Destination: Outer Banks

Pier on The Bogue Sound at Waters Edge RV Park, Newport NC

From Wilmington, along the North Carolina Coast, we rolled toward our next destination, a little blip on the map called Newport. It's actually a town along the Bogue Sound, which seems to be more like three places in one. There's Newport, then Morehead City, and finally Beaufort. These towns are and were based on fishing (and boating), now mostly of the sport variety, and then mostly of the food variety. Our headquarters is the Waters Edge RV park in Newport. The place sits along the main road, Highway 24, and from the road, at the entrance, you can't tell that it extends all the way to the sound, ending in a nice dock that juts out a long way over the water. From the dock, you're looking across at Atlantic Beach, lined with beautiful homes, vacation condos, and hotels. Not knowing what really to expect around this area, we reserved a spot for a week. Our stay ended up at just shy of a month! Why? Well, it's a place filled with cool towns all around, and we saw that we could indeed tour the entire Outer Banks (OBX to the locals) region using this as our base. At first we thought we might have to move up north to cover it all, but it's really easier to do it this way (and besides, we loved the folks at Waters Edge RV Park... fellow RV'ers, make a note-if in the area THIS is the place to stay awhile. Joanie, Linda, and Mr. Tom made us feel right at home! Highly recommended!).

Iconic Hatteras Lighthouse

Ferry landing in "downtown" Okracoke

  Our tour of the Outer Banks started with us driving Smarty a little over forty miles to the ferry terminal at

Cedar Island. From there we drove onto the ferry for a two hour ride to Okracoke, our first actual landfall in the slip of movable earth called The Outer Banks. Okracoke used to, of course, be a fishing village. Now it's a sleepy little summer resort town, full of inns and restaurants. We spent the night at The Edwards Inn, after walking the quaint streets and having a good local fish dinner. The next day, we drove up to the next ferry terminal on the north side of the island and took the ride to Hatteras Island, past the famous diagonally striped black and white lighthouse and on through the upscale area of Nags Head, and finally to our night's stay, this time in Kill Devil Hills. This is the Kitty Hawk area, and we were both anxious the next morning to head over

Actual spot where first plane flew

Wright's monument

to the Wright Brothers National Memorial and Museum. We spent the whole morning there and stood at the place where their planes took off for the first time. It's quite unique and contemplative, and it made us think about how far aviation has come in such a short time, as a big jet airliner casually flew overhead. On the third day, we started heading to home base and drove off the islands and on to the mainland. By early evening we were back in Newport.
 Our favorite new town that gets put in a special category for us, is New Bern, North

Pepsi's birthplace..downtown New Bern

Carolina. Ever hear of it? Maybe it sounds vaguely familiar? Well, aside from being the birthplace of Pepsi Cola, it is one of the prettiest small towns we've come across anywhere. From the waterfront to the downtown, the place oozes charm. There's some serious history here too. Many buildings and homes date back to the mid 1700's and the Tryon Palace, which goes back to 1770, and was the home of the first provincial governor of North Carolina. It's a mostly upscale little town, with a vibrant and walkable downtown, filled with neat stores and restaurants. A couple of our favorites, out of a bunch to choose from there, were The Chelsea in downtown and Persimmon on the water. In fact, we visited Persimmon twice during our month in the area, something we almost never do. Oriental is down the road from new Bern, and on the advice of a local, we drove over there one day. It's known around here as the sailboat capital, and there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of them everywhere. Oriental reminded me of the same laid back feel that Okracoke has. A place where it would be easy to spend a week...or a whole summer, just chillin'.

Persimmon restaurant in the moonlight

Our month went by like a flash, and before we knew it we were turning our attention towards The West, at least The Western side of North Carolina. We'd decided to go back to Asheville for the entire summer. Our reasoning was simple. First, we've gotten to the point where we like to leave summers traveling...to the tourist travelers and families. We have all year to explore, so why not let them have one less rig to contend with during the busy months. Next, we had entertained going out West to Santa Fe, but the water is scarce there now, and it's very dry. Third, we love Asheville. It has the hippie charm of Santa Fe. It has cool weather in summer, lots of outdoor venues, and the food! A special place indeed. So the summer of 2014 is WNC time for us. We plan to explore places in the area that we haven't had a chance to see yet, work, and enjoy the mountains. H2's big engine is revving now as I'm finishing up here, Mary Ann's at the wheel, and off we go from the wonderful North Carolina Coast to the beautiful mountains!

M A kicking back in Oriental

Going North, Up The Coastal Highway

Wilmington homes exploding with color

By the end of April, the Spring foliage is in full bloom here in The South. Heading north from Charleston, we wind up US 17, on track for our destination for this segment of the adventure, The Outer Banks. Once leaving Mount Pleasant, there is a lot of wide open road along the seacoast until you reach the quaint little seaport of Georgetown, North Carolina. More beautiful tree lined and flower lined streets fill this historic place. As we have found, there was a lot of 18th and 19th century activity in the area. Our main reason for pulling off the road here, as you might guess, was to visit the original location of an area bakery (maybe we should think about renaming this blog..."Harvey and Smarty's Bakery Stops!") that we grew to love in Mount Pleasant, Kudzu http://www.kudzubakery.com/.

Kudzu Bakery in Georgetown

As usual, we just stumbled on it while shopping in the area. From the minute we walked in we knew it was the real deal. Their baked goods and breads are totally scratch, and one's more amazing than the next. We loaded up with goodies and kept heading up the road, past Pawley's Island (Yep! There really is a place named after the famous hammocks...or is it the other way around?), and then to the southern part of the Myrtle Beach area, Murrells Inlet and then Surfside Beach. Myrtle Beach surprised us a little. We expected an old, worn looking area with lots of t-shirt shops. There is that, up the road from the main, newer area of the beach, but this newer area is what we saw first. There are high rise hotels and condos, nice stores and restaurants, and pretty parks and beach areas. It's easy to see why people, especially from the Eastern half of the country flock here. The older, t-shirt and surf shop part didn't show itself until the next morning as we started heading towards North Myrtle Beach. If you go for that kind of place, there is about a five mile strip of it there. Have fun!  We keep rolling up Highway 17 and land in Leland, NC, just a few miles from downtown Wilmington. It's raining, so we pull in to a new, nice looking Wal Mart lot in this newer area, and unhook Smarty to see what it's like here. We stayed seven nights right in the Wal Mart lot, using our fresh water tanks and all the solar electricity we could absorb to keep the house running. All systems worked perfectly, and we could have even stretched it if we needed. How is it to live in a Wal Mart lot for a week? Interesting!

H2 and friend at Wally World

There's a Carolina chain of good coffee places in the area called Port City Java http://www.portcityjava.com/ We packed up our briefcases in the morning and used their neat little shop, located a couple of blocks from our (Wal Mart) home and worked during the day and explored at night.
 The magnificent Magnolias and Crepe Myrtles are coming alive and especially the Azaleas. Almost every town in The Carolinas has an Azalea Festival, but the Granddaddy of them all is the one in Wilmington http://www.ncazaleafestival.org/. No kidding, this is to Wilmington what Mardi Gras is to New Orleans or Mobile! And it's no wonder. This town literally explodes with color at this time each year. It is the quintessential South, and everyone should be lucky enough to experience it at least once. Wilmington is an understated city. It's population is a little over 100,000, but the greater area is about 250,000. Ever heard of Cape Fear? This is the center for the area known as Cape Fear (named after the river). In other words, this is not really a "cape" like Hatteras, it's an entire region. The movie(s) made the name famous, but this place has lots more to offer than a Hollywood story. First, the city is a living museum, much like Savannah and Charleston. It has deep roots in ship building, and the marine history is everywhere you look. Many of the buildings date back to the early 1700's!

Wilmington River Walk Downtown

Another interesting tidbit about Wilmington is that it's a relatively large movie and tv production town. In fact, the last blockbuster Iron Man 3 movie was done here. We explored the surrounding areas too, like Southport, another historic sea town a few miles drive...to the south of Wilmington. More historic homes with plaques dating them all the way back to Pre Revolutionary War times, more quaint shops, and a very pretty waterfront park and pier. The beaches nearby are cities in their own right, especially Wrightsville and Carolina Beach. Mary Ann had a fun surprise too. Her friend and boss when she was in the apparel business, Joe, surfaced! She had been trying to reach him, knowing that he must still live in the Myrtle Beach area, where he's originally from, and she had no luck...until a phone call reunited them finally. He was indeed still in Myrtle Beach and agreed to drive up, since we were already in Wilmington. We had a great dinner together in downtown, and the two old friends got to do some catching up! We did finally leave our Wal Mart home, and continued to dead head it towards The Outer Banks. Our landing spot, next, takes us to the Beaufort, Moorhead City, Newport area (go to your map to pinpoint us). From there as base camp, by ferry and Smarty, to legendary ports off the coast, like Ocracoke, Cape Hatteras, and finally Kitty Hawk.

The pier at the waterfront in Southport

Route 17!

After an amazing week at The Marriott Monarch Resort in Hilton Head, we continue to track up US Highway 17, also known as The Coastal Highway. Highway 17 runs pretty  much parallel with  I95 from Florida to Virginia. In some areas it runs closer to the Atlantic though, and that's why we're on it. Destination now: Charleston, South Carolina, for a revisit. The first time there, as was true for Savannah, we just touched on the area. This time we intend to dig in. Our specific landing spot, from info we gathered last time, is James Island, an area about 10 minutes Southwest of downtown. The James Island County Park http://www.ccprc.com/index.aspx?NID=1434 has a full service rv park and is a regional destination for all things outdoors for the area. There are festivals of every imaginable variety going on just about every week there. During our visit, a Cajun Festival and The East Coast Paddle Sports and Outdoor Festival happened. There are venues for cycling, boating, running, camping, swimming, just about anything you could do outside, including just sitting among the beautiful trees and foliage and watching shrimp boats in the rivers, gliding along, sometimes magically appearing like they're skimming on top of the saw grass fields.

James Island County Park near Charleston

This time we stayed long enough to get a real feel for the area. We walked almost every street downtown, looked at the amazing homes (many dating back to the 1700's), visited other neighborhoods nearby, like Johns Island, Kiawa, and Mount Pleasant. All of those places have their own special vibe and charm. In fact, Johns Island is home to one of our favorite eating places...anywhere in this entire country (at least the small part of it we've seen so far). We went to The Fat Hen www.thefathen.com a few years ago, on our first visit, and were impressed with it right away. Low Country French is how they describe themselves, but I had one of the most stellar burgers there...and the fries! Oh my! I'm sure the other choices are incredible, but I just can't get past that hamburger. In fact, I had it twice. I even asked the chef to whip up some of the tomato jam (instead of good old Heinz, which does a disservice to this burger!) they serve with the fried green tomatoes that M A ordered, and that totally threw it over the top of the left field wall! Mary Ann is a bit more adventurous and also tried a chicken dish and some veggies and grits and the report was also many starred. It's a good drive from the downtown tourist area, but well worth the time to get there, and a beautiful one too.

Walking along the waterfront in Charleston

 Aside from about a hundred long and short drives in to downtown, we explored other areas too. West Ashley, a gentrified neighborhood just west of downtown, full of bars and cool eateries, is close to where we were stationed in James Island. It's just a bridge or two away! We drove over to Sea Island and Kiawa, a newer posh development with an already very famous golf course. In fact, it's soo posh, the new Marriott Courtyard Hotel doesn't even have any visible signage, only "Boutique Hotel" can be seen from the outside. Mount Pleasant is east of downtown, over the Ravenel Bridge. It's home to lots of local seafood places, marinas, and most of the really important shopping for the Charleston area (like Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for us). After a couple of weeks in the area, and the revisit to Savannah, we think we might even qualify for the test to be local tour guides! Well, ya never know!!

Ravenel Bridge connecting Charleston & Mt. Pleasant

 As a side note, while in Charleston, Smarty decided to have a heart attack! His fuel pump (get it?) went out and that lead to another failure with his complicated and computerized innards. The crankshaft sensor also failed. So Mary Ann picked me up in the Best Buy parking lot with H2 , where I was stuck. Who ever knew we'd be using our roving house as a tow truck one day! We hooked up Smart, moved to a Walmart lot for the night, and early the next morning reported in at Baker Motors, the Charleston Mercedes/Smart Dealer. They gave us a Mercedes SUV to drive while Smart was being operated on (4 days!), and even let us stay the first night in H2 in their back lot before relocating back to James Island, while we waited for the news of Smart's condition. By the end of the week, he was returned...ALIVE! After almost 58,000 flawless miles, we figured that we were due for some maintenance issues. Hopefully, after this repair and a thorough 60,000 mile preventive maintenance check up, maybe we'll get some more good service from the little guy...so far, so good! One thing we've learned, full time rv'ing for almost four years, is that stuff can and will happen and break while we're on the road. Our philosophy is to try and keep it as simple if possible, and having the Smart as a tow car does just that. It has proven to be safe, reliable transportation, backed by the nationwide Mercedes Benz network. Is it the cheapest way to go? No, but it is a practical way for us.
 After a day or two checking to make sure Smarty's repairs had taken, we left Charleston behind and headed up US 17 for the next stop on our route to The Outer Banks, one of the most famous tourist towns on the East Coast, Myrtle Beach, and the beautiful and historic city of Wilmington, North Carolina.

Early Spring 2014 Update

Mary Ann at her desk..Hilton Head

 It's the end of March, 2014, and we've landed back in Savannah for a more in depth visit. I must say we have been looking forward to this revisit since we were first here back in 2010. Savannah, so far, is our favorite big city in this part of The South. It's full of southern charm. The kind you read about or hear of when people talk about The South. The genuine warmth and kindness that many think has been lost in our society still generally exists here, even four years later than my first story about it. (If you want a quick reference to what I'm adding in this post, start back in June of 2010 over in the right hand column, and then come back here.) We had to revisit a favorite stop in Savannah, Leopold's Ice Cream http://www.leopoldsicecream.com/ . A hundred years of tradition, and one of the most iconic ice cream parlors in the USA! Where else to eat in this foodie town? Well, there are tons of upscale to down home choices, but two places got our attention this time. The first is an out of downtown place called The Crystal Beer Parlor http://www.crystalbeerparlor.com/. Billed as the second oldest eating place in this very old town, the good, basic pub food and amazing selection of beers from all over are well worth a stop. It's a place so good that the locals come in droves, not minding the mix-in with the tourists. The Green Truck Pub http://greentruckpub.com/about/, which you really have to hunt for outside the downtown area, is another mostly local place but we found it filled with curious and adventurous tourists too. It's a neighborhood bar with terrific food choices, mostly on the healthy side. If you get there after about 5pm...prepare to wait a long time to get seated. It's small but worth the wait! Again, a terrific selection of craft beers, and Mary Ann ordered a reddish IPA, but I ordered a wonderful glass of Camenere Wine from their diminutive but interestingly eclectic list. It went well with my grass fed burger.

Leopold's Ice Cream, Savannah

 I digress though. We actually started this segment in Miami, where we spent most of the winter with brother Ed and sister-in-law, Pat. We'll miss the drive to the Keys, bike rides, and discovering new eating places with them, and our 5:30 pm walks with friends, Dee and Jimmy, near their home, where H2 was residing in their yard. We headed up to Central Florida in the beginning of March and stayed in the Mount Dora area for a couple of weeks.

Mount Dora, FL.

Never heard of Mount Dora? Good! They'd probably like it that way! It's a small town, about 40 miles northwest of Orlando...but a world away. Cuddled up next to a large lake, one of hundreds in the area, the charming downtown is full of shops and restaurants and pretty little parks. It's another in our growing list of very livable places that harken back in time.

 We left there and drove right back up the East Coast highway (I-95), past St. Augustine and Jacksonville, and stopped in Jekyll Island again, but this time we opted to stay right on Jekyll Island so we could spend more time in the old historic village. Again, see my posts from June of 2010. The entire St. Simon's Island, Jekyll Island, Brunswick, Georgia area is so filled with beauty and American history, that we still don't think we've absorbed it enough. The highlight of this stay was a Saturday night dress up dinner at the original  Jekyll Island Club Hotel, built by the likes of Goodyear and Rockefeller. The pastry chef there caught my attention too, especially with the very delicious danishes they sold at the little coffee and pastry shop in the hotel. The little lemon/cheese and cherry/cheese ones in particular! MMM,,.definitely another visit will be needed in the future.


Jekyll Island Club Hotel

 We keep rolling up the coast after the stay in Jekyll and then Savannah, We thought that Charleston was on our route map as the next stay, but ace time share exchanger, Mary Ann, scored a prime time share trade in Hilton Head Island. So on Saturday, after a night's boondocking, we stored H2 for a week away from "the house", and drove about five miles to the Marriott Monarch Resort on a wonderful stretch of beach on The Atlantic. It turns out this is the original property with which Marriott started it's amazing collection of world wide resorts thirty years ago. Our two bedroom, two bath condo is on a high floor, with a great view of the beach (see pic at the top of this story). A near perfect location for a week off the road. It's a luxurious four star property that would have cost over $3000 for the week had we not had that week of time to trade. Mary Ann mined a big one!! Since we have a four star kitchen here, and even though there are some very appetizing looking eateries all around, we are choosing to cook in mostly while we're here. Fresh shrimp and seafood, good grocery stores, and that kitchen, are keeping us mostly home for food this week.

 Our plan is to keep driving up the eastern edge of the country, and another stay in Charleston, until we get to the most Northeastern part of North Carolina and The Outer Banks, and then head west, right back to Asheville for the summer of 2014.

Wintering in Florida (again)

  This post finds me writing from the lower level of brother, Ed, and sister-in-law, Pat's home, just South of Miami. It's already February 2014, and the harsh winter up north is very much in fifth gear while we are living in unusually warm and humid conditions. Just proves the full-time RV'er credo that there's no such thing as perfect weather...anywhere, but we can try to move towards it and maybe get close! Anyway, we're not complaining since we get to have an extended visit and the weather surely could be much worse! Meantime, H2 may as well be a bear because he's hibernating, pulled up about a mile from us at friends Jim and Dee's house. They installed a 30 amp power outlet just for us, and H2's sitting inside the fenced area of their yard. This is giving me time to do some modifications and adjustments that are not easily done while we're rolling, like replacing the original flat screen tv with a larger, more upscale model (and a totally new sound system too!).


Mazzaro's Coffee Bar/St. Petersburg

 To catch up to the present, we have to go back to just before we rolled in to Miami in mid December of 2013. We did actually hit a cool, new foodie place in St. Petersburg that everybody should make a trip to,  Mazzaro's Italian Market http://www.mazzarosmarket.com/  . This is no ordinary little operation. It takes roughly a city block, comprised of various scattered buildings. There's the main market which houses the bakery, meat and seafood, grocery section, coffee bar, and wine area. There are prepared foods and delicacies and just a wonderful selection of stuff to munch on. In another building, there's a new gourmet cooking store. There are lots of good eating choices in Tampa and St. Pete, and we've added this one to the list.
  Next we rolled down to Ft. Myers and Naples and boondocked at Camping World. They even provided us with 30 amp power and a cozy space for the night, while we checked things out in town. Our find here is a chain!! OMG! Marty and Mary Ann eating at a chain restaurant? Yep, it can and does occasionally happen when all signs are aligned properly. This time they were, and we're glad we sought the place out. Name? Pizza Fusion http://pizzafusion.com/company, and they have locations in Florida, N. Carolina, Ohio, New Jersey, Colorado, and oh right...Saudi Arabia (guess the Saudis like eating healthy too!). Healthy? Pizza? You ask, "How can that be?" They use mostly organic ingredients, serve beautiful pies on big, rectangular white china (at least the one in Ft. Myers does), and have a short, but great wine list too. We had a terrific meal there and now are looking forward to visiting the next one in Miami Beach. Hope it's as good as the one in Ft. Myers. If you see one of these in your travels, this one comes highly recommended.


Midway Campground in The Everglades

  Ok, we're dead heading now for Miami, except for a last night on the road for awhile. This last stop is very nearby, right in The Everglades. We stayed along the Tamiami Trail, which, when you're in Miami turns into SW 8th Street (or more familiar to locals, Calle Ocho). This street has for years been known as the heart of Miami's large Cuban community. Before you get to that hustling part though, you couldn't be in a more different environment if you tried...The Everglades! We spent the night at Midway Campground, just about 35 miles west of the Miccosukee Resort & Gaming Casino and the very Western edge of the City of Miami. One night of listening to nothing but chirping frogs, night birds calls, and maybe even an alligator grunt (hopefully off in the distance?) before we gear up for big city life once again. We slept well, and the next morning we spent some time emptying all tanks and finalizing our planned short hop to Dee and Jimmy's, where H2 remains in "dry dock" for a good part of the winter. And here we remain until we pull out and begin the long trek back up the Florida Peninsula as the weather starts warming up a bit, and we look for new places to explore.