We took a 2 hour ferry ride to get here. We thought we'd miss the 9:30am ferry cuz we didn't get there till about 9:40. An attendant ran out to meet us and said, "you want to get on this ferry?" Yep! Ok, let's go! We gave them a credit card for the $40 fee, they gave us a ticket and waved us on. We drove on and the ferry pulled away from the dock!
We do lead a charmed life.
Wandering around the ferry, Jim met some people from Asheville who were coming over to the island for a friend's wedding. They gave us each a bloody mary, and we invited them in the Motorhome to party. Nice people! Meet our new friends, Jason, Amy and Tamara: 
I love the idea that I have the same bedroom everywhere I go - but I have different views out the window. Whaddaya think of this view? 
The destination for the ferry is a town called Ocracoke. In addition to having a fascinating history of shipwrecks and life-saving, Ocracoke played a role in the Civil war too.
Facts and Stats: Current Park: Cape Hatteras National Park, Ocracoke campground Site cost per night: $20 Nights at last camp: 1 Travel time: 5 hours Miles: 76 (not including ferry) Weather: Gorgeous - 80 degrees with cool breeze - not a cloud in the sky Here's our current campsite. Jim took this picture while standing on top of the dunes, looking west. Right behind him is the beach and the ocean. 
And, I like this shot of Odie with the sunset light coming thru the blinds:
Facts and Stats:
Current Park: Wilmington KOA, www.wilmingtonkoa.com
Site cost per night: $38
Nights at last camp: 1
Travel time: 3 hours
Miles: 148
Weeks since we left Ft. Lauderdale: 3
Total Miles: 1215
Total gas cost: $263.68
Total campsite rent: $278
Total RV maintenance costs: $120
Saturday - Wilmington to Emerald Isle
Today we had a leisurely morning, taking advantage of a good cell phone signal and free weekend airtime to catch up with some friends over the phone. I did the laundry and Jim took his laptop to the rec room and plugged into the ethernet since our satellite dish still wasn't connecting. We got underway about 11. Our route up the coast of N. Carolina took us right thru Camp Lejeune, the home of five major Marine Corps commands and one Navy command. As the road entered the property there was a gate house and we were asked to pull over so a marine could inspect our motorhome. We thought they were kidding! Apparently they don't joke about this. The young man was very nice and only came inside the motorhome for a few minutes. I thought about taking his photo, but thought better of it! Now here's a road sign you don't see very often:
We try to be very thorough in hunting for parks to stay in. First factor is a park that would be a good candidate for Wi-Fi. Second factor is a park where we would like to spend some time. When we saw a Holiday Trav-L-Park, we thought we were looking at a park in the organization that we gave the Wi-Fi seminar to in Orlando. So, even tho it was the most expensive prices we had seen yet, it is prime Wi-Fi material so we headed there. well ... no ... the organization we gave the seminar to was BEST Holiday Trav-L-Park. geeez, talk about confusing. So here we are paying $45/night! Oh well, this park would be perfect for Wi-Fi too. We'll leave them some info. Meanwhile we enjoyed a very nice walk on the beach. A beach where dogs are allowed. Cool.
And, Jim figured out the problem with our satellite dish. It probably wasn't the trees at all. Our current site has NO trees. The dish locked on to the satellite right away, but we still didn't have communication with our Internet Service Provider. Jim made a couple calls and found that, unknown to us, the part of our equipment called the 4020 needs to be reprogrammed for latitude and longitude every couple hundred miles. It's an easy enough thing to do, the great folks on the Datastorm User Group have created a program to easily handle it. But the catch-22 is that we need internet access to get that program! So, Jim hooked up his laptop to the cell phone and dialed into the Internet to get the program, ran it, and reset the satellite dish. Voila! We're back online. And we've learned a valuable lesson.
Facts and Stats:
Current Park: Holiday Trav-L-Park Resort, Emerald Isle, NC www.htpresort.com
Site cost per night: $45
Nights at last camp: 1
Travel time: 2 hours
Miles: 68
Weather: Sunny and Gorgeous - 78 degrees
Even with the best maps and GPS' we still end up on a wrong road once in a while. Er ... no ... I mean, look at this beautiful scenic dirt road we took today:
Then, just about an hour into our longest stretch on an interstate so far, we both jumped as we hear a tha-lump-slap coming from the rear. We both lookrd in the side view mirrors hoping NOT to see a little white Honda finding it's freedom. Nope, Honda is fine. We did see one of those big, black snakelike objects in the road behind us. The tread from one of our rear tires had come off. Jim immediately pulled over onto the shoulder and got out to take a look. It was the inner tire of the left rear dual wheels that lost it's tread. We figured we could drive to the next exit and then call our 
Facts and Stats:
Current park: Swamp Fox Campground, Florence, South Carolina www.swamp-fox-campground.com
Site cost per night: $12 (half price due to Passport America)
# nights at last park: 2
Travel time: 8.5 hours
Miles: 242
Gas: 42 gallons @ $1.739 or $71 avg mpg: 7.5
Weather: Clear and beautiful, hot during the day - a perfect 70 degrees now in the evening.
As pleasantly surprised and thrilled as we were with our last park, we're disappointed with the current one. The listing in Trailer Life says they have a pool and a hot tub. Not only do we see no pool or hot tub (I think they're referring to the Swamp Fox Motel that is nearby) we don't even see showers or laundry here. Oh well, we're only staying here one night.
Milledgeville is also home to the Georgia State College and University. There's a certain air to college towns that remind me of my college years in Tallahassee. I watch the students walking around campus and think, 'gee, I'll bet they're having fun!'. Ahhh, to be in college again.
Here's a typical antebellum house:
Then we went on to Eatonton, the birthplace of authors Alice Walker (The Color Purple) and Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus stories). I just had to visit the Uncle Remus museum:
And, when we got 'home', we got together with the manager of the park and showed him his new website. Hey Mikey! He liked it!! He even said he had another name to give us of someone else who would be interested. Cool.
