We set the alarm early, and crawled out of bed around 6am in the dark with the sun just starting to rise. By 6:30am we were driving the 10 minutes to the Ocracoke Ferry Terminal to catch our 7:30am sailing to Cedar Island (a 2.5hour sail for only $30!! we couldn't believe it). We left the kiddos tucked up in their bunks as we drove the short drive to the terminal.
The ferry boarded on time and we set sail by 7:30am as scheduled. Jonathan walked around up on the deck (it's not a big ferry... has a look out deck) and chatted with a nice couple for most of the journey across the water. It was a dipsy-doodle kind of path across the water as to avoid several crab breeding grounds. Meems worked on making an epic word search for a good portion of the ride. We saw a massive flock of pelicans diving into the water... pretty neat. At one point Jonathan came back (we could see him up on the deck right above our rig... he could have stepped out onto the roof of our RV from there), and made coffees for his new friends in their to-go mugs.
Arrived at the Cedar Island terminal at 9:45am and took the Cedar Island Hwy #12 along the wildlife refuge road down the middle of the water and marshlands (About 8ft on either side of the highway). Eventually this transformed into the OBX (outerbanks) National Scenic Byway. We discussed Egret vs Heron, and an giant heron almost flew in front of our RV! Also noticed lots of the homes further along had pampass grass as a key garden feature. Made me think of the clump of pampass grass we had at my parents' house at the bottom of the driveway.
Part way along the drive, we came through a town and noticed Chadwick Tire and it had tall bay doors... so we pulled over in hopes that they might be able to take a look at the brakes on our vehicle. Jonathan really wanted them looked at and to get a sense of how far worn they are. It's been impossible to find anywhere that has a bay door tall enough for the rig, so we decided to give it a try! They were super nice in there, and it's a family run business with the two southern ladies running the front desk/office portion. They had a distinct, put-together look about them that had "southern etiquette" all over it. I walked the kids to the Down South Library just further down the complex. They were open! and the librarian there was super lovely, too. We took Amelia's newly minted halloween word search in to see if we could get colour copies done and she was happy to help us out. $1.00 later, we had four beautiful shiny colour copies of the word search... one for each of us. We hung out there and read some books and did some colouring. Very sweet little library and a lucky find.
I walked the kids over to the Dollar General across the road for some craft supplies, embroidery thread for shell bracelets and some halloween cut-outs for decorating the rig. Then we were back in the waiting room at Chadwick Tire to hangout while they sorted out having a look at the brakes. Turns out the front brakes were fine and the back brakes needed doing soon but they couldn't get brake pads for at couple of days even if they could have done the brake job for us. (the mechanics were hesitant to take a look at them, but the lovely ladies at the front hustled them to just "get a flashlight and take a look!"). Even though it didn't work out to get them done there, they provided us with good information to move forward.
We left there around 12:30pm, with ME at the wheel! Jonathan wanted to do some research about getting brake pads from an Autozone (and was successful) so I got behind the wheel for the second time this trip... and this was a legit driving experience... not just from one parking lot down the road to another like I did in the Maritimes, haha. I drove for over 2 hours along the Hwy 24 to Hwy 70 South. Passed lots of Military Camps especially in Carteret County.
By 2:45pm we were at the Autozone in Willington, North Carolina. Jonathan went in with Oliver and they were super helpful. He got brakepads for the rear brakes, new air filter and cabin filter, and splurged on a computer reader for the error/maintenance codes. (it costs us a mint to get them to check it at Mercedes). Hoping this saves a lot of money and mystery going forward.
Loving the huge live oak trees covered in trailing spanish moss. Feels very southern. Also interesting to note at the number of motorcylists with no helmets on. One went by though with a furry bunny helmet... like a big white stuffy bunny head with ears stuck up. Pretty hilarious.
We turned off in Wilmington to have a break and find a playground. Greenfield Park was on the google maps, so we drove there to check it out. Turns out we were driving along the Cape Fear Scenic Byway. All I could think of was the movie Cape Fear (from the '90's? with Robert DeNiro). Lots of signs in the small neighbourhood about "no racism". We found the park... filled with huge magnolia trees and live oaks with the trailing moss, and what appeared to be giant rhododendron trees. Turns out the playground/large park was along the Cape Fear River. We parked (around 3:20pm) and had a short walk to the playground where two little boys were playing on the playground, seemingly by themselves).
Jonathan went back to the rig to make some food for us all, and I walked the kiddos over to the river's edge and boardwalk to investigate the egrets and see what was going on in the river. We were standing on the boardwalk looking around at the turtles (LOTS of turtles) when a couple came walking up from the other direction. I overheard the woman say to her husband, "there's a little gator over there... maybe a one year old... they'll get him out of there soon enough." I looked up and asked where she saw it... it was a little guy maybe 4-5ft long sitting in the marshy section.
Sure enough, we could all see him just a little ways off from the board walk (and quite frankly, a little to accessible to the kids playground!). Pretty neat to see our first alligator in the wild. He was very cute and the kiddos were excited to see him. It swam over and hung out by the turtles, quite close to the boardwalk so we could get a decent look at him. A couple of the turtles pestered him a bit, but he didn't take any notice.
The couple that pointed him out asked if we celebrated Halloween, and when we said YES! the woman asked her husband to hustle to the car for a flyer. We stopped him before he walked off to far, saying we wouldn't be in town by then. They were having a huge community block party at Halloween and their underlying motive seemed to be to gather people of all races to break some barriers (they were an inter-racial couple themselves). It sounded like a really neat affair and they'd been doing it for three years now and had the support of the local police for blocking off the streets and having fireworks and all sorts. A very lovely couple, and we thanked them for the invite. The left shortly after our conversation, and we had to walk back for our lunch feast prepared by Jonathan. We were also eager to tell him about the little gator and bring him back to show him.
After lunch, we walked back with Jonathan to the boardwalk, this time armed with their cameras to take videos and photos. Amelia took a hilarious video of a little turtle working hard to swim up face-to-face with a larger turtle only to extend its little front legs in front of the other turtle's face and wiggle its little claws right in the big turtle's face. Super funny. I can't seem to get videos to load here, but will try at some point. It's too cute. It's also our new greeting with each other, especially when we are swimming haha.
Also, side note... while on the boardwalk, a very lovely bustling lady came over and gave us a "postcard" about herself... her name is Veronica and she's running for Board of Education in the upcoming elections. She seemed like an amazing and dynamic woman who we would vote for in a heartbeat. What a cool lady who sounds like she has already done so much for the education system and has lots to change. I hope she gets in.
Around 5pm we were back on the road and it wasn't too long before a truck drove by us on Jonathan's side and held up a sign that read, "Steps Out"... oh man. Seriously? You'd think we would have this all figured out by now... I quickly jumped up and pushed the button for the stairs to retract at our "main door" entry to the rig. How embarrassing. Doh.
We also drove by the SS North Carolina in Wilmington, NC we could see moored in the distance. Around 5:30pm or so we crossed into South Carolina! Here we saw a random person dressed up as a pink pig standing on the side of the long stretch of road, advertising for a BBQ place. No other stores/restaurants in sight. Just a pig. And a BBQ hut. Welcome to South Carolina! Oh and lots and lots of dead deer on the side of the highway.
Not that it matters, but we took the Hwy 57 --> SC31 --> SC22... and by 5:50pm we were on the scenic route to Myrtle Beach and not long we were driving the strip on Ocean Boulevard! Crazy day.
We parked with street parking near a fairly well lit area a couple of blocks from the ocean front. The area seemed okay, not great, but okay enough... Our bikes were locked on the back rack, and we brought all our chairs and anything loose on the back into the rig to lock inside. Just as I was navigating the parking meter app, and Jonathan was bringing stuff inside, a dude walked over and admired the rig and asked if we could spare him $5. Gah. We declined and he walked on further up the road towards some apartment/condo building. We had our fingers crossed he wouldn't return later and break into the rig. That would suck.
From 6:30-8:30pm we wandered the strip of Ocean Blvd in Myrtle Beach, SC... taking in all the sights. There was a crazy big arcade that Oliver was keen to walk through and marvel at all the games and lights... even a large "human sized" hungry hippo game where you sat on the hippo! We walked the boardwalk along the beach side of the shops and looked at the sky wheel. Walked down to the pier but didn't feel like paying to walk on it... the sun was setting and we were getting peckish. We found a "Beach House" restaurant on the blvd to sit on the upper outside deck and have a basket of fried zucchini and some drinks... beer for daddy, and two frozen daquiris (non alcoholic) for the kiddos. The prices were beyond reasonable, which was a pleasant surprise and our waitress was super lovely. A good stop. We walked back to the rig and stopped in to look at the beach bum stores filled with brightly coloured souvenir shirts, etc. Jonathan and I bought some funny matchy-matchy tshirts to be revealed at a future date. We found a Myrtle Beach sticker for our growing collection on the side panel of the RV before getting back into our little home on wheels (unscathed).
Fun evening spent, and we hopped in and drove to our predetermined "camp spot" for the night... Myrtle Beach Walmart!!!! We went into Walmart and got groceries and the kids could pick some more halloween decor... they chose a big long-legged hairy spider and some "bloody" window gels. We also bought new refills for our phone plans. We had asked Ollie and Meems to run to the electronics section and get two $45 cards for the refills, which they did, but Ollie put them in his hoody pocket to carry back and forgot about them. When we unpacked the groceries, I realized that I hadn't paid for the phone plans and asked if Jonathan had paid separately... he had not. Ollie had them in his pocket by accident still. They were not activated, so it was fine to go back in and get them paid for and activated. Ooops! All sorted. Jonathan had asked the Manager if it was okay for us to park for the night and it was fine. They had these solar powered "parking lot cops" with blue lights like police lights, with security cameras attached. We parked near one of those. There were a few random loud cars pulling into the parking lot at random times so it wasn't a super awesome spot for sleeping, but we managed without any issues.
Big Day of adventure! not so glam camping spot, but a heck of a lot cheaper than what was available especially considering we'd be there late at night anyhow.
No comments:
Post a Comment