May 15-17, 2010

May 15

Hey, how about my new driver? He

came all the way from India. Rajnish would be a great driver – but he says the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the truck!

We said our farewells and took off on May 15, first destination – somewhere in South Carolina. The rig has a terrible front end vibration. Having recently bought a new front tire and having it adjusted, balanced, etc., it still isn’t right. I finally felt I should stop and have someone check it out. Nice guy at a Travel Center looked it over but since their equipment is setup for big 18 wheelers, he could not evaluate it thoroughly. I felt better once he explained some of the possible problems and told us we were safe to travel, but to have it looked at when we find an appropriate auto shop.

We stopped at a campground in Gaffney, SC which just happened to be the same place we stopped on our last trip to New England. The campground was taken over by KOA and has vastly improved. But they allow some really weird looking people to stay there!

May 16

The weather has been great except for one down-pour yesterday that only lasted about 30 min. We took I-77 outside of Charlotte and up to I-81 into Virginia. The traffic got really bad, hundreds of 18 wheelers and several times we were at a crawl.

As the day wore on, with the front end of the rig shaking and my nerves on edge, we decided to find a place for the night. I made several attempts at finding a cg (short for campground). At one little town I ended up on a street too narrow for the rig, tried to pull over and in the process scrapped my awning against a rather large street sign. (I expect to get a summons from the constable of Luray, Virginia.) So Joe had to get out and help me back up to get dislodged from the sign, then he told me to pull out into the street. I kept telling him to get in the rig but he just kept motioning me to pull out. So I did! Traffic was coming from behind and in front, so I just had to keep moving. Kind of like a bunch of leemings. Joe just stood there watching as I was "forced" down the street. Five blocks down the street I find a safer place to pull over. I think it took him 20 min. to walk those five blocks.

Well, back on I-81, 100 miles later, with those crazy truckers whizzing by me and yet another little rain fall, we found a good place to stay. I didn't realize what a toll 7 hours of driving would take ---- until I tried to get out of the rig and stand up!!!!!!