2016 Big Truck across the SE, Day 8

Ok, lots to catch up on. The fancy campground referred to yesterday is apparently a big deal. When I was looking for a place somewhat close to Cuyahoga Valley National Park but still a day's driving distance from OBX, this was in a very small selection. When I mentioned it to Kimberly, there was a fair amount of commotion about it being a Good Sam 10/10/10, which is apparently fairly rare. Given some of the campground bathrooms I have seen, I would have to agree.

So, without further adieu, I give you Shenango Valley RV Park.

Note the finely manicured lawn (that you are not allowed to place a tire on - I kid you minimal). It is kept this way by the park authorities not allowing you to your site without a golf cart (more on that in a moment) escort, who also guides you onto your perfectly level concrete slab and watches you hook up your rig properly.

This looks like few campground drives we ever see. Jordan had been poring over the campground map last night as they have no less than 3 playgrounds here.

Attention span of 1.5 seconds - on to the basketball court (this particular shot was nothin' but chain)

Then over to the volleyball court. You will notice a conspicuous absence of other humans, mostly because it was super freaking early and she was going stir crazy from the 13 hr ride yesterday.

Ok - let me preface these comments with the fact that this is one of the nicest campgrounds we've stayed in, the staff is friendly and very helpful, and the patrons (this isn't the Masters, but campers doesn't seem fancy enough), well - here's deal. You know those golf cart dealers you see every now and then selling lifted golf carts with flames, baller rims, etc? The ones that you wonder how a dealer like that could ever stay in business? This is how.

Nearly every site had their own pimped out golf cart, and since most of the sites here are seasonal, my research led me to this conclusion. There is a distinct area within the intersection of a Venn diagram of mustaches, muscle shirts, jorts, (carpenter jorts!) giant white tennis shoes (think Dan vs Dave era) that contains the residents of not only this park, but all of western Pennsylvania. I realize that comes across as a sweeping generalization, but I am only basing it on every single person I have seen in the Pittsburgh area over many years of travel. I'm sure I've only seen the outliers.

Ok, next up - the surprise destination.  A water park! Wait, after 4 days in the actual ocean, now we go to a water park?!? Yes. My wife's favorite thing ever is a wave pool, my daughter loves few things more than the lazy river and some splash pad goodness, and I hate crowds of people (especially the aforementioned people). And knowing all of these things, this place was my idea. I'm always dragging these guys to national parks, state parks, hikes, etc - I decided it was time for a day of good old Walley World-style traditional family vacation.

The anticipation was killing her.

Lest you think I did any sort of pre-planning, they put this up after we reserved it on site.  This next shot does not do the hordes of people justice.

At the risk of offending even more people, I am going to fast forward to the end of our waterpark experience. Every year we go to Great Wolf Lodge back home and have a great time. And every time I am conducting a social experiment, of which I am a part. I am somewhat convinced that your propensity for visiting a waterpark is directly proportional to the number and severity of poor life choices you have made, specifically in regards to amount, quality, and placement of tattoos (mine included).

Anywho, we had a great time, rode nearly every waterslide in the park, watched Kimberly elbow out her own territory at the front of the wave pool, and turned our child into this after 5 hrs of chaos.

I had reached my limit of exposure to the hordes, so we worked our way to the exit. Just as we were leaving, I saw this. I'm not one to name photographs, but I like to call this one "The Zenith of Western PA or Anywhere in Ohio". I defy you to focus on any one feature as the highlight.  Jorts - yep. Giant blinding white dad shoes - yep. God awful gold corvette with white letters & era-specific wheels - yep. Admirers of said corvette in background - yep.  I could keep going, but my work is done here. This may be a portion of the country that drops down a few priority levels going forward.

During a somewhat quiet ride home, we pulled over to put the top up on the Jeep as the sky we were racing looked like this.

As the thunder started to appear, note the tiny hand sneaking its way out of the Jeep to grab some raindrops. 

Since our campground is in the middle of nowhere, it lended itself pretty well to views like this. Some great back country farm roads, just beautiful country.

Crazy cloud formations

Oh, and after we arrive back at the site, since it was a Sunday evening at the end of the summer, it felt like an episode of the Walking Dead, or a much better take on the zombie genre - Shaun of the Dead.

Everyone was gone, and for the few seasonal trailers around us, they were shuttered and silent. Couple that with the calm before the storm, and it was quite the eerie feeling. At least we could start packing up without fear of being judged for walking on the grass.

Tomorrow - heading for home, with a quick stop in Cuyahoga Valley National Park on the way. Starting to feel like the end of the trip. More to come...

2016 Big Truck across the SE, Day 7

Day 7 - all packed up & ready to roll just after sunrise. Of course, just as I'm doing the last walkaround to triple check everything, the Flanders family rolls out just in front of us.

On our way out of the Outer Banks, we crossed this bridge for the 4th time, and each time I swear we are the last vehicle it will hold. Luckily that crane you see in the distance is part of a construction project to hopefully replace the entire thing. I'm sure the scrap metal equivalent of a bunch of mismatched 4x8 sheets of plywood was a good idea at the time, but this design has probably run its course.

Unless you have driven this section (or 7 mile bridge, or the chesapeake tunnel (coming up soon)), it is hard to convey the amount of time and engineering that must have gone into deciding the route & then planning and building the entire project. Maybe civil engineers weren't just too dumb to hack it in the other disciplines (sorry - misplaced nerd humor. carry on).

I know I've written about this before, but I'm too lazy to look back in the archives. We passed the Grave Digger compound in Poplar Branch, NC. It's everything you would hope and expect it to be.  A few miles before it there is some sort of 80s Toyota SR5 monster truck on the side of the road, and a few miles after it there is an offroad motorsports park.

Above is the track that I assume visitors get to ride around on in a monster truck version of a tourist bus.  The look in your eyes right now reading about all of this certainly matches the looks on my wife & daughter's faces as I was ranting about Dennis Anderson and the legacy of Grave Digger & monster trucks in general. I still remember how crushed I was when Bigfoot jumped the shark with this abomination.

 From here on out things went downhill fast, starting with this.

Days of salt water, sun, and stray sunblock had turned the rafro into an unmanageable mess. When I saw this picture, I was taken back to 2 lasting images from my memory banks. The original:

and the Bloom County version:

In both versions, there is some implied airflow creating the effect. In mine, the windows are up and nothing is causing that salad to behave that way except a whole lot of awesome.

Moments later, I spotted this Redline. 

I had wanted one of these so badly when I was growing up, so I can only hope this random citizen appreciates what they have, or can remember finding a catalog like this at their local BMX dealer.

One more random aside before getting to the bulk of the day. This unassuming sign,

which triggered a rush of these references.

One more random aside - this sign:

which resulted in a very disgusted reaction from my spouse Which in turn prompted me to engage in some sly internet commerce, which will result in me wearing a shirt with the above slogan.

Ok. The rest of the day in a brief photo essay.

Traffic

I95

Ginger rage boiling

Serenity now

The carrot.

Tomorrow - surprise destination and the fanciest campground ever.

2016 Big Truck across the SE, Day 6

Day 6 started with a very familiar sight, a few scattered paddle boarders getting in some early work on the sound.

Since we haven't really sampled much of the seafood (we've been too busy running up & down the islands playing in the waves, we haven't hit a restaurant yet), we decided we would pick someplace for a somewhat late lunch, then pack up and head to the waves again.

During our search, we stumbled on this place.



As you can see, it came highly recommended, but from the name alone we were immediately skeptical. All I could envision were lightly perched flat bills, bro-tanks, lots of white sunglasses and inane conversation. Essentially a restaurant full of Lochtes.

What we ended up getting was this.

The food was great, the place was clean, servers friendly, overall a great experience. Although they lost some of their hyper-targeted demographic when 4 uber-bros walked in, didn't immediately see that they sold beer, and walked out complaining that they didn't have beer (they did, I had just finished a spectacular People's Porter with my meal).

I felt guilty enough about my pre-judging (it's what I do) to buy a T-shirt and promote Bros in my everyday life. No hipster irony here, just a damn good seafood restaurant run by some Bros, bruh. Oh, and yes there was an intersection of hipster and bro culture - in their to go special.

Next up on the agenda - load up the boogie boards, head to the pool first, then ocean bound. First, we needed to make sure we had the proper amount of koozies to keep our beverages cold. As soon as Kim asked if I had one, I knew the one.

The next time you are in Grayling, MI you should see for yourself. Not just because of the phenomenal burger, but for their penchant for making sure every menu item passes through the deep fryer before reaching your plate. As for the atmosphere - the locals provide that, you will not be disappointed.

Ok, I'll fast forward through a bunch more pics of us, the Jeep, and the beach to save you the trouble. Although this time we decided since it was just down the road, we could run sans doors. Normally if Jordan is in the Jeep the doors stay on, but in this case we made an exception.

This time the winds were down, as were the waves. We still had some decent ones for boogie boarding, but after a few hours Jordan decided to have a shell hunting competition. I am always in for any form of competition, and I was feeling quite good about my chances to dominate the family, especially since the shells I was pulling out of the waves were 2-3 times bigger than anything Jordan was finding (yeah, I know she's 8. No concessions for age here, this is all about teaching her how to lose with class).

Yeah, then she dropped this on me.

My big shell is the one on the bottom. She let me run my mouth about how she tried hard, and it's not her fault that I'm just better at almost everything than anyone else, blah blah blah and then she smirked and held this thing up. So much for the WWE false bravado, she knew she had me beat and still let me talk. Once again, I am screwed.

Next up, let's examine the family's different skin tones based on the same amount of sun the past few days.

Kimberly:

Me:

Jordan:

As you can see from this pic,

not only does the salt water destroy your eyes (note - that may be why I look like Bob Costas in Sochi), it also causes Jordan to wipe away all semblance of sunscreen from her eyes every time she goes underwater, which is approximately eleventy billion times a day. If shes not careful, she may just find herself starring in Sharknado 11.

Having the doors off did have its perks, as there are few vehicles you can drive that make it feel like you are in a giant Power Wheels more than a Jeep.

On our way back to the campground, we stopped at a local mom & pop shop that we had stumbled upon the night before. They had a crazy selection of gourmet snacks, cheeses, etc - and then I found the beer aisle. I have never seen this before anywhere, and it is not for a lack of effort.

I am an avowed Belgian beer fan, and Kimberly and I used to have a local hangout by her apartment that we loved, and Delirium Tremens was second only to La Fin Du Monde as my favorite beer there. To find this in 4pks of cans was insane.

Finally, after a long day we pulled into the campground only to find the Flanders nearly fully packed up for their exit in the morning, essentially the same time we were leaving except of course they were ready a full 12 hours earlier than necessary.

What we did have during our next hour or so of packing was scenes like this:

Tomorrow - a full travel day, at least 12hrs to get close to Cuyahoga Valley and a potential surprise for Jordan, we will see if we can keep it a secret. More to come.