Blackbeard the Pirate

Our previous stop was in Washington, North Carolina.  About 20 miles east, towards the coast is a small town called Bath.  This was the first town in North Carolina.  In its heyday it was a bustling port city but over time it became irrelevant and is now just a stop in the road with some history.  Besides being the first town in North Carolina it was also the home of the famous pirate, Blackbeard.  Blackbeard was pardoned by the governor of North Carolina and “retired” to Bath, however actually he continued his pirating ways on the Outer Banks and supposedly funneled money to the governor to not do anything about it.  The town of Bath tolerated him because he brought back a lot of goods to the town, however over time they changed their mind and petitioned the governor of Maryland to capture Blackbeard.  Armed forces from Maryland captured and beheaded Blackbeard off the Outer Banks at Ocracoke Island.  We went to Bath and, now that we are in the Outer Banks, we went to Ocracoke Island.

Here are some pictures from Bath

Original church from the 1700’s

Inside the church

House of the founder of Bath

View from the front of the house shown above, gorgeous!

As I mentioned we are now in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  We took the long way here to avoid the ferries.  This meant going further north and then coming across via the highway from the mainland through Roanoke Island and onto the Outer Banks.  If we had gone the shorter route it would have meant two ferries with our truck and trailer.  According to the website the ferries can handle large rigs but I had concerns and the ferry rides were long, 2 1/2 hours for one and 1 hour for the other.

We are staying in the non touristy area of the Outer Banks, Hatteras.  This is about 70 miles south of Kitty Hawk.  The RV park has seen its better days but has new owners who are in the process of renovating the place.  We picked the park as it was the best value of all the parks on the island and received decent reviews.  There are only two other RV’s in the park!

On Friday we took the free ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island.  This would have been one of the ferries we would have taken with our RV had we come the shorter route.  Here you can see how tight it is on the deck.

There was a motorhome and a large truck on the ferry, so I could see how it would work, but still to make the slight turn to get on and off the ferry would have been nerve racking.

Ocracoke Island completes our Blackbeard tour as this is where he was captured and killed.  To have some fun, here is a picture of me as Blackbeard

Blackbeard’s real name was Edward Teach.

The island still has a working lighthouse that dates back 100 plus years.  It is made of brick and is five feet thick at the base.

The beaches are absolutely beautiful and you can drive on them if you have an off road permit.

The island had a herd of ponies that ran wild.  As building began and the highway was constructed the ponies were getting killed.  The National Park Service planned to remove the herd from the island but the locals fought that action and the compromise was a large fenced in area for them to roam with a holding pen where they rotate in a couple of ponies so the public can see them.  They are just slightly smaller than a horse.

Published Article

I have stepped up my blogging to include a wider audience.  Once a week I receive an email on behalf of Passport America, a discount RV club we belong to, regarding recent articles that have been published from various sources about RV’ing.  They call it a News Blast.  I enjoy reading it as it does have a variety of articles about the RV industry, RV parks, RV equipment, etc.  In the last issue they mentioned that they were interested in finding people to submit articles about RV’ing to them for inclusion.  I inquired with them and was asked to submit an article.  I wrote a four part article about full time RV’ing and the first part came out yesterday. 

No pay for the article but it is fun and I hope informative.  Here is the link to the published article.

http://www.multibriefs.com/briefs/passport/

So you do not have to wait an entire month to read the entire article here is the whole thing.

Full Timing

Part 1 – The Decision

Are you considering full timing? What’s involved? What do you do? Questions, questions, questions. If you are like me and have a passion for RV’ing this lifestyle may be something to consider. My wife and I made the leap just over two years ago and I would like to offer the process we went through in making the lifestyle decision and what has happened. Your circumstances may not be the same and other factors may be involved but our process can at least give you things to consider and hopefully answer some of your questions.

First, the decision to full time. We had owned RV’s for over 20 years and enjoyed going away on weekends and taking a couple of long trips (2 weeks) each year. As our three girls became teenagers we sold our RV as we could not find the time to get out with it. When they began college, and I retired, we decided it was time to get back into RV’ing. We picked up where we had left off. Shortly after buying our travel trailer I read an article in an RV publication about full timing. Up until then I had never really thought of it. The article intrigued me so I gave it to my wife to read and then asked her if this is something she would be interested in and she said yes.

With this initial spark of interest I jumped into the research and planning mode to see how we could make this happen. How much would it cost? What do we do with our home? Our stuff? On and on the questions went. Those questions and answers are what I will address in the planning and implementation parts of this article. First I want to get back to this decision phase and not pass over it casually.

If you are going to do this with a partner (wife, significant other, friend, etc.) you need to have an honest discussion in coming to this decision. What is the impact of living in a small space with each other? Consideration has to be given about how much time together you will be spending, possibly not seeing your family and friends as often. These are important items and if not addressed upfront could lead to tension and anger later.

For us, a driving force was that our daughters were now out of college and on their own and living in 3 different states. The two of us were living in a four bedroom house in a cold weather city (suburb of Chicago). We thought that full timing would be a good way to explore the country and see places where we might like to settle down at a later date. We discussed the issues I mentioned above and were comfortable with our answers. We decided that we would try this for 2 years and reevaluate at that point.

Now the planning……

Part 2 – Planning

The first big decision for us was to keep or sell the house. For us keeping the house, other than for investment purposes, did not make sense as we knew we did not want to live in the area. Chicago is a beautiful city and our 18 years in the area were great, it is just that we were tired of the long stretch of cold weather and our family lived in other parts of the country. First decision made, we will sell the house.

Next was the financial issue. Can we afford to do this. By making the decision to sell the house this question was sort of answered. If we could afford our house payment then we should be able to handle full timing. I wanted to make sure so I put together a sample budget. I listed all the expenses that would not change with full timing and then estimated expenses for gas, RV park fees, food and incidentals. As we had a fairly ambitious travel plan I knew we would be driving a lot. I estimated 20,000 miles per year and calculated fuel costs based on miles per gallon and average cost of gas. For RV parks my experience has shown that an average of $35 per night was reasonable. As we had only used RV’s in the past for short trips I did not factor in the cost of propane and this can be a significant expense when full timing as you are using it to cook and heat your rig and the prices can vary wildly. We have minimized this expense somewhat by using electric space heaters and an electric countertop oven for cooking. Other budget items to consider, if you choose them, are satellite TV service, internet service (cellular aircard) and roadside assistance.

The budget issue resolved we moved to the next decision, what do we want to live in? My first impression was that this was easy, a motorhome. My thought process was that a motorhome was bigger and had the most storage and comforts for a full timer. We headed out to the RV show in Rosemont, IL to check out what was on the market. As we toured the show we really became interested in the fifth wheels. We were impressed with the floorplans and the large amount of storage available in these units. To us, the floorplans were more to our liking in defining the living area and kitchen area. The large basement storage compartment in the larger fifth wheels was a definite plus. Following the show we were now leaning towards a fifth wheel but were a little hesitant because our driving around car would now be a very large pickup. We talked at length about this issue and decided we would be OK with the large vehicle as we liked what the fifth wheels had to offer.

From the show we had interest in a couple of brands of fifth wheels but I wanted to see what else was available. Since this was going to be our home I wanted to make sure we saw everything that was available. I hit the internet over a couple of weeks. I found websites for all makers of fifth wheels, compared specifications and printed off floorplans for models that had what we were looking for. We settled on a midrange fifth wheel and decided ordering it would be best for us as we wanted many of the options that were available.

Home decision made I moved onto the tow vehicle. The weight of the trailer pretty much dictates what type of truck you need to look at. I felt having something that had a towing capacity larger than what we needed plus added stability would give us the most confidence we could handle any situation. We settled on a 1 ton crew cab pickup with dual rear wheels. It is a large truck and it can be difficult in major cities trying to find parking, but you do not even notice you are towing a 40 foot trailer.

The last major decision in the planning process was “where do we live”? What I mean by this is we needed a driver’s license, car registration, receive mail, etc. We needed an address! My research showed that full timers mainly use South Dakota, Texas or Florida for their address. The main reasons for these three states are that they have no state income tax, easy residency requirements and no annual vehicle inspection requirement. Closer research led me to South Dakota as they have a 3% excise tax on the purchase of new vehicles and no sales tax on the purchase. There residency rule to obtain a driver’s license is that you must spend one night in the state, show a receipt from an RV park or motel and sign an affidavit that your considering South Dakota as your residence when you stop full timing. They are really full timer friendly. Our actual “address” was obtained via a mail forwarding service in Madison, South Dakota. There are many such businesses to choose from throughout the state.

One additional item I will mention is to make sure your medical insurance covers you as you travel around. For us we had a national plan from a major carrier that covered us no matter what state we were in.

Planning done, now we move onto implementation……

Part 3 – Implementation

We have our house on the market, our fifth wheel ordered and our truck purchased. Now we have to put it all together and begin our “Life on the Road”.

As previously mentioned we settled on South Dakota as our state of residence. I contracted with a mail forwarding service in Madison, South Dakota to obtain our address. When I bought the truck they used this address so the truck was registered in the state. We made the drive to Madison to obtain our license, which was a very easy process.

Now for the elephant in the room, our stuff (we actually did not own an elephant, but we had STUFF). Our decision was to go minimalist. So much of our furniture we had for many years and, if we settle down later, we would want new stuff. We set aside the items we did want to keep and those that we would be taking with us in the fifth wheel and then started the process of disposing of the remainder. Fortunately one of our daughters was moving into her own apartment so she took some of the items. Another relative took a good portion, leaving the rest to be disposed of through a garage sale, charity donations and trash. This process took a couple of months but we did it. We placed our saved items in storage at a friend’s house.

Our fifth wheel arrived about 3 months before our house sold. This allowed us to do some work on the RV and get it ready for full timing. Mainly this had to do with organizing how we were going to store items and setting up the TV’s for satellite service. A week before our scheduled move out date I brought the RV to our house and parked it in the driveway. This allowed us to begin moving items into the RV and see if everything would fit. For the most part we did OK but still had to downsize a little more to make it all work.

On move out day we were ready to go. Our first stop was the local truck stop to get the trailer weighed. I had read that one of the biggest problems full timers have is they overload their trailers because they are carrying so much stuff. Fortunately for us, our minimalist approach had worked, we were a thousand pounds under capacity, which was good because we had no fluids in any of the tanks.

Part 4 – How it has worked

We hit the road in January of 2011 and have just passed the two year mark. As previously mentioned we had decided on full timing for two years then reevaluate. Let’s recap what we have done in the past two years before I get to the reevaluation phase. We have traveled approximately 40,000 miles, been to 24 states and 2 Canadian provinces. The longest we have stayed in one place is 6 weeks. We have traveled clear across the United States, west to east, and are now in the middle of an east coast trip south to north. We have enjoyed this lifestyle and have so much more to see that our reevaluation was easy, yes, we would continue, indefinitely. At the present we have a general travel plan that covers the next two years and involves the great RV experience of traveling to Alaska.

I will let you in on some of the things we have found with the lifestyle and what has worked for us. First is we have settled into a habit of not driving more than a couple of hundred miles between stops. This allows for no refueling with the fifth wheel attached and driving time of 4 to 5 hours. For the most part we generally stay at a stop for at least a week. This allows for discounted park fees and for us to complete our errands (laundry and grocery shopping).

As previously mentioned I had not really thought about propane usage when full timing but it quickly became an issue. When we left in January of 2011 it was very cold in the Midwest and it took us some time before we got to warmer weather. As a result we were using a 30 lb. tank of propane every 2 to 3 days to heat the trailer. At some places it could cost close to $30 dollars to fill a tank, so the expense became significant. We invested in a couple of electric space heaters and used this to supplement the internal propane heater. This, coupled with our use of a countertop electric oven, has resulted in more manageable propane costs.

Our medical insurance worked great and refilling prescriptions is a snap as our pharmacy allows you to manage them online and they have stores in just about every city.

Internet coverage can be difficult at times as RV parks will advertise they have Wi-Fi but in so many cases we find the coverage is spotty to the sites and some will charge for the service. We have smartphones and a tablet with data plans so we always have access to the internet.

As previously mentioned we went with satellite TV service as many parks do not have cable and we wanted to be able to use a DVR. Originally I used a portable dish but realized this was too much work to set up and take down with our travel schedule so we had a motorized automatic dish mounted on the roof of the fifth wheel. This has been one of the best investments as it just requires a push of a button. It has found the signal in sites I did not think it would be able to.

Our mail service has worked great. We give them an address to forward our mail to, which is our daughter, and she then advises us if we have anything important. Generally if it is important she can scan the document in and email it to us. In rare cases we have her send it to the park we are at. Most parks are receptive to letting you receive mail at the park.

Roadside assistance is a must, in my opinion, as it can be difficult to try and change a tire on a 16,000 pound fifth wheel on the side of the road.

For trip planning we use various RV park directories that are available plus online review sites. A good tool I found is Google maps satellite feature to check out a park from above to see if it is near train tracks, airports or noisy businesses.

I hope this has been helpful and you choose to become a full timer. It is an adventure you do not want to miss!

Washington, North Carolina

We have moved further north to Washington, North Carolina.  This is about the half way point to our next stop of Hatteras, North Carolina.  The RV park is acceptable for the low off season weekly rate.  The park mainly consists of park model (permanent) type RV’s that people use as a vacation home or weekend get away.  They do have a strip of sites on the outer edge for transient RV’ers (like us).  We are here for a week.

Let me get you caught up on our sightseeing day while we were in Tabor City, North Carolina, our last stop.  We started out by visiting two beaches that were about 15 miles away.  The first was Sunset Beach.  What a beautiful long beach.  The sand was just perfect and the beach was so clean.  Here is a picture I found of it on the web.

Next we drove up the coast just a few miles to the next beach, Ocean Isle.  Again it is a long beautiful beach but this one has shells everywhere.  Amazing how two beaches next to each other can be so different.  Here is a picture of Ocean Isle beach.

Next up was the small coastal town of Southport.  Here we had lunch at the Fishy Fishy Café.  You have got to love the name. The restaurant is right on the docks of the marina.

Next we drove to Wilmington, North Carolina.  I did not know it was such a large city and right on the coast.  The battleship USS North Carolina is berthed here as a tourist attraction (we did not go see it).  We took a walk around the historic downtown and then along the riverwalk.  Seems like a very nice city.

Here is a picture of the battleship.

It was a nice sightseeing day.  A little cold but did get better as the day progressed.  Coastal Carolina is very beautiful. I am anxious to see what the Outer Banks look like, especially since last years hurricane.

Tabor City, North Carolina

What a great idea, have an RV park as part of a winery! 

In planning our trip along the east coast I came across an ad in our directory for this RV park in Tabor City.  It is part of a local North Carolina winery owned by two sisters.  In addition to the RV park they have a small inn and wine shop.  It is about 40 miles north of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and just over the state line.  They have done a very nice job in making this a place to stop for a night or two. 

The RV park is just great.  The spaces are all pull through, very long and well spaced so you are not crowded.  They have thinned out the trees so there are just enough to give you some shade and the rustic feeling but not so many that it causes problems for the trailers, or getting a satellite signal. 

The wine was OK.  All their wines are made from the Muscadine grape, which, from what they tell us, is the only grape native to the United States.  One of the owners, who handles the tasting duties, gave us a full lesson on the grape and it was very informative.  Here is a link to for the winery and RV park http://www.grapefullsistersvineyard.com/Home.html.

And now the pictures

Looking from the back of the RV park towards the front.  Our rig is off to the left (you cannot miss the red truck!).

Looking from the front of the park to the back.

The entrance road with the wine shop and Inn in the distance.

Gotta love the street names, the corner of Endless Circle and Sheilas Way.

We are here until Thursday when we move further north into North Carolina.

Charleston Sightseeing

We did some sightseeing the last few days so let me catch you up.

First we went to see the Angel Oak Tree that is located on John’s Island, very near our RV park.  Here is the link to explain the tree (very old) www.angeloaktree.com.

The best I could do to get the whole tree in the picture.

The trunk of the tree.

Fran saw this white squirrel on a nearby tree.

On Thursday we walked around downtown Charleston to see the historic homes, Battery Park, City Market and have lunch.  Lunch was at one of the popular restaurants, Jestine’s Kitchen (sorry, no website).

Here are some pictures from our walking around.

Courtroom in the historic old courthouse.  The courtroom is still in use.  This dates back to the 1700’s.

The law library in the old courthouse.

Pineapple fountain in the park by the bay.

Famous historic painted houses.

Battery Park.

It was cold on the walk and there was a breeze to make it feel colder but it was nice to see the historic buildings and the magnificent architecture in the city. 

Fort Sumter

For some reason we had not visited this historical site on our past visits to this city so it was at the top of our list on this visit.  For those of you who may not be up on your history this is where the first shot was fired to start the civil war.  The Union army was holding the fort and South Carolina had seceded from the United States and wanted all federal property turned over to them.  The Union commanding officer refused so the Confederate forces shelled the fort until the Union army surrendered.  An interesting point learned is that the fort was built to protect against an enemy coming into the harbor via the sea, not from an “inside” attack.  The walls on the sides of the fort that face land were less fortified and is exactly where the Confederate forces were shelling since they were doing it from land on either side. 

The fort sits out in the middle of the harbor opening and is only reachable by a boat service provided by a vendor to the National Park Service at $18 per person.  Because of these set tours and the smallness of the fort you are only allowed 1 hour on the island, but it was more than enough.  There is really not much to see.  Over the course of the Civil War, and other wars since, the fort was reduced to rubble.  What stands is one level of brick wall around the place and a new structure that was built for World War II.  It is still something to see from a historical perspective and the boat ride out and back is very nice.

Here is the Yorktown aircraft carrier that is on display at Patriot’s Point.

Fort Sumter as we approach it.

Closer view.

View of the parade ground from the “new structure” that was added.

In the distance is one of the spots where Confederate forces fired on the fort.

The original flag that was flying over the fort when it was held by the Union army.

The original flag that Confederate forces raised over the fort when they took it.

The tour boat.

View of Charleston from the fort.

Truck to the Rescue

Last night, Monday, we were watching TV around 9:15pm and hear this engine running out front.  We figure it is probably a motorhome pulling into a space.  The noise continues so I go to explore and see a huge tow truck on the road in front of our space (the type of tow truck that tows semis) and behind it a 1 ton pickup pulling a fifth wheel.  The tow truck has disconnected the truck/trailer and the owner of the truck/trailer is trying to figure out how to get his truck started.  This process entails firing up a very loud generator so he can power a battery charger.  Meanwhile the tow truck has every bright light on shining on the truck.  Front what I can tell the tow truck is done and is about ready to leave this guy in the roadway with the hope he can somehow get his truck started and get his trailer into his spot.  I do not see this as a viable resolution from what I am observing, so I intervene.  I ask the owner what the issue is and am told his engine has seized up.  I told him that I have a 1 ton pickup and offered to hook up his trailer and put it into his space if the tow truck can get his truck out of the way.  All parties see this as a great option, the tow truck driver gets to work to tow the truck out of the way and I move in with our truck and hook up.  I let the owner of the trailer drive my truck to back his rig into the space and all is done in 15 minutes and quiet returns!

Charleston, South Carolina

On Thursday we finally left Savannah after being there for almost 7 weeks and headed north to Charleston.  It was a short trip, only 120 miles, so we arrived just after noon.  Originally this was where I had picked for us to spend the past few weeks, instead of Savannah, but since I did not know the parks I had concerns of not being able to use our satellite dish based on what I was reading in the reviews.  There are only a few RV parks in the area and, from the descriptions, are very wooded.  However, as we begin our trek north we did want to stop in Charleston so I picked the park that got the best reviews and we were not disappointed.  We are at the James Island County Park Campground.  It is on James Island just outside of Charleston.  The park is huge and just beautiful.  What a great place for the residents of Charleston to come.  It has walking/biking trails, a huge dog park, huge kids playground, RV park, picnic areas and buildings you can rent out for events. 

The RV park is a little pricey but the sites are huge and well spaced with full hookups.  The description was right, there are a lot of trees.  I did not think we would be able to use our roof mounted satellite dish and I would have to try and find an open area to use our portable dish.  However, to my amazement, after we backed into our site I turned on the roof dish and after 15 minutes of searching it found 2 out of the 3 satellites needed.  This means we do not get some channels in high definition but still get all channels in at least standard definition (oh how we have to suffer!).  It is amazing how the dish can find a signal through the trees. 

Here is our site

On Friday our first task was to go to Trader Joe’s market.  We love this store and it has been a few months since we have been in an area where there is a store.  This was followed by grocery shopping at Wal-Mart.

On Saturday we ventured out to visit a plantation, Boone Hall.  The property dates back a couple of hundred years and was a working plantation.  The original house had been replaced a few times and the one currently standing dates back to the 1930’s but was built to look like homes of the plantation era.  A third of the original slave quarters are standing and have exhibits about the life of slaves.

This is the road (driveway) to the house.  A very beautiful drive through oaks that are hundreds of years old. 

The current house.

The original slave quarters.

It was a very nice day at the plantation and very informative.

Today, Sunday, we took a bike ride around the park and came across a group of men racing radio controlled sailboats on the little pond.  It was fun to watch.

Radio controlled sailboats.

The men that control them.  You can see the worn path near the shoreline where they walk as they follow the boats on the course. 

This is my fourth trip to Charleston and Fran’s second.  We have never been out to Fort Sumter, so that is on the agenda this week.

Ready to move on

Time to get caught up.  We had to stay another week in Savannah to wait for the slide motor to come in (more on this later in this post).  Once it had arrived and our service appointment was scheduled we were able to begin planning our trip up the east coast.  As many spots we will be going to are tourist spots and some will be during holidays we wanted to make reservations at some parks.  We have our tentative route which is to basically follow Interstate 95 north and then into New Brunswick, Canada going as far north as Hopewell Cape.  We will then go west to Quebec City, Montreal and enter back into the United States in New York or Vermont.

We will be stopping in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Washington D.C. area, New York City area,  Jersey shore and Cape Cod, plus many other places.  It is interesting to see that RV parks are much more expensive in the east, generally older which means it can be hard to find 50 amp electrical service.  Our trailer can run on 30 amp but can be a problem when the big main A/C kicks on and you want to use the microwave or some other power hungry appliance.  With 30 amp you cannot run both A/C’s at the same time.  When it is hot you need both A/C’s to cool the rig.  There is so much to see so planning our stops is difficult.  The nice thing is that the states are smaller and everything is fairly close.  Unlike the west and south where we were traveling 250 miles between stops, this trip our stops may only be 75 to 100 miles between one another.  Our plan is to stay at least one night in each state so we can get closer to our goal of staying in 49 states with this RV.  We are up to 25 states presently and 2 Canadian provinces.

Now to the repair.  I was told it would take 7 to 14 days for the slide motor to come in (I guess they have not heard of a company called FedEx).  I followed up after 7 days and was told it was not in and they could not provide any other information.  At 14 days I went into the store and the service adviser tells me “oh yes, the part is in”.  Hmmm, nobody called me!  I did not pursue the issue as it would not matter at this point, but did set up an appointment to have the motor installed and the wheel bearings repacked.  The appointment was for yesterday, Friday.  We packed up the trailer at 8am and drove it over to Camping World.  I was told it would take until afternoon to complete the repairs.  We decided to go to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Museum which is just down the street (more on that below).

We came back to Camping World at 1pm and I went out to our rig and nobody was working on it.  It was clear that the slide had been fixed but I could not tell about the wheels.  I ran into the service adviser who told me the repair guy had to go get some heavy duty jacks to jack up the trailer.  Huh!  An RV repair shop that does not have jacks to raise a fifth wheel???

The repair guy returns around 2pm and tells me all the shop jacks are being used so he went home to get his own.  He now struggles for 45 minutes to jack up the trailer and make sure it is properly supported.  The story goes on but let me jump to the finish when the repair is completed at 4:45pm.  It then takes the adviser 20 minutes to prepare the invoice only to overcharge me and have to redo it.  We finally leave at 5:30pm.  This is my third repair experience with Camping World and two of them have not been pleasant.  I do not think I will be using Camping World for any future repair needs.

Ok, now the Mighty Eighth.  What a nice museum.  The Mighty Eighth was set up in World War II solely as an offensive unit to defeat the Germans.  It was established in Savannah and that is why the museum is here.  The gentlemen who provide information throughout the museum are all World War II veterans.  The museum is fairly large and has numerous exhibits taking you through WW II.  In the back they have a beautiful memorial garden with many plaques and memorials for individuals and units of the Mighty Eighth.  They also have a very nice restaurant inside the museum.  I would highly recommend this museum.

Here are some pictures (borrowed from the web)

Front of the museum

The museum is restoring this WW II bomber

Rotunda as you enter

Memorial chapel in the back

We leave on Thursday for Charleston, South Carolina.