OBX

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Here we are back on the road again! We arrived in Maryland on Wednesday, March 20^th and spent two hectic weeks catching up with family and friends, doctor's appointments, taxes, mail, banking, and all the other odds and ends that we can't do on the road. I also re-sorted the belongings we kept after selling the house, that we had dumped in Kaylin and Eli's basement on our way out of town in November. Also, thanks to Kaylin and Eli's gracious use of their washer and dryer we washed almost a month's worth of clothes, sheets and towels, and rugs!

Greg had maintenance and repair work done to the RV while dealing with a snow storm! Then he spent a day washing and waxing it. We vacuumed, dusted, cleared out cabinets and added a few things and left behind more. Anything that we didn't use and couldn't see a reason to use we took out; the second down comforter and blanket, an extra pillow, a set of flannel sheets, two extra afghans, two sleeping bags, tent, and air mattress for guests, (no one has made plans yet to meet up with us, so we won't pack those for now), extra dishes, a clothing steamer, some extra clothes, books, and other odds and ends.

We did stock up on too much food! But, food gets eaten eventually. I like to have lots of good healthy stuff to cook with and now have a good idea what I can easily find on the road and what I have to stock up on when I can find it. We hit all our favorite grocery stores, The Common Market food co-op, MOM's, and Trader Joe's.

Before we could leave the area on Wednesday, we had to re-visit Chantilly Mercedes Benz. Anyone who was following us on Facebook when we left in November will know that we got stuck in Northern Virginia for a week, due to a warranty issue with the RV. It couldn't go anywhere and it took a week for the MB people to order parts and fix it. The Winnebago RV is built on a Sprinter chassis that is made by Mercedes Benz, so they have to do the work on the engine. Our good friends Sue and Ken graciously let us stay with them while we we “homeless”. We left their home after the repairs were done, but two hours later as we headed south, a howling noise started. Long story short, the MB dealer torqued a bolt for the turbocharger unit too tightly when completing the repair and one snapped. We wound up spending a few extra days in Charleston, SC waiting for the work to be repaired by Baker Mercedes Benz. They contacted Chantilly, who took the blame and promised to send us a check since we had to go ahead and pay Baker MB for the work.

Well, here we are in the beginning of April having never received that check. Greg left numerous phone messages from all over the country with the service writer and her manager and never even received the courtesy of a return phone call. He finally connected with a live person just before we returned to Maryland. It was the Parts Manager! He checked into the situation and got back to Greg. He didn't have all the answers, but at least we had a “live” person and their name. Greg left a message with him that we were coming in on Wednesday, and when we walked in the service writer came up to Greg with a big smile and said “Hi Mr. Siegner! How are you? We're just cutting the check!”

The service manager finally came to see us and told us some story about never receiving the invoice from Baker MB. We knew that was a lie, plus Greg had offered to send his copy of the invoice in his messages. Then they gave us some story about wrong addresses and accounting losing a returned check. Not credible either. Also, no apology or excuse for never returning Greg's calls! Finally, he made a copy of our invoice and said we would get a check in 48 hours because there is a regional accounting office and he was sending the info over to them. They couldn't write a check at the dealership. We finally had to leave without the check. We were coldly polite and gave them a chance to do the right thing. If a check doesn't show up this time, the next time we have to go there they can expect some drama! Hope it doesn't come to that.

With that tackled we made a quick stop at Ken's to take him the ghost pepper lollipops, our friend Bruce in California is making. Ken loves his hot stuff and Chef Bruce gave us samples of his creation, so we thought Ken might enjoy some. Then we finally left again. All roads south for us seem to lead through Centreville! (Note from Greg – Ken's generosity with his microbrew collection does swing our compass needle just a little; well, maybe about 30 degrees).

Our late start gave us only a few hours to drive so we left I 95 at Petersburg, VA and made our way over to Suffolk passing the Great Dismal Swamp. We stopped for the night at Davis Lakes Campground. After dinner and a walk around the lakes we settled in to our cozy bed for the night. Home again!

Thursday morning dawned cloudy and we left and headed for North Carolina trying to beat the storm system that was coming. We crossed the bridge over Pamlico Sound to the Outer Banks and made a quick WalMart stop to pick up items we needed to do a few more home repairs. A shout out to my friend Ann whose daughter worked 18 and a half years in the Kitty Hawk store! Then we went to Greg's favorite store, ACE Hardware to get the rest of the items we needed.

Shopping is hard on Greg, so we decided to have lunch at the Outer Banks Brewing Station. We had just seen it featured the week before on Diners, Dives and Drive-Ins on the Food Network. We sampled their brews. Greg had the Wild Oyster Stout and I had the Lemongrass Ale. We had some food to accompany the brews and after an appropriate amount of time, drove south!

Neither of us have been on the Outer Banks since the 1970's. This was a good season for us to come. It is not crowded, but it certainly is not deserted. After driving through the developed areas of Kitty Hawk and Nags Head we traveled through the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. We left the refuge and crossed a cobbled together bridge. Then we were stopped for a while as the construction crews plowed sand off the road. This was at the entrance to the adjoining towns of Rodanthe, Waves, and Salvo. The area where we stopped is known as the S curves, and experienced some of the worst damage when Sandy and several other fierce winter storms rolled through.

Arriving at Ocean Waves Campground we picked a site in the trees away from the dunes in order to be more sheltered from the wind and rain. Soon afterward the rain started and we listened to a hard, steady rain on the roof all night. By morning the rain had stopped, but it was quite windy. Greg had cabin fever and was anxious to see the ocean, so he ventured over the dunes for a walk and came back cold and windblown. We both walked on the beach later in the afternoon. The sun was out, but the wind was still howling down the beach. We walked to Rodanthe Pier which is only partly open. The storms have damaged the outer half and it looked like repairs had begun. The dunes have been eroded away, in some places completely. There are still pieces of piers and walkways lying about. There is a very steeply eroded dune that we have to climb to cross in and out of our campground.

Today our walk on the beach was much nicer! There was a slight breeze, temperature around 60 degrees and the sun was shining. The ocean waves were calmer. We walked south several miles to some sort of shipwreck sticking up in the surf. We couldn't make much sense of the rusted metal. When my family came here when I was a child we saw many old wooden shipwrecks that we could crawl over on the beach and low surf. I expect those have long ago washed away since the Outer Banks is a stormy dangerous coastline.

We will be staying here until Thursday morning. This time of year the campground has a special where we can stay seven nights for the cost of six. We felt like we needed some downtime after the last two weeks in Maryland. And, we finally found a place where we can walk to the Atlantic Ocean! We were never able to when we spent December in Florida due to the parks all booked up with “snowbirds”. Thursday we will continue south on the Outer Banks and either stay on Ocracoke Island or take the ferry over to the mainland. We don't plan to drive back up the Outer Banks. It will be cheaper to ride the ferry than to pay for the diesel to go all the way back north and then head south again. We will stay in the south until May when we will begin to head north to Canada for the summer!