Boondockers Welcome

After we left Acadia we boondocked our way towards Maryland, stopping at Cabelas in Scarborough, ME; Cracker Barrel in Sturbridge, MA; WalMart in Newburgh, NY and finally at Cabelas in Hamburg, PA. We stayed 2 nights at the PA Cabelas.

While there we noticed one of our tires was missing its little hub cap and its bearing dust cover was loose.

We drove a few miles down the road to Tom Schaeffers (where we originally purchased Old Glory) and asked them about the part we needed. They pulled us right in, removed the wheel, fixed the dust cover, refilled a propane tank for us AND sold us a new hubcap- $3.71 for the hubcap, about $30 to remove the wheel and fix the dust cover… LOVE Tom Schaeffers they are the BEST!!

After our 2 night Cabelas/Cigars International/ Tom Schaeffers adventure we headed to Maryland. Our oldest son and his wife recently became Maryland homeowners so we wanted to see them, their new home and our grandpuppy, SAM. We also wanted to help them in whatever way we could to prepare for move-in.

While in MD we stayed with a Boondockers Welcome (BW) Host. We had just joined BW the first part of September. Boondockers Welcome costs $30 a year to join and you can join as a guest or host or both. You can be a host if you have property that can accommodate an RV and want to welcome travellers for a night or 2. As a host every time a boondocker stays with you you earn additional months of membership in BW. We joined as guests so we just looked at the BW website for a host close to our destination that could accommodate our size rig and requested to stay for 2 nights. Once they accepted our request we showed up on our reserved dates, unhooked and that was it. Some hosts have electric and water hookups at their site and others may just be a driveway or piece of land to park on. BW suggests leaving a gift, thank you note and/or gratuity at the end of your stay. The family we stayed with in Maryland was very friendly and welcoming. They invited us to participate in a game of fish bowl. If you’ve never played it, click here for instructions. We opted to observe but it was very entertaining and we hope to play it with our extended family in the future.

We were able to spend time with our family and also met some great new RV friends! It was an awesome first experience and we look forward to staying with other BW hosts throughout our travels.

Our next destination was North Carolina.

Florence was just leaving and we were arriving. We wanted to visit family in Hickory and actually had reservations for Fort Fisher Recreation area on Kure Beach, NC (unfortunately Kure Beach was destroyed by Florence and we had to head west after Hickory) We were monitoring weather and road conditions.

We stayed the first night at a Walmart in Staunton, VA. That travel day was kind of rainy.

The next day our destination goal was Mayberry Campground in Mount Airy, NC.

Mayberry Campground was nice! It was clean, had full hook ups including cable and they gave us a Passport America discount. It was $17 for the night! We were able to refill our fresh water tank and dump our other tanks while there.

We would proceed from there to a BW host in Connelly Springs, NC where we could stay for 3 nights while visiting family in Hickory. It was forecast to be dry (no rain) and temps in the high 80s. Can you say Humid? All that rain from Hurricane Florence should dry up quickly!! And the BW host did not have electric hook ups. We would definitely be using our generator for A/C.

When we arrived in Connelly Springs, NC we were able to park in the BW Host’s empty lot. There was plenty of space. Our Host had baked a delicious loaf of pesto bread for us and also gave us some F.R.O.G. Jam (fig, raspberry, orange and ginger.) The bread was still warm – it was so yummy and fresh! We unhooked, set up then went to visit family in Hickory about 25 minutes away.

Mark’s Aunt and Uncle invited us for dinner and to stay the night. We were also able to see many other extended family members. (Thanks to Aunt K and Uncle J for inviting us to do laundry while we were there ????)

Thank you to Josh, Adri and David Luke of Kades Coffee Company for the cool T shirts too!

The next morning we went for a hike at Riverbend Park in Catawba County, NC. It was beautiful there and Mark saw 2 deer. We ate lunch in downtown Hickory and just hung out for the rest of the afternoon.

We spent Friday morning getting to know our new Solar panel abilities.

We had purchased the solar panel in July but now we finally had the opportunity to use it! While boondocking with no hookups our battery lasted almost 2 full days. Friday morning we plugged in the Zamp Suitcase solar panel and in 10 hours our dead battery was fully recharged.

Then we mapped out our route west on I-40 to Oklahoma and Mark entered our daily trips in the GPS.

North Carolina is a beautiful State! We did not get to see the beaches but we’ll be back to North Carolina at some point to visit Kure Beach, (hopefully they recover from the hurricane) and visit family again and we want to see Asheville, Biltmore and Blowing Rock among other sites.

When you read this we will be headed west to our “Home” state, South Dakota!