Left on 8/24 Friday to go visit Patti and meet up with Ken and Kathy. We stayed at a nice quite county park at the Neuseway Nature center. Here at the nature center they have every thing from an Eagle to Rattlesnakes and in the basement which they call the cave there are displays of fish and even some skunks, along with skinks and iguana's. There is also a planetarium that we will go see on Sunday.
The trip thru West Virgina was pretty and the valleys were pretty cool. Lots of 5% grade but the Dodge did a superb job. The exhaust brake with the tow mode enabled on the transmission controlled our down hill speed so well I would have to give it throttle to keep going fast enough. I used the spare fuel tank this trip to extend our range without having to stop for fuel. With both tanks we can get about 800 miles before empty at 9mpg. Total fuel capacity is about 86 gallons. Sure is nice to not have to worry about where we are going to find a gas station.
So Friday on the trip here it went pretty well until we got to Raleigh, at the point apparently they have done enough road construction that the gps maps I had were outdated. We took the turn headed for I40 and from there don't know what happened but somehow we were off route and it only got worse from there! We spent probably 1/2 hour to 45 minutes trying to get out of Raleigh. Frustration turned into anger and every turn I made was wrong! Finally someone we were booted out of there and back on track. Good thing I had just bought a new version of Streets and Trips 2007 as it had updated maps and got us going straight and narrow again. Note to self, quit being cheap and buy updated maps!
Well 45 minutes later we arrived here at the campground with Ken Kathy and Patti waiting. It was great to see Patti again and she looks good. Always great to see Ken and Kathy but seeing Patti was a bittersweet moment with the loss of her husband Mickey last November and this being the first time we have gotten to see her. She was quite excited to see us all also.
Anyway our trip ended up being 700 miles and 13 hours! Should have only been 630 miles so I don't know where the additional miles came in as we were not THAT lost! I will have to try to retrace the trip and see if the old gps maps took was long way around. That is quite possible as I set the options for mapping to Bus which tries to keep on us decent roads, the cost of that is extended tours.
Saturday, Patti came over about 10am and we all loaded into the Dodge and headed for the east coast for an Ocean fix. I so miss the Ocean since we were in Morro Bay California. Something about the waves and smell of the air. Patti took us to eat at a place called the Sanitary which is a seafood restaurant on an inlet waterway. Food was great and even though I managed to knock over Patti's tea and my Pepsi at the same time it was a lot of fun. Fortunately no one got soaked. Patti was quite nimble on her feet when the glass went crashing. Deanna had the popcorn shrimp fried and I had the Talapia fish sandwich. They bring you all you can eat hushpuppies which look unlike the hushpuppies I am use to that are round balls but shaped like a fat curly worm. Food was great and the view was pretty cool out the windows as this was on a boardwalk or wharf or whatever you call it. Basically a restaurant on stilts in the water!
Next after eating we headed for the waterfront. Where we went to was a point where there was a Fort by the name of Macon Fort. It was seized in the 1800's by the Union Army, not all that exciting as when they captured it the fort was being watched by 1 Confederate soldier who didn't even have a weapon with him! He soon after joined the Union army. Interesting thing about this fort was it was there to keep the enemy from coming in from the ocean side. There were cannons placed all along the border of the fort facing the ocean. These were smooth bore cannons firing a cannon ball weighing 32 pounds and could fire 1 mile with 6-7 pounds of powder. Now that is a long way in the 1840's. They would set each cannon to fire a different distance like 1500 yards 1600 yards etc, when the enemy attacked they would fire each cannon until they found the range and then reset all the other cannons to that range. Another thing was they would heat the cannon balls to 1000 degrees in a furnace and fire them and set the ship on fire. Supposedly it worked quite well.
The ocean was fantastic, the waves were not huge but sure were refreshing, main difference here from Morro bay and the Pacific ocean was this water you could stand in, on the Pacific the water was so cold your feet would go numb after less than a minute! This was nice cool to warm water and felt wonderful! I didn't want to leave. The area we were in was mainly for fishing and no swimming or wading was allowed but then the water came to me not the other way around and DAMN the sand was hot away from the water! We spent an hour of so admiring the ocean and then left to see the fort and then headed back towards home.
On the way home we stopped at a fishing pier and beach and walked out on the pier. Lots of people on the beach as far as you could see, some were just sun bathing while others were out on surf boards or just enjoying the waves. Might have been some pretty girls in skimpy bikini's but I didn't notice :) . Some small fish were being caught off the Pier but nothing large that we saw although they apparently do catch some large ones and there was a board there you listed your big catch on. Some were pretty large getting upwards of 40 pounds. Now if you an imagine trying to hoist a 40 pound fish up 50 feet into the air with a fishing pole I think you begin to see the picture.
We then headed home and waked the dogs. Patti wanted us to come by to see her place so we said we would after we got our ice cream fix! We actually decided to get something to eat so we hit an Arby's and had some fun with the girl at the register and we are suppose to swing by on Tuesday and pick her up and take her back to Ohio with us. :)
We then got our ice cream from DQ and headed to Patti's. Nice little place Patti has and we got to see Frosty again and Joeys dog Jaz. He is pretty shy but would let me pet him with my arm hanging over the couch. Tomorrow we are going to Patti's for a cookout after we all hit the nature center and Planetarium.
Weather this morning is humid and very over cast as if going to rain, they could use some as the river is almost non existent. This area at the campground is prone to flooding at times and is evident when you notice the power receptacle's you hook up to are 5 feet off the ground! That is a lot when you consider the river is probably 20 feet below us!
8/25/07 Sunday 95* and HOT!
This afternoon we went to the Nature enter and Planetarium to check it all out. But before we went we were sitting outside Ken and Kathy's rig when something attracted the attention of Katie their dog, she began swinging her head side to side to get something out of her mouth but we still don't know what it was but just a few minutes later I see this monster creature scurrying around. It is like a HUGE ant and is covered with a red velvet fur with a black stripe. So Ken and I jumped into action knowing what better place to find out what it is but at a Nature Center. So we quickly trapped it in a water bottle and trotted off to the Nature Center. The guy running the center says "Oh yeah, that's a Cow Killer"! WHAT! Insert :EEK: here :0 . It is related to the bee family and will put a wallop on you if you decided it is cute and you need to hold it. Not only once but repeatedly if need be! It is a lone critter that hunts by itself and forages for food. Can you imagine if you ran across a mound of them if they weren't? This guy was about 5/8" long and when you turned the bottle upside down you could here him hit the other side! They get up to an inch long so this was a younger one apparently.
So we toured the Nature center and I admired how HUGE the rattlesnakes they had were. One is 11 years old and if you came across it in the wild you would trip over it thinking it was a log! It makes the Sidewinder rattlesnake I found in the desert look like a worm! This guy was probably 4-5" in diameter and it would have been hard to wrap both your hands around it's body. This was an Eastern Diamondback which can be identified by the diamonds on it's back. The other nearly as big was a Timber Rattlesnake which the curator said was quite a testy specimen when he first came there, striking at the glass all day long trying to enjoy a little human meal! Plenty of other snakes like copperhead, Moccasin's, Rat snakes, Albino King snake, Boa, Python and on and on.
Also there was a Parrot named Oliver and he told you that quite often along with what sounded like ordering food from a fast food drive thru. :) He was about 20 and will live to normally be in his 80's. Of course lots of other critters, gecko's, skinks, birds, scorpions, spiders, sea crustaceans, star fish, lots of different fish. Pretty much all you could imagine but in a quite small building. It was a neat little visit and we really enjoyed it, plus it was just across the parking lot.
We then headed to Patti's for a cookout. Patti did the cooking and everything was fantastic! Hamburgers hot dogs, Funi salad, some other salad and some other salad (obviously things I don't eat). Lot's of sweet tea to drink and chips! We were stuffed and then she brought out a strawberry cream pie! I couldn't stuff any more down so I passed but did taste it and it was delicious. She later took us on a tour and showed us the Garden Center her and Mickey had built and ran. She is back to working there now though someone else owns it. Then she took us past a house they had built when they got married complete with a pond in the side yard. What a beautiful house. Mickey was talented in many ways and one of them was woodworking, he not only built benches and furniture but art with different shaped pieces of wood. We really miss that guy!
So we finished the tour and it was getting to be early evening and we decided to head back to walk the fur kids. A storm was impending but never materialized for us although it did rain in some other places. One thing it did do for us was cool it down. It was a wonderful night to sit outside and enjoy the company of our friends. We sat out till about 10pm and then called it a night as Ken as about to pass out in his chair (lightweight) :) I mean he sleeps till 10 in the morning! Sheshhhhh.
Tomorrow, thinking we will hit a local aquarium.
