Bob finished RV Tech School March 18, 2007 and drove to Charleston that same day, where Carrie had been in a marathon teaching mode for 2 weeks, teaching day classes as well as evening classes for the local ,Realtor Association. We spent a week together getting our affairs in order. Then on Saturday March 24th again hit the road for our ultimate adventure to Maine that will take us a month!  First stop - Myrtle Beach, SC to regain a little sanity.

Our trip to Myrtle Beach was, by far, the nicest, stress-free trip we've taken yet.  We have a cement site and Bob backed that bad boy rig of ours right into it without any help at all.  We put out the slides, grabbed some Pizza, and entered veg out mode.  Tomorrow after church, there'll be plenty of time to worry about housekeeping.  It's going to be a good week before we head to Cape Hatteras!

Sunday, March 25th - Just wanted to say that the weather right now is 83, we just ate lunch at Jimmy Buffet's Cheeseburger in Paradise and we put our feet back into the Atlantic Ocean!  Life is good and God is gooder!  More later.

One of the highlights of our stay in Myrtle Beach was a visit to Brookgreen Gardens, an historical site with over 300 acres of luscious plants, flowers, trees and awesome sculptures donated from various artists throughout the country. 

 

Outer Banks of North Carolina

We are now in Rodanthe, NC, one of the small stops on Pea Island, which is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.  We are in an RV Park that is on the ocean on one side and on the Pamlico Sound on the other.  Surrounded by ducks, geese, fishing ponds, an indoor pool, Jacuzzi and wide open spaces, we are having a wonderful rest.  Bob has been faithfully looking for surf each day, but so far no swells have cooperated with him.  Palm Sunday was spent at the church below, which housed 17 people.  Reluctant at first since we come from a 2,000+ church, we settled in and had an awesome time of praise and worship with the Holy Spirit there to guide us.  The Pastor had a sweet message, and we had communion.  How faithful is God to provide every need in our lives, including the need to be among the Body of Christ!

The lighthouse below is NOT Hatteras!  :)  It is Brodie Island Lighthouse and is right down the road from us.  We elected not to visit the Hatteras Lighthouse, as Bob and I made a trip there several years ago.  One thing we discovered on this trip that we hadn't discovered last time was Kitty Hawk, NC.  Kitty Hawk captured our attention and our hearts, and maybe some day when we get off the road, God will lead us in that direction.  Who knows.  It was the first town we have seen since being on the road that we felt a sense of comfort toward.  Maybe Kitty Hawk in the summer, and Florida in the winter?  You never know!  Our next stop is Washington, D.C. for Easter and my birthday!  More later!  Blessings to each of you who takes the time to read this site.

 

 Easter, 2007:  We left the Outer Banks yesterday in 35mph winds and rain.  The night before kept our rig rocking as the wind howled around us without stopping.  As we worked our way into Virginia, snow began whipping around us, and we knew we were in for an adventure.  Our GPS, who we affectionately call Gidget, took us through Norfolk, and before we knew it, we were heading for the Hampton Roads Tunnel, which has a clearance of only 13'6".  While we knew the height of our rig, we were uncertain about total height because our rig has a satellite dome installed on top that was not included in the measurements.  Bob guessed that the total height with truck and rig was about 13'4"-13'6".  After we saw the sign for 13'6", we knew we could be in trouble, but there was no turnaround.  I began praying and Bob theatrically told me to turn off the radio so we could hear whether or not the satellite dome was going to be sheared off!  Talk about scared.  The split-second of entering that tunnel was forever embedded in my memory bank as being one of the scariest split-seconds of my life!  I was so relieved as the rig slid into the tunnel that I started crying.  Little did I know that this was just the beginning!

 

Traveling on I-64 was snow-laden with gale force winds and two separate accidents to slow us down, but we finally hit I-95 and since the snow had stopped and the sky was blue, we thought now we were home free - not so!  Getting closer to DC was a nightmare of backed up traffic, stop and go, no reasons for it, especially on a Saturday, but we made it.  Gidget put us on the beltway and then it happened.  All of a sudden, out of the clear blue, with no warning, Bob driving in the middle lane, we spot a sign telling us clearance of 13' was ahead!  OMG!  He had less than 30 seconds to change lanes and to get the heck off of the highway!  We knew for sure that our rig would lose its roof this time.  To make a long and emotional story short, he got off and we found ourselves right at Capitol Hill off of Pennsylvania Avenue!  Poor Gidget didn't know what to do!  :)

Finally, having to maneuver the rig down Pennsylvania Ave., SE, we were able to get back onto a highway and find our way to the campground.  What should have been a 4-hour trip ended up being 5 1/2 hours.  We were exhausted, but hey, we made it!  What a gorgeous campground this place is!  We were so happy to get into the office and then the lady informed us they had no reservations for us.  What?!  Well, that was okay, they had room this time of the year, although you wouldn't believe how many campers are here!  She gave us a site, finally found our reservations in the computer, and off we went.  Bob backed in after some amount of struggle (the site was narrow) and then I said to him that this was a great campground - they actually furnish the water hose and electric cord.  Not so!  Bob told me to call the office and double-check, and sure enough, the site was being used by someone else who had left for the day in their rig!  Okay, so now they give us another site and off we go - only to find there's no way our rig was going to fit in that site.  So now, instead of calling, we go back to the office and this time, Bob handles it.  Needless to say, we have a lovely back-in site, very spacious and very far away from the office!After sleeping like babies, we are off to church.  There is a Southern Baptist Church right near here, and we'll enjoy Easter Services with them.  Today, we'll take the subway into DC to explore a couple things, and then tomorrow we'll plan an all-day sightseeing tour.  Oh, and the other cool thing that happened was the birth of our grandson, Oliver Coleman Kimball, who weighed in at just under 8 pounds, born Good Friday (thank you Lord for giving them a healthy son).  Life is good, but God is gooder!  More later!

April 11th - After 3 days of museums, monuments and memorials, we are ready to leave DC.  Our stay here was wonderful, although a bit cooler than we like it, and very tiring.  We took lots of pictures, some of which we'll share with you, and we are now ready to taste a bit more of our American heritage by visiting Gettysburg for a few days.  Enjoy! 

 

 

April 15th – we are in Western New York, about an hour from Niagara Falls, in a small town called Batavia.  I’ll be presenting a workshop Wednesday to the Genesee Valley Board of Realtors, which is what brought us to New York in the first place.  Because of the workshop, we planned our trip from DC to Gettysburg and took our time seeing sights.  We had planned to stay in Gettysburg until today and were planning to visit Hershey, PA yesterday.  Yesterday morning, however, Bob and I both woke up with a strong sense that we should cancel our plans to Hershey and leave Gettysburg as quickly as possible.  A storm was coming, and while we aren’t necessarily afraid of snow or cold, we do know that the countryside is mountainous.  We now know that the Holy Spirit was guiding our very decisions as He regularly does, and we sure do thank him.  Sometimes we don’t stop and think about God guiding us, but today it is very clear.  We arrived at the campground at 6:30, and we were exhausted.  After dinner and a little TV, we went to bed early.  We woke up at 5:30 AM to find everything covered in snow!  It was so beautiful.  It’s been 10 years since I’ve seen any accumulation, and I must admit, it made me feel very nostalgic.  It’s beautiful to look at – as long as we don’t have to drive in it!  So here we are in upstate New York, and I doubt we’ll get to see Niagara Falls, but if we do, we’ll take pictures to prove we got there!  In the meantime, hope you enjoy the pictures from Gettysburg and New York.  We’ll be heading for Massachusetts Wednesday afternoon after the workshop.

 

 

April 19th – The e-PRO workshop in Warsaw, NY was great fun and was successful.  We hit the road about 1:00 PM and decided to drive about 4-5 hours since we had plenty of time and the next workshop isn’t until April 20th.  By the time 7:00 pm rolled around, we had searched for campgrounds on the Internet, came off the Interstate to follow sign to a campground, only to find it closed, made several phone calls to campgrounds, and then decided we weren’t going to find one open.  We decided we would pull into a truck stop and sleep there.  Every truck stop we found was full of truckers and no parking spaces for us were available.  We kept driving, the rain became heavy, the GPS failed, and just be God’s grace, I called one more campground and got the emergency night attendant.  At the precise time I was speaking to him, the exit appeared and 10 minutes later found us in a space!  Once again, the Lord provided right down to a tee!  We are in Sturbridge, MA and will stay here 3 nights.  We’ll go over to Salisbury Beach on Saturday where we’ll stay a week before checking into the project in Damariscotta, ME.  We managed to see Niagara Falls afterall and were thrilled to get some pictures, some of which are below.  The next time we update, we’ll be in Salisbury Beach, so until then, be blessed!

 

 

Salisbury Beach, MA was one of the prettiest campgrounds we've experienced.  The day we got there was sunny and comfortable in the 70's, but then it went downhill from there.  The entire time we were there showed us cold, windy and rainy days.  We had a wonderful time there in spite of the weather and we were able to visit with family and friends; we also had grandson Sullivan several times so we had a good time playing grandparents.  Fellowshipping at The Bible Speaks was a sweet experience, and it was very nice seeing old friends once again.

We are now in Damariscotta, Maine where the project for this summer is.  We'll set up a new section for Damariscotta and will update it soon.  Blessings to each of you!