from Colonial Williamsburg. Quite a bad thunderstorm came through the area Monday night. The storm was reminiscent of those we normally have in Texas.
Tuesday dawned a bit less hot and humid. We spent the day at Colonoial Williamsburg. Very interesting place. Shopkeepers , restaurant people , tour guides and actors are dressed in period costumes throughout the town. They have reenactments of different happenings in the history of Williamsburg. Tour guides and volunteers are available in the historic buildings to answers questions.One more night at the KOA.Tomorrow we head out again.

Birthplace of Flight

Today we drove 36 miles north in the Jeep to visit Kitty Hawk/Kill Devil Hills, where the Wright Brothers proved that man could fly. December 17, 1903 was when they successfully flew an airplane for the first time, with the 4th attempt resulting in a flight that lasted all of 59 seconds and travelled 852 feet! The constant wind on these islands made for a perfect place for them to make these attempts.
And it is really windy here. Our campsite is backed up right to the sound, and the wind is so strong that we were unable to get the grill lit today to cook some hot dogs.
After returning from the Wright Brothers Museum we spent a couple of hours hanging out at the campground pool before returning to the bus for dinner.
Attempted to catch the sunset again over the sound, but the clouds on the horizon spoiled it again for us. They say it is spectacular when there are no clouds. The sun has one more chance to impress us before we leave here on Monday.

The Beach

Here we are at day 5. Finally we don,t have to drive anywhere. We are settled into a campsite overlooking Pamlico Sound Outer Banks NC.It is beautiful here. It is also very hot and humid. I think we brought it from Texas. We went to the beach for a couple of hours this morning. It's too hot on the beach for the Yorkies so I bought these little blue pop-up nylon kennels to corral them in while we are away from the MH. We left them in the kennels in the dinette so they could look out the window. When we returned from the beach both dogs had rolled the kennels off the dinette onto the floor and over to the door leading out of the MH. I wish I could have seen them in action! They must have looked like little blue tumbleweeds rolling through the coach. After lunch we decided to visit Cape Hatteras lighthouse another place we could not take the little blue tumbleweeds. This time we dragged the big metal kennel in from outside. There was no way they could move It. We drove the jeep south to where the ferry takes folks over to Ocracoke Island, then back up to the Cape Hatteras lighthouse. We climbed to the top of that sucker (257 steps up!) and caught a fantastic view of the Outer Banks. A seafood dinner at a local restaurant ended this busy day.
The next couple of days we're looking at taking the ferry over to Ocracoke and/or visiting Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers museum. Bob says it just feels good to drive around in a "normal" vehicle for a while.

Refrigerator Died

Days 3-4 proved to be very challenging. The refrigerator decided to up and die. We had to resort to living out of coolers. We are finding out that getting things repaired or replaced is no easy feat with a motorhome. Virtually every repair facility dealing with motorhomes has a waiting list for service. We are now on the list at CampingWorld in Chichester NH. We,however are in Outer Banks,NC. We will survive this I am certain.

Day 2

Day 2 dawned much better than day 1. All gauges in working order. We headed out east and made a stop at the Mississippi Welcome Center which hovers high above the Muddy Mississippi River. Then we got back on the road  traveling across Miss. Remember the light bulb from a couple of posts back? We found a Camping World store in Anniston , Alabama that had the bulbs in stock, but alas the vanity light strip still doesn't work. Now we have to figure where the fuses are hiding to see if that is the problem.We found a little campground (Country Court RV Park)about a mile from CampingWorld with pull through sites and full hook-ups. Nothing fancy but sufficient for overnight. Cooked steak on the grill and then crashed for the evening. It's amazing how tired you can get just driving along.

Day 1

Well unfortunately day one was not without drama. It actually started with drama. Just as we pulled away from the house we noticed the speedometer was not working. Not to worry we have a GPS that shows your speed so we were good to go untill we could get somewhere to have it looked at. Not long after that we noticed the rear air pressure gauge was not reading correctly. Then the voltage gauge was reading max.WTH!! To make a long story short by the time we reached Nacogdoches, Tx nearly all the gauges were wacky. We called a local RV manufacturer in a panic. They couldn't help us but referred us to another local repair shop MotorHomes of Texas. We called them and they couldn't have been nicer. Even though he had more work than time a young guy named Keith said they would take a look see. It turns out it probably was the dash command module that just needed to be rebooted(engine shut down and restarted) due to a surge or something. Phew,we dodged that bullet. We continued on our way and ended the day in Monroe,La spending the night boondocking in the WalMart parking lot,free,and with 24 hr security. Beat that! Tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow is the day!!

The bus is nearly packed. Only a few things left to load.Put the canoe up on the rack.Then attempt to  hook up the Toad. I think I just wrote a little poem!
Tomorrow is traveling day. We havn't even left yet and we have already encountered two problems. A bulb broke on the bathroom vanity light,causing the whole strip to stop working.Of course it isn't just any old bulb. It's a SPECIAL bulb only available at RV parts stores. Oh well I guess I don't need to be able to see to  put makeup on ,hehe. The second problem is the electric step. Even though we rolled the front passenger wheel up on cement blocks to raise it above the curb and grass the step still became stuck on the lawn and would not retract. Now this really creates a dilemma because if we move the bus with the step stuck out it will be ripped off. That's not a good thing.What to do,what to do! After much walking back and forth and trying to force it up off the grass we decided to try putting several blocks under the front jacks to see if we could raise the whole bus up to dislodge the step. Hallelujah,it worked. Damn we are getting good at this RV stuff.Stay tuned for more trials and tribulations from DZ and BZ's Big Adventure.

On the road again!

We are packing up the Bus and preparing to head out in two days. The ultimate destination is New England,but there will be stops along the way. Check out our Blog to see where the Bus takes us.

Bob is retired!

Well it is finally official. Bob is now retired. No more work and no more paycheck. Yikes this is scarey!