Charleston 20230213

Another good day here in Charleston. After breakfast we set out for Magnolia Plantation, which turned out to be pretty near where we are staying. We went on a guided tour of the manor house, which was very interesting. It has been in the family for generations. We were not allowed to take pictures inside, but we enjoyed the tour. Clearly people were shorter in the 19th century judging by the size of the beds. After that tour, we went to a tour of the slave cabins, which were quite primitive. Following the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, slavery was outlawed in the U.S., but many of the formerly enslaved people stayed on the plantation because they didn’t have anywhere else to go. The cabins were from different times, one having been renovated in the 20th century, but they are all very basic.

After the plantation tours, we went to see the Angel Oak. It is a Live Oak, and is reputed to be the biggest tree east of the Mississippi River, and I can believe it. It was quite magnificent. But by the time we finished I was starting to feel a bit worse for the wear, and we went back to the RV, where I lay down while Cheryl went for a walk. I felt like I had come down with an illness of some kind, and went to bed early and slept in late the next morning.

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Charleston 20230214

When I got up I was still not feeling all the good, so we decided today would be a day off. Thankfully, I started to feel better as the day went on, which is good because tomorrow we start the trip home. We’ve got about a 3 hour drive ahead of us.

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Dublin, GA 20230215

W got up in the morning, packed up the RV, and started our trip back home. The first leg had us retracing our steps to Savannah, where we picked up I-16, but this time headed west instead of into downtown Savannah. It was a nice sunny day and a very pleasant drive. I was not 100% yet, but nothing specific was wrong with me, and I enjoyed the drive. We are back to the up-and-down of rolling hills to be sure. We pulled into the Honeysuckle Farm RV Park in Dublic, GA after about 3.5 hours of driving, and just did a quick setup of connecting electric and water, and didn’t unhitch the truck at all. That makes for fast setups and a fast getaway in the morning, but does leave the RV moving around a bit more when someone is walking around inside. But we find it worthwhile to save time.

Montgomery, AL 20230216

Up in the morning and getting that early start. I could still enjoy my leisurely breakfast, and yet we were out of there by 9:30. I’m still just slightly “off”, but I fell like I am almost over whatever the heck it is that has been bothering me. Unlike the previous day, the roads were a little more difficult than the Interstate, but that mostly meant I annoyed other drivers by driving slower than they would like on some one-lane roads. But I am the one towing my home around with me, and I know that I need more room to stop. Today’s drive ended up being about 4 hours, and we pulled into the Montgomery South RV Park for a 2 night stay. We will be running a few errands, like shopping and refueling, so we unhitched the truck this time.

Montgomery, AL 20230217

For the first time since that bug bit me in Charleston, I woke up feeling perfectly normal! I even looked forward to my breakfast. But it is good that we planned a day off so I could rest up a bit and get even better. We did some grocery shopping but otherwise not much.

Tupelo, MS 20230218

Birthplace of Elvis Presley, but we only stayed here overnight. The park was nice, but hilly, and we were not able to get quite level while staying hooked up. But the idea was just to get a night’s sleep and hit the road again tomorrow.

Portageville, MO 20230219

Our day’s drive took us from Mississippi to Missouri, where we checked in at the Bootheel RV Park. There was no one there, but they left us an envelope with our site assignment. Basically a nice, flat gravel site which wasn’t bad except for the sewer connection. Cheryl had some milk that had gone by, and dumped it in the sewer, but it looked like it was just staying there. Fortunately we could go another few days without dumping.

Portageville, MO 20230220

Another rest day we built in, and I’m liking it since I am doing all of the driving. We did go to a nearby town to do grocery shopping and refill a propane tank, but otherwise relaxed. I finished the book I had been working on about Paul McCartney (McCartney Legacy, Vol. 1: 1969-1973). We watched another Avengers video with dinner.

Chatham, IL 20230221

We made it to the Double J RV Park in Chatham for an overnight stay. Our plan was to dump the tanks, fill them with water, add a cup of Dawn Dish Detergent to each, and let that slosh around on our trip tomorrow. We normally would do that in the morning before leaving, but the forecast was for rain, so we did it in the afternoon while we still had light.

Indianapolis, IN 20230222

We returned to the Lake Haven RV Park we stayed in on our outbound trip back in December. It was a little better getting there when it was still light out, and we got almost the same site as before, right near the entrance.

Home, 20230223

In the morning we dumped the tanks, then put some more water in the rinse them, and dumped again. Then we drained the water heater, and drained the system using the low point drains, and added RV Anti-Freeze. The RV will not be used any longer, and temperatures are still below freezing, so precautions needed to be taken. We knew that there was a freezing rain problem back home, but the forecast was that temperatures would rise during the day, and we also checked with neighbors who said it looked good and that we had not lost power, unlike many in our area. So we took our time in the morning, then hit the road for our last leg. We got back just after 3pm, and started to unload the RV. Over the next few days we finished the unloading, washed all of the linens, and placed them back in the RV. On Sunday we took the RV and the truck back to our storage lot, and this ended our trip.

Lessons Learned

We did a whole lot better on this trip. We drove less each day, and built in rest stops. And because we paid attention to the grade of the roads, we did not have any scary moments. We learned a lot about winter camping as it turned out because of the Polar Vortex issue that had us freezing in Alabama over the Christmas holidays. And while I would have preferred not to go through that, I guess knowledge is always a good thing. Cheryl did us a very good turn by purchasing a heated water hose in our preparations. We had had a few below-freezing nights in Arizona last year so we knew it was a good idea, but what we hit in Alabama was totally unexpected. And we now have Reflectix panels to put in all of our windows. And they can do double duty by keeping out heat when the temperatures rise, so it’s all good. All in all, I think we are getting to be comfortable veterans of the RV experience, though you never stop learning. The last thing I will mention is the WiFi Hot Spot we bought. It is from Solis, and it worked great for us in letting us get online. It connects to telephone carriers, but we just pay for the device and for the gigabytes we download directly with Solis. It may not be cheapest solution, but it is dead simple, and I like that.