Turning to a SC state park to find RV life joy again

Continued from Our inverter replacement did not go as planned

What was supposed to be a 2-hour displacement turned into a whole day of sitting in the truck in nearly 100-degree temperatures. EcoEthic Solar didn't have it any easier. They thought they had scheduled a straightforward inverter install, but it turns out, our solar setup was a little more complicated than expected. Victrons are popular pieces of equipment, there are a lot of people installing them who aren't certified specialists, and everyone has their own way of doing things. Right now, there is no official "code" that needs to be met, and so sometimes the guys at EcoEthic come across surprises. Our trailer had some surprises, but ultimately it'll be up to us to comb through their recommendations and decide if we want to make any changes to streamline our setup. The good news is, we don't need to decide this right away. Our new inverter was installed and our system was back up and running. Now it was time to tend to ourselves and our pets after our long day in the truck.

That afternoon, when the 2-hour window had come and gone, we realized our error: we planned for the expected, when we should have anticipated the unexpected. We should have made preparations for a full-day displacement, just in case. That likely would have involved a different plan entirely, like sending Anthony up to NC with the trailer while I stayed at the cottage with the pets. But alas, we chose to all take the trip together, and at this point, we needed to salvage it as best we could.

We knew that the later it got, the less we'd want to drive all the way back to Myrtle Beach after the appointment. We had already considered doing an overnight closer to EcoEthic, so we could test the inverter and make sure everything was working. Now we had more reason to book a campsite nearby: we were going to be exhausted. I dove into my RV Life app and looked for campgrounds. There were the usual RV parks in the area, but they'd be just a place to park and regroup. Perhaps this is what we needed, but is it what we wanted? At this point, I was growing worried about our next trip, now just a week and a half away. That trip would bring us to Virginia for a friend's wedding, and then up to New England for family time and tackling a massive to-do list that we left hanging when we bolted from our winter woes in March. It would bring stress, but we hoped to balance the stress with fun. This current repair trip was supposed to set us up for that longer trip, but all it did was freak us out! We weren't ready to be back on the road. We wanted to just relax at our new cottage. But we needed to be places starting the end of June. How could we help us feel better about that?

In times of great distress, we always rely on one of our favorite things: food. We certainly didn't want to binge eat comfort food, especially when we'd need to fit into dressy clothes soon. But we get just as much of a dopamine hit from natural grocery hauls. And we were in Sprouts territory. Sprouts Farmers Market is arguably our favorite natural food store in the country, due to its fair prices and extensive variety. Their number of locations are growing, and there are even plans for one to open in our old town in MA this year! But in Myrtle Beach, we are without a Sprouts. Since we were closer to one now, we thought this would be the tipping point. We could leave our appointment, nestle ourselves into a campsite, and seek the nourishment we desperately needed.

To park ourselves near a Sprouts, we'd be looking at the nearby cities of either Greensboro or Charlotte. Back into the research I went, and that's when I found it: a lakefront campsite at a state park, back over the border in SC but still just 25 minutes from a Sprouts south of Charlotte. We could get the nourishment from both natural foods and natural nature!

Maybe this was the ticket to enjoying RV life again. But would an overnight suffice? It was an hour away from EcoEthic Solar, which meant even if we got our trailer back immediately, we wouldn't arrive until after 4pm. Then we'd need to do our Sprouts run during Friday rush hour and barely have time to enjoy the lake. According to the online reservations, the site was available the next night, too. Actually, we didn't know for sure if it was even available Friday night because same-day reservations aren't allowed online. We just assumed that, if it was free on a Saturday, it would also be on the Friday. Before we called the state park, we weighed our options:

• Stay for 1 night and pack our evening with a Sprouts run, but get home a day sooner
• Stay for 2 nights, have a relaxing evening and a full day to go to Sprouts and enjoy the campground, and arrive back home on Sunday

The choice was clear. If we wanted to truly give RV life a chance again, we needed to stay out longer. We called and booked Friday and Saturday nights at Andrew Jackson State Park, in a site that looked really good on paper. We hoped reality would measure up.

When we booked this campsite, we still didn't know how much longer we'd be displaced from the RV. We're glad we jumped on the reservation because, once we left EcoEthic Solar, it was 5pm and even the hour-long drive was tiring. But we had things to look forward to: Our next SC state park (and the state parks had never let us down yet!), the lake, the woods, and a natural foods quest.

We lucked out with hardly any traffic, despite it being rush hour. We rolled into the state park just as the sun was dipping behind the trees. Being back at a SC state park felt wonderfully familiar, as all the ones we've stayed at do nature really well...almost too well. The campground roads are notoriously narrow and windy, but we'll battle road obstacles to get a site like this one any day!

It was readily apparent that this was one of the best sites in the park. We must have gotten in on a cancellation, and since the length was technically a 32ft max, it didn't fill back up again quickly. Our truck and trailer fit just fine. The full camping pad is listed as 49ft, which we think is accurate. Why they advise a 32ft max in a such a long site, we don't know. Perhaps it's because the site is at the curve of the campground loop, but we actually think this makes the back-in angle easier. The tight turns seem to be one of the reasons this state park is only rated an 8.0/10. That and people complaining about the sites only being water and electric with no sewer. People, it's a state park! Enjoy the rustic feel and relax! But also, to give a low rating based on things that are clearly listed and therefore people should know ahead of time, we'll never understand.

So yes, our site had electric hookups, which meant we didn't need to rely on our new inverter. However, we were able to make sure it was running properly, and it was...mostly. We still needed Boondoctor John to finish some remote programming, but we needed to be on strong WIFI for that, so we waited until we were back at Crooked Oaks. We also discovered that the software had been programmed for lead acid batteries, which is the default, and we needed John to set it for lithium ion. This meant that for a few days, the batteries weren't charging fully and at proper speed. It was nice to be on 50amp electric and not need to worry about these tweaks.

We settled in for the night, which would have been peaceful except that I had developed symptoms of heat exhaustion upon leaving EcoEthic Solar. My body hasn't caught up to the fact that I'm a Southerner now. And so, along with the lake views offering a cool respite, I rested with a slew of ice packs.

Another reason we chose this campground was for the tree cover. Not only was the woodsy feel the perfect vibe, but the trees helped shade the trailer from the hot sun. We were able to keep a stable temperature in the rig without our ACs working on overdrive. All the circumstances aligned for a much needed rest, and we woke up feeling rejuvenated.

It was another hot day, but I was able to check out the nature trail in the morning before the temperatures rose too much. The trail runs the entire circumference of the lake, but I stuck with the side closest to the campground, walking from our campsite to the boat rentals, and then circling back up by the park's playground and taking the campground road back. I've mentioned far too many times that trail access from our campsite is my all-time favorite amenity. Having one with views – and some wildlife! – was exactly what I needed to remember the good parts of RVing.

We briefly stopped by the park's historic exhibits on our way out. This state park is the location of President Andrew Jackson's childhood home. The exhibits house some of the old town's buildings and a museum that has a rather interesting take on Jackson's presidency. As two Northeasterners, let's just say that our education on Andrew Jackson had a slightly different slant. Should the man behind the Trail of Tears be revered for his patriotism? Should we overlook this because it is, after all, a museum that pays homage to Jackson? Shall we instead just focus on his humble, rather tragic upbringing? These are the conundrums we face as new Southerners with Yankee blood. We think about this a lot in our RV travels, especially when we see school groups having field trips in various parts of the country. We've all learned very segmented and constricted versions of US history, mostly pertaining to the most pertinent milestones of our region. Traveling has broadened our horizons more than any school field trip ever did.

We enjoyed meandering around the sites, and we even more appreciated the fact that the museum was indoors and air conditioned. I didn't want a repeat of yesterday's heat exhaustion, and so we kept our exploring brief. Besides, we had more important matters to attend to.

We may have overshot a bit, considering we were aiming for enough food to get us through a week and a half, until we were back in Sprouts territory in VA. What, is this not the appropriate amount of groceries for 2 people for a week and a half? Whatever. If it makes us happy, it can't be wrong.

So we did it, yes? We rediscovered the good parts of RVing, and we began acclimating ourselves to the camping life again. We could take this feeling into our next trip and set ourselves up for success. Right?

...Right?

................Guys???????

.....................................................GUYS?!?!?!

Alright, so we don't want to say that our drive home undid all the vibes of the state park. But the whiplash was real. We feel like this whole year has been a vicious cycle of stress-regroup-stress-regroup. That's why we broke the cycle by renting the cottage. We just hoped it would mean the cycle was broken for good, but as soon as we returned to the RV, it unfortunately continued.

As you can see from the map, the storms were right over Myrtle Beach. It's true. We didn't hit them until we were a half-hour from Crooked Oaks! We tried so hard to time our travels, too. The 24-hour forecast initially said storms after 2pm, and so we planned on arriving back to our campsite by then. That morning, the forecast shifted and said storms after 5pm. Even better! We'd have ample time to park the trailer and get back to the cottage. But in reality, the storms came roaring in at 1pm.

We hit our first downpour coming into Myrtle Beach. We stopped at the Welcome Center for a bathroom break and to let the rains pass. We saw a lot of puddles, so we knew this wasn't the first downpour.

Once the rains let up, we decided to head the rest of the way. We chose poorly. Within just a few minutes, the skies opened up, and we became sitting ducks in rains so bad that we might as well be real ducks. We've dealt with pouring rain and poor visibility before, but this might have been the worst ever. After that time in Missouri, taking over the #1 spot is actually quite impressive. Nice job, Myrtle Beach! Thankfully, we weren't on a high speed highway, and everyone slowed down to a crawl and put on their hazards...except for one car that didn't even have headlights on. There's always that one person!

If you want to gauge how heavy the rain was, see the dark reddish-pink spot on the radar image?

This is the precipitation scale:

In other words, reddish pink is the highest the scale goes, clocking a whopping 200+ millimeters per hour. For those who are Imperial-minded, that's almost 8 inches of rain per hour.

So we weren't just dealing with the downpours. We risked flash floods. The winds were also picking up, and we had some bridges to cross as we traveled over the Waccamaw River and Lake Busbee. It was rough going.

The skies cleared after a few minutes, as we got ahead of the storm. Ahead, though, was a scary position to be in, because this storm was fast-moving. It would surely catch up to us, especially because now everyone was moving slowly to stay vigilant of floods.

We played slingshot with the storm for several miles, first getting ahead of it, and then it catching back up. Then, literally on the longest stretch of bridge, the unthinkable happened.

Our TPMS alarm went off.

More often than not, it's a false alarm, but usually we can tell this because the tire pressure reads a factor of the total psi, and since the TPMS works by averaging the psi over several data points, if the sensor doesn't read for one of them, it divides the total, thus sounding the alarm. Who knew one needed to also be a mathematician to RV?

But here's the kicker. This time, the TPMS was reading 18psi, which is awfully low. It also wasn't correcting itself, which is what typically happens if one of the readings fails. We thought we could actually have a blowout. Between that and the storms, we pulled over.

By the time we were off the bridge and somewhere we fit, we were only a few minutes from Crooked Oaks. It's frustrating being so close but not feeling safe to drive the remaining miles, but at this point, it made sense to just let the storm win. We checked the tire pressure, and to our relief, it was a false alarm. Anthony took his life in his hands getting a manual pressure read. The lighting overhead was nuts.

It wasn't until we pulled over that we realized we were under a severe thunderstorm warning. We have Max Alerts now, which call and text us when there's a severe weather warning in our area, but our location was still set for Andrew Jackson State Park. We can't set it when we're on the move, so we always wait until our next destination. We never got the warning until we checked the weather.

After about 20 minutes, the storm continued moving out to sea, and we finished our journey back to Crooked Oaks, where we were greeted by our neighbor: "Welcome back! Good thing y'all weren't trying to come in a half hour ago in those storms." Oh, Lon. We were trying to come in a half hour ago in those storms.

We took a much needed break in the RV before packing up and heading back to the cottage, finally under blue skies again.

We ended our trip frazzled, and we had a lot of emotions to work through before setting out again. This would be a tough one. We weren't emotionally ready for a longer trip, but we needed to remind ourselves that we had our agency back. We weren't forced nomads anymore. If we needed to cut our trip short and turn around, we could. New England could wait. But who knows? Maybe this weekend frontloaded the stress, and our next trip would be smoother. Whatever lay ahead, we were setting sail on June 23, for our first official trip as part-time RVers. Time to put this test run behind us and set our focus on the future.