The promised heavy rain resulting from Tropical Storm Ida began falling about 3 a.m. Wednesday morning, and it still hasn’t stopped. In fact, it hasn’t even slowed down. The temperature also dropped, from the mid-70s the last two days, to the low 60s yesterday. At least the heavy wind that was supposed to accompany the rain has not appeared.
We are parked close to the building on a paved lot at the Elks Lodge here in Morehead City, North Carolina, and the property slopes away slightly, so we’re in no danger of floating away, but Miss Terry has been wearing out her Sham Wow cloths soaking up water that is leaking in around the front corner or our living room slide. That’s an issue we need to deal with at the first opportunity.
With such nasty weather, we took a break from playing tourist and stayed inside all day. I cruised the internet, answered several e-mails that had backed up, and worked on the seminar schedule for our upcoming Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally.
One complaint I have heard many times about RV rallies is that they have the same seminars over and over, year after year. And, of course, everybody is different. Some people want technical seminars, some want lifestyle seminars, and some want travel seminars.
It is a challenge to find new seminars and people qualified to present them, and I don’t think anybody can ever come up with a schedule that makes everybody happy. The best we can hope for is to be able to present a variety of fresh seminars covering a broad enough range to give all rally attendees something to enjoy.
I think we’re putting together a pretty good lineup for our Yuma rally, including seminars on safely backing up an RV, geocaching, testing air brakes, RVing in Alaska, oil painting, computer safety and security for RVers, digital photography, boondocking, and digital scrapbooking, to name just a few. We’re always looking for new seminars to offer our rally attendees, so if you would like to present a noncommercial seminar, send me an e-mail and we’ll see if we can make it happen.
Once the weather breaks, we have a couple more places we want to see here on the Crystal Coast, and then we’ll start heading further south. I’m not sure if we’ll stop in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina or not. It seems a bit too touristy for us. We prefer places a little more off the beaten path.
One popular city we would like to spend a few days in is Charleston, South Carolina. I have not been able to find an Elks or Moose lodge there open to RV parking, so I have been studying our Passport America book looking for an affordable RV park. We’d appreciate any suggestions on a place to stay, if you are familiar with that area.
Thought For The Day – The aging process could be slowed down if it had to work its way through Congress.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
Last December we spent two weeks at Edisto Island State Park outside Charleston and loved it. It’s right on the ocean. No full hookups, though, so you’d have to do the dump station thing. We have photos and blog entries about it, if you want to check it out. There’s an index at the side of our blog that would take you to the right entries.
How about a seminar on Convection Oven Cooking?
James Island County Park. A beautiful very large county park on the water or river with a rv park within the park. Only eight to ten miles form downtown Charleston and close to everything. Bike trails, walking trails. fishing and many other nature type amenities. Rates are very reasonable and the rv portion has large sites, is attractive and very well maintained. If you don’t like this one I would be surprised.
We have stayed there several times as we live in southern SC. We are very particular about where stay in regard to rv facilities.
Hey Nick, how does Miss Terry like those Sham Wow cloths? You always tell it like it is, so I trust your report!
Without a doubt, James Island County Park. It is beautiful. I think that they probably have started their Light Show there too. If not, they will soon. Thousands of Christmas lights and a beautiful drive for the public that does not interfere with the campground. You would love it, IF you can get reservations this late.
Don’t skip the Beauford area either. There is a nice campground on Helen Island there.. Neat place.
Helen
Lake Aire RV Park is a Passport America park located in Hollywood, SC which is pretty close to downtown Charleston. We enjoyed our stay there.
Agreed, Myrtle Beach is touristy, but if you need a place to stop for a night Myrtle Beach State Park has very nice camping with electricity.
A little south of Charleston is Edisto State Park which my wife and I highly recommend and enjoy. It has electricity too.
Near Beaufort SC. is Hunting Island State Park. It is a very nice and pleasantly remote and still offers electricity as do most SC State campgrounds. Due to the high erosion rate along that section of beach the campground is ON the beach. Also there is no transition in the vegetation between the canopy of trees over the sites and the beach that creates a mildly tropical feel.
We always stay at Lake Aire, the PA park in Charleston. Chris & Amber, the young couple that owns it, are friendly, helpful, and keep the park immaculate. http://www.lakeairerv.com/
We second the Lake Aire RV park. Stayed there a couple of years ago and really enjoyed it.
We had a leak in the same area of our Rexhall LR slide. The fix was to recaulk the molding between the front cap and the main upper deck.
Hey Nick, we enjoyed our time at Buck Hall http://www.scgreatoutdoors.com/park-buckhall.html If I remember right it is about 20 miles north of Charleston.
I agree with the person that said Edisto Island St. Park is very nice but if you want
to tour Charleston I believe it is a 50mi. drive. We did that a few days then found
a park right in Charleston. Don’t remember the name of it but it was in some
tall pine trees and lots of pine cones on the ground.
Don’t know what you schedule is but try to be in Charleston on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We were there two years ago and it was great as they had the lighting of the Christmas Tree, and a parade of boats on the waterfront that were all lite-up for Christmas and followed that up with fire works. While there try to get to both Ft. Jackson and Ft. Pulaski as there is a lot of history at each one of these. Last spring we repaired a leak in our slide but it was in the middle of the slide and we build a book shelf to raise the roof.
Have safe a happy travels.
Nick,
I agree with my friend Dick LaVigne that Edisto is a good place to consider for a visit. As someone else indicated, it is a bit of a drive so not a good place for going back and forth to Charleston. We stayed at Oak Plantation Campground last year while visiting Charleston and really enjoyed it. Here is a link to our blog with a picture of the campground and a few places we visited in Charleston. (http://jmrvtravels.blogspot.com/search?q=oak+plantation+campground). Be sure to visit the Hunley (http://www.hunley.org/). Another “one of a kind” place is the American Tea Plantation. It is between Edisto and Chartleston. (http://www.bigelowtea.com/plantation.aspx).
Another possibility on your way down to Charleston is to stop at Huntington Beach State Park which is south of Myrtle Beach on Hwy 17 (http://southcarolinaparks.com/park-finder/state-park/1020.aspx). The beach is very nice there and there is interesting history to explore plus the lovely Brookgreen Gardens (http://www.brookgreen.org/) are across the road.
We lived in SC for 20 years before starting to full-time in 2007. Hope you enjoy your visit to this lovely state.
James and Monique Thompson
Debbie,
Terry is very happy with the Sham Wow cloths and uses them all the time. In fact, she bought some for our daughter. With two little girls, they really come in handy.