Kathleen's Window: Life in Camp

Friday, April 19, 2013

We are settling into a routine here at Cedar Point Campground in Croatan National Forest. We've made the decision to stay three more nights for a total of nine. This is the longest that we've stayed in one campground. Having a vacation from our traveling as we wait for the weather to warm up, means we are conserving our resources, because we will be spending more this summer when we travel in Canada. The only expense we have, besides our fixed expenses, mostly for various insurances, is the nightly fee of $17. We purchased groceries on the Outer Banks before we took the ferry over, and have been stretching them. While we're camped we aren’t spending money on fuel.

We're getting to know people in this informal community. Everyone is very friendly, but will also respect your privacy. There are two couples who serve as campground hosts. We don't expect to see Forest Service personnel. With budget cuts in recent years and the sequestration, most public campgrounds are run by volunteers in exchange for their camping sites. The first couple we met has been here since March. They live full time in a Class A motorhome, which is the RV on a bus chassis that most people think of as the stereotypical RV. The husband is retired military and they appreciate having the PX at Camp LeJeune nearby. Their son and his family are stationed nearby, so they do babysitting for them.

The other couple lives in a large trailer. By the looks of their campsite they've been here a long time. They have lots of lawn ornaments and fenced in flower gardens. They have two dogs. The woman uses a motorized wheelchair to tour the campground twice a day. The black fluffy dog rides and the other dog, a Chinese Crested Hairless Terrier, who screams instead of barking, jogs along on a leash. The woman wears a big blue sunhat with flowers on it and lavender Crocs. She has a plastic crate attached to the back with a sign that says “Cowboy Up”. We finally saw the husband, but neither seems to be doing much in exchange for their site. The other couple seems to be doing most of the work.

The campground has a 14 day limit. There are some fulltimers who are staying here for the full two weeks. Other campers come for less time and rotate out again. The community's make-up changes on a daily basis. There is a rhythm and flow to life here, as the 2 pm checkout time arrives and current residents leave and new ones arrive. We check out the changes as we bike around the loop each day. Today brought an elderly couple with a converted box trailer, in which they had installed windows and a door. They had several large cages of exotic birds on their picnic table. He was riding around on an early recumbent bike. Lots of campers ride bikes and there are several regulars that we see riding round and round the loop.

There are a few tents, but the majority are RVs, primarily Class A motorhomes, class C's like ours, large trailers, and fifth wheel trailers, which hitch into the bed of a pickup truck, instead of a bumper hitch. Those are the really tall trailers you see on the highways. The front area is the bedroom that is 4 or 5 steps up from the rest of the trailer. We see a few Class B's that are the same chassis as ours, but smaller and without the over cab bed. Most of the RV's are large, new or relatively new.

The majority of the campers are from North Carolina or New York. The New Yorkers are heading south to escape their late spring, and the fulltimers, like us, are waiting for the weather to warm before heading north. There seems to be a lot of retired military here. Today we had a truck with 12 kayaks on it arrive, and a group of young people set up tents together. Don't know how much kayaking they'll do. There is a strong storm system coming in later today.

Our campsite has grass and a few trees, a paved pad and a gravel area with a picnic table and two poles with hooks on for lanterns. We have an electrical hook-up which we use with a surge protector, as the current can fluctuate in a campground and we don't want to ruin the electric in our camper. We can fill up jugs of water just down the road, and Greg has developed a method for siphoning the water into the fresh water tank. Otherwise, we fill the tank from the water filling station when we drive every other day or so to the dump station in the campground, to dump our grey and black tanks.

Next to the dump area are the rest rooms, men's and women's, and five unisex showers. Even though there is plenty of water here, we were surprised to find push button showers like we used in the desert. They haven't been adjusted recently and all seem to be down to 8 seconds or less for a push, except the handicapped shower that gives you maybe 12 seconds. It takes about six pushes before you get under the water to make sure it is hot enough. The showers are large and clean with a bench and hooks, but a nuisance to keep punching the button! But, it still beats dealing with our RV shower!

We have been spending our days catching up with odds and ends. Greg has been doing bike maintenance and taking a late morning bike ride into the National Forest most days. I ride around the campground and down to the picnic area by the river, and we have taken two walks on the nature trail into the tidelands. Greg is also doing minor repairs, and I am going through recipes and planning future meals. The rest of the time we are still catching up on business that we didn't complete before we left town in November. I have been e-mailing and will be writing notes to let everyone know where we are and what we are doing. Leaving in November meant we were on the road for Christmas, so there were no Christmas letters to let family and friends know how our lives had changed!

Yesterday we made the decision to do some hand wash since we couldn't find a laundromat nearby. It's been over two weeks since we last did laundry at Kaylin's, so we needed to remedy that! I used our “green washing machine”, which consists of a collapsible bucket, water and Seventh Generation detergent. Lots of swishing and rinsing and wringing (my muscles!) later, I put them in (on) my solar dryer, our collapsible drying rack.

In the evenings we've been streaming movies, until we got a notice from Millenicom, which is our wireless data provider that resells bandwidth on the Verizon cell system, telling us that we have used most of our bandwidth for the month. So we are staying off the computer and watching DVDs instead for entertainment. Our rooftop TV antenna brings in several local stations. While I have been typing this I have been watching the coverage from Boston. Hopefully by the time you read this it will be resolved.

So, here we sit waiting for the storm system that has spun off tornadoes and caused flooding farther west. That's one of the reasons we are hugging the coast. This is tornado season!We've got three more nights to soak in the “ambiance” of this campground and then Monday morning we will move on, possibly to the other side of the National Forest. We keep checking the weather farther north and discussing possibilities, but April can be a cruel month! We need to be patient!