Our Travel Blog

and it rained and it rained etc

A little disconcerted to hear the furnace come this morning, but it was only for a few minutes. The outside temperature was 64°F and I guess it was just a little cooler inside causing the furnace to kick in. We reached 77°F later in the day.

Lyn went off to do the laundry after breakfast, and I headed over to the office to pick up some quarters for the dryer. While I was at the office I checked the mail, as according to the post office site two parcels were delivered yesterday, but I only picked one up. There was no second parcel, and the girl in the office confirmed that only one was dropped off. More later.

While Lyn was laundrying (new word?), I moved one of the antennas around as it was interfering with the awning. Next it was time do do a little more waxing and polishing.

The day was sunny and clear, so once I had done my allotted amount of waxing it was time to sit out in the sun and soak up some rays while battling with Sudoku.

After lunch we gave the bikes some rare exercise and managed to do over 3 miles around the local area.

Back at the campsite we were sitting around when the phone rang. Normally I don’t bother to answer if I don’t recognise the number, but this time I did. On the phone was the receptionist from the previous campground we were at in Alabama. It turns out that a parcel was delivered there for me yesterday!! As is usual we take advantage of e-Bay when we are in the US, and somehow I managed to get the wrong address on two orders  I am not sure how that happened as the address process is automatic; both these orders were placed on the same day, but all orders before and after these two were addressed correctly.

After all that confusion it was time for a little more relaxation before the start of the work-week tomorrow.

Temperatures and humidity were much the same as yesterday, but the skies looked a lot more threatening today. Again we took our walk in the morning while it was a little cooler.

As it was the week-end I forewent the washing and waxing duties and instead I did some work on the radio antennas, assembling and installing one that I hadn’t used yet this year. Managed to get some strange looks as I put it up on the roof!

Lyn was busy doing quilting “stuff” which included a quilt jig-saw which seems to be testing her patience.

This afternoon I spent some time checking that I had ordered all the stuff off e-bay for my latest toy / hobby. I think I have it all under control now, and have started work on the software side of things.

Tonight I risked a BBQ even though the weather was still looking threatening, this time two things happened 5 minutes after I started cooking; the heavens opened and Amanda and Noah called us on Skype. Mr, Murphy is doing a good job.

Once the rains started they got heavier and heavier and we finally got some thunder and lightning. Three hours later there is still some rain about.

Woke up to 66°F this morning with the temperature climbing to close to 80°F by noon. After breakfast we decided to take our daily walk around the campsite before it got too hot. The campground clears out quite a bit during the week making the place look a lot larger. We are slowly increasing our walks by doubling up on some of the lanes we walk up and down, we are over a mile a day now which is good for us. There is another couple we see walking each day, and they must be over the 5 mile mark judging by the number of times they walk around the park.

After we got back from the walk I bit the bullet and did some more waxing and polishing of the trailer. Unfortunately I didn’t get as much done as I wanted as the humidity was a little too much for me. Still on track to get it all finished before we leave though.

This afternoon was another sit back and relax time. There was a line of thunderstorms heading our way so it was time to pull in the awning in preparation. Actually there is no need to check the weather forecast here for storms, just look around the site and see whether other people have taken in their awnings and flags!

The rain held off for the afternoon, and then put in an appearance just as I started to barbecue. Thank you Mr. Murphy

A cooler wake up this morning, and the furnace came on overnight. The reason for this is the evil cold winds you Canadians keep sending down here. Not only does it keep us cooler than we would like it also blows the fumes from the paper mill a few miles north of here right over us. Please cease and desist.

Being Thursday we headed off to do the weekly shopping, this week we headed into Brunswick rather than shop in the local supermarket. By the time we got to the store the weather was beginning to warm up nicely.

After lunch I spent some time on the second installment of waxing and polishing the trailer. With any luck it should all be finished by the time we leave here in 4 weeks!

Next we headed out on our daily walk and met up with another husband an wife team who were radio amateurs so we spent quite a while talking with them.

After all the excitement of the day it was time to head back to the trailer for some well earned rest!

The temperature continues to yo-yo. This morning was around 10°C climbing to around 15°C by mid-afternoon. We decided it was time to have lunch out so we headed north to the town of Darien about 25 miles away.

Friends of ours had stayed at this campsite recently and told us about a small restaurant that had good shrimp meals. The plan was to go up on the I95 and after lunch we would drive around the area and come back on the local roads.

We reached Darian and our first thoughts were that the place had seen better days, it looked as though the economic downturn was not kind to the town. We found the restaurant, which we had been warned about not looking the greatest, and went inside. It was surprisingly busy for a lunch time but we eventually ordered the shrimp basket. We had been advised to go for the baskets rather than the meals as they were pretty large and the meals were really large!

The baskets had 1/2lb of shrimp, which was plenty and delicious. Once the meal was over we headed out to find the waterfront park that Lyn had read about, from the description appeared to be a large park with a boardwalk along the river. We finally found the place, it was about 100ft x 100ft with a play structure in the middle and no sign of the boardwalk.

Next we headed north to try and find some fishing villages that were mentioned in some information on the local area. As we headed out of town there was a real mish-mash of housing along the road from beautiful bungalows to run down trailers, unfortunately the latter were more prevalent. We took a turn off the main road into what appeared to be a luxury sub-divison under development. The house there were large and well cared for, but there were far more empty lots than houses, and no sign of any construction.

The fishing villages were just a group of reasonable sized houses close to a launching ramp and small harbour. Nowhere near the character of fishing villages in NZ, Scotland or Cornwall!

Back at the campsite we sat out for while enjoying what warmth was left of the day, then the breeze dropped and the pesky no-see-ums came out to play. Time to head in.

Nice to wake up and not hear the sound of the furnace. Outside temperature was around 60°F, rising to 68°F later in the day. After breakfast and the usual checking of e-mails and blogs it was time to start on the dreaded waxing and polishing of the trailer. The good news is the wax compound was very good at removing stubborn marks, aka airborne road kill, from the surface, the bad news was my arms got a real good work out polishing the wax off. I got the whole of the front cap done before the showers hit!

After lunch Lyn headed over to her craft group, another new person arrived, so at least there is some interest. The showers persisted which (sadly) prevented me from doing any more waxing. The issue I had with the internet box here has been solved, after discussing the issue with the manufacturer the software was downloaded from them into the box and all is as it should be.

Low temperature last night was 28°F rising to around 56°F this afternoon. We spent a lazy morning as is befitting a public holiday. A few house-hold chores were done and, as requested, photos of Lyn’s latest quilt top were taken.

The quilt was bought as a kit in NZ and features NZ materials representing life in NZ. These representations are depicted on hexagonal pieces.

NZ Quilt

NZ Quilt Close Up

After lunch we headed out to another coastal island, St Simon’s Island. The weather was better than it had been for the last few days, although there was still a cool breeze. At least the sun was out and the sky was blue.

The beach on the east side of the island consists of fine white sand and goes on for miles.

St. Simon’s Island Beach

Today’s exercise was taken along the beach, ensuring that the outbound leg of the walk was made into wind, at least it is warmer coming back that way!

Having lost so many calories on the walk we felt morally obliged to replace them with a stop at Dunkin Donouts; not as good as Timmies, but it was all we could find.

After replenishing the calories we headed off to join the Presidents Day crowds at the local shopping centre. Lyn got some photos of Noah printed to put into one of her projects, and I got the rest of the stuff I needed to wax the trailer. I guess I am out of excuses now, bar the weather, and will have to get polishing!

Woke up and it was clear and cold outside, I have no idea how cold because the indoor and outdoor temperature units had a fight and wouldn’t talk to each other after midnight! I am guessing it dropped to around -2°C last night. At least my stomach was back to normal now.

After breakfast I set about getting the two temperature units to speak to each other, which they finally did.

Next up was there was no hot water. At this park the hydro is included in the cost so the hot water, fridge and some of the heating run off hydro rather than propane. If the wrong thing turns on at the wrong time then it may cause a breaker to trip (we only have a 30AMP service in the trailer). This was the problem. I suspect that the hot water tank switched itself on when the fire and coffee maker were on last night, and the load was too much. Resetting the breaker gave us hot water back.

Next problem; half way through drying my hair the main breaker popped. Again too many things running. Problem is with the fire and hot water on thermostats you are not really sure what is running at the time. The only casualty appears to be the alarm clocks as they need resetting every time. Off to the dollar store tomorrow to by some batteries for them. The computer and video stuff is fine as they all run off a backup battery system.

Next, the WiFi distribution device we have in the trailer was behaving very illogically. Most computing devices operate on binary system of 1’s and 0’s which simply put means it works or it doesn’t. This device seem to have introduced halves into it’s repertoire  it either works, doesn’t work or partly works. Spent a lot of time working on that, but it seems to be the boss at the moment!

Last night a large motor home pulled in next to us. This morning we were looking at it while eating breakfast and we noticed a wind speed device mounted on the roof. First thought was that it was part of a weather station,but there was no wind direction device as part of it. Suddenly there was a large gust of wind, the cups of the device started to speed up AND at the same time the awning retracted. Sure enough this big shiny coach had an awning that automatically retracted when the wind got too high! A quick look on the web showed that the base price of that rig was $435,000.

After lunch we had reached the tropical temperature of 50°F so we donned our cold weather gear and set off for a trek around the campsite.

Tonight’s forecast is for sub-zero temperatures again, we didn’t sign up for this when we moved south!

Well the Chinese gave the stomach a good run for its money, but eventually the stomach was victorious.

Today saw a blustery cold front go through with temperatures dropping throughout the afternoon to around 7°C. Tonight the low is forecast to be around – (as in MINUS) 2°C

We took a walk around the site, and it really has filled up for this long weekend (Presidents Day), other than that nothing overly exciting happened, although Lyn did manage to finish the the quilt top for a fairly complex quilt she bought in New Zealand, and rather good it looks too!

We had a failure on the internet front as well, this time it appears it is a problem with the router in the trailer so that will keep me occupied during the deep chill of tomorrow.