149 miles, almost entirely on US 17, but on NC 43 and NC 55 near the destination. 224 truck miles. 893 cumulative tow miles. 1202 cumulative truck miles.
Again, no truck problems and we are now more than halfway to our destination.
US 17 (or, as we were reminded by signs all along the route, “The Future I-87”) is 4-lane divided highway along most of this route and goes through no towns, so it is not much different than an interstate. It even has a rest area, which we used (and which accounts for the extra mile on the route) because Jett said she was hungry. When Jett says she is hungry, I find food. A snack of cheese crackers isn’t much, but every little bit helps.
The three nights in Chesapeake were at the Chesapeake Campground. This is a moderate-size campground on a huge plot of land, with lots of open space and a massive RV storage operation (possibly over 1000 stored RVs – I think it is possible that RV storage is their main revenue generator). There is also, oddly, a horse stable on the premises.
The facilities are rather rustic, but sufficient. I used the laundromat (2 washers, 2 dryers – pretty small for a campground where most RVers were long-term residents) and saw the tiny church, the shed of a gym, the pool (8 feet deep at the deep end – unusual for campgrounds now) and the public restrooms, but didn’t use any of them. The one facility I did use, besides the laundromat, was the dump station because the sewer at our site was sealed shut. Don’t know why as every other site on the row had full hookups. But I think I was warned when I booked the stay and in any case it wasn’t a huge problem as I don’t dump my tanks until the morning of departure, so it just meant one short extra stop on our way out of the park.
The most memorable feature of the park, though, was the mud. They clearly had had a lot of rain in the days before our arrival and we suffered through a deluge on the first full day there. Because the roads and blacktop pads were very narrow, it was impossible to drive anywhere without getting some of my tires in the muck. And it was impossible to enter or leave the RV without getting mud on my shoes. Not really the campground’s fault (except for the narrow roads and pads) but not pleasant at all.
I did some experimentation with my phone camera on a dog walk one night. I wanted to check out the “Nightscape” setting so I took a photo of the RV under the nearly full moon. Pretty impressive, I think. I didn’t expect to get this kind of definition of both the sky and the RV at night.
My hope, for the stay in Chesapeake, was to do some genealogical research on my colonial relatives. I didn’t really expect to find any headstones, but I did want to visit Jamestown and other nearby areas where they lived. My secondary goal was to visit the battlefield at Yorktown, where Washington put an end to the British restistance to the American revolution. But Yorktown was an hour away, Jamestown was 30 minutes beyond Yorktown, it rained heavily and much of the second day there was spent dealing with some medical issues for Jett – uncomfortable infections. So a visit to an urgent care facility replaced Yorktown in my travel plans.
If we visit again I will try to find a campground closer to Jamestown and Yorktown. I underestimated the size of the region.