#399b Temple view RV park staying till June, Wilmington trip

One day after returning I drove to Las Vegas and got on a flight. It was a late-night thing so I kind of enjoyed having all three seats to myself. I had reserved a car from the company called Turo picked up the car at the airport and went towards Bens's bus it had been kind of an all-nighter. On the way, I went to the waffle house and had the all-star.

Ben was at work so went by Ben’s bus and borrowed his bedroom to just get some sleep as I was pretty burned out after being up all night.

At near 3 pm, I checked into my room in Chapel hill. I just hung out in the room that night and hung out the next day over at his place.

I don't remember doing that much but it was nice to visit with good son for 2 days. We just messed around I seem to remember putting on the cabinet hardware to his drawers that keep them from sliding open when going down the road.

Next, I would head towards Wilmington. The whole trip was mostly to plant the new terracing that had been created. and I saw some plants about halfway on Craigslist at a person's home so I picked up about $100 worth of plantings flowers and such.

I had found a room at Kure Beach that allowed me to have an Oceanfront view for about a hundred or a little over per night on VRBO. I thought that it would be nice to treat myself to that because I do like looking at the water. There were a few issues while I was there. It always bothers me that there always has to be a problem.

Within the first night, a lady came up and knocked on my door and said you probably don't realize it but every time you walk I hear every step you take and it's kind of driving me crazy. I just wanted to ask if you can walk a little lighter. For the rest of the week, I tried to walk like on eggshells not to bother her. Later I found out that she had moved on a day or so earlier and no one was below me. I was walking quietly for nothing. One other evening some people next door were obnoxiously loud, really loud after 10 pm. Eventually, I knocked on the joining wall and said hey you know can you take it easy I’m trying to sleep. The next day you know I'm getting a message from the landlord saying people are complaining that you're not such a great tenant banging on walls and such. That banging on walls has to stop. I kind of felt like it wasn't me causing the problem but I was kind of getting blamed. I just kind of kept my head down for the rest of the time.

I guess nothing is perfect but I did like sitting out in the morning watching the sunrises and I have a few pictures of that to share.

Just after I arrived in NC they were to move our rig to the permanent RV site over there against the grassy field where we wanted to be. When India tried to slide in a bolt that makes all that work had sheared again for about the third time. The fact that it kept breaking made very little sense because I had started buying grade 8 bolts that don’t break so why they were shearing I'll never know.

She told me what was going on and she asked the people at the front desk if they knew any mobile mechanics. They gave us a number but nobody was much help so I just started using the internet and I started realizing that this was not a big RV problem for an RV mechanic but just a mobile mechanic could do it easily and that's what we did and it was a great solution.

A guy came out and I told him what to expect that I had fixed it once before and I showed him virtually where to look, what to do, and how to do it. I said you put a ¼- 20 bolt in there and it worked great she slid in, we paid the guy like $65 and I was thrilled. As my story unfolds you will find that although nothing breaks while I'm there everything broke the days after I left.

The slide-out worked well and they moved her to the permanent site at the grassy field and Bert loved that because he could hide in the tall grass.

I was good for a minute and India hooked up the water and sewer and electricity to the rig. She had never done all this alone so I was proud of her. It seems all was well but later a passerby said you know there's a lot of water pouring out of your rig so she tried to go out and fix it. For some reason, it just wouldn’t seal at the hose connection to the RV. One kind gentleman finally give her a hand and it was quite a chore but they got that connected and that was the second disaster averted.

The last big problem happened a few days later and the worst possible thing, the toilet won't flush. She had figured out how to hook up the sewer just fine and I'm such a control freak I might say oh you didn't do it perfectly but she did it fine and I was proud of her. I told her to make sure the black valve was open and to her knowledge it was. She was going on the water won't go down and sadly you know we all have to go but there's probably poop floating around so that's no fun. I said all I can suggest is maybe turn the water off and maybe get the fish tape from the storage area. We’ll see if you can be a Roto-Rooter girl. She gave it an excellent try but it just would not be unplugged so we had to call the Roto-Rooter guy. I know they do a good job and all but he couldn't have been there with 20 minutes and it was like $200 so that kind of stinks. Unpleasant or not he did what he was supposed to do and we were all relieved. Thank goodness for India we didn’t have any more disasters during the rest of my absence.

Back to the Wilmington story

The first day that I came by to visit with Savannah I was a little taken back that the place looked pretty bad outdoors and inside.

I had done all that I could when I was there the last time and I hoped they would keep things tidied up. They're in a different place and they think differently. She has a live-in boyfriend and they’re engaged. He's not entirely my cup of tea but you can't tell people who care about or who to love.

I had provided some landscape cloth and Savannah had been directed on how to put it up against the wall so that when they backfilled it would act as a sand filter. With Dominic the builder directing her she seemed to have done that and I thought I made it pretty clear that if you put the landscape cloth over the top of the entire project no weeds could grow. Well, I was just pretty upset whenever I got there as all three levels of the terrace were just overgrown with thick weeds. Nothing had been touched since I left. The yard was like knee-high with grass there was a big pile of old leaves out in the very front of the street and it just looked like a crack house. As I walked around the yard, whatever I had left lying in the yard was still there from 6 months back. Every single tree limb that had fallen was laying right where it fell. I had mentioned if you'll take these Limbs and break them up or something and put them on the street the city will take them away for free. Honestly, they never lifted a finger for the six months I had been gone. I was just so disappointed and then there was some tension with the boyfriend Isaac because he was just kind of being weird. I broke up a bunch of concrete with a sledgehammer and he said oh I wanted to keep that. He wanted to use cinder blocks to prop the doors open on the detached shed. I said the concrete is garbage. We can get an S hook and prop the doors open properly. He got mad and said you do you and stomped off. Anyway, my work is cut out for me. I managed to bump into a guy named Willie next door as he was working for the neighbor across the street. I asked him if he wanted to work hourly. He said yes and he was reasonable. He came by the next day and we took my contractor friend Dominic’s debris trailer and his truck to get that stuff hauled to the dump.

We put every kind of tree limb and yard waste and everything in that trailer. Chunks and chunks of broken concrete and cinder blocks and just garbage and it was quite full. We tied it all down and headed that way. Willie and I unloaded it and got back and that was just a really good day although we were both pooped.

Willie would be quite an asset to my whole time there and he was about 65 + years old but he's pretty unstoppable and I was glad to have him as help.

The next day, a friend from the Full Belly Project, Jock Brandis was nice enough to let me use his small electric tiller, a few hand tools and a skill saw. I tilled up all the levels of the terracing job to get rid of all the weeds. I was able to make it look pretty and ready to plant.

For the larger yard, later I would rent a tiller and between myself and the Lawn guy named Felix who I knew quite well, we got the entire yard tilled and raked out so that we could plant some grass.

I had ordered and received a hundred bags of Black Cow manure and it was sitting there on pallets by the shed.

It was no small job but we moved all those bags using the rental car to the terrace thing and opened them all up to add all this nutrient to the terracing. I spread all that out and then I put the landscape fabric down and staked it all out and then we had a blank canvas ready to plant.

Going back a bit I saw the condition of the outdoors and I saw the two young people sitting on the porch. I begin to say I don't know how to say this without being mean but the place looks horrible. Why don't you people care about how your place looks? It’s not like people have an answer for that. They were busy or they didn't think it looked that bad but it was just horrible and I couldn't understand it all. From the street, I was seeing some kind of red paint on the house itself and down low on the terrace wall. My daughter had spray-painted the letters 111 in red spray paint on the house and on the terrace which is of course the house number. I asked what the heck and the answer were the delivery driver said they weren’t sure where 111 was. So shake up a can of paint and problem solved. It's just behavior that shows zero impulse control. It's a sad situation that they don't know right from wrong. It took me quite a while to scrub it off with paint thinner and sandpaper but I was successful. I could kick myself for how much blood sweat and tears I put into this house yet every time I come back to it just looks like hell. So here I am doing this and I always expect it to be kept up and people will care but they don't and the inside of the house was a train wreck also. It was really a real sad visit really except I had decided to make this terracing look good and I guess I was determined to follow through with it.

At some point, you decide that you're doing it for yourself because you don't understand what's wrong with your people. You know that you bought it for them but you also know that it's got your name on the deed. Although I think I'm doing it for the daughter I guess I'm doing it for me because they're at a stage of maturity where they don't even care.

I've always been a fan of red mulch because it gives such a bang when you're done. I had two pallets of mulch delivered and I also had bought numerous flowers, rose bushes, pansies, annuals, and perennials. All kinds of stuff and needless to say before you know it I've probably spent five to $700 on plants. It just all adds up. At this point, Savannah helped me plant some of the plants and it was quite an undertaking but I did most of it myself. She helped plant a lot herself. We would cut a slit in the landscape fabric with a razor knife and then gouge the dirt with a trowel plant the plant cover it up and keep moving.

I also wanted to create a border at the back wall of each terrace level with monkey grass and did that. When everything looked good I put down the red mulch and it really looked great here's a picture of what it looks like.

All that was quite a job but I was convinced that the well would pump water so I started taking all the pipes that have been roughed in and I created the sprinkler system valves area over there inside the garage. I plumbed in four zones to the water pump and pressure tank. I connected a city water source from under the house as I had roughed it back when it was a construction site. Sadly I couldn’t get the well to hold a prime so it would have to operate off city water. I hoped to revisit the well issue in the future. Next, my focus was on the terrace sprinkling so the new plants wouldn’t die. I was able to use some half-inch black plastic pipe and micro spray and drip irrigation. It was a lot of work but it worked quite well.

Here's a video of the finished product and of course I was quite proud. Everyone and their brother came by and complimented me on how great it looked and it really did look great and I was completely exhausted and about ready to head back.

One really not so much fun thing happened while I was there. The colonial pipeline company had a Cyber-attack and someone had taken control of their Southeast Colonial pipeline oil and gas delivery system. None of the gas stations in the southeast could get gasoline delivered. People started panic filling 10 to 15 six-gallon cans at the gas stations, hoarding gas at home. It was a big mess and when I was at 1/8 of a tank it got to a point where filling up might not be possible. I had to drive around for quite a while to find a station with gas then got in a line with 70 people ahead of me but finally, I got my tank full and a sigh of relief.

I worked very hard and probably not fully appreciated but I liked what I did it's just a ridiculous amount of work. The people I’m doing it for don't have the ability to appreciate it or keep it up. I talked to the guy next door who is a landscaper and I gave him a deposit of cash to keep it up while I was gone. We'll see how it goes.

I took as much recycling as I could cram in the compact car to the 24-hour bins. I tried to clean up the car a good bit as I had to return it but it did have some messiness to it. I thought it was fairly decent but they ended up charging me a cleaning fee. I didn't think it was too bad but they said it was pretty filthy. I headed towards Raliegh and visited Ben one more minute returned the car and caught my flight back to Vegas.

Whenever I landed and got the truck from the storage parking lot I had a 2-hour drive home. I was so glad to see Miss India and that will wrap up this segment.

We still had a week or so prepaid at Temple View so we just kind of got comfortable. We went to the dentist for a much-needed cleaning and it had been quite a while due to covid. Everything had been closed for a year and a half. We went on all kinds of hikes every other day and enjoyed the area. A week or two passes quicker than you realize it was time to move on to our next excursion towards the north rim.