Home

Both of us were awake at 5 but didn't get up until closer to 6.  It was dark and drizzly but not raining hard.  Since quiet time didn't end until 7, we did what we could inside.  We managed to pull out of the campground at 7:45 just in time for the rain to begin again.

 It was just getting light when I took this picture.  This was a nice campground with sites under tall trees.

Another picture of the driving conditions as we left the campground.  

Thankfully, the rain turned to a light mist and then stopped completely.  As we drove, the trees were so beautiful.  It was still overcast so the colors were more muted but still very beautiful.  I love this time of the year when the leaves change colors.

We traveled in three states today.  When we crossed into Illinois we could see that Illinois had not gotten much rain while we were gone.  I wish we could have brought even a little of the rain we have been in

We stopped in Bethany for a short visit with Don and Peggy.  We pulled  into our drive way at 3:45.  We immediately began to unpack.  We met Kara, Jason and the boys at Monical's for supper.  Traditionally that is what we do on the evening we get back from a long trip.  It was a good trip despite the fact that it was only 2 weeks long and we had a lot of rain the last two days.  Sandy was able to be with us for one more trip.  Carol was able to drive the 400 mile days we had.  It is better to only drive 300 miles but with two weeks, that some days we had to drive a little longer.  We had good visits with our friends Jim and Karen Peyton and family John, Linda, Katie, and Aidan.  We saw some beautiful sights and learned more history.  Another trip is in the books.

Rain and Traffic and Traffic and Rain

It started raining last night about 10 just as we were going to bed.  I love to hear the sound of rain hitting the top of the motorhome so it was a nice night to sleep.  It rained all night.  We both woke up at 5:00 and knew that this would be a wet set-up.  We put on our cheap ponchos and began quietly to pack up.  Quiet time would not be over until 6 but we did what we could.  It was semi-dark when we pulled out of the campground at 7:15.  It was still raining.

As we traveled east on I-40, it began to rain harder and harder.  When we hit Knoxville, not only did it begin to rain harder but the traffic became heavy.  It was stressful to drive through an unfamiliar city in heavy traffic and rain.  I guess this rain was the result of Hurricane Delta that hit Louisiana.  

 

Of course to complicate things, for almost five miles traffic became a crawl.  At the end of that delay, we could not see any reason for the slow down of traffic.  It seems that it is always that way.

Through it all, Sandy was able to sleep.

Early afternoon the rain finally let up and we could see that the trees had begun to turn colors.  

We crossed back into Central Time Zone and gained an hour.  We got into the KOA at 2:30.  Of course, it was raining, so we sat in the motorhome and waited for it to let up   I was only able to reserve a site with 30amps but it is cool enough that we won't need to run the air conditioners.  They offered us a 50 amp back-in site but that meant we would have to unhook the dolly and unload the car.  That didn't sound too appealing to us.  Had we done that, we would have to rehook and reload tomorrow morning before we could leave.   We hope the rain is turned off soon.  Central Illinois desperately need the rain but Hunter text me to say that he was mowing our lawn today.  That means it is still dry at home.

Leaving the Land of Sand

 Woke up to a final beautiful sunrise at Cape Hatteras.  If we had the time, we would have walked down to the beach for the pictures but this is packing up and moving on day so there was no time to spare.

We are going to miss the beautiful sunrises and sunsets we have seen at Cape Hatteras.

Yesterday I posted pictures of the trucks of fishermen here.  The trucks with their fishing poles and gear would be comparable to the trucks in the west with guns hanging in the back window.  As we were leaving camp at 8:15 a.m.  I saw these two men with their fishing equipment and dog heading down to the ocean to fish.  These are serious fishermen.

We took Highway 12 north and I snapped a few final pictures of the Cape.  This is a beautiful place with interesting buildings and landscapes.

I love the different colors used to paint the houses.

If your job was removing sand from Highway 12, you would have steady work.  The three days that we drove this highway, these men were busy moving sand.

If you have a four-wheel drive vehicle, you can get an off-the-road permit to drive on the beaches.

One final picture of Bodie Lighthouse.

North Carolinians believe in political  yard signs.  Many yards and businesses had big and small yard signs for their politician of choice.  This one was my favorite.  If you have ever seen the movie "Forrest Gump,"  you will recognize the phase "Run, Forrest, Run."  In the beginning of the movie, Forrest is running away from bullies and his girlfriend is encouraging him with the words, "Run, Forrest, Run."  I thought this was a cleaver way to advertise Dan Forrest who is running for governor of North Carolina.

We pretty much drove from 8:15 to 4:15 with only a break for gas and a rest area stop for lunch.  We drove 378 miles.  Carol is a master of driving the motorhome.  He drove through cities with five lanes each way, condensed down to two, highways coming onto and off of I-40, cars merging onto the highway, road construction, and heavy traffic.  He was cool as a cucumber.   The last twenty miles was under heavy road construction.  There were two lanes and a sign that read "Remain in two lanes until the merging point."  Normally the signs tell you that one lane will end in a certain length of mileage and to merge.  Every vehicle stayed in their lane and at the merging point the sign read "Take turns when merging."  Believe it or not, the vehicles actually took turns merging into one lane.  I think traffic moved better and you didn't have the jokers waiting until the last minute to merge.

I was glad to see that the trees were beginning to change colors.  We are camped at Statesville KOA in North Carolina.  It is a small campground but adequate for one night.  After we set up, I had laundry to do.  We are not turning on the air conditioning.  It feels cool enough to sleep.  The weather forecast calls for rain.  I hope that forecast is wrong.  Two more days of driving and we will be home and this trip over.

Lighthouses and Ferries

We woke up without an alarm and made it to the beach in time for a beautiful sunrise. 

We had a leisurely breakfast back at the camp.  Plans for the day were to see two lighthouses, ride a ferry to Ocracoke Island, see ponies of Ocracoke Island,  and maybe visit a life saving museum. After the first lighthouse, plans went off-track.  We managed to add some time shelling on the beach and didn't visit the museum; however, the ferry caused us much delay time.

As we were getting ready to leave, Sandy went to her usual spot to sleep while we are gone for the day.  We left at 9 and little did we know, we would not be back until 7:30.

Our first stop was Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.  It is the tallest brick structure in the United States.  It was moved from its original location to the present one because the land it was setting on was eroding and that could cause the loss of the lighthouse.

These house are where the lighthouse keepers and their families lived.

These stones are the original for the lighthouse. Each stone contains the name of a lighthouse keeper.  Now they form amphitheater for ranger talks. 

Strict social distancing and masks were enforced so while we were waiting to go into the house, the volunteer told us about a beach where shells could be found.  So far we had not found one shell so we decided to make a little detour to that beach to shell hunt.  We are glad we did because we found lots of shells.  They are mostly clam shells but we were happy to find even clam shells.

These photos are of South  Beach.  The waves were constantly crashing onto the sand leaving more shells that we had seen on this trip.

The shelling was an extra bonus but we felt it was worth it.  Next stop was the free ferry to Ocracoke Island.  This is where plans began to fall apart.  We waited for two hours for the ferry.  Someone in line told us that there are normally three ferries and they run every 30 minutes but today, one is being repaired.  It was just our luck!  We also didn't realize that it is a one-hour ride to Ocracoke Island.  We arrived at the island a little after four and drove to the lighthouse we had come to see.  The Ocracoke Lighthouse sits at the end of a narrow road at the end of the Village of Ocracoke.  The brochure telling about the lighthouse said that parking was limited and that was the truth...only four spots and many more than four cars looking for spots.  We drove by, turned around, and snapped this picture on the second pass by the lighthouse.

The village of Ocracoke is very small but it contains more golf carts and restaurants than the total population.  The speed limit through the town was 20 MPH to accommodate the golf carts on the highway.  By the time we got through the town we were ready to head for the ferry.  There was one more stop and that was to see the ponies of Ocracoke Island.

These ponies were brought to the island on Spanish ships in the 1500's.  They were used as transportation, cart pullers, etc.  Eventually, they became wild and wandered the island.  In the 1960's the national park service was afraid they would be killed by motorists so they took control of the horses, building fences to contain them, and feeding and caring for them.   The herd has dwindled from 300 to only 17 remaining.

We got back on the ferry a little after five and rode the hour back to Hatteras Island.  We missed the sunset this afternoon but took this picture from the ferry.

 

A final sunset from Cape Hatteras.  We finally got back to camp at 7:15.  We had planned to load the car tonight but it was too dark when we got back.  Tomorrow we will have to load the car, unhook everything, and finish packing.  No sleeping in tomorrow.  It is three days driving until we get home.  We enjoyed the day but the ferry was poor planning.  I did not know we would spend nearly five hours just to see one lighthouse and some ponies.  Oh well, we still have the memories.