Goodbye Hollywood

We extended a day at the park in Hollywood, SC to avoid arriving in the Charlotte, NC area in time for a 14 degree night.  That is colder than I want to subject ourselves and the motor home to.  Good move on our part.

We did leave today (Wednesday) for Charlotte and had an easy drive once we got by a traffic jam where I-526 & I-26 meet north of Charleston.  As far as we could tell it was about a broken down car on the entrance ramp to I-26.  I guess they pushed it off the roadway and traffic began to move after 20-25 minutes.  Smooth sailing from that point on.  We did follow an 18 wheeler for a few miles since the truck was going on and off the interstate at 62 mph.  I was concerned that the driver was falling asleep or having some kind of medical problem and didn't want them to rear end us if it got worse, so I was reluctant to pass the truck.  Finally, I passed the truck and the woman driver could barely see over or thru the steering wheel.  She must have gotten her CDL in Illinois a few years ago when you could just buy one without the proper qualifications.

Tom Johnson Campground near the Lowes Speedway was our destination and we arrived before rush hour and that made for a less stressful drive.  Once we got settled in I sent directions to our campsite to the kids since this is a departure from the park we've been staying in the past 3-4 years.  The previous park has gone more to being full of pipeline workers and some rather seedy looking characters.  Plus, they have been parking us in a very narrow site with limited parking.  

After a quick dinner we went over to Barb & Henry's for a card crafting party.  I went, but Gerry was the participant.  I find it easier to just buy a card when I need one, assuming I remember the occasion.  There were 3 mother/daughter combinations and one mother/daughter in law combo.  They started working on the cards at 6:30 PM and worked until after 11:00 PM.  All seemed to have a great time and declared the party a success.

In the meantime, Henry and I went over to grandson Sean's home anf visited with him.  Sean is a sports fanatic and I knew we could watch some basketball or something interesting. We wound up watching the Charlotte Hornets play the Indiana Pacers in a rather lackluster game that ended with a tip in the last .1 second by a Pacers player.  It was a stunning finish to the game and reminded Sean and me of the NC State National Championship game many years ago that was decided on a last minute tip in.  

We left Sean and it was back to Barb's to watch some more tv and the Arizona-UC Irvine game on tv.  They have a great tv package and receive 100s of channels including the PAC-12 transmission.  We can't get the Arizona game in Tucson most of the time due to it being blacked out locally, even though they have sellouts.  Arizona has two 7'0" players and a 6'11" player so you would think their height alone would be enough.  However, UC-Irvine has a 7'6" and a 7'3" player to match AZs height.  Thankfully they weren't of the same caliber as the AZ players so it wasn't a BIG problem. 

Arizona looked terrible and were losing 46-43 when they went on a great run and wound up winning 71-54.  UC-Irvine sort of fell apart when Arizona turned up the pressure on them.  After seeing them in action, I am not sure Arizona is the #2 team in the nation.  Hopefully they will improve by years end.

The ladies left and then it was clean up time at Barb's.  We finally left after midnight and made the drive back to the motor home.  It was cold here so I turned on the Aqua Hot heater and warmed the unit up quickly.  Finally we turned down the temp and went to bed.  I can just barely remember my head hitting the pillow and slept 7 hours straight.  That doesn't happen very often.

We got some bad news that our friends Linda & Sherwin had to return to Maine for the winter.  Now that my knees are in better shape we had plans to do more things with them this season.  Hope they don't get any of the 5' snow storms up there this winter to contend with.  See you guys somewhere down the road.

Gerry's sister Darlene & BIL Tom had a sad Sunday with their beloved dog Kokee who went to doggy heaven.  She had a good 12 1/2 years with people who loved her and that is all you can ask for.  I still remember the first time we met the dog when we were still living in our house in Maryland.  LOL  (Inside joke)

Just another sunny day on the road.