COMMENTS - This post is for the purposes of capturing the comments in the printed version of the Blog.

JuneBug commented on "Home, Stats and other non-sense"

It really was an uneventful trip home, thank goodness. Now comes the laundry! Home sweet home. :)

JuneBug commented on "Sunday Driving North and Football"

It was a long day of driving but well worth it. The beer was very good and so was the football. Our little vacation is almost over.

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JuneBug commented on "Day 5 - Brisk Winds and Sun at our backs"

It was a darn good day, riding bicycles and then the scooter into Cape Charles for lunch and delicious craft beer. Another fun day.

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JuneBug commented on "Day 3 - Perfect Weather"

It was a great scooter ride, pretty day. The festival park was very interesting. We will not miss the burrs! It was fun watching football too! (Wrong team won)

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JuneBug commented on "Day 4 - Starting for Home"

Another pretty day/drive, the bridge/tunnel is fascinating. There are some nasty “fruit flies” at this campground but they are around Paul and Lisa’s camper not ours…..many theories.

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JuneBug commented on "Day 2 - Arriving in OBX and Chilaxing"

This is a beautiful location, right on the ocean front. We had a relaxing afternoon and evening.

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JuneBug commented on "Day 1 - Getting out of Dodge."

I had already cleaned out the camper for its winter hibernation so putting it back together took some time and thinking.. It will be good to get to warmer temps and visit P&L even though the weather this fall has been gorgeous.

Home, Stats and other non-sense

We got up on Monday and looked at the weather, the coming week is going to be pretty chilly. 

As most people know, I do like technology. I have an Amazon Recast at home, it takes the Over the Air TV signal from the antenna on my roof and puts it on my Local Area Network in my house.  Since the Recast is an Amazon device, it talks to any Amazon Fire TV device. The Fire TV is an Android device. The FireTV stick I brought with us refused to power up and wanted to watch on a bigger screen than my Android phone. I downloaded an Android Emulator, Blue Stack, to run on my Windows PC and loaded the FireTV App.  It worked like a charm, as long as my Laptop has Wifi, I can watch all the local channels from my home Antenna. I know most people consider this non-sense...but to me it is cool. In the picture we are watching WCAX, channel 3, from Flemington, NJ using my OTA antenna at home... think about that. 

Given the weather, Monday was just a drive day, we left Flemington, NJ about 8AM.  Since it was Veteran's Day, we assumed traffic on I95 would be lighter than usual....we were correct.  It was a pretty easy drive, we stopped at a rest area just north of Albany, ate left overs and moved on.  We stopped in Ticonderoga for fuel and Port Henry to dump our tanks and were in my driveway by 14:30, an easy driving day. 

We said our goodbyes to Paul and Lisa and they set out for home, Hinesburg, VT.  

As usual, we keep records of every fill-up, if nothing else the following table demonstrates how driving speed can significantly degrade your MPG. 

The data indicates that driving 10mph slower improved my mileage by 2.3 miles per gallon. Said differently driving 62 instead of 72 improved my gas mileage by 14%, that is more than I expected. 

Finally, I used this trip to test out my Starlink. We got fiber at home and I repurposed my Starlink for mobile application. It costs $50/month for 50GB and $1/GB after that, but you can pause the service monthly. It worked better than I expected, download speeds were 300 Mbs.  We used it to stream Thursday Night Football and it worked well. The negative part is that it is clunky to carry and setup.  I plan to repackage the unit and lay it flat on the RV roof, others have done this and it seems to work. 

Overall it was a short get away but we definitely had a great time, the Outer Banks are a special place. 

Day 6 - Sunday Driving North and Football

 We were up and out early on Sunday. We dumped our tanks and were on the road before 9AM.

Since it was Sunday, traffic was not too heavy and we took I95 straight through Philadelphia, I did not realize how close to the Eagles Stadium I95 takes you.  I boo'd out the window. 

Since Gabe and Cassie shared their Youtube Sunday ticket with me, June was able to bring up all the games on her phone; I was driving but I could at least listen to the games.

We had a nice tailwind and drove at a leisurely pace, we followed Rosey (Paul and Lisa's Winnebago View). I guess I can learn something from Paul's driving because when we filled up I got almost 20mpg (19.81), that is about the best I have ever seen on the Serenity Falcon. I will have to see on the next fill-up if it is real, since you can't pump your own fuel in NJ, it is possible that the attendant did not give me a full tank. 

We arrived in Flemington, NJ at Lone Eagle Brewing around 14:30.  They are located in the middle of town but had great parking. 

We went in and sampled their brews, June likes to try them all, so got a flight. The beer was good, the people were very friendly and Sunday football was on the TV, it doesn't get much better. 

After a few, we retired to our RVs for wings and football. Paul had cooked a batch of wings yesterday at the campground, so we had all the fixings for afternoon football.  It was a nice afternoon even though nearly every team I was pulling for lost. 

We will make our way home today, Monday, it is a bit over 5 hours of driving.  

Day 5 - Brisk Winds and Sun at our backs

 We woke Saturday to much chiller temperatures, a brisk wind and sun. It felt more like November but still warmer than home. 

It was chilly, 50s, so others waited for it to warm up a bit while I took off on my bike exploring.  The campground is expansive, with easy hiking/biking trails, a fishing pier and a nice beach.  I am sure it is packed in the summer. 

After breakfast we set out on a leisurely bicycle ride. 

Getting June on a bike with a smile on her face is no small feat, it was nice riding and plenty warm in the sun. 

There are several spots that had nice vistas of the ocean, it was fun watching the pelicans dive for fish. 

In the end we had ridden about 6 miles and left some trails to do if/when we return. It is definitely a campground to keep on your list of nice places to stop. 

We returned to camp and had a snack before heading out to check out the town of Cape Charles, Va. 

It was a brisk 10 mile scooter ride into the quaint little port town. The sun was out and we quickly warmed up walking the main street along the ocean.  

The town even has a theater, we thought about coming back to see the "Eagles", but it would mean a late, cold scooter ride back, so we passed on it. 

We eventually settled on having lunch/dinner at an Irish Pub, Kelly's Gingernut Pub. The food and beer was very good.  It reminded June and I of the Irish pubs we visited in Ireland, they did a great job of re-creating the atmosphere. 

After lunch we scootered around town and headed back. 

As we were leaving town we could not help but notice that the local brewery, Cape Charles Brewing Co. was bustling with activity. We pulled a U-turn and had to stop. 

We got our beers (5oz smalls since we were on the bikes) and headed outside where they had a roaring fire and lots of people soaking up the sun. It was a very fun atmosphere, breweries are always fun. 

After the brewery we stopped on the way back to camp and loaded two bundles of wood on the scooter so we could have our own fire. 

It is amazing that you can carry more crap on a scooter than a Harley. 

We enjoyed the fire and drinks around the fire. (Yes those are June's sneakers...not Jean's)

It was another full day of doing what we want....I could definitely get used to this. 

Sunday, we move farther north, we have reservations at a Harvest Host in Flemington, NJ, Lone Eagle Brewing. It is a 5-6 hour drive that skirts Philly, we will probably need a drink when we get there. 

Day 4 - Starting for Home

 On Friday Paul cooked us up a hearty breakfast and we took our time packing up at Oregon Inlet. We set out for our next stop, Kiptopeke State Park in Virginia. It is only about 130 miles, 2.5 hours but we planned to make a few stops for groceries, fuel, etc. 

After stopping at the Food Lion for essentials, we made a stop at a roadside farmers market for veggies and I got an old fashioned cream soda...yummy. 

Not quite twins.

Our route takes us via the 18 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel, it was built in 1984 and is an engineering marvel. It cost $23 for my RV. 

Traffic was light. 

Going Under...CBBT has two tunnels, each over a mile long. 

We arrived at Kiptopeke State Park around 14:30 and had a late lunch.  

Kiptopeke is a nice campground, very open with many sites but remarkably quiet. 

When we unloaded the bikes in Oregon Inlet, June's rear tire was flat, I pumped it up and it almost immediately went flat again.  I forgot to get a patch kit on our way so I set out on the Scooter to find one. It was not that easy but I got it and some other stuff (booze) we needed, but it was a 40 mile scooter ride with stops at 4 different stores.  At the NAPA place they had huge dogs behind the counter, I picked up a rubber patch put it on the counter, turned my back and one of the huge dogs took it....pretty funny.  

While I was away, June and Lisa walked and Paul biked.

I got back and fixed June's tire just in time to go to the boardwalk and catch the sunset. 

The girls beat us there, June was in such a hurry she took off before I hooked up the brakes on her bike....

We had fun taking too many pictures. 

It just kept getting better and better, it was beautiful. 

We returned to camp and relaxed before cooking dinner, it was an easy travel day. 

Today we don't really have a plan but I am sure it will be a good day. 

Day 3 - Perfect Weather

 Thursday we kind of slept in, we had nothing really planned, sometimes it is good not to have a plan. 

Eventually June and Lisa went for a walk on the beach while Paul and Fred set out on bicycles. 

Jellyfish?

We rode the Marc Basnight bridge, which is a replacement for the Bonner Bridge built in 2019.  It is  impressive and very pleasing to the eye, just beautiful. It is a bit over 3 miles long and up hill both ways. It was great to get on the bike on such a beautiful day. 

This is Paul....

We went out on Bonner Pier, there were lots of people fishing but nothing being reeled in...hmm. 

It was a nice morning ride. 

After our morning exercise we had a light lunch and set off on the scooters for the small town of Manteo. Manteo was where England tried to establish their first colony in the Americas, it was 1584 and they became friendly with the Natives. The town has a re-creation of the native and English villages from that time which includes a replica of the Elizabeth II which sailed from England to NC with 54 soldiers. It is a pretty small ship (69') for that size crew. They lived on salt pork and beer for the three month journey, pretty hard to get your head around.  

For $10 you can tour Roanoke Island Festival Park and the Elizabeth II, it includes a 45min movie that tells the story from the Indians' point of view. It was interesting but Hollywood need not be concerned. 

The Elizabeth II replica constructed in 1983

We had a fun time touring the ship. 

Onboard are guides dressed in character and speak as if they are a member of the crew, they must be Hollywood actors in waiting. You can see one of them sitting on the rail behind June in this picture. 

These boats were before steering wheels, it was steered by a pole that was attached to the rudder below deck, primitive but effective. 

There were only 3 beds on the ship, one for the captain and two officers, everyone else slept on the floor, 50 guys, it must have really been uncomfortable.

After touring the ship, we wandered through the villages where we found more character guides. 

Paul got ready for battle.

Apparently I did something wrong and June had this guy put me in the pillory. 

One of the first things settlers would do is set up a blacksmith shop. They have a fully functional shop and this lady made a nail for us.  A good blacksmith could make 1000 nails per day.

We spent a few hours in the villages and that made us thirsty, so we stopped at a real English tavern for some refreshment, the Lost Colony Tavern. 

It is a pretty authentic English Tavern, June got a very nice Guinness with a clover in the foam, the bartender, Dusty, is pretty skilled. 

Some establishments in town are permitted to allow you to carry your drink on the street, Lost Colony Tavern is one of them. 

The Lost Colony is an interesting story. Three years after establishing the colony the British returned with 117 settlers, three years after that they returned and found nothing, Today the fate of the 114 people is a mystery, speculation is they were either assimilated into the native tribes or massacred, we will probably never know. 

After our refreshment, we set off to a local fish market so Paul could get his crab fix. We scooted our way to O'Neal's Sea Harvest in Wanchese, NC, it was not his first visit. 

Across from the fish market is a boat building facility, Bayliss Boat Works, it is impressive.

We got back with the crabs and had a fun time watching Paul cook them. At one point he got pinched and threw the crab so far we had trouble finding it. 

Paul was a "Happy Camper" 

One thing we found different on this trip to OBX was the presence of Sand Burrs. It must be a seasonal thing because I don't recall them being a problem in the spring but they are a nasty problem this trip. If you go into the grass at all you get covered with these painful little pickers. 

This is a picture after I was hunting for the crab Paul threw when it bit him.  I used needle nose pliers to remove them, they stick to everything. 

We finished our day with a nice dinner, and set up to watch Thursday night football. We watched until half time and then crashed. I was sorry to hear this morning that the Bengals lost by 1 point. 

Today we will pack up and move to Virginia.