Saturday, March 30, 2013

N. Carolina to home



The last blog of our winter trips is ALWAYS the same - -  We're home.  The laundry is done , blah, blah, blah!   It's true.   The "Home" stuff comes first.  That and H has downloaded the North Carolina pictures so now I can tell you about North Carolina and our quick trip home from there!
 
Myrtle Beach was fun.  It's a busy vibrant tourist town.  Walking the boardwalk was interesting and seeing all those teens on the frigid beach was just plane silly since  the two of us were all bundled up in jackets and long pants!  But we are both getting restless and we were ready to move on.
 
Half way between Fayetteville and Raleigh North Carolina is a speck on the map called Jackson Springs.  The GPS was able to locate and direct us to Sycamore Lodge and RV Resort - the last of the 5 campground/resorts where we had "free" night's parking.  Our stay in DeFuniak Florida was one of these also!  Sycamore Lodge is at the end of a long thin thread of road lined with silver skinned Sycamore Trees.  The Lodge itself  originally was the hunting facility for a wealthy lumberman and the unique dark log building has been preserved impeccably well.
Gracing the yards are red berry covered holly bushes that have been carefully pruned to look like a well decorated Christmas Trees!  Stone and brick walkways were everywhere - weaving in and out between the new camping cabins and leading to the different gardens or terraced RV parking spots.  All of these are situated on the gentle hillside overlooking the pretty little fish stocked lake.  The regular camping sites were placed the top of the hillside and just past the playground areas AND  Putt Putt Golf Course. H was gloating after the first round since he beat me by one point.  The tables got turned quickly after the second round when I got TWO hole in ones and beat him by 3 points!     
 
Our journey north should have continued on Friday but the weather report for West Virginia was not too promising.  Thankfully, H spoke with the office and we were allowed to stay one more day.  However, while we stayed out of the snow, we weren't able to stay out of the cold.  When Saturday came, along  with the rising sun, we hooked up and got a early start.   Across  NC and then Virginia and finally West Virginia with it's lousy rough turnpike and detours we pushed.  Our chosen place for the night was to be near Beckley but since we passed thru there before noon - those plans were quickly changed!   We ended up in Parkersburg at the same run down campground that we had stayed several years ago when we visited Bleinerhasset Island with B&C.   The sad little campground is even more run down.  There was electricity but no restrooms and NO running water.  They pumped several gallons from a large opaque plastic tank into our freshwater tank but I sure wasn't going to trust it to be clean enough to drink.  Luckily with the 1/2 pitcher of water and the water bottles in the refrigerator we had enough for coffee in the morning.  Our teeth even got brushed before we rolled on down the cranky hill and headed for the big bridge that crossed the wide Ohio River.  Up thru Athens, straight north in Columbus to Rt 23 and we fought strong winds all the way to Findlay where we finally returned to I75.  Most of the vehicles that were coming up behind us from Lima, Dayton and Cincinnati had snow packed in their front grills.    While we arrived home without the danger of driving in snow, we did rise Monday morning to a yard full of the white stuff.
 
So, that's it - 4 months and 5000 miles on the truck - another winter in Florida is now history.