Kick's Travels: Annual Trek Northeast October 2014 - First days on the road & Calabash NC

We started prepping for the annual road trip north around October 1, and there was almost no down time from then until departure on October 14th. So many unplanned things popped up, but we managed to get everything done. Bob had a doctor's appoint on the 14th, so we left after he got home, around 10 a.m. Decided to make the first day a short one, so we stopped in Titusville, at the Manatee Hammock RV Park on the Indian River where we've stayed before. It gave us a chance to have Bob's sister, Gwen, and her friend, Ellen, over for a bratwurst cook-out, and enjoy "catching up" with each other.

The next day, we stopped at a little town called St George, and spent the night at an RV site which is part of the Comfort Inn right off I-95. It was a "trains, planes, and automobiles" night, with the interstate next to the RV sites on the right, a railroad track with rumbling, whistling locomotives on the other side, and a flight path overhead. Nonetheless, it was a safe place to be, and all we needed was somewhere to plug in our electricity and get a few hours of shut eye.

Thursday, we made it to the Wishing Well campsite in Sunset Beach, NC, just south of Calabash. We have stayed there several times before, too, in order to visit with our friends, Jay and Paul. After setting up camp, we ran a few errands...drugstore, grocery shopping, and stopped at some thrift stores... then settled in the RV for the night.

The next day, we spent a couple of hours on the beach. The sun made it feel warmer than 72 degrees, but not warm enough to brave the waters. As we were leaving, a bicycling group from Warriors for Warriors had overtaken the parking lot and gazebo.

That night, we met up with Jay and Paul and their group of friends at The 19th Hole in the clubhouse at the Brunswick Plantation where they live. It was wonderful seeing them again.

Saturday, Bob, Charlie Dog and I decided to avoid Sunset Beach in case the cycling group was there again, so we drove north to Ocean Isles Beach where traffic was heavy due to an oyster festival, so we drove a little further north to Holden Beach and spent a little time on the beach there.

Later that afternoon, we went to Jay and Paul's for "happy hour" and to meet with their son Sean, his wife Elissa, and their son Ryan, and we finally got to meet their daughter, Erin, who had accepted a position as a Social Studies teacher at the Shallote High School (a town north of Calabash) and relocated just that week from Maryland. Jay once again outdid herself with a delicious pork tenderloin dinner, and topped it off with a pumpkin dump cake which was much more tasty than its named suggests.

We said our so-longs by about 8:30 since we needed to get an early start the next day.