A long long day of driving.

At 7am, a 2 hour and 20 minutes on the ferry crossing from Ocracoke to Cedar Island was ideal time to sleep and / or catch up on reading or writing. The Ocracoke Lighthouse made for a picturesque backdrop as we made our way through the choppy and rough passage. High winds whipped our tiny little boat in sporadic rolls and churn, and with each rhythmic lurch, the trailer (although chalked for the journey) sent the truck jolting back and forth along the deck, causing my startled nauseous nerves to stumble at times. slaDE~ was calming however and in the lull between chop, I continued to catch up on writing my unblogged thoughts and perusing through many a photo for said entries. My mind and body would not settle down enough to nap for the duration.

An unsuspecting result of the turbulent trip were the streaks of sea salt spray, hammering both truck and trailer. This had us searching for auto wash bays where our 55 foot long could squeeze in for a healthy wash and rinse, after we made our way down the coast of the mainland. Salt will do nasty things to uncoated aluminum and thereby needs to be removed as soon as possible. Although our trailer has a clearcoat finish on it, that 20 year old coating is oxidizing and is in need of a good polish / recoat. Salt is the last thing we wanted on both vehicles (kind of like the corrosive road salt we experience with Canadian winters — hence the oiling of most vehicles to prevent corrosion and rust). With a bit of luck, we managed to find a wash bay that served our purposes. After lengthy efforts at squeezing in to this tight space, we were dismayed by the faulty washer — no soap, just water. We reasoned that this would have to do for now as the other bays were either impossible to fit in to or exit from.

In total this day, we travelled over 15 hours, including our ferry crossing. Needless to say, we were more than ready to hunker down for the night at a Camping World just outside of Savannah Georgia which had reserved an electric spot for several nights in our name. One of the benefits of memberships: complimentary overnight parking at some of the nationwide stores, where available! A sweet deal indeed.