North Carolina – June 2021

After our first successful RV trip exploring the southwest, we plopped ourselves down in my parent’s driveway for the month of June, enjoying lots of great family time. Thanks, Mom and Dad! Western NC, where both our parents live and where we both grew up, will always feel like home. We think that being able to come back and stay with them will ground us, balancing out our travels and wanderlust.

Besides hanging out with our siblings who came to visit on weekends, the first two weeks were mostly all work and no play. The major project was trying to organize our garage (the bed of the truck). We had felt like we had plenty of room for things we need to carry, but access to it was a completely different story. When getting bikes in and out is harder than the actual bike ride, that’s a problem. Our solution was to get a bed slide which we found used and installed ourselves. This bed slide is basically a big drawer that can hold up to 2000lbs and roll in and out so that we don’t have to crawl inside anymore. It has been working so well that I now classify it as a necessity. We also added a cargo net for storing our paddles.

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We tried out our new kayaks at our beautiful local lake, Lake James. We used the Linville Boat access. The good news is that they float! The bad news is we are still trying to figure out why Michael’s boat is faster than mine.

During the 3rd week, Michael was off work and we had some non-RV travel. Michael’s parents took the family to the Omni Resort on Amelia Island, FL to celebrate their 45th Anniversary! We were beach bums…only leaving the beach to go the pool, find food/drinks, and sleep.

And on the last week, my nephew and I attended Grandma and Grandpa’s summer camp! We sluiced in Hiddenite, ate a lot of candy, played at parks and pools, and spent a day in the mountains in Blowing Rock.

On the 4th of July holiday weekend, we set out on our next adventure. Our destination was the Finger Lakes Region of western New York. Originally, our plan was to yard sit while our friends took a two-month trip to Alaska. COVID-19 derailed their travel plans but we are still going for a visit and to bounce around NY for a while.

On the way, we took a slight detour and went to Hershey’s Chocolate World (this is what happens when I’m driving and Michael is navigating)!