Current Location: Spartanburg NE/Gaffney KOA, Gaffney, South Carolina

We went over to the laundry room this morning to finish up our laundry. Later in the morning, the Ford dealer called and indicated that we needed a new fan clutch which has been ordered. They were fairly confident we should have the truck back tomorrow by around noon. If so, we can hook up and head on towards Alabama, or at least as far as we feel like traveling.

With the truck news in, we decided to drive over to Spartansburg and visit the Camping World there. We had a couple items on our list that we needed to pick up. First was a 15 foot extension cord for our fairly short 50 amp hookup cord. There have been a couple times we could have used a longer cord but instead chose a different site, or parked way forward on the site so our cord would reach.

We also picked up a new set of Magma stackable cookware that is compatible with our new single burner countertop induction stove. Val lucked out and found the 10 piece set (like we have now, but Teflon coated) over in the clearance section. We saved a bit of money on the pans.

After shopping, we stopped by Cracker Barrel for lunch, then headed back to the trailer. We also picked up a couple of screw-in spikes for tethering our ratchet straps when we use them to hold down the awning. We got to check out how well that works when an unexpected but brief thundershower rolled through the campground. We took the straps off and rolled up the awning when we saw more severe weather approaching (fortunately, it passed us).

We didn’t do much the rest of the evening. We scrounged around the kitchen for dinner and took it easy. Malcolm posted some travel pictures to his website. Val retired to bed early.

Current Location: Spartanburg NE/Gaffney KOA, Gaffney, South Carolina

On Monday, we drove around and did quite a bit of sightseeing. First, we drove to the information center at the main entrance to Newport News Park and picked up some literature and pointers on visiting Yorktown. We drove up the road to find a post office but it didn’t open until noon, so we drove on to the visitor center outside of Yorktown and found that it wasn’t what we were looking for. They pointed us in the right direction.

We ended up eating a slightly early lunch in Yorktown and then headed across the street to a gift shop. Several people mentioned that a ship was coming through the nearby drawbridge, so we joined the gathering crowd to see the drawbridge open and a naval ship passing through. It was fun watching the bridge close up afterwards. We headed on up the street and stopped by the Yorktown post office to take care of our mail.

We headed on to the National Park Service building at the nearby battlefields and paid our admission. We watched the introductory movie, picked up a CD for the self-guided driving tour and briefly looked through the small museum that had on site. The driving tour was neat. We didn’t get out of the car and walk up to any of the sites, but you could see enough from the parking areas to get a feel for the history of the battlefield.

From there, we drove on into Williamsburg and walked up and down the main drag, stopping into several shops to look around. We didn’t do any of the paid tour since it was late in the afternoon, and we have both been there before. After that, we headed back to the trailer and had leftovers for dinner. After dinner, we headed over to Malcolm’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Charles house to visit with them for a bit and drop off a pair of sunglasses that Aunt Mary left at the trailer. Aunt Margaret and Uncle Jerry were there, as well.

We said our goodbyes and headed back to the campground, stopping on the way to fill up the truck with fuel. We had most everything packed up to head out in the morning.

We got up this morning fairly early and were pulling out of Newport News Park about 7:45 AM. We had a fairly long drive (410 miles) to Gaffney, South Carolina which is roughly the halfway point to Wetumpka, where we planned to driving to on Wednesday. However, when we pulled into the KOA, Malcolm left the truck running to let things cool down while we checked in at the office. When he went to pull around to our space, the air conditioner was blowing warm air. That wasn’t a good sign.

Once in our spot, Val went to raise the trailer off the truck with the switch on the front of the trailer and it no longer works. We ended up using the remote control. Now we had two broken things. It was only about 4:30, so Malcolm found a nearby Ford dealer to drop the truck off with after verifying we could stay in the campground another day. We paid for Wednesday night and headed over to the Ford dealer. The air conditioner was working fine all the way there. They are going to check it for us in the morning, anyway. We found a nearby Olive Garden and had dinner there since the trailer was still cooling down (it was 95 degrees when we arrived).

Back at the campground, Malcolm had the foot pedal for the toilet fall off when he went to flush. It had turned on the water but had not opened the drain, so Malcolm found himself with a non-functioning pedal and a bowl quickly filling with water. He ran outside and turned off the main water supply just in time. He worked on the toilet while Val took some laundry over to start it. Malcolm got the toilet back together but we’re not sure the pedal might not jump off again. The pedal is retained in a fairly poor fashion once you have removed it one time. Not the best design.

Once things settled down, Malcolm and our granddaughters did a FaceTime call on the phone. Malcolm walked down to the pen where they keep the goats and chickens in the campground. He had a small bag of carrots to feed to them (which is OK per the sign on the fence). The girls enjoyed seeing the goats and chickens as well as their “Pa”.

After all the excitement of the day, we were just glad to relax. We’ll be here another day, so we might catch up on laundry and just relax.