Hilton Head

We left North Carolina on Thursday (Jeep in tow again, not on a rollback) and arrived at Hilton Head Motorcoach Resort Thursday afternoon. Our friends Bob and Jan own a lot so they suggested we stop in. We rented the lot next to them for three days. The entire area was damaged by the hurricane. Bob said there were 500 trees that suffered damage in the resort. Most of it has been cleaned up and now the sun shines through the remaining trees. The island still has piles of brush and logs along the roads but everything is about back to normal. Crews are still hauling these piles out, seven days a week. If you wanted firewood there is enough to supply all of the southeast states for the winter. The live oaks seemed to survive well. 

Most of the trees are green, making the island look like summer instead of the dead of winter we are used to up north. Temps dropped as we arrived due to the cold front that was following us as we moved south. Low last night was about 40 degrees, way too cold. Tomorrow, Sunday, we are heading to Avon Park, Florida, our site for the winter. The day time temperatures there are low 80's and low 60's at night. 

Next stop: Florida.

I-26 south bound in SC

Bob and Jan Oakley, formally from Pennsylvania, are full timers like us. We met them in Red Bay when our motor home and theirs were both being assembled. 

Hilton Head Motorcoach Resort lot 191 where we stayed for three days.

There are about 400 lots in the resort. You can purchase one for yourself,
with prices starting at about $60,000.

Debris along the roads on the island waiting for pickup by crews
with large trucks and cranes mounted on the truck.

The light house at Harbor Town on the south end of the island. 

The harbor is empty, crews are repairing docks.

This cruise boat is still operation.

The live oaks are still intact.

Flowers in December!

North Carolina Transportation Museum

Spencer, North Carolina is located north east of Charlotte on I-85. We are at a campground in the area, saw the Museum sign and decided to visit. Entry fee was $6.00 each plus $4.00 to take a short train ride. It turned out to be a bargain for the small fee. It's a large site that was a railroad yard and repair center. The State of NC and a foundation operates the museum. When you think of a museum, it's usually in a building. This museum involves many buildings on many acres. Lots of railroad history plus some auto and airplane history. The largest building was the Back Shop where locomotives were overhauled. That building is the size of two football fields. It was the largest building in North Carolina for many years. It's being renovated and will contain more displays including a Piedmont Airlines DC-3 airplane. That building opens next year. Here is the link to the web site http://www.nctrans.org/ for more details.

The North Carolina Transportation Museum Foundation has a number of volunteers and some of them actually restore locomotives and train cars in the roundhouse. If you have ever stood next to a locomotive, you can imagine the work that it would take to do restoration. Just the size of the bolts would be a struggle to work with. During operation, these engines required inspection every 125 miles and major work every 250 miles so in their day, there was plenty of employment in the railroad business. At it's peak, 3000 people worked at Spencer. 

The site began in 1896 and closed in 1977 when it was turned over to North Carolina. The first museum exhibits opened in 1983. The 37-stall Bob Julian Roundhouse is very interesting. The turntable in the yard would rotate a train to connect with the track that went into one of the 37 stalls. Inspections and minor repairs were done at the roundhouse with major repairs in the large Back Shop building.

For a history of steam locomotives visit this web site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive

I took too many photos to load here but here are some of them:

One building contains antique cars. Most are Fords. I saw a Buick and Edsel.
My dad would know every one of these cars and it's history.
I can't tell you much myself but these are worth a fortune.

A hot rod in it's day

This one I know all about. A Chevrolet Corvair from the 1960's. I worked on these cars at Chris Volz Motors in Milan, Indiana. They were aluminum air cooled rear engines and the screws and bolts always seized up and snapped off in the aluminum engine block. The other mechanics hid from the service manager when one of these came in for work!

The turn table lined up engines and cars to enter the roundhouse

It rotates around to the track to each roundhouse bay.
It's used today to get engines and cars in and out of the roundhouse.

This engine was built by Lima Locomotive Works #1925.
It was hauled to California and won a steam engine race

Another view of the #1925

Several engines were in the roundhouse.
This is an Atlantic Coast Line LEGACY 4-6-0 Ten Wheeler Steam Locomotive

The coal hole inside a steam locomotive.
They had to shovel the coal in from the coal tender that was just behind the engine.

Seaboard Air Line #544, one of over 200 undelivered Russian Decapods

The cow catcher

This diesel-electric locomotive in the roundhouse is the Southern Railway #6900,
built by Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1951. It's in service at the museum.

A luxury car used by a railroad executive. This car is huge and long as two regular cars.
It's like a motor home on the rails.

This light was an one of the trains that carried FDR across the US after he died in office.

A mail car used until airplanes took over mail delivery across the US.

This was a hospital car used to carry injured troops to hospitals in the US from WWII and Korea.

Lunch was good at Bebops in Spencer, across the highway from the museum

Jeep Broken in North Carolina

We picked up our front windshield sun screen Tuesday morning in Mocksville, NC. We hooked up the Cherokee to leave and things went wrong. The rear wheels were locked up, the electric steering did not work right and the engine would not run more than three seconds. Error codes show power steering issues. This is similar to what happened  two months ago. This story could take pages to explain but this is the short version. It took another rollback trip. It's at a dealer in Salisbury, NC, waiting for we don't know how many days to be looked at. 

We are at the Cross Winds Family RV Campground near Lexington, NC where we will be waiting until who knows when. Our trip to Hilton Head and then Florida will continue when we get the Cherokee back from the dealer.

Here it goes again.

Freightliner Service

Our chassis is due for it's first oil change, all 7 gallons of it plus other items. Cost is much greater than an oil change for your car! We are at the factory service center in Gaffney, South Carolina for an 8:00 am appointment Monday morning. This will be an annual event since service is required once a year unless we exceed 12,000 miles (probably not). There are RV hookups so we arrived Sunday afternoon. The building only has three service bays so it's not as large as I expected. Everyone says this is the best place for service but we could go to any Freightliner center in the country. We move on into North Carolina tomorrow for one day after our service is completed.

Heading south on I-40 through North Carolina.

This I-40 tunnel looked a bit close but we made it with no scrapes.

Parked in the lot for the night.

Back side of the service building.

They have an 18 wheeler for show and tell events.

If the service is good enough for Richard Petty's bus, it's good enough for us.
This passenger bus is parked next to us in the lot.

We had an interesting tour of the Freightliner Factory in Gaffney while waiting for our service work. They would NOT allow photos in the plant.

TOO Cold - Heading South

After two weeks, we left Winton Woods today, heading south. Steve and Lisa Muncey were across the driveway from us and are staying until Monday. We have one night stays at Raccoon Valley, TN, Gaffney, SC, Mocksville, NC, and Columbia, SC. Following that, two nights at Hilton Head then on to Florida. 

Way too cold so south we go

More to follow as the week progresses.......

Raccoon Valley Music

We have been at the Escapees Raccoon Valley RV Park, Heiskell Tennessee, for the past week. The park is just off I-75 about 15 miles north of Knoxville. We will be heading to Winton Woods Park in Cincinnati on Sunday. During our stay, the park has local music talent in on Thursday night. They were all retirees that just like to play when they can. They were actually good with some off key singing but we enjoyed the two hours. Here are some photos.

ReJex and Fall in Tennessee

The tree leaves in Tennessee are hanging on. It's very dry and forest fires are going in several places. The trees that did loose their leaves were dried up brown with not many colors. We are still in Tennessee for another week. The traffic was crowded as usual so you need to be patient. Driving into the mountains last week was almost impossible.

Our friends Steve and Lisa purchased our prior Tiffin motor home. They stayed at Cades Cove last week so we did get to visit with them one afternoon. Steve has added an DC to AC inverter to the motor home, quite a job which he did successfully. It was a clean install, what I would expect from Steve. We did not have an inverter when we owned it since we did not dry camp. In Cades Cove, there is no electric, water or sewer connections and generators are only allowed a few hours to recharge your batteries.

I was busy for 6 days last week, washing and applying Rejex to the motor home.

Rejex is the best polymer paint sealer I have every used. It's not wax, not even close. It lasts at least a full year. It's applied as a paste/liquid, like a liquid wax, drys quickly and wipes off easily. It does not clean anything from the surface so your paint must be clean of all bugs and tar. If you have applied wax prior to ReJex, you must wash and scrub the paint with Dawn dish soap first to get the wax off. Better yet, start using Rejex as soon as you get that new vehicle, of course wait at least 60 days from manufacturing date so the paint is cured. A 12 ounce bottle will do two cars. A 16 ounce bottle will do the motor home. You won't find it in local stores so search Google and you will find several places to order it.

Our location for the last month at River Plantation in Sevierville. Rejex is complete except the roof. That will be completed in a couple weeks. Too much dust here from a rock quarry about a half mile away. Our vehicles get the Reject treatment every year in the fall.

The Apple Barn is a required stop for dinner and stuff you probably don't really need.

New to us, we had lunch at Paula Dean's resturant at the "Island" in Pigeon Forge.
Our friends Barry and Donna from French Lick visited us for a few days. We have been friends for about 35 years, meeting when we were in the Indiana Volunteer Fireman's Association.

This was across the street from Pauls Dean's in case you needed some liquid after lunch.

This is in the center of the Island, across from Pauls Dean's.
It's called the Dancing Fountain, complete with music.