We had to take Tal-y to get her lime disease booster shot today and the closest Banfield to us is about an hour away so we took of from the campground around 10.30 this morning. This is how far in the middle of nowhere this campsite is, even Nell can’t load her maps and calculate our route until she is out on the main highway. She has only one bar highlghted and it’s red instead of the usual green; we have to turn her off and reboot her when we leave the gate – no wonder the only perfect TV channel Mike can get is the Christian station!
So we drove to Rocky Mount, NC, to Petsmart where we had an appointment at 2.30. The drive down was an eye opener, I can’t believe people live like they do. I should be used to it now as this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this but it’s still shocking; there is definitely something to be said for HOA’s. The gardens we drove past were exactly like scrap yards, there were broken down cars and junk everywhere. And the houses themselves were in a terrible state of repair, we passed one houses that had its sides being held up with planks of wood wedged into the ground. How do people let their property get into such a state? I can see one or two houses where someone has passed away but here it was rampant, almost every other property. I feel bad for the people who make the effort to keep their houses and gardens looking nice and then have to drive past others that look like they should be condemned. Sad, sad, sad.
We got to Rocky Mount early and so I got to do some Christmas shopping, and I think I’m just about finished; now all I have to do is pack it and mail it. After lunch we got to Petsmart and only had to wait about 15 minutes to see the vet. Tal-y got her booster and her butt checked, and her tick bite site was declared to be healing nicely. The vet wanted to give her another shot for something to protect her from some bacteria found in standing water; she told us it’s a standard vaccine for North Carolina but it only protects her from 4 of the 12 strains of bacteria. We decided not to get it, I don’t want her looking like a pin cushion, and if I’d done some research on the Lyme disease vaccine before going to the vet I probably wouldn’t have gotten that one either. It’s a sad case of affairs when you’re not sure whether to listen to what the ‘professional’ is telling you.
After that we headed home and ate left over Thanksgiving food with luscious mash potato; I’ve never seen Tal-y eat her food so fast as she did tonight when it was covered in mashed potato. Now I’m off to bed to try to get to sleep before the storm comes; we are supposed to have severe thunder and lightening, wind and rain tonight. I’m definitely going to wake Mike if it gets too scary.

Mike: Not unlike the typical family physician!

I got up and took Tal-y out to go to the bathroom and she had an audience.There are cats everywhere here, and squirrels, and then we saw five deer just standing off in the trees as we walked up the path from our trailer, they crossed the road right in front of us. She wanted to give chase but I talked her out of it – where do you think the ticks come from silly puppy.
Mike spent some time at the lodge this morning and while I was getting showered
Tal-y sat behind the screen scanning for cats. When I looked out the door the five deer where standing in the trees about 6 feet from the trailer, they are so cute but very easily startled and they took off almost immediately.
We drove into Gasburg this afternoon and if we hadn’t had to do a u-turn we might not have know we were there. It’s tiny with just a Post Office, a gas station, a church, and a flower shop. Mike had to go into the Post Office and came out all amused by the conversations he heard inside. The Post Office lady told him ‘have a nice day and y’all come back and see us now’ – they really do speak like that here, it’s very cute. We ate lunch at Subway in Littleton, NC, as it was the only place to eat for miles. Tomorrow we are going to head further south in North Carolina to find some real civilization in Rocky Mount as Tal-y has to have an shot and I’m hopefully going to do some Christmas Shopping – only 25 days to go, and even less time to get stuff shipped.

Mike: Great, I can hardly wait, take Tal-y to the Vet and Christmas shop! Do I have to eat my Okra too?

There were four in the bed and the little one was attached to Tal-y’s eyelid. Yep, Tal-y had a tick right above her eye, it was gross and fat and I found it this morning so it must have spent the night in bed with us. I was cleaning her eye and saw something move and it was just sitting there like an inflated balloon eith legs. Mike plucked it off and we now have it in a baggy.
All this excitement happened just as we were getting ready to leave the campsite as we moved from Gloucester today. We got packed up and the hitching was amazingly easy with our new crank. We didn’t both have to push and pull to wind it and when we did wind it the trailer actually moved as intended. It was so easy after the last few times we’ve moved, definitely a good buy. After removing the hitchhiker we headed south to Gasburg which is about a three hour drive from Gloucester and right on the North Carolina border. The drive down was fine but not as pretty as previous journeys in Virginia as most of the trees had lost their leaves and there were lots of areas of marsh and scrub.
When we got to the campsite Mike checked us in and the lady as the office gave us a site number. When we drove to it it was already occupied so Mike had to hitch a ride back to the office on the back of any campers golf cart. We got a site eventually and got situated fairly quickly. We are in a nice wooded spot with easy access to everything, the clubhouse, lake and beach, and there only seems to be three trailers here on this side of the grounds. Mike has the same complaint as the last place, no cell phone service, 3 Ion TV channels, and weak internet; at least we are only staying a week, and the lodge has a TV and good internet where we can use Magic Jack. The maintenance worker came by to turn on our water and to instruct us how to turn it off when the temperature gets to freezing, he asked for the man of the house when I went out, does he think that I’m not capable of turning the frigging water off? We do have some very friendly neighbours here, they came to greet us as we were getting set up; Tal-y didn’t know which one to say hello to first.
This place has a huge fun center with indoor miniature golf, 10-lane bowling alley, indoor pool and weight room among other things that we get to use. We went up and checked it out this afternoon and it’s very nice, and they sell pizza!

Mike: Tal-y's new friends are cats! The park is loaded with them.

Happy 2nd Thanksgiving. Mike and I cooked thanksgiving in the trailer tonight just for the three of us. Tofurky, stuffing, roasties and veg, it was yummy even if it did take quite a while to cook the spuds in our oven. I managed to burn myself only twice while trying to fit two lots of trays in an oven that only has one shelf; it took some maneuvering but I did it eventually and dinner was good and we have some leftovers too. I made rice pudding for dessert which took about an hour longer to cook than it was supposed to but it didn’t taste too bad, particularly with whipped cream on it. Now Mike and I have to start being good again as we’ve eaten like pigs this week especially since we haven’t been to far from the trailer.

Mike: Back to Quaker oats! (There's still some dressing left!).

Well we decided not to go shopping today on Black Friday even though I was awake last night at 3.00 a.m. cos it was so bloody windy. I swear the trailer was rocking and rolling so much I thought I was going to get seasick, and of course Mike thinks I’m joking but what would he know, him and Tal-y were snoring their heads off the whole time. It was a little scary cos the trailer really was moving and the wind was making the awning straps whistle; not the most fun night I’ve spent in here.
Since I didn’t sleep much through the night I didn’t wake up till after ten this morning; I felt a little guilty being in bed so late but it gave Mike some peace and quiet to get his stuff done, whatever stuff he does while I’m sleeping.

Mike: Ah, peace and quiet!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
We, Tal-y and I spent an hour at the park this morning with her friend Frank (an old pug), and her newest friend Phoebe (a 5 month old Boston Terrier); she had a good run around which meant she slept most of the way to Chesapeake. After getting showered and ready we drove to Dana and Alan’s, past bunches and bunches of highway Patrol, and got there about 1ish to find a hectic but very efficient kitchen; all the older girls were pitching in and getting the food done. We ate a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with them all, it was good food and there was lots of it; I think they’ll be eating leftovers for a few days. The kids were all very well behaved and ate dinner at their own table while the ‘adults’ had a separate table. The only one who miss behaved was Tal-y. We out her in the truck while we all ate dinner, but when she came back in she couldn’t keep her nose out of the bin and kept trying to steal the food that was being thrown away. At one point she had the audacity to growl at Mike when he pulled her away from the bin – I think that’s the last time she’ll be doing that.
We headed home before it got dark but we still drove the last half hour or so in the dark, and when I say dark I mean dark, there was very little traffic and no street lights – it’s very different to San Diego.

Mike: Good food! Bad Tal-y!

More cooking today, I made another excellent pecan pie (the other one must have been excellent as it’s gone) and Mike made stuffing to take with us tomorrow. That’s about as exciting as our day got. Mike did load my spanish language CD’s onto the computer also today so now I have no excuses, I’ll be fluent by February!

Mike: The food was good! We'll see about the spanish!

We decided to go to the beach today, to get out of the trailer since we haven’t done an awful lot the past 10 days or so, so we set off for Gloucester Point with the intention of running the dog on the sand. We had wanted to head to Achilles or Severn but Nell didn’t have them in her so Gloucester Point was the next best thing.; we took a detour to Achilles when we saw the sign. I now know why Nell doesn’t have either town in her memory as they were literally just wide spots in the road and I can’t imagine anyone ever wanting to go there. We drove through both towns and kept heading towards the water on the map. We passed some funky houses up on box stilts and some even funkier people sitting out on their garden swing in camouflage dungarees with bottles of beer (it was 11 in the morning). I thought West Virginia was a little scary, this was worse. The whole area was a big marshy bog and the road we were on turned into a one lane rough road that ended in the bog. Just beyond where the road ended was a huge expanse of water with a half-sunk boat in it that looked like it had been abandoned, it was weird. We never did find the beach and Tal-y had to make do with a run around the Bark Park, which was fine with her; really she was happy just sitting on the step trying to spot squirrels.

Mike: Its that sheltered life thing again!

Mike went over to the lodge early this morning to use the landline there to call the RV repair guy and it turned out that he could come out today; he got here just about lunchtime and was here for about 2 hours. He fixed the electric thingy that heats the water, which will save us having to use the gas, he also did something to the back of the fridge. Apparently the fridge we have had a recall a while back, something about something inside getting hot and catching fire or something; anyway he put that right. And he gave us a brand spanking new cranker that should make hitching up so much easier. The one we had on there was bent and the guts were all ruined and that’s why when we turned it nothing was really happening. I hope he’s right and the problem was with the winder, and not with the folk doing the winding! He didn’t fix the antenna as Mike had already taken care of that himself. While he was here Tal-y and I had to wander aimlessly around the park as Tal-y is not very well behaved when someone is walking around our space, she always seems to think they are moving in on her territory. It was quite a long two hours as it's been so hot here, but definitely worth it to have everything in working order and we actually didn’t have to wander for the whole time as Tal-y chilled out on the patio after realizing the man was doing good.
We also defrosted the fridge and freezer today. It needed doing, I now have another whole shelf in the fridge which was unusable before the defrost as the ice was so thick in the top of the fridge. We had hoped that the fix the repair guy did would correct the problem of the fridge freezing but it didn’t, he told us our thermostat needs to be replaced to correct that issue. I guess for right now we’ll carry on eating frozen lettuce and drinking icy milk. I’m just grateful for the things he did fix.
After the repair guy left I used the oven in the trailer to make something other than baked potatoes. We are going to Dana’s for Thanksgiving and I want to take a pecan pie with us but I want it to be edible so today I made a practice pie. I cheated a little as I bought the piecrust ready done; I think baby steps are called for, maybe I’ll make pastry next Thanksgiving. Anyway the pie had to cook a little longer than the recipe called for but it turned out just fine; at least I think it’s fine as there’s only half a pie left right now.

Mike: Your starting to talk like the people here! Ya'al!

I didn’t do much of anything today just chores around the trailer while Mike got the rest of our reservations sorted out (or as sorted as they can be with no phone service). We are mostly booked now through the end of February, which is hopefully when we will be heading to Ecuador for a few months. This should be the last booking Mike has to do till at least the end of next year, except for finding some place to put the trailer in storage. Now we just have to figure out how to get Tal-y to the Wales and book tickets to Ecuador.
This afternoon I drove the truck on roads other than those in the trailer parks for the first time since we left San Diego, and I might also be the last time for a while unless I’m by myself. We had to take some movies back to a RedBox about 20 minutes from where we are staying and Mike had had a drink and so couldn’t drive. I got to drive and listen to him moan about my driving the whole way there and back. Actually it wasn’t so much the moaning that was the problem but the flinching and the foot mashing that got to me. It was like he thought I was a bad driver or something!
Tal-y and I took a lovely walk along the beach this evening (mostly to calm my nerves after the ‘pleasant’ drive) and she wasn’t too afraid of the lapping water although she didn’t really want to get to close. Do rivers have tides? The last time we came down to the river there was no beach, now today there’s a beach about three feet wide. Maybe it has something to do with the gorgeous full moon that’s in the sky tonight.

Mike: Its enough to put me off drinking!

We had to take a drive to Gloucester RV today which is about an hour away to see if they had the parts to fix all our little issues. Mike went in to talk to them and made my day when he came out and told me that they are going to come out and fix everything. I really didn’t fancy seeing Mike and me changing out the hitch crank ourselves, we’d probably kill each other. They are going to send someone out sometime next week.

Mike: I cudda done it!

We moved back to the Gloucester park today so we only had a short drive to make. But how come Nell took us on the same roads to get back here as when we left but the time was shorter by about 10 minutes? If you travel the same distance in opposite directions shouldn’t it take the same amount of time, I mean we aren't flying so we don’t have a tail wind?
We took even longer to pack up this gorgeous morning than on the day we got here, but since the drive was so short there wasn’t really any great rush. We had a little trouble with the hitching up again; I wasn’t so awesome this morning. I was backing up but every time I put the truck in park it would roll a little bit either forward or back. Mike kept yelling at me to put the brake on before I put the car in neutral which I thought I was doing, but he meant the hand brake and not the brake brake. When I finally figured it out the truck didn’t roll anymore! The next little problem we had was all Mike, he hitched up and then took the block out from under the hitch before putting the anti sway bars on – silly boy. To be fair to him he was being distracted by our buddha bellied friend who came over to talk to us, Mike is not very good at the multitasking thing. We had to jack the trailer back up which is getting harder and harder to do for some reason.
We finally got on the road and got to Gloucester before noon and got all checked in. We parked in a little different place than last time but the park is still very quiet and even though there are a number of RV’s here there are not too many of them that are occupied. Unhitching was difficult, Mike had to jump up and down on the bumper again to get the hitch apart, and it seems that we are going to have to get a new cranky thing in the near future as the one we have seems to have had it’s day. Besides needing a new crank, the electric water heater is also broken; when we turned it on today the water didn’t get hot – definitely a sign that something is not quite right. To top it all off, when Mike started tuning in the TV this afternoon the handle that winds the antenna came off in his hand. That’s three things, that should be it right?

Mike: Ah, the leisure life, no problems, no worries!

Bought a Magic Jack today – Mike is anticipating phone problems when we get back to Gloucester I think.

Mike: No problem, just no phone!

Drove to Chesapeake today to visit Dana and Alan at their home and got to meet all the kids. The drive down was nice, it took us a little over an hour and we got to see Chesapeake Bay when we drove under and over it.
The house was all quiet when we got there as only Dana was home, and we got to spend an hour or so just chatting and catching up. The peace was shattered when the kids started arriving home, but it was really good to see them again, and to meet those we hadn’t met before. They definitely fill the house, as all the little ones seem to want to talk at the same time, but they were very entertaining. Tal-y had a blast too, both with the kids and watching the squirrels in the back garden.
We stayed to eat dinner and being at the table was like being on a merry-go-round, as one person got up someone else took their seat. Having too extra people to feed meant the table was way past capacity but everyone got fed, the meal was good, and we appreciate Dana and Alan inviting us into their home.

Mike: The inmates have taken over the asylum!

Since we have all means of communication available to us here Mike took advantage of it and spent most of today taking care of business, 401(k) business and the like. I’m not sure what all I did other than walking with Tal-y, but the day sure went fast, and now it’s time for bed.

Mike:We ate too!

We moved on today to Williamsburg where we are going to spend the next four days. We didn’t get too early a start and packed up at a nice leisurely pace since our drive today was only 50 minutes. Mike’s been having a little trouble with hitching and unhitching the trailer as he can’t seem to get the trailer high enough to get it on and off the tow bar so today I took matters into my own hands and hitched up all by myself. Okay, they previous statement isn’t entirely true, but I did back the truck onto the trailer today for the first time – I was awesome! Okay, Mike backed the truck up almost the whole way, then because he weighs more than me he stood on the bumper while I backed the truck up the last 2½ inches. You thought I was going to say feet didn’t you, anyway I was still awesome.
The drive down here was uneventful and really, really short. This is a really nice park too, not as big as the last one but very open, and with very few people. We did have a visitor come chat to us while we were getting set up, a round bellied bloke from the other side of the road who didn’t seem to have all his teeth – you meet all sorts in these places, he was actually ex military and very nice. This park is a little different than most of the Thousand Trail parks as instead of being in the middle of nowhere, this one is right beside the freeway; we can hear the traffic noise from the park but at least we have easy access to everything. We took a drive just down the road this afternoon and there are some good restaurant and shops about 5 minutes away from us.
Mike is happy, super fast internet, all the local TV channels, and phone service, - you just don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone!

Mike: Can I still make lots of noise?

Had a little lie in this morning before getting ready to out. We drove to Newport News to meet Alan and Dana at a mexican restaurant for lunch, only problem was the restaurant was no longer there so we ended up at Red Robin. It was all good though and it was great to see them both, and Jake who came with them. It’s been forever since we saw Alan, although he hasn’t changed a bit, and Dana looked fantastic after the icky year she’s had. It was nice to catch up with them and to hear about their family, and I am looking forward to visiting them again while we are in this area.
On the way home we stopped at about 400 grocery stores looking for curry paste and couldn’t find any anywhere, don’t they eat curry out here?

Mike: They don't eat Indian food here? I thought this is where the first settlements were and the Indians taught them how to cook their food!

Left fairly early this morning and had a really beautiful drive down through Virginia; this really is a gorgeous state, especially at this time of the year. I think the colours of the trees here are more amazing than in New England, the colours are just so much more deep and vibrant.
The drive down here wasn’t too bad, and not too long and we got to the park around mid afternoon; it seemed to take a lot out of Tal-y however as she needed a long nap after we arrived. It’s a nice place, quite big with maybe 150 sites, but they are quite spread out and there are not too many people here this time of the year. The park is right alongside the Plankatank River, which looks more like a lake than a river. We looked for a space along the river but most were taken, and apparently we don’t get internet along the river bank. We ended up parking smack dab in the middle of the park, on a row where we are the only trailer so we can make all the noise we want.
This afternoon we took a quick trip into Gloucester, which is not actually that quick as it’s about half an hour to the town. We went to get our mail at the Post Office, and this was the first time Jazmin had mailed it so we weren’t sure if it would actually be there, but hooray it was. Seriously, thanks Jazmin you really are awesome, and if you weren’t so old we’d adopt you as our own!
Mike’s a little gutted at the moment as he’s trying to tune in the TV, and no matter how he turns the antenna we still get a funky picture that comes and goes. And, on top of that we have absolutely no cell phone service in this place, none. The map of the park has a ‘cell stump' on it that we went in search off this evening; I’m not sure whether we found it or not but we didn’t find any cell service. I thought AT&T covered 99% of the country - it could be a long few days, although Tal-y is happy as there’s a bark park here.

Mike: No TV, no cell service, wow, I'll be surfing the web and making a lot of noise!

Today we headed off into West Virginia. We went directly west from where we are in Front Royal (or as directly as is possible when we are in the middle of nowhere) and headed towards Petersburg which is probably about 40 miles or so from the West Virginia border. It was a pretty drive although it became a little more bleak as we headed further into West Virginia. We stopped along the route at a roadside park that was really well kept right on the river, and Tal-y got to run a little. There were some guys there putting up Christmas decorations; they do know it’s only just November right?
Well there’s not a whole lot going on between Front Royal and Petersburg along highway 55, just lots of wide-open space. We ate lunch in Petersburg at a Subway since that was the only ‘restaurant’ for miles in any direction, and then decided to head south down the 220 to take a different route home. As we were leaving Petersburg Mike saw a sign that pointed in the opposite direction from what Nell was telling that said 'Historic Petersburg’, and decided he needed to see it. Turns out that just because there’s a sign doesn’t mean there’s going to be anything to see of historic value (or any other value for that matter). Nell recalculated and took us over a rickety bridge and off up a hill. Mike was going to do a U-turn but I told him it wasn’t necessary so up the hill we headed – we should have done the U-turn! We went up the hill forever, past some houses until the paved road came to an end, then we just kept going; it was like one of those places you see on Criminal Minds where the killer keeps people in his basement and eats them. The road was gravelly and rutted with drives off it, with no houses or people in sight; we didn’t pass a car on the way up or on the way down and the drive was about 25 minutes. Mike was kind and drove slowly for me, but I was very happy when we found civilization again. After heading south for a while longer we then turned east back into Virginia over the Appalachian Mountains. The road over the mountains that we took was super steep and super windy – good job we weren’t pulling the trailer today. The views from them were amazing as we went up the west side of them; unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures as we couldn’t really stop in the middle of the road.
When we got home we took Tal-y for a walk around the campsite and she made a new four legged friend, only this one had horns; she seems to be really taken with a white goat that lives here. She didn’t take too kindly to the horse or the other goat, she only had eyes for the white one.
We are heading south tomorrow to Gloucester, hopefully we’ll be a little closer to some other folks!

Mike:Some people have just lived a sheltered life!