Halloween 2012

This year, Hurricane Sandy rained out trick or treat at the campground, but the church we go to, Wrightsboro First United Methodist has a "Trick or Trunk" in the parking lot. We decided to go. Packed up the candy in Nikki's car and setup in the parking lot. We were underdressed for the occasion!  Had a lot of fun and there were lots of kids.

It was cold, 55 degree's! Not as fancy as everyone else.

See Ya - Sandy

Fortunately, Sandy stayed about 300+ miles off the coast and did not have a significant impact on southern North Carolina.  It started raining Friday night and rained very heavy through Sunday morning. Winds stayed around 30-35 mph with gusts to 60 but nothing really that bad. The area had 3 to 8 inches of rain depending on where you were. We were around 4 inches.

NC was spared, unlike the looks of Delaware, New Jersey and New York. Hope everyone we know in those states makes it through ok!!!

Reading Electric Meters - 101

We have a digital meter at the campsite. It looks similar to your car with black numbers and then one gray number on the end. When we got here I thought it was 7.3 hours. WRONG..... that is 73 hours. Today it read 70.3 which is 703 hours. So we used 630 hours or $69.30. Still well within what I budgeted. We are averaging about 20.3 hours per day with a lot of A/C useage. I expect it will decrease now as we don't really need the A/C much during the day. It is stayng around 75-80 and 55-65 at night.

This reads 705 hours NO decimals
 

One year on the road!!!!

Tomorrow will be one year since we've been on the road!
Its gone by so fast.

Today we had our Sunday morning pancakes, sausage and ate outside in the screen house. It was a beautiful day today, 82 degree's and blue skies. Almost identical to last year at this time.

We had Nikki and her friend Stephanie over for breakfast. We went to get pumpkins and did a little carving today too.

Stephanie hard at work

So this was a bit strange. All the seeds in the "ghost" pumpkin were growing inside the pumpkin!

Go STATE!

The Thinker 

So plans for 2013......

We'll be in North Carolina until March. Then off to Arizona and Colorado for the summer.
We have agreed to be camp hosts in Carbondale from May 1st until October 15th.

This year's site - # 43

Monthly rates and eletric meters

Ever wonder how many kilowatt hours you use in an RV at a campsite?  At the KOA in Wilmington they charge for the site (monthly) and now charge for electric separate. 11 cents per kilowatt hour.
I did research but really couldn't find much on it. Plenty on homes but not much on RV's. The general information I found shows the average home uses 1 kilowat per hour.

We have 30amp service for our RV. One A/C (which is constantly running right now), 2 computers, external montior (always on), frig and our TV (42") is generally on during the evening for 3-4 hours.

Keeping track it looks like we use about 2.5 kilowatt hours a day. That's 77.5 hours per month or $8.26 per month in electricity. Not bad!

In October I'll update with the actual numbers.

Update:
First full week (9/16 - 9/23) of electric with A/C running about 8 hours a day and Frig on A/C -
Started 7.1 kwh  Ended 26.1
Total 18.8 kwh * .11 = $2.068 cost first week

Back in North Carolina

We left New York last Tuesday and went to Delaware. Tuesday night we had dinner with Nancy and Tom at their home.  We used to live next door to them in Delaware around 1984. We got to see Alex and Brad and everyone was doing great. Wow....Nancy now retired and Tom is retiring in October. I hope he does not drive everyone crazy!  We had a great evening sharing old stories and catching up. You can see a picture of everyone on Kathy's facebook page.

Wednesday we drove to the Washington, DC area and spent the night. Thursday we drove to Rocky Mount, NC (north NC) and spent Thursday through Sunday morning there. KOA was having a "stay Friday get Saturday free" event and the Wilmington KOA was booked until Sunday. Rocky Mount is owned by the same family that owns the Wilmington KOA.

Rocky Mount KOA, NC

We arrived in Wilmington on Sunday afternoon. Last year we were in site 41, this year we are two down in site 43. The campground is pretty busy still.

Wilmington KOA - Site 43

Since we left in March we have travelled 15,045 miles and 27 states! I'm getting ready to start planning for 2013.



States travelled in 2012

New York City

New York City North / Newburgh KOA

Today we went to New York City. The KOA is in Plattekill, NY which is about an hour and half north west of New York City. We drove to Beacon, NY (about 11 miles from the campground) and took the MTA North Train to Grand Central Station. It took about one and half hours. From there we decided to walk to the 9/11 Memorial. We had a reservation to get in at 1 p.m. We arrived in Grand Central Station around 10:30.

Beacon Station - Metro North Train

Walking to the Memorial

Reflection ponds

The Memorial Chopper

The Survivor Tree

The tree Kathy is standing by is the only tree that survived the 9/11 destruction!

Wall Street Bull

After the Memorial we took a trip on the Staten Island Ferry and saw the Statue of Liberty. The ferry ride is about 25 minutes each way.

After the long walk in the morning we decided to take the subway back. Its subway 5 green from the financial district to get you back to Grand Central Station and it takes about 15 minutes. We got back to Grand Central around 3:45 and found the train back to Beacon was leaving at 4:10.

Coast Guard Gun ship on the Hudson River

It was a great day. Everything but the train ride is free! For the memorial you go online to make and print your reservation.