Author: ryan

It was a wet misty ride down Skyline Drive from Mathews Arm to our next campground at Loft Mountain. It was almost Memorial Day weekend, which meant that every campground in the US was going to be full. Loft Mountain, like a lot of campgrounds, sets aside a few walk-up sites that are available on a first-come-first-served basis, so we got a very early start to increase the odds that we would get a site. The dreary weather prevented us from enjoying the views along Skyline Drive; at times, we could hardly see the road ahead at all.

Continue reading “Loft Mountain – Shenandoah Nat’l Park”

The drive from Virginia Beach up to Shenandoah National Park was going to be our longest yet. With that in mind, we skipped stopping in Williamsburg, which we had considered checking out. We did not, however, skip the Costco in Richmond. We also needed to refill our propane tank for the first time, and used our phones to find a place somewhat on our route. Expecting to head to a typical commercial propane business, we were a bit surprised to end up at a house on a rural road.   Continue reading “Mathews Arm – Shenandoah Nat’l Park”

After packing our things and leaving Oregon Inlet, we stopped by Jockey’s Ridge State Park to see its star attraction: a sand dune. The dune at Jockey’s Ridge is the tallest active dune system on the East coast.

Continue reading “First Landing State Park – Virginia Beach, VA”

After leaving Frisco, we continued north up Hatteras Island. We weren’t far from the campground when we stopped to check out the Hatteras Island Lighthouse, which has to be nicest of them all. Jennifer and I commented numerous times about how great it looked. Something about the red and stone base with the black and white tower. The perfect blue sky as a backdrop probably didn’t hurt either.

Continue reading “Oregon Inlet – Outer Banks, NC”

Unlike the $30 ferry ride from the mainland to Ocracoke, the ferry that runs from Ocracoke to Hatteras is free. The campervan was squeezed in between the outside railing a sewage truck. We had both a million dollar ocean view and a real shitty view, depending on which way we looked out the window.

Continue reading “Frisco – Outer Banks, NC”

After leaving Camp Morehead, we cruised out to the ferry dock on Cedar Island. It was a neat drive through coastal NC – little clusters of homes, but not quite towns, with at least one boat parked in every yard. We passed many abandoned homes that looked like they had suffered through one too many hurricanes. They were accompanied by stands of ragged pines that had their tops sheared off by long-gone winds. It seemed appropriate then, that tropical storm Ana was passing through at the same time we were.

Continue reading “Ocracoke – Outer Banks, NC”

One of the things I looked forward to doing while in the coastal NC area was to visit the site of a summer camp I went to when I was a kid, Camp Morehead. It was located on the Bogue Sound, near Morehead City, and was billed as a sailing camp, which I suppose it was to some degree. It was really a place to go be kid away from your parents for three weeks. Continue reading “Camp Morehead”

Somewhere out in the Atlantic lives a slow-moving tropical storm named Ana, and she is causing problems for us in the Flanner’s Beach campground. She has already sent bands of rain our way, and has slowed our pace from a “stay two nights and move on” mentality to one of “when will get out of here?”  The issue is that our intended route from here is to load the RV on a ferry and head out to Ocracoke, our first stop on the Outer Banks.

Continue reading “Awaiting Ana at Flanners Beach”

We left Edisto and rolled out for Myrtle Beach state park. It wasn’t exactly at the top of our list of places to stop, but our first two choices – Hunting Island and Huntington Beach – were full. First though, we backtracked 20 miles to the Carolina Cider shop to get Mothers’ Day gifts. It was a neat little store with all sorts of ciders, jarred jams, and other country-ish things – a glorified Cracker Barrel gift shop, but more expensive.

Continue reading “Myrtle Beach”

It was a long drive through the Carolina low country to get out to Edisto Beach.  Some of the communities we drove through looked like they were 50 years behind the rest of South Carolina, which itself is probably 10 years behind the rest of the US.  Continue reading “Edisto Beach State Park, SC”