HEADING HOME

We landed in Forked River, NJ, where Tony's sister, Loretta, and Greg live.  

They have a wonderful home on a canal, and have a couple of boats and a jet ski, so this place is definitely rockin' in the summer. 

Greg restores old wooden boats, and outboard motors.  We spent a couple of days here before ending our trip.  
The last stop on our winter trip was at our favorite restaurant,"Rhodes North", in Sloatsburg, NY, to see Tyler and Doreen. 

We had a delicious lunch and headed home, at last.  
We arrived in Connecticut to see some lingering snow scattered around (!).  We put over 5,000 miles on the motorhome, and almost 4,000 on the Jeep.  It was a great trip, but we can't wait to see our family!  Thanks for following along - Stay tuned for the next trip, and Ciao!

THE CAROLINAS

We landed in Myrtle Beach for a few days. Weather here is cool and windy, with some light rain.  We met Tony's childhood buddy, Richie, and his wife Karen, who have a home here.  Richie's sister, Marie, and her son Bob were in, visiting from Long Island.  We feasted at Umberto's at Barefoot Landing, and a good choice it was.  This eating has got to stop!

Our campground is adjacent to the 'famous' Apache Pier - the longest wooden pier on the east coast. We took a walk on it and the sights were wonderful: gentle waves kissing the sandy beach, the sun glistening on the water, the sea gulls anxious for a treat, and fishing lines dropped, waiting for the season's first catch.

The view back to our campground

We drove north to Hampstead, NC to see my friends, Maryann & Mark.  Haven't seen them in a few years, so it was nice to get back together.

We have never used the DVD player in our center console, because there was no sound, and Mark fixed it in a matter of seconds - now Tony can watch a movie, while I drive.  All the comforts of home!
It's raining so hard, that we delayed leaving another day. When we leave NC, we'll take a couple of days to arrive in Forked River to see Tony's sister, Loretta, and Greg.

ALABAMA

Our front step has been broken for over a month, and we've had to use a folding step which we had available.  On our way into Red Bay, Al, we missed the turn, and pulled into a service station to get directions.  However, 'the last person' who came into the coach forgot to take the step in, and left it in the middle of the service station. So, we had to then use blocks of wood for the next two days. We spent two nights at the Tiffin campground, and were able to get our front step fixed, but the other repairs will have to wait until the next time we come down here.


We gave our neighbor Linda a call, to ask how much snow was left on our back deck....she took a look and discovered that the cover on our hot tub has blown over. Tony called our other neighbor, Vinny, who went to get a first hand look, and informed us that the water in the hot tub had just about evaporated. Since strong wind is common in this area, before we left, Tony had used a bungee cord, as well as a plank of wood on top of the cover to keep it in place.  The problem is that the heater and circulating pump were still on, but there was only about a foot of remaining water, in the hot tub, and the air jets had ice on them.  Not good.  We probably blew out the motors.  We'll have someone check it out fully, and soon!


So, I am driving, but fully immersed in this conversation between Tony and our neighbor, and I missed the exit for our campground.  I pulled into a service station, which was not meant for a 40 foot rig, towing a car.  After realizing we had to make a U-turn, I turned onto this two lane road, with a dirt embankment on the other side.  Tony was 'strongly encouraging' me to continue into the turn, but I choked, thinking the motorhome would either sink in the dirt, or slip down the embankment.  So now I am stopped, ACROSS THE ROAD, blocking both lanes of traffic, with cars building up on both sides.  You can't back up while towing, even though I tried a little bit, but the towbar and car looked jackknifed, so I bit the bullet and listened to my husband, and continued into the tight turn onto the dirt.  I held my breath and prayed, and ........yes! we made it!  I'm sure this was very comical for all of the onlookers, but I was not amused, and neither was Tony.  We both needed an adult beverage when we got to the campground!!


And if my nerves were not frazzled enough, after I checked in at the campground, the owner tells me that a bad storm is headed our way tonight ......and tells me if she needs to reach me, she has my number.  I asked,  "How bad??"....she replied: "Maybe a tornado".  (WHAT???)  "We had one in the next town last week", she added. (GREAT!)  She continues with: "Oh, don't worry - My house is 75% underground, so ya'll can come over and hang with us for a while".  All I could think about was the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz, and instead of a house, our motorhome flying up in the sky. Hopefully, we'll get out of here in one piece tomorrow.  Stay tuned!


PS - No tornadoes......just lots of rain.
Heading to Myrtle Beach for a few days.


UPDATE:  The hot tub has been re-filled and is HOT!!   Woo-Hoo!

ARKANSAS

Our one night stopover through Arkansas was in Little Rock; our campground is right on the banks of the Arkansas River, facing the Downtown skyline - very pretty and all lit up at night.
We were recommended to try the "Flying Fish" Restaurant - it was crowded and we had a finger-licking good meal, with crawfish chowder, catfish and shrimp.  The theme on the inside was 'everything fishing', with trophies and photos posted, and on the outside of the building, there were five older outboard motors mounted high on the wall.  

These are for you, Greg!

Tomorrow we'll arrive at the Tiffin manufacturer, to see if they can fit us in for some work.