#319 Our house in Wilmington, NOT, Carolina Beach State Park

This is our former house we recently sold

We had planned to go This to Wilmington for the summer and stay in the driveway of our garage vacant lot next to the house we used to own. The fellow who bought the house to said it was okay and I was pleased about that because some people would consider the RV an eyesore, kind of like my neighbor has a trailer parked next to me but he didn't have that stigma issue and didn't care. Also, I've got this 1954 truck that I've been kind of piddling on for 30 years and I want to morph it with a 1996 Chevy S10 truck that I bought. I want the infrastructure underneath to be modern and the body to be 1954. By the way the 96 S10 truck I bought has a manual transmission with like a four in the floor and a Corvette engine with headers and it's pretty cool.

My goal was to work on the truck and get it all welded up and fixed and then it would be able to be moved to most anywhere. I could get it titled and drive it all around.

It's also kind of neet to stay for free on land that you own. I had made an agreement to pay the guy who bought our house who was renting the garage to store some of his stuff. I said whatever electricity we use and water would be compensated.

I even bought a kilowatt hour meter to measure our electricity so we could compensate him accurately.

The story gets weird from here on out as the guy was buying a house, he was just a nicest fellow before during and after and whenever we asked her if we can keep the RV there and he said that would be fine with him that was actually quite cool I just had bragged about how nice he was.

I would like to sell the garage and land but I've got an awful lot of stuff still in the shed roof part that is unlocked that I have to deal with. I need to find a place to put the truck. I got to find a place to put a few a boats and a kayaks and take some junk to the dump. It's just a bit of a project so I needed this time to take care of it for a few months.

I figured when it turned cooler and I had all that behind me we would go back up to Raleigh and I would do anything I could to help Ben with his bus for about a month maybe and then head back down to Florida to be snowbirds.

Although it needed some mowing this is the driveway where we would have lived if the new owner hadn't gone weird

I sent the guy that bought our house a text saying will be heading down in about a week and just wanted to give you the heads-up. We appreciate you working with us and we'll be there for several months to work on my old truck and garage.

He responded with:

We have had an incredibly bad time with flooding coming from your lot onto my property which used to be our house.

I'm a little upset at you because you did not fully inform me that the flooding would be this bad. I have gone to an enormous amount of expense on this and I do think you're going to have to compensate me for my loss.

During the process of trying to fix all this I have had to dig up over there by the air conditioner. We had to cut the water off to the garage area where you park your RV. I also was talking to an electrical person and they said that it's against the National Electric Code for you to provide electricity from the main house that you used to own to this garage that I'm renting so I had to turn the power off.

You're welcome to come down but there's no water or electricity for you to use at this RV place that you have over there by your garage.

I guess I might as well say my mouth kind of dropped because our whole summer plan just went down the toilet and there's no reason to stay at my garage if there's no water electricity.

I got into a little bit of a tiff with the guy and next thing you know he said a few things that really upset me and I said things that upset him and then he said like well I'm going to sue you. All this was by text.

I got kind of prissy back at him by text and I said well how about this I had had an offer for a hundred thousand at one point for the land and I'm going to take that guy's offer. As of January first when your lease is up you can just get off my property and take your stuff and be out by January 1st and you will not rent there again.

At that point he said you'll be hearing from my lawyers.

So now we're in full tizzy mode and we are not going to be living in Wilmington for the summer and I don't know what to do with the truck project. We had planned on going to Wilmington and delivering a sofa that came with the brand-new RV that we don't need to my daughter Savannah. We were also giving her a TV that we didn't really need from the former RV.

Instead of several months in our driveway we made a reservation at Carolina Beach State Park for 4 nights.

They had no availability on the electric sites but they had a non-electric. Considering our plight and it wasn't perfect but we went ahead and took the non-electric site. Whenever I was looking at it online trying to make a reservation, I found one that was nice and long, about a hundred ft pull through. I was clever and tried to make a point of making sure it was in reach of a water spigot. I've learned to do this along the way as we RV around the country. Your site might not have water but try to pick a site that's close enough to run a hose over to fill your tank.

When we arrived in Wilmington, we went on down to Carolina beach and got settled in.

It was nice in every way except it was just hot as blazes and no electric for AC so we had to run the generator all day. There are rules to be followed so the way I remember it, quiet time meaning no generators from 10 pm until 7 am. You better know as hot as it was, we would turn that generator on it 6:59 a.m and you keep it on until 5 after 10. It was like 95 to a hundred degrees everyday

We got the sofa and TV delivered to Savannah and it was nice to visit and because it was so hot. We sort of thought we might just crash at her place because hey she has air conditioning.

Then comes the uncomfortable part. I remember being quite a messy person whenever I left my Mom's house. I think I'm seeing a pattern here that when you move out and there are no rules sometimes you have a tendency to become a slob. I'm not saying this is true for every person but I really did fall into that category. I notice my son is that way and my daughter and boyfriend are that way. Now as a grown retired person I'm no longer a slob but in my twenties, I have to admit I had it bad. We're at my daughter's house and everything that she's ever touched is in the middle of a floor. I mean it’s kind of a pigpen really.

India and I are thinking to ourselves its too creepy to sleep here even for a night. It's just that awful so we decided to get a hotel instead. We nosed around and tried to see what the availability was and we were finding everything to be 175 to 250 per night.

I even remember staying at like the Baymont for maybe 80 bucks but that was just not available.

We did the thing that I say I'm not going to do but we did anyway. We ended up down there on Market Street about where Port City Java is or at least in that area where there's a string of what I called construction worker motels.

Azalea Inn & Suites

Some people would call them flea bags or a hole in the wall. They were like 80 bucks and it was just for the air-conditioning and I got to tell you it was a dive all right. Here you are staying in a place and it certainly smells like construction worker cigarette smell and probably a faint whiff of old beer and I don't know. I told India you know it's going to be kind of a sucky as far as a room goes but do you want to go forward just for the purposes of AC and she said yes.

The AC with loud and the room sucked everything's sucked but we did it anyway. We’ve learned that Bert can be fine alone overnight.

We stayed at Carolina Beach for four nights. We took care of any errands and I met with Jock from full belly and looked at his garage project to answer electrical questions he had. India got to visit with Suzi a little bit, her best friend.

I had to spend a day cutting a fallen tree down that had been laying on the garage shed roof since hurricane Florence a year prior. I cut the tree up and made sure the roof the tin roof was no longer leaking as I could tell it had been. I put a flashing from the big roof to shed roof because water was getting inside the garage a little bit.

I took care of all this and that's about it and we were done with Wilmington.

Now it's time to head back to Raleigh because like I said everything is changed and we are not going to be staying at our garage for a few months. Just as a side note I kind of checked the electricity at the garage and it was on. The guy that said he had to turn it off because of a safety code violation. It was on because his air conditioner was running, he was just being a prick.

There is a repeating story about Bert and not much wanting to leave once we get settled at a place. I've said this before in a previous post that he got my goat about six times this year and that he cannot be found on a day’s we're leaving.

I'm writing this months later and now we have a fully functional cat tracker collar on him but I have to say that when it was time to leave Carolina beach he could not be found.

I looked high and low and it was quite a chore and it took hours and hours and finally we got our hands on him but he wouldn't come. Another hour goes by and the campground host helped us and it just took probably four to six hours to get him. Then it was time to go and yes, I am an idiot for not getting the collar that tracks his location sooner but I hadn't suffered enough yet. You do the same thing over and over again expecting different results.

I got everything ready to go and hooked up the truck and started pulling out and it seemed like the truck I was kind of being a little extra smoky and had no power.

I really couldn't understand it. I have had some electrical computer problems so I didn't know what to think. All I know is this really sucks and by the way and it's a Friday afternoon. Getting a mechanic will not happen till Monday and I am pulled over on the side of the road having anxiety. I was barely off the state park property. The truck would only go about 10 mph with heavy black smoke but I could go back I guess. The RV spot I had was no longer available for the weekend and there were no others so I didn't know what to do except leave.

I eventually went out the gate and disconnected and tried to drive the truck without a load and it still wasn't happy. I really didn't know what was going on except that it would run, barely.

It's really very stressful because I finally got Bert gathered and now the truck won't run.

I tell people I know it's got three hundred thousand plus miles but it's a great little truck. It’s got a new engine a new transmission, new fuel injectors it's going to be great. We're just going to keep replacing parts until it's new. At the same time when it bites me in the butt, I began to think maybe we should just buy a new truck.

The problem with this is always been that we've got a lot of money in this one and new ones cost $70,000 and it just kind of hurts my feelings to even consider spending 70,000.

India and I are trying to be good stewards and that's a lot of money to blow just because you're angry at the truck you're driving. I will tell you the thought crossed my mind and I could tell from talking to her later the thought crossed her mind as maybe we should give up and buy a new truck. No matter what was to come, we really were just on the side of the road and had to figure it out.

It's not like I knew what was wrong but I did think that it's possible that there's water in the fuel so I open the hood and cracked a little yellow valve that I'm familiar with. It's at the fuel filter and it bleeds off any potential water. You know the craziest thing happened. I've done this before and when you crack that little yellow valve handle fuel comes screaming out. Nothing came out but like but a puff of smoke not literally but just a dribble of fuel.

I didn't know what the problem was because I had the fuel pump completely replaced the winter prior and now there's no fuel so all I know is oh my god I've got to do something.

I called around to a couple of the RV parks and now I've suddenly lowered my standards. I don't care if it's a rundown redneck dive or what. I need a place to sleep that's got AC.

Being a Friday afternoon in the summer at the beach there was really no availability at any of the places I called. There was one and I do remember it but I never stop there or spent any real time there but it's kind of a kind of a low rent place that's on River Road just on the mainland side of Snow's cut Bridge.

I never saw myself staying in a place like this because it's just kind of folks are just getting by. I thought I was better than that and it sounds arrogant but I thought I was better than that.

The first time I ever felt this way was before we ever bought the RV. The idea had crossed our minds and we were visiting Topsail Island. We were just goofing around and I thought to myself let's just imagine that we had an RV where would we stay around here maybe. There was a place that was right on the water but it was full. Its hard to get in because most of the people never leave or it stays booked.

Somehow, we just found ourselves at an RV park and it was one of those small family-run kind of places. There were some kids just sort of sitting out in the middle of the road playing in the dirt with no shirt on. I thought to myself wow it's one thing to RV as an entertainment and fun. A cool thing to do when you're retired but if you live here is more like a trailer park because my parents can't do no better.

Like it or not I remember saying I think I would not really want to vacation here or RV here. The people really live here, they’re not vacationing. If I were out Rving, vacationing about the world this would-be kind of a depressing place to stay.

That was all several years ago and now we are considering that this depressing little place to stay because that’s all there is. There was a pitiful place called Carolina beach family campground.

I called the run down place and they had a site available. Suddenly I've lowered my bar to if have you got air conditioning I'll be right over.

The office lady said based on what you told me about your rig I really only have one site that will work and I don't think you can fit. I told her I said I really like to look at it and give it a try.

I proceeded to go towards the park which was only a mile away but up and over a steep tall bridge crossing Snows cut channel. I’m pulling the RV up the hill and it would only go 5 miles an hour and if you press down on the accelerator more it just seemed to do even worse. It took me awhile to figure it out but really not asking it for that much and just letting it run practically at idle but nothing much more seemed to work. The bridge is quite an elevation climb.

Normally you would say who cares but now that I have no power and I'm going 5 miles an hour and it really didn't even seem possible. I did get that sweet spot of just maybe 800 to 900 RPMs which is just more than idle and just slowly creeped up the hill at 1 or 2 miles an hour.

Of course, everybody hated me but I was in the right lane anyway so they can just kind of get over it.

I had my hazard lights on what more can I do

I don't know how but thank God for Dodge Cummins diesel power because I was able to creep up that hill at 2 miles an hour and get over the top and make it into the RV park which was the first left onto River Road and around the corner.

I pulled in made the proper arrangements with the lady she said go ahead and try if you must but I don't see how you're going to fit. I walked down there and looked and it really looked pretty doable and so I said I want to try and she said you do not have to give me any money until you can see if you can get in there.

Now I'm stuck between really wanting a place to stay tonight and being really judgy because this is about a dive this is really not a great place to stay.

Because I'm desperate because and they've got air conditioning, I think it's a great place to stay.

I looked at all the options and how to approach it and really the only real problem was that it was a fairly Sharp 90 degree turn. You can imagine all of the RVs are these are crammed in here pretty much like sardines. I want ahead and begin my approach and the power the engine could offer could barely get us over a root from an old tree.

The tree root was kind of acting like a wheel chock and the only way I could even get over 4-inch root in the middle of the dirt road was to get a little head start.

I saw that I would have to back the RV back up into the neighboring campsite and then forward hard as I could and then I hopped across the root.

There was a good bit of driving involved and it was weird and next to impossible.

At one point the landing gear was rubbing the ground because it was so crazy and some guy said maybe we should take the wheels off and take the landing gear off and on and on.

A friendly guy came up and started being extremely helpful and I really appreciated the help but it's kind of a prison mindset where if he helps me what am I going to do for him.

I really appreciate it all this unconditional help but again what's he about to ask for? I figured money, a favor, something, I don't know but he didn't and I was grateful.

After a good bit of effort, I was able to get the rig into the hole and success was had and yay I'm at the RV park dive of a lifetime.