Katie and I celebrated our first year anniversary of marriage on May 22nd by taking the motorhome on a trip to beautiful, historic NewBern North Carolina. We booked a site at the KOA for monday through wednesday and were super stoked for the vacation. I was a little concerned that the Bounder would give us trouble on the way, but she ran strong and smooth the entire time! We ended up finally purchasing a new chassis battery for starting the engine, as the old one just gave up. It was super cool getting to drive through all sorts of new situations: over bridges, under overpasses, through down town traffic, and I even pulled a successful U-turn!!
I will say yet again: I have found the ultimate driving machine. BMW doesn't even know.
Our stay at the KOA was perfection. 10 out of 10 for sure. This was our first real experience RVing and the nice folks in the yellow shirts helped us out without being condescending or anything of the sort. It was cute to see the couple's reaction when they heard that it was our first trip.
"Oh I remember our first RV trip!"
The town of New Bern is an excellent place to take your sweetheart because there is lots of fun and romantic things to do. Katie and I got to take our paddle board out on the river during the day, and in the evening we got to go on a sailing cruise with On The Wind Sailing Cruises. The cruise was excellent and really made us appreciate not being super rich. It also gave us sailing fever again. I strongly recommend On The Wind cruises if you're ever in the area. The capitan is super nice and knowledgeable and her boat is beautiful.
On the way back home from our trip we followed a giant thunderstorm. We tried to take our time so that it would stay ahead of us, but we ended up catching up to it as we neared Washington, NC. We slowed down and used the hazard lights until it started hailing! I quickly swerved off the highway and we hunkered down in a Food Lion parking lot. It was super nice to be able to walk to our bedroom and just relax while waiting. It was also awesome to see the storm through the ginormous windscreen of the Bounder.
After the storm we got to see some Mammatus clouds, and Katie helped an older lady get her groceries in her car. Then we fired up the old beast and continued on towards Jamesville, NC.
All in all we had a safe and wonderful first RVing experience celebrating a marriage that has been a tremendous blessing.
Other updates include: We recently purchased a 45 Watt solar panel kit! We're going green baby! We are hoping that the solar panels will be able to keep our mini fridge running in case we have to move or the power goes out. Dad knows far more about electrics than I do, and unfortunately he doesn't think the panels will be enough to keep the fridge going. At least they should keep the coach batteries topped off.
We also have some exciting news! Our gracious friends in Falkland, NC are letting us live in our RV in their new back yard for our last week here in Greenville! We are stoked to get to spend some time with them and their puppies out in the country.
As far as technicals, we have received our new genset muffler and should be installing that shortly. Our fuel filler hose has a crack in it and I will be replacing that soon as well. We discovered that our adventure driving in the storm had damaged our front right fender. The puddles splashed up and split the vinyl siding. This too should be a fairly quick fix.
We are still excited about living in our RV for a while, and all the adventures that we will encounter along the way. Thank you family, friends, and visitors for supporting us and checking out our blog!
I'll peace out with some pictures of the fun.
-Dave & Katie Broyles
Here's our beautiful camp (Kamp) site. I love KOA but I think its silly to start every "C" word with "K". Notice the scenic Neuse River in the background.
This is the breakfast flower that I picked for a centerpiece for our anniversary breakfast! A morning glory I believe.
Here is our sweet touristy picture taken with the 10 second timer! Notice the beautiful seat cushions and curtains curtesy of Mom in Law!
Here's me and my girl. Notice the cloud in the back ground? It started like that...
...And turned into this. Check out our sweet bumper whiskers bristling in the wind! Oh the glory!
Stopping on Hwy 17 to let the rain settle down. The windscreen is so vast that it takes the wipers a while to get back and forth.
Chilling in the bedroom for a while.
Here is me on the sailing ship Nervana.
"Can I hoist that sucker?"- me "Absolutely"- capt. Melinda
