FlorIda! 2/8/14

Woke to a chilly 34 degrees and a rainy day...

but Pippin was prepared for the rain!

By the time we were ready to leave this Quality Inn the sun was trying to break through the clouds.  This Q did have a handicap accessible room but not as nice as the last one--no step in shower and no bath seat but I managed with the help of my trusty care partner!  Got another swim in!  (Gram, we are one exit north of Hilton Head, and it's cold!)

Onward!

Stopped for lunch and to hit another Food Lion.  Back in CT Steve found 2.5 oz. pouches of Chicken of the Sea wild caught salmon and they are perfect to throw on top of some organic romaine for an easy lunch.  At the last Food Lion Steve found Bragg's salad dressing with Organic apple cider vinegar and organic extra virgin olive oil!  For anyone on the Paleo diet, you'll appreciate this.  I'll tell you, Steve has really gotten good at spotting the food I eat now wherever he shops.  Mind you, he doesn't eat like I do, but he's eliminated all trans fats and he buys organic cookies for himself plus he drinks almond milk now, eats uncured natural hotdogs, and we eat as much grass-fed or organic meat as we can afford so he's definitely made some improvements to his diet!

Yeah, we made it to Florida!  We stopped in Jacksonville and are staying at a PA campground for $24.00 (cha ching we saved another $24.00).  It's 54 degrees here but it's going to be 70 tomorrow and there is a big flea market next door to the campground that will be open tomorrow!!!

This is the first campground we've found with cement pads so no leveling tonight.

We've been listening to the soundtrack of Yentl thanks to ML so maybe we'll watch the movie tonight.  

Can't wait to feel 70 degrees tomorrow!

Swimming! 2/7/14

Woke to the first really sunny day although it is still chilly in Florence, SC.  Took showers in the rig this morning since JI helped us figure out how to fill the hot water heater last night.  Heaven!  

I anticipate us driving into a substantial rainstorm as we travel south to Savannah, GA.  Steve is getting groceries now at a Food Lion here in Florence while I exercise and blog.  

Stopped for lunch at the SC/GA line and for the first time opened the window of the rig to let some fresh air in while we ate!

Just saw the first Spanish Moss, still in S C...we're getting closer!

WOW...radical change of plan!  I saw a billboard for a Quality Inn with a heated indoor pool that is pet friendly in Ridgeland, SC...screech...we're there!  I figure I can swim today and tomorrow morning...yippee!  There's food within walking distance for dinner!  The refrig should be fine.

It's warmish by CT standards...56 degrees!  We did not hit any rain today but we may tomorrow.  The gigantic rainstorm I saw yesterday does not show up on my online weather app so crossed fingers.  

The pool was not chlorine...I suspect saltwater or maybe Baquicil.  It was warmer than I prefer but I'm not complaining.  Pippin was less than thrilled that I went in the pool and Daddy had to hold her, but Steve did the "baby walk" and she quieted down. 

So Steve's got TV (we choose not to have one in our rig) and I am going to write postcards.  Maybe we'll watch an episode of Doc Martin on the IPad?  Such possibilities!

The photo below is of the first wildlife we've seen...ha ha they probably migrated from CT for the winter!

South of the Border! 2/6/14

Woke  to a chilly 35 degrees here in Wilson, NC.  Our goal is to get to South of the Border in good time to check out some of the shops, etc.  Good childhood memories for me!!!  Depending on the time when we're through we'll decide whether to dry camp there if they will allow it, or whether to push on a bit. We are loving these PA campgrounds so we can plug in our refrig and cool it down agin, not that it really gets that warm during the day.  No worries about food poisoning!  Also, we know we'll have WIFI so I can post this blog!

So far we really haven't hit any bad traffic so this is a great route south!  Just WISH we were hitting some warmer weather so we could put down stakes for a few days and do some fun stuff!

Napped until we hit South of the Border!  I have to admit, it's smaller and yes, shabbier than I recall.  Pedro is looking a little worse for wear...  We got some fun souvenir shopping done, however.  It's a balmy 46 degrees here!  

    

Traveling about 50 more miles to Florence, SC where we found another PA campground that's $20.00 per night so we saved another $20!  This one is called Swamp Fox Campground.  We've noticed that All of the PA campgrounds we have stayed at are also Good Sam's parks, so the standards are very high!

Finally in North Carolina...SOTB here we come! 2/6/14

Light rain overnight and woke to the same.  34 degrees in Milford, VA.  Steve needs to go out in this to hook up the car, while I play fetch with Pippin in the rig to get her moving at least a little.  Still eating off our stockpile of food!  

No rain on the trip today--guess we dodged the storm.  Napped through the rest of Virginia, now we're in NC.  Doing my pedaler every time we stop plus stretching.  This is really too much sitting for my knees.

Enjoying the soundtrack to Sleepless in Seattle (thank you ML!) 

Decided to stop in Wilson, NC at another Passport America campground, Kampers Lodge Campground.  Cost is $35 per night with full hookups, but we are paying $17.50!   Thank you JI for turning us on to Passport America!  

It's 51 degrees here, so we started the process of flushing our systems because it's still winterized.  Got to the part of needing to fill the hot water heater and can't figure out how...May call our RV service center tomorrow and ask Paula to walk us through it.  Refrig is still not automatically switching to gas when we're unplugged so we can ask her about that, too.

Record Early Departure from New Jersey! 2/4/14

We are ready to leave the Quality Inn at 8:30am...QT's and Gram, can you believe it?  We are always the last in and the last out at our camping club campouts, but we want to get as far south as we can.  We probably got 7-8 inches of snow here yesterday, and another storm is coming so we're out-of-here!  

Little rig problem...the refrig isn't switching to propane as it's power source now that we're not plugged in.  Joe, the auto light is on, and when we push the gas button nothing happens.  The propane is turned on...it wasn't and we hoped we had fixed it when we turned it on, but no.  We're going to get out of this awful weather and then really trouble shoot this problem.  Hamm RV fixed this once before--it was a spider nest someplace important, so we might call Paula to see if she can help. Just had the propane tank filled and discovered the gauge on the tank is broken and we really didn't need propane at all.  Wonder if the two things could be related?

Steve is warming up the rig for Pippin and I right now; it's in the single digits here now.  He's also going to bring the rig up to our door cuz my side is snowed in.  I just hope we don't get into another tight turn situation.  Towing a car makes us a bit less maneuverable, for those of you who have never done it...no backing up...sort of like driving that old beater which has lost reverse!  

The route we took today is as follows (this is for you, Barb) :  from the Nj Tpke/Rt 95 we followed and crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge, took exit 1A to Rt 896S, followed to Rt 301S to Rt 50 (Annapolis/Washington Beltway to Rt 495 to 95S.

We made it to Milford, VA just north of Richmond.  We are staying at R&D Family Campground, which is both a Passport America campground as well as a Good Sams park.  The cost for one night with Full Hookups is $33.00 but with our membership to PA (which cost $45 I think for 1 yr) we saved $16.50!  A few more of these and it will have paid for itself and then some!

It's 38 degrees here so we have not hit warmth yet!  Looks like a substantial rainstorm is headed right toward us, and I hope it hits overnight and is done with by tomorrow morning so it's smooth sailing!  

Woke up to a snowstorm! 2/3/14

While initially traveling on a Sunday, in retrospect we should have left yesterday and then we could have missed this storm almost entirely!  Note to self: scrutinize the weather better along our route!  We have about 2-3 inches here at the Quality Inn and it is still coming down--wet, heavy snow!  

In the photo below, there was No snow yesterday!

                                                                          

After much debate and studying of maps we have decided to hole up here!  We can watch TV, movies on Netfix, etc.  More later!

On the Road Again... 2/2/14

Well in true Shaw fashion, we are leaving at 1:00 pm on Sunday, Feb. 2, 2014 .  Lots of last minute packing to do, etc. plus the boys showed up at the last minute to do something together in New London.  

Here is the route we've taken so far:  Rt. 95S to exit 21, Tappen Zee Bridge/Rt. 287W, exit 14A, Garden State Pkwy, exit 129 onto the NJ Tpke. Light rain but nothing too major.  The roads became so much better when we crossed over from NY into NJ!  Governor did that right!  

A little excitement on the GS Pkwy...Steve decided to pull off for gas ($3.24/gal) and as we're following the signs for campers/buses and we're a little unsure of which way to go, I pipe up that I see some picnic tables with a bit of grass and I knew Pippin had to go.  We thought we could make the turn to get over to the grassy area but then we couldn't, so Steve started backing up a little but you can't back up when you're towing.  We're blocking the ramp of oncoming cars and Steve saw in the backup camera that the car is askew so he jumps out of the rig to go unhook the car and by now there's a bit of a line of folks who want to avail themselves of this rest stop. Steve struggled a bit to unhook the car because the tow bar was a little askew.  He finally got the car off, threw the tow bar onto some grass and backed the car away from the rig.  Then he jumped back in the rig to pull it forward so he could release the line of cars we had created.  Side note...nobody honked their horns at us!  Then we off-loaded my walker, me and Pippin and gingerly picked our way onto some wet soggy grass and Steve put her down...she dutifully sniffed around then turns around and runs right back to the rig, up the stairs and looks back at us as if to say, "Come on guys, can't you see it's getting dark and it's wet and dirty and kinda sketchy around here? Let's go!"

So we drove some more and then decided to find a motel so Steve could watch some of the Super Bowl...this is why we left today and not yesterday!  Found an exit that had several motels.  Holiday Inn was not pet friendly, Days Inn was pet friendly but charges $50 per pet, but Quality Inn was pet friendly but only charges $15.00 per pet.  We got a fully accessible room for $90.00 and they gave us a 10% discount being AARP members.  The room is designed for wheel chairs so there is plenty of room for my walker, especially in the bathroom!  Below you will see the best feature, a fold-down bath seat in the no-lip shower!  I would definitely stay at a Quality Inn again!