December 01, 2004

Asheville and Winston-Salem, NC

Happy December!  We took a spectacular drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway.  We went about 20 miles north and had unbelievable sights along the way.  We probably got to an elevation of about 4,000 feet, and not much higher we saw a coating of snow on the trees and ground.  We almost got to Mount Mitchell, which is about 6,500 feet high and is the highest peak east of the Mississippi.  We tried to get to the Folk Art Center but somehow got lost on the way.

On Thursday morning, we left Mama Gertie's (the campground in Swannanoa, just east of Ashville) and spent the afternoon at a rest stop on the interstate.  Late afternoon, we drove to the Walmart in Marion and spent the night there after getting the OK from the store manager.  We even had electric power, as we tapped the line from some people who were selling Christmas trees.  What a nice deal, and it didn't cost anything

On Friday we reluctantly left Walmart and drove a few miles to Tom Johnson's, an RV center in Marion.  It is a huge place, and while they were servicing our motorhome, we spent some time looking at new and used diesel motorhomes.  Then we drove east to Winston Salem, where we found another Walmart to spend the night.  There we met with our cousin Doug Weitzel, his lady friend Donna, and two of their kids, Jeffrey and Shannon.  We went out for italian food and then we all came back to the motorhome for coffee and cookies.

Saturday was an easy day, as we left Winston Salem and drove a short distance north to Elkin, NC.  There we visited with Bill and Sue Owen.  Bill was a roommate of Norm's in college in 1961.  We parked the motorhome in the driveway and spent the day reminiscing about the past and talking about the recent events of our life.  Sue made two great meals for us.  After dinner we play dominos.  We had never played before, and it turned out to be a great time.  Shelley one the game, which took a fair amount of time.  It must be the genes, as her mom plays dominos for much of the winter.

Charlottesville, VA

Sunday morning, Bill and Sue visited our coach for breakfast.  At 10:30 we all left....they went to church and we left for our next stop, Charlottesville, VA.  Shelley drove for about 40 minutes, and then begged for mercy, so we switched drivers.  We arrived at Small Country Campground (in Louisa, VA, about 10 miles east of Charlottesville) at 3:30.  This was the most rustic campground we have been in.  There were dirt roads that wound through the dense woods, with campsites scattered around. In fact, we couldn't watch tv because the trees didn't allow the signal to get from the satellite to our motorhome.  Oh well, we will survive.  Shelley was a bit uncomfortable walking Rags after dark, as there was not a light anywhere, except what came from our Winnebago.

On Monday, we drove into the town of Louisa to do some food shopping. Our friends Marsha and Joe Elowsky arrived at the campground around noon in their motorhome and we spent the afternoon together as Marsha and Shelley worked on the first Chai newsletter (Marsha is chapter president and Shelley editor of the newsletter).  Then the four of us drove into downtown Charlottesville for dinner.  We ate at Bizou, a restaurant that was recommended by other motorhomers via the RV.net web site.  The food was somewhat unusual but very good and we enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  Marsha, Joe and Shelley each had a delicious catfood dish and Norm had venison, the first time he had tried that.  Bizou is on a pedestrian mall...a really neat place to stroll and just look at things.  As we finished dinner, we heard some nearby sirens, and upon leaving Bizou, we noticed that a nearby multi-level parking garage was swarming with police and firemen and the nearby streets were almost blocked with emergency vehicles.  We never did find out what was going on.     

Tuesday was a drizzly, rainy day and Marsha and Shelley spent most of the day working on the newsletter while Joe and Norm talked motorhomes.  Tuesday evening we celebrated the beginning of Hanukah.  We lit candles on the menorah we recently bought at Jan (our daughter) and Rob's new Temple and we had a special dinner.  Shelley made a turkey breast in the microwave convection oven and Marsha brought over some home made latkes (potato pancakes), a traditional Hanukah dish.

Wednesday's weather was a treat.  It went up to the high 60s, and it was sunny most of the day.  We visited Monticello (Thomas Jefferson's home) and nearby Michie's Tavern, which has been an inn since the mid-1700s.  Monticello was particularly interesting, as we all learned what an amzing person Jefferson was.  He practiced violin about 3 hours a day, exercised about 2 hours a day, was an architect, archeologist, politician, diplomat, botanist and he learned 7 languages, some by comparing an English version of Don Quixote with a Spanish version of the same novel.  He incorporated into his home many modern (in the early 1800s) ideas that he saw in Europe when he was a diplomat overseas.  There was a brief mention by the docent of a possible relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemmings, one of his slaves.  We had lunch at, and toured, Michie's Tavern.  The tavern has been in existence since the mid-1700s, and it was interesting to hear about tavern existence back then.  But I found the tour there falling short of other similar tours we have taken.  However, the day proved to be tiring for Marsha and Shelley, as they both fell asleep on the way back to the campground.  During the early evening, Norm, Shelley and Marsha had a game of Scrabble, while Joe was scorekeeper.  Marsha proved to be an easy winner, as she tried to convince us that some of her Scrabble rules were, indeed, the standard.  We quickly brought out the rule sheet to show her the error of her ways!!  She still won, however....hmmmm

Thursday brought us some mixed weather, so we didn't do too much.  We did make a trip into Lousia checking out the post office looking for our mail, but it still wasn't there.  We're not sure what we would do if the mail doesn't arrive by tomorrow, when we plan to leave Louisa and head north.  We also took a trip to visit James Monroe's estate.  While it isn't quite so grand as Jefferson's place, the docent was so full o enthusiasm for what he was doing that we all enjoyed the tour immensely.  We also stopped at Walmart so Marsha could collect some blue plastic Walmart bags for the rug she was knitting.  During the afternoon, Shelley and Marsha worked on the CHAI newsletter while Joe and Norm discussed the Alaska trip and also new motorhomes.    Our dinner that night included some very special turnips that Marsha and Shelley swiped from Monticello yesterday.

On Friday morning we prepared our motorhome for the trip north.  On the way, we made a quick stop at the post office, and were relieved to find that our mail had arrived.  We drove all the way north to Leesburg VA on route 15 and arrived at our daughter Janice's house during mid-afternoon.  Janice and granddaughter Lilly were gone for the week-end, but we spent the remainder of Friday with son-in-law Rob and grandson Zack.

During the week-end, we left the motorhome in front of Jan and Rob's house and drove the CRV to NJ to attend the Adam's (the son of Shelley's sister Cathy and Steve Flieschacker) Bar Mitzvah.  Adam did a great job, and the affair was wonderful.  But Shelley had some difficulty being amongst people who, at that time, didn't think of the sorrow she felt (and feels all the time) of Amy's loss.  We left NJ on Sunday evening and drove to Middletown, Delaware where we spent the evening and next morning with our Chai friends, Laura and Shelly Singer.  At mid-day we drove back to our motorhome in Leesburg and spent the afternoon and evening with Jan, Rob, Zack and Lilly.

Tuesday morning (12/14) found us on the road again.  We had been discussing buying a new motorhome, and we made the decision that we would do just that.  Once the decision was made, Shelley was ready to go charging ahead, and couldn't wait, while Norm wanted to think things through a little more.   So we were off.  We stopped at a Monaco dealer just outside of Winston-Salem, but they didn't have much to show us.  Then we drove to Charlotte, NC where there was a somewhat bigger selection, but still not much to look at.  The dealer there, Tom Johnson, put us up for free in a campground that is owned by the owners of the NASCAR track there, and the campground was adjacent to the track.  It was unbelievable how large the track and stands were.

On Wednesday, we continued to south to Bleakley RV in Unadilla, GA.  We spent a fair amount of time there, and found a number of motorhomes that were interesting to us, but we couldn't come to an agreement on price.  They also put us up at a campground for free.  This was an interesting place, and they had different activities each evening.  Wednesday was bingo night, and we decided to go and see what it was like.  Maybe it was beginner's luck, but Norm won the second game.  He was so excited and jumped up to claim the prize.  Well, they apparently had a well defined procedure for doing this and some old southern battleaxe said "SIT DOWN."  I guess we, still weren't following the right rules, because another "SIT DOWN" was ordered.  Boy, did we laugh about that.

Thursday morning we took another shot at negotiating with Bleakley RV, but again we could not agree on a price.  So we had a decision to make.  We were planning to stop and see daughter Stacy and her family for a day and then head east to see Charleston and/or Savannah.  We discussed deferring that visit and driving south to Tampa to continue our motorhome shopping.  And Shelley, who really missed seeing Stacy and her family was so enthusiastic about getting a new motorhome RIGHT AWAY decided that we would go to Tampa.  We did a quick job of readying the motorhome and off we went to Tampa.  We arrived there about 3:30 or so. Our salesman, Brant Graves, met us at our motorhome.  In addition to finding out what we were looking for, it was clear that he was already thinking of potential clients who would purchase our Winnebago.  Talk about thinking ahead.  He also told us some things about Lazy Days.  Read carefully, these are not typos.  Lazy Days is the world's largest RV dealer.  There are about 140 salesman.  They have about 125 service bays and 180 mechanics.  There total staff numbers about 1,200 people.  They sell about 10,000 RVs a year, which averages about 30 per day.  On one day a number of years ago, they delivered 112 RVs.  They cover 12 1/2 acres and currently have about 1,400 RVs in stock.  The way you buy used RVs here is to tell your salesman exactly what you are looking for.  Then you wait for him to call you and tell you that someone is trading in the coach of your dreams and it will be here on a certain day.  You agree to put a non-binding deposit on it and then you make sure that you get down here when your coach arrives.  As a result, almost all of the attractive used RVs on site have already been sold.  Absolutely amazing place.  And, best of all, (1) there price is significantly better than other places that we visited and (2) despite the immense size of this place, so far we have not been made to feel like a number.  We get the feeling that each person that we have dealt with actually cares about us as individuals.

After a complimentary breakfast on Friday morning, we met Brant.  He told us that he had found a new coach that had almost everything that we wanted.  It was a Holiday Rambler Endeavor. It had been custom ordered and built but, for some reason the order had been cancelled.  It was still at the factory in Indiana.  And, it had one of the things that was really important to Shelley, a computer desk that would allow us to keep the computer all set up, but hidden.  Because of the circumstances, Brant told us that they were willing to give a discount on the coach.  We went with Brant and visited other coaches of the same model, but with different options.   Then we started negotiating.  Back and forth we went until we feel we got a good deal and Brant obviously thought that both he and Lazy Days were doing ok financially.  When we shook hands on the deal, Shelley was so excited that she actually started to cry,

By Tuesday afternoon we had buttoned down almost all of the details.  Our new motorhome is being driven up from the factory in Indiana and should arrive sometime between now and tomorrow morning.  They have to do a pre-delivery clean-up, install a satellite dish (and possible a satellite radio and/or a CB radio), and explain to us how everything works.  On Wednesday morning, we will move our Winnebago to the delivery area, where the sites are double wide.  Our new coach will go on one side pointing forward and the old coach backed in on the other side.  Then we just transfer things from one coach to the other.  Hopefully we can get everything done by mid-day on Friday (Christmas Eve) when we plan to leave for Stacy's house in Statesboro, GA. On Tuesday evening, we drove to Lakeland, FL  (about 15 miles west) to meet another Chai couple, Steve and Judy Czarsty.  We had an enjoyable dinner and spent most of the time discussing motorhome issues.  Judy and Steve have both had lots of experience being active in FMCA (Family Motor Coach Assocaition) and also just living in coaches; they have been full timing for a number of years.  One of the issues that we resolved after talking to Judy was that we will get a washer/dryer in our motorhome when we return to Lazy Days in late January.  Judy really likes hers, so we will have one also.

During the day on Wednesday, we took care of lots of paperwork.  We arranged for financing and insurance and registration, with wonderful help from Lazy Days staff.  Late Wednesday afternoon brought us our new coach.  It was really exciting for us and we couldn't wait to see it.  We didn't even give the driver a chance to pack up his things and leave before we climbed aboard and checked out things.  But before we knew it, the coach was gone to have several options installed and for things to get cleaned up.

Late on Thursday, our new coach arrived at the delivery area parked right next to our Winnebago.  After a quick pizza dinner (which was delivered to our motorhome) we started moving our stuff from old Winnebago to new Holiday Rambler.  Its amazing how much stuff we had accumulated in the Winnebago in a relatively short time.  We were helped by new friends Mike and Sue who live in Greenpoint, LI, a town that we had often sailed to aboard one of our boats.  They have both sail and power boats, so we had lots in common.  We about collapsed at the end, but we got most things moved, and then we broke out the champagne for a toast to our new motorhome.  We fell into our new bed, completely exhausted.

On Friday (12/24), we excitedly got up early and finished moving odds and ends that we missed on Thursday evening.  The walk through coordinator from Lazy Days was not very good, and we eventually got his boss to come and answer some questions.  But Shelley was really in a rush to get going to visit Stacy, and it was a long trip of about 420 miles.  So we mistakenly took off before we really had all our questions answered.  The trip was uneventful, north on I-75, east on I-10, north on I-95 and west on I-16 to the Statesboro exit.  We stayed at Parkwood RV Park, about 10-15 minutes from our daughter Stacy's home.

The next week brought on lots of mixed emotions.  It was really wonderful spending time with Stacy and her son Alexi...but we had learned that Stacy and her husband Alexi were planning to get divorced.  Despite this, we all tried to enjoy our first visit on Christmas eve and Christmas dinner at Stacy's (Here is the incredible list of attendees - (a) Stacy, (b) Shelley, her mother, (c) Norm her step father, (d) Alexi, her son, (e) Nancy, her birth mother, (f) Duke, Nancy's ex-husband and current boy friend, (g) Christina and Scotty, Nancy's children and last, but certainly not least, (h) Alexi, Stacy's son.)  Shelley's parents, Ina and Alan Stull, stopped off on Tuesday evening on their way to Florida to visit Stacy and to see our new motorhome. In fact, they were the first ones to sleep over on the new Endeavor.  We had a really nice visit with them, ending with breakfast at IHOPS on Wednesday morning, before they resumed their trip south. 

On Wednesday evening, we were invited to a bonfire by a number of other motorhomers who spend most of the winter at Parkwood RV, and have done so for a number of years.  It was a fun evening, with lots of gabbing.  We went to Stacy's for New Years evening and left there about 9:30 p.m.