I realize that I did not blog yesterday, it was not one of our finer days. Five weeks on the road, together 24/7, in a confined space combined with the urgency of trying to get all of our work and school work done before Disney is starting to take its toll. I will say that I did not expect to make it this far into the trip before we started getting cranky with each other.
We left North Carolina heading toward Savannah. Trista promised that she would get up and start here homework first thing. No dice. As we were packing up, I started getting on her about doing some homework. Can’t find it. Seriously?! I tell her to start looking. We had it the day before, we were working on it as we pulled in to Raleigh. I asked her to put it up for our guests and this morning it is gone. We start tearing this thing apart. No homework. The way Trista is not participating in the search and as long as the search has gone on and I am starting to wonder if she did something with it. We have searched all of the buckets under the couch, taken the dinette apart, searched the bedroom and the cab – there really aren’t that many places for a big purple folder to hide. I am starting to panic – a little bit. I can not recreate the worksheets that were sent with her and I start thinking about what the heck we are going to do and FINALLY, Trista finds it in a pocket of a backpack she had pulled out to play with with Lauren. I was so relieved, and she started working on homework! (This is not the end of this story).
Now, remember the other day when I was talking about Chick-fil-a? I had not forgotten this. We start down the road and John starts taking us through this shopping center and bouncing us around. I figured he was looking for gas – he mentioned we needed it. He pulls into a gas station and I look over and see a CFA right next door! I am thinking, ‘Mama’s about to get some fries!’ and I say, “Are you stopping here for gas?”
John, “Nope.”
He pulls out of the gas station.
Sadness. No fries. No grilled nuggets. No Chick-fil-a sauce. No TEA!
Then he pulls in behind a bus on the street against the curb behind the CFA and says, “What does everybody want?”
YES!
We go inside and place our order. Nothing noteworthy, but as we are standing and waiting for our drinks, this woman (employee) pops in behind a register to grab something and I can tell you that she exudes happiness from every fiber of her being! I can’t recall what she said right away, but she lit up the room. She starts talking to customers, she comes around and gives hugs to some regulars. A woman walked in with kids and she said, “OOOOOH BABIES! I just LOVE the BABIES!” At one point she asked if she could give something to Levi, (Trista was in the playland). I told her his birthday was the day before and she started dancing with him! She gave him a toy and when she saw Trista, she went back and got her one too. All of us got hugs from Ms. Cynthia before we left. She was the kind of woman who makes the world a better place just by waking up!
Since we were in Raleigh, the birthplace of John, my mother in law asked for a picture of John with a Raleigh sign. We looked and looked and never saw a Raleigh sign. Saw a Durham sign, but that isn’t where John was born! I found this sign and took a picture to be funny, but it’s gonna have to do, since we didn’t encounter any others. (I am hoping to get by on this with the brownie points that I think I earned by taking pictures of John at the church his dad pastored and the parsonage)!
We crossed into South Carolina and saw this tri-fecta of a roadside photo op awesomeness! Welcome to SC, a big crazy place that touts themselves as ‘South of the Border’ and a Giant Sombrero… on a stick!
It just so happens that we needed to head down on I-95 and it was supposed to be closed all week and they managed to get it open Monday night for our trip on Tuesday. There were some areas of flooding along the sides of the road, not overly noticeable if you weren’t looking for it and definitely some downed trees. It really wasn’t as bad as we were expecting, but still devastating to families who were personally affected and that is not lost on us.
Since we do not have a car, other than the one that also serves as our house and we are reliant on public transportation once we set up camp, we decided to hit the beach in Romeo Victor before going to the campground. We found our way out to Hilton Head and there was allegedly a visitor center that does not exist in actuality, but we spent far too much time trying to find it to ask where we could park an RV with beach access. We finally just made our way to a beach and parked across 4 park and pay spots, paid for all 4 of them and laid the receipts across the dash! It worked. And we had a lovely time at the beach at sunset. Trista was sad that there weren’t any hermit crabs, but we were prepared this time with our swimsuits and a couple of beach toys and had a good time.
As we were heading back to the car, John and I were going to take a nice beach selfie and just as John was about to take the picture, an old dude in a VERY ill-fitting Speedo walked right in front of us. I have a picture of him, too, but the lighting was not sufficient to really do it justice. Let’s just say that it was printed like the British flag and he needed a smaller size.
We really had a lovely time at the beach, even though we were cranky when we got there after fighting with the kids all day – Levi to stay seated and Trista over her homework and me trying to get some work done that is due this week. We hit some bumpy roads earlier in the day and went over a big bump that threw me into the table, dislodging it from the wall and broke the latch on a drawer in the kitchen.
After the beach, we grabbed a quick bite for dinner on our way over to the ‘Motor Lodge’ in Savannah. John had the kids eating dinner while I grabbed our dinner and assured me they were fine for us to continue. We got to our RV park and as I emerged from the cab, I discovered Trista’s milk had spilled and leaked all over the dinette cushion and what else, you ask? Her homework folder. Week 5 got completely flooded with milk. I was less than thrilled and we have laid the sheets all over the RV hoping they dry enough to complete them.
While I am cranky Tonya dealing with cranky past-bedtime kids, John is setting up all the hookups and leveling the rig. He comes in, dripping with sweat and announces that we are hooked up and can get the air conditioning on (hallelujah)! John goes to turn on the a/c and there is a loud crack as bright sparks of something come flying out of the fuse panel in the kitchen. We all saw it. We all gasped. John says, “I think we just lost our A/C.” At this point I am seriously thinking about googling hotel options, because there is no way we are staying in this thing, in this heat, without air. We try again and the air conditioning won’t go.
John goes and gets his tools and disconnects power from the entire rig. Earlier on the trip, John’s flashlight that he always carries with him died. His tool bag has a great LED light on it, but the batteries are dead and we are out of AAA. We have a headlamp (randomly) and John puts it on. I use the one on my phone, but my battery is at 19% and my phone always shuts down at 15% (Thanks, Troy :-)). John proceeds to take the circuit panel apart (he knows lots about electricity and I do not, so I’m not going to try). He makes sure everything is good to go. We had gotten down the fire extinguisher and had it ready before we did any of this troubleshooting. John thinks it’s good, so we fire it back again and it comes on like normal.
Back up just one teensy second. John’s previous boss would always tell John, “Trust but verify.” I should have taken this advice. When we got the RV, being the good safety professional that I am, I asked John about smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, we purchased two fire extinguishers, etc. Now that we just had sparks flying in our RV and have restarted the system that we believe was responsible, we decide to test the smoke detector. Everyone plugs their ears and John pushes the button. Silence. I raise my eyebrows and say to John, “You said you have been testing this thing. You are supposed to test them before every trip.”
John pulls it down. IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A BATTERY IN IT! Jack, if you are reading this, I will be sure to ‘Trust but verify’ going forward.
Luckily, we had something with a 9V and we put it in the smoke detector and tested it. We then discussed our family’s fire evacuation plan, (should something happen in the middle of the night) and today we went and bought fresh 9V batteries!
We got the kids to bed and I jumped back into work stuff. Remember how cool I said it was to be RIGHT under an airport’s flight path on our Duck boat tour? The same cool-factor does not apply in my RV, trying to work and sleep, RIGHT under the path for the Savannah airport. Apparently they also have a fair amount of helicopter activity.
I stayed up until 3am working and then went to bed. I got up this morning at 730 to hit it again. We are in Georgia. The blessed place of my birth. I got up, headed outside and sat at our picnic table and worked for about an hour, constantly checking for alligators, until it was way too stinkin’ hot to be outside.
I headed in and I worked while St. John took up the homework fight with Trista! Sometimes, he has so much more patience than I do and while they made some progress, it was still a battle. What a blessing to be relieved of those duties for a day!
While we were getting dressed and ready this morning, I managed to drop my phone squarely in the middle of my left, big toe. It hurt so darn bad that it prompted real tears. John brought me a bag of frozen mixed vegetables and I just laid there for a minute or two. That’s gonna leave a bruise!
Around mid-day, we ate some lunch, ordered tickets for a downtown trolley tour and then opened the door to the RV. Good thing I paid for the tickets before I opened the door, because if I hadn’t prepaid, I would have turned myself right back inside and hibernated until Colorado (I hear it is snowing already there)!
We called a Lyft (branching out from Uber, see how urban we are becoming?) and headed downtown. We enjoyed visiting with the lady working the trolley ticket counter and headed over to our open air bus. We rode the tour for 90 minutes (as planned). It had hop on / hop off privileges, and while there were some things that might have been cool to see, it was unbearably hot and we decided to head back to go swimming (which never happened).
We are on our last roll of TP and down to just a couple of water bottles and don’t want to take the time tomorrow, so we Lyfted to Walmart (I’m so sick of Walmart, but we know we can find what we are used to and understand their layouts better than finding different stores everywhere we go. It sucked) We then Ubered back to Romeo Victor, later than we wanted, fixed dinner and finally managed to get the kids in bed.
They are excited. I am stressed about everything that needs to happen before tomorrow, so that I can enjoy Disney. John has laundry going, I am updating the blog and then back to work!
Here are a couple of updates from previous blogs:
The other day when we got propane for $2.19/gal and I said it was a great deal. To give you an idea, we pulled in here and they also sell propane, for $3.50/gal!
In reference to my post about Williamsburg… John doesn’t read the blog. He has read a little bit of it on his own. He has read some parts that I have put under his nose and asked him to read. The other day I did that and he read the paragraph and set the phone down and I said, “You can keep reading… at no additional charge!”
To give you a clear picture, when we connected with Ernesto in NYC. He asked right away, “So, how is the trip going??”
Before I could even open my mouth, John said, “See? I’m not the only one who doesn’t read your blog!”
I have even said to him, “I have seen the blog on the screen of your CEO’s computer. How do you know that I am not saying horrible things about the people you work with?”
He is unphased. Since I am the author and John is the technical side of the blog, I have opened a ticket to get him to make the pictures clickable. They are awfully small and you can zoom in, but I want it to be set up so that you can click to enlarge them. When does John decide to start looking into this? Right after I posted about Williamsburg. What is the first thing he sees? “After lunch, we spent the afternoon walking and looking at old boring stuff and walking some more.” Oh boy. Then he starts skimming and of course only sees the bad stuff. For those of you wondering, we ended up laughing until both of us had tears running down our cheeks. John thought it was hilarious. I made him read the entire entry and at one point I asked if he was mad and he said, “No… but I think I’m about to write my own post!”
Let’s all hold our breath and wait for that.