An RV Story...

I could start waffling on again about beaches and nice views and all that but I'd rather deviate from the norm for a minute or two and tell you about something a bit different and warming. Having the RV has been great in more ways than just the obvious. Staying in hotels while fun for a 2 week holiday is not much cop when you are travelling about for an extended period and having to unpack and repack your bags every couple of days (we haven't yet stayed at a site for more than 3 days!). Which leads me to a side to the RV we hadn't considered. As you may have seen in our pictures the RV rental stickers are not entirely understated, in fact we stand out like the Cookie monster at a girl scout cookie cook-off. But this is certainly no bad thing as on more than one occasion already genuinely nice people have approached us asking for information on it and then just got talking to us. It was just the other day that we pulled up to an empty Pharmacy in North Carolina when an old banger of a car pulls up alongside us and the kindly gentleman within beckons to Fran in his husky Southern tones “Excuse me Maam but is that a rental Motor Home?” to which we feel obliged to explain where you can rent said motor home and passed on the phone number and web address. But the conversation rarely ends there, upon hearing your accent you know there is another question waiting to pop out “Are you from London County Council?” came the reply. He goes on to tell us he is Jim Sprull, from North Carolina, and visited the UK in the 60's and stayed in London County Council. The only reason he had pulled into the car park was to ask about our rental home (he wasn't even going to the shops) and yet here he was 10 minutes later still in conversation with us, telling us about his adventures and listening to ours.

But this isn't a one off. The number of times we have got talking to people in all sorts of situations is quite incredible. We have been tailoring our trip around the advice we have been given by strangers (who often later become friends) for quite a few weeks now, and without a doubt have seen some sights that otherwise we may have not even known existed. You just cannot underestimate the value of local knowledge. Further into North Carolina on a campsite in Wilmington we got chatting to a very nice man, Joe from Connecticut, again because he inquired as to the origins of our RV. He later introduced us to his wife Luanne and we went over to their RV for Strawberries and cream. I have no doubt we will keep in contact with our new friends.

On another occasion we were visiting Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, we had just parked the RV on a meter and were unloading some stuff for the beach when a young guy and his friend walked passed and stopped to ask if it was a rental “YO! Where can I rent one of these?” and the conversation started. We went and sat with Will, Corey and Wes on the beach for the afternoon and later on they invited us to meet up again later for some dinner, which we did. Will took us to a local Vietnamese restaurant that was very good, through the conversation we found out that Will had just finished his exams for the summer, and didn't have much to do. He also said that he had always wanted to go on a roadtrip but never had the chance. We looked at each other and decided it would only be right to let this guy come and enjoy our journey for a time and give him a taste of the RV lifestyle. Will immediately jumped at the offer and decided to pack that night, as we were leaving in the morning! Convincing his mum was a different matter and it took a little while for her to realise we weren't axe murderers about to kidnap her son (understandable really as he had only known us for 6 hours!).

Will travelled with us for about a week before getting a coach back home from Savannah. We all had a great time in each others company, from playing crazy golf to going to an awesome Stephen Marley Concert and hitting the night life in Charleston, we all had a blast (and a few hangovers!) My hope is that we have given him the travel bug and he will try and arrange for a journey of his own in the future. I know we'll stay in contact and will look forward to meeting up with Will again at some point.

We are having a wonderful time on our journey thus far, and as you can see we have met many very friendly people. So far this is definitely turning out to be a trip of a lifetime, I can only hope that it continues to be so. We think of everyone back home all the time and hope everyone is well.
Karl & Fran
x