What a day!

Aunt Iris and Beth left this morning for Jacksonville, with a stop in Clayton (near Raleigh) on the way. It was twelve hours later when they called to report that they were home safe. They ran into severe rainstorms and spent lots of time driving 45 mph with flashers going.

On our morning walk we spotted this fierce looking turtle on the edge of the road.

We spent the morning working on our repair issues again. We called Todd's RV and Marine in Hendersonville (near Asheville). They are very busy but said we could come by Thursday afternoon and wait to see if a tech was available or if someone no-showed. We made an actual appointment for the first available date, which is a week later.

We did get more insight into our air conditioning problem. We had the air on all night last night, and when we got up this morning, it was sounding muffled and not putting out any cold air. We turned it off for a couple of hours and opened the windows, but then it was sweltering and we decided to try the air again. This time it was working. A bit later we heard a showering crash on the roof. Had a tree fallen on us? No. It turned out that the loud noise must have been some ice breaking loose from the air conditioner on the roof.

We did some more Internet research and decided to climb up on the roof and see if we could see any dirt and debris on the compressor coils or evaporator fins. We took the shroud off, but then we weren't able to see much. After taking out some more screws, we ran into some with heads that we don't have drivers for, so we put it back together and decided to let the repair folks handle it.

More reading of forum entries on air conditioning freezing led to an aha! moment. We have been closing off some of the air vents to redirect the cold air. It's possible that this restricted air flow enough to lead to freezing. We opened all the vents.

After dinner we went over to visit Mike and Hazel one last time. Hazel was kind enough to let me use her Bernina sewing machine to sew some chair protectors for our Stressless chairs. She has a whiz-bang sewing cabinet. She opened the doors and slid out the sewing machine on a low drawer. Then she pressed a button that lifted it into place. How cool is that?

My cousin Jan called to wish me a happy birthday--three days early, but I'm glad to have good wishes anytime!

About this time Shirley called to report that two large Black Angus cows were wandering around in the field behind her house. Marissa spotted them when she came home from band practice and told Mike. He said they must be dogs--but then saw that they were bigger than even the large black dogs owned by a neighbor. They called the sheriff to report the strays.

I went over to Shirley's to pick up the box of tea that had been shipped to her work. Mike had told her "Your cousin called and she's coming over to drink some tea with you, or she said you could go to Hazel's and drink tea." Shirley laughed about this "tea party" interpretation and told him that I was coming to pick up a package!

Hazel had to go to the church for a planning committee meeting. Uncle Jesse was there too, and he came back to the house with her when the meeting was over, so we had another chance to say goodbye.

We finally headed home along the service road. In the dark we missed the Lewis Farm Road turnoff. Just past it is the church, and we decided to turn around there. Unfamiliar with the layout and unable to see much in the dark, we missed the driveway and drove into a large culvert. The truck landed with the front left tire in the air, suspended over the rocks lining the culvert. It rested on a frame crosspiece.

Several people stopped and offered to help. Some folks came over from the Fuel Stop across the street. Everyone was very friendly and helpful.

We called Coach-Net, our roadside assistance company. They answered quickly and had tow trucks at the scene in half an hour. Meanwhile a state trooper happened upon us and turned his flashers on. He wanted to talk to Coach-Net to determine which wrecker service had been called. The Coach-Net people were super.

Two large tow trucks arrived from J & S Wrecker Service. We couldn't imagine how the truck could be extricated without a crane, but they attached a hook near the right front and dragged it out sideways. On the receipt, this was described as "winch and snatch block." Miraculously, there was no damage aside from a small scratch on the frame.

After the trooper left, the tow guys asked if he had ticketed us and were very surprised to find that he had not. They said that he was well known for being quick with a citation and that we were very lucky. Ken had explained to the trooper that we were camped down the Lewis Farm Road and had been out visiting family nearby and were unfamiliar with the area. We think he must have taken pity on us.

I had called Hazel and she had called Uncle Jesse. Both of them had offered to come help. We called to report that we were out of the ditch and the truck was operational. We headed to the campground, happy to know that we had family who cared, but glad that we hadn't needed them to come out in the dark.

Tomorrow we’ll break camp and drive to Statesville and then on to Asheville the next day. We talked to Johnny about our change of plans and paid for our stay.