Feb. 24, 2014: It has been awhile but I will try to fill in from where I left off in my last entry: On Feb. 13th, the day we were originally going to leave St. James Island, we extended our stay  for one day because of the ice storm that hit Charleston. As a result, we took the time to go to get our clothes washed at a nearby coin laundry. We also got to experience a great lunch at a small Greek restaurant located next to the laundry.

It was 2:30 when we went into the Odyssey; no one else was in the restaurant. It was small and very clean The food that we had was great. I had a cup of Greek lemon chicken soup that was delicious; it looked like a dessert. After the meal, we talked to the owner; he had also taken our orders and served the food to us. He told us that he has been at this location for about a year. He makes his own flat bread and pastries. We ordered two pieces of baklava to take with us--and the cakes that he had in the case were tempting, but we contained ourselves. We took what we couldn't eat of our meals with us, including the bread, and the baklava. This was one of those nice unexpected and unplanned experiences of this trip.

Back at our campsite, I called Huntington Beach State Park, but learned that all their sites were taken for the dates that we wanted. I found a campground, Lanier's, a little further north,in Surf City, just beyond Wilmington, NC. We decided to stay there for three nights and then move on to Richmond. I also called a campground, Americamps RV,  just north of Richmond and reserved a site for seven days.

We left St. James on Friday, the 14th, and drove to Lanier's. It was a 212 mile trip. We arrived after the office and the gate to the park had closed.  I had to call a number listed on the gatehouse to get the code to open the gate and the woman that answered directed me to a site while we were on the phone. The site was on the intracoastal waterway. There was a small marsh between the site and waterway. The site had a cement pad that at least gave us a dry, level site. The sites in this campground were very close. Many of the units set up around the campground appeared to be here semi-permanently; and, for quite awhile, with many of the campers having wooden, screened enclosures attached to them. There were few trees along the waterfront area. The next morning, when I checked in at the office, I asked about the sites under the trees at the back side of the park. I was told that those sites were very wet. We stayed on the cement pad for the next two days. 

For the first full day here, we had to stay inside the camper for most of the day because of the rain and wind. The wind was strong enough to shake the camper; at times it felt like the mild turbulence experienced during an airplane flight. I did notice that, at high tide, the water came up through the marsh, up to the edge of the site that we were on. 

On our second full day, we drove out to the barrier island on the opposite side of the waterway from our camp. This was Topsail Island, twenty-six miles long and about two miles across. We drove from one end to the other. It was difficult to see the ocean from the roadway because of the tall houses, shops and motels built along the beachfront. The houses on the beach were built on pressure-treated wood piers and they went up two or three stories above that; some of the houses even had decks built on their roofs. The space between houses was almost non-existant. There were a few public access points to the beach. We stopped at one to go out to the beach. We saw a long, flat, hard-packed, white sand beach stretching out along the island, in two directions, with only a very few people out walking on the beach. We are sure that this is not the case during the summer months. Our drive around the island showed very few places without a building or house on it. The north end of the island had many very large and very expensive looking houses. We stopped for lunch at a beach front seafood restaurant--also built on stilts--where we had a forgettable meal; it was like something we would expect from the old Howard Johnson restaurants. We decided that this was one area of the coast that we did not want to live in.

We left this area the following morning, Monday, Feb. 17, to drive to Richmond.  Again, we tried to avoid driving on any interstates. We travelled on some U.S. numbered highways that had little traffic and that were recently paved. We stopped for lunch at a western style restaurant on one of these roads. It was called the Hitch-N-Post. This was another forgettable experience. The waitresses, all young, were not the least bit interested in doing their jobs, or in the customers. 

We found that the highway we were on, at one place, was closed and we had to detour. Because of this, we ended up on I-95. This was not relaxing or smooth; the roadway, near the Virginia state line, was rough. Crossing one bridge, the road surface was a series of waves that caused the truck to start bouncing up and down dangerously. Also, at the Virginia state line, we began to see snow piles in parking lots and snow in shaded ditches. After a drive of 327 miles, we arrived at the campground, Americamps RV, in Ashland, VA.

On our first night in the campground, we experienced a little wintry mix overnight that left a dusting of white stuff on the ground; it soon went away when the sun came up. We spent most of the day doing our usual housekeeping chores in the camper and used the campground laundry. Later, in the afternoon, we walked over to a micro-brewery located next to the campground. The brew house was open from 4:00 PM to 9:00 PM for beer tasting. We went over at 4:15. We sat at the bar and we each had a flight of five different beers to try. They produce six different beers, but only five were available the day we were there. B liked one of the lighter beers so much that she ordered a growler full to go--she intended to take this back to NH, but we ended up drinking it over the next couple of days. I had an additional glass of their Scotch ale that was dark and full-bodied. 

Two men came in shortly after us and sat near us. We heard one of them mention something about the Confederate sub, H. L. Hunley. We mentioned that we had been to see it recently. The man then said he was a funeral director, and that when he was doing his apprenticeship, he had to go to Charleston, to bring Lt. Dixon's remains to Richmond where they lay-in-state in the State Capitol. I happen to have on the H. L. Hunley cap as we talked. It was 150 years ago, yesterday, Feb. 17, that the Hunley sank with the loss of its eight crew members. This was one of those memorable experiences of this trip;  a random conversation with some one who had a direct involvement with the story of the H. L. Hunley.

We left the brew house at 6:15. Outside, at the sidewalk, a food vending truck was parked, open for business. It had "Tony's Grill" written large across the top. We stopped to talk to the man inside the back of the truck. His name was Tony and he told us that this mobile grill was his "Plan B" for paying the bills. Both he and his wife had worked for the same company when they got laid off; she went back to work for the company, but he now works elsewhere during the day. He decided to put together this truck and cooking equipment as a means of gaining some independence. He told us what he had to do to meet regulations, and how he selected the equipment in the truck to meet his business plan--which had to be approved by the regulators. This was another interesting conversation that we have had as a result of a chance encounter. We also ordered some of his food to take back to the camper, a cheeseburger and a steak and cheese quesadilla. This was the main reason that the growler of beer was broken into when we got back in the camper.

The next morning, Feb. 19, we went to the "rally room" in the campground's office building to try out their free waffle breakfast. The waffles were made fresh, and we could have juice, coffee, and fruit cups, along with various syrups. This is served every day between 8:15 and 9:30. We sat with the only other couple that had come in for breakfast. Again, another interesting conversation. They were full-time RV'ers. They live here in a 5th-wheeler and have a smaller van type RV for trips. They also have a music studio where they teach music. They also did missionary work in Paraguay at one time; the man said he had been a minister.

We drove to Richmond after breakfast to visit the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The guide book said they were noted for their Fabergé egg collection. When we entered the museum, B went to the ladies room, while I spoke to the guard near the entrance about the parking on the street with my truck and camper. In the conversation, he mentioned that the Fabergé collection was not on display; it is on a world tour for the next year. This was the one thing that B was most interested in seeing. Needless to say, she was very disappointed to learn this when she returned. However, we did spend the next couple of hours looking at what was left on display: painting by the old European Masters, glass work by Chihuly, Arts and Crafts furniture, Art Deco and Art Nouveau furniture and jewelry--several pieces of furniture by my favorite Scottish designer and architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh--and listening to a black woman singing spirituals to a group of people in one of the rooms. We had a great lunch in the museum's sit-down dining room on the third floor. Along with the good food, we had some interesting conversations going on around us and some interesting-looking people sitting nearby.

We also visited the Confederate Memorial Chapel, located near the museum. The chapel was built in 1889 to commemorate the 260,000 Confederates soldiers who died during the Civil War. The museum and chapel were built on the site of a former Confederate Veterans Home. A male docent inside the chapel told us a story of how the term "damned Yankee" came to be. According to him, it was because most Southerners believed that it was necessary to believe in the Trinity in order to gain a place in heaven, and they believed that most Northerners--or Yankees--were "damned," not going to go to heaven, because they were Unitarians. My feeling is that his story was just a good excuse to say "damned Yankees" to us when he found out that we were Northerners.  

Another impressive thing that we saw in Richmond today was Monument Avenue. Here, along a center strip, there are several giant monuments to Confederate leaders; Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, J.E.B. Stuart. These monuments were erected in the late 1890's. The street is also lined with monumental-looking, expensive homes. 

On Thursday, Feb. 29, I decided to get the truck some needed scheduled maintenance, an oil change and tire rotation, while we were in the Richmond area, and before we moved further north. I called three Chevrolet dealers: for the first dealer, the service department didn't answer their phone and didn't return my voice message; for the second dealer, the service department didn't answer their phone and I wasn't able to leave a voice message; for the third dealer, the service department did answer and they asked a few questions about the truck and camper--I wanted to get the servicing done with the camper in place on the truck. I was put on hold while they deliberated the request. When they returned to the phone, their answer was that they couldn't do the servicing. I decided to contact businesses that service trucks. I located one, using a phone app, called Northern Motors. It was close to the campground and they said they could do the job today, at 3:30. We went there a little early, just to find out where they were actually located. The garage was large and the lot next to it was full of FedEx trucks and  trailer trucks. They took our truck and camper in at 3:15 and in a short time we could see our truck and camper going up on a lift. An hour later, it was ready for us to drive out of their garage. While they were working on it, we got to talk to man in the office who was ether the owner, or a part owner, of this facility. He told us that they work two shifts from 6:00 AM to 11:30 PM. He also said he thought we made a good choice going with a Chevy truck and getting a gas engine instead of a diesel. After he explained why, we were glad we got the gas engine too. Inside their garage area, when we walked through it to get our truck, I saw the largest tow truck that I have ever seen; it was a PeterBuilt cab and the rear section was mounted on three dual-wheeled axels--the whole rig had to be over thirty feet long.

When we left the garage, we went to the Bass Pro Shop. It was located just across from the campground, on the other side of I-95, near Northern Motors. This was a very large building and we spent about an hour and a half looking and buying, then returned to our campsite around 6:00 PM. We only put about nine miles on the truck today, but contributed a decent amount of money into the economy.

The following day, we went back to Richmond to visit the National Battlefield Park Civil War Visitor Center, located in Tredegar Park, along the James River.
This is run by the National Park Service and it is located in an old three-story brick building that was once part of the Tredegar Iron Works. When we entered the building at 11:30, we learned from the woman who greeted us at the front desk that the Richmond area was under a tornado watch this morning. It was cloudy outside, but it was not even raining when we entered. We went up to the third floor to watch a film. While we were watching it, we could suddenly hear the wind howling against the roof above us and the rain coming down hard. We decided to go down to the first floor--just in case. Outside, the sky was black. The doors to the building were blowing open and wouldn't stay closed until one of the park rangers locked them. I looked out the window to where our truck, and camper, were parked to make sure it was still upright. It was. And that the trees next to the truck were still standing. They were. Later, on the evening news, several homes in the area were shown with trees that had smashed into their roofs. The storm passed by quickly, without any tornado. 

We returned to the third floor, watched the film, and viewed the exhibits on the third and second floor. The Tredegar Iron Works was the largest producer of cannon and steel plates for the Confederacy during most of the Civil War. The facility began operating in 1837 and continued up to 1952; it produced artillery shells during WWI and WWII. The Iron Works escaped the fires that destroyed a large part of Richmond during the Confederate evacuation in 1865. 

We visited a second museum, The American Civil War Center, privately owned, that was also on the site. This one gave three different views of  the Civil War: The Southerner's, The Northerner's, and the slave's. It used interactive displays that visitors could use to express their opinions by voting, in some cases, or by writing them on Postit notes.

We left the Iron Works at 2:30 to go find a restaurant. One of the women at the Civil War Center told us how to get to an area of old tobacco warehouses that had a large number of restaurants. We ate at a place called "The Hard Shell Sea Food," where we were the only customers. We sat at the bar and had two great meals; B had oysters--served on their shells--which she said were the best she had had since New Orleans, I had calamari with two different spicy sauces. The waitress we learned was originally from Laconia, NH. 

Saturday, Feb. 22, turned out to be such a nice, warm, sunny day that we decided to go to Ashland, just north of the campground. I needed a haircut, so the first stop was at a barber shop. This barber gave an "old fashion" type of haircut; no rake on the clippers and no shaving the neck with a electric razor--he used a comb and electric clippers to cut the hair to length and a straight razor to clean the neck, followed by a bay rum rub. From here, we drove around the town to check it out. We found that the Amtrac rails ran up the middle of the one of the main streets, and we found that there was a small college located in the town. Since there was not much else of interest to us, we decided to drive back down into Richmond to visit a Nature Center located in a park along the James River. When we found it, their parking lot was so crowded and tight that we didn't enter. We drove over to the Virginia Historical Society, located next to the Fine Arts Museum. When we entered the building, we learned that the exhibits were closed because they were renovating the building--only the gift and book shop was open. Again, it was around 2:30, we asked the girls at the desk about restaurants. They told us about some located nearby, within walking distance. We left the truck in their parking lot and walked to the area they told us about. We found a small Italian place, Arianna's. We ordered a pizza--very good tasting, with a thin crust the way we like it--with some wine--also very good tasting, especially the chianti that I had. Our waitress, who looked like what we imagined Arianna should look like, said that she didn't own the place and had worked here only a short time. We had pizza left over to take with us. When we got back to the parking lot, I went back into the VHS building and bought a book, on sale, about Lee and Grant. I also told the girls that with ate at Arianna's. They said that they have the best pizza.

Sunday, was a day to just relax. I did make a call to a campground out near Charlottesville to find out if they had spaces available for tomorrow and maybe a couple of days beyond that. The woman said they plenty of spaces available and no reservations were needed. We will see.

Today, Monday, Feb. 24, we are in that campground: The Misty Mountain Campground Resort, in Greenwood, VA. They did have a large number of spaces available. We have a nice site next to a fast moving creek. A motorhome pulled in right behind us into the campground, and into the site right next to us; it has NH plates. It is a couple from Colebrook and they are just starting out on their three month adventure.