We Are On Our Way

Day 1 February 24, 2015

 

We are finally on our way.  We awoke this morning at around 2am in preparation for a 3:00 departure.  The temperature in New Lexington was -14 degrees.  We have been packing and planning for weeks and really all we had to do was get the truck hooked up and the boat pulled out of the snow bank.  That all went off without a hitch and we were on the road by 3:05. 

Our destination is Charleston SC where we are to meet up with the Customs and Border Patrol folks for a face to face interview.  This is required for small vessel reentry permit that is used to grease the customs wheels when we return for our proposed trip to the Bahamas.  The last appointment that they provide is at 2:45pm so had to make a mad dash that make that slot.  Our GPS told us that we had about a 2 hour cushion and we drove away with confidence that we make it with ease considering numerous fuel stops and meals. 

Well, it didn’t work out that easily.  Our truck, when pushing it, gets 7.0 mpg so we had to stop 4 times for gas along the way.  We calculate that it takes about 10 minutes per fuel stop.  So at the first stop, Janine ran in and got a couple of Egg McMuffins while I fueled the truck.  Back on the road all went well until we got to southern West Virginia where we began to pick up a little light snow. As we moved into Virginia, the snow began to increase and as we were traveling down a particular 7 mile grade, at about 70 mph, I felt the trailer fishtail a bit.  I slowed down as did some of the many semi’s that we were traveling amongst.  Other trucks continued to barrel down the pike at a high rate of speed.  Ten miles or so on down the road, traffic slowed to a crawl as we passed though about10 jackknifed and smashed trucks.  Amazingly we saw only 2 cars in the mess that was scattered over about a mile long stretch of roadway.

We probably had about 40 miles of dicey roads.  And the clock was ticking.  By this time our arrival buffer was down to about an hour.  At Lake Norman, traffic again pulled down to a crawl and for the next 20 minutes our average speed was about 15 mph.  And the clock was ticking.  I began calling the Border Patrol folks but go no answer.  I was convinced that we were not going to make our appointment and past encounters with these folks reminded me that they do not have a sense of humor.  Finally at about an hour before our appointment time, they answered the phone.  It turned out that they had been slammed with a cruise ship that had just docked in Charleston.  They encouraged us to keep coming.

As it turned out, they were extremely accommodating and had a great sense of humor.  We did make it with about 15 minutes to spare and although they had some glitches with their modern equipment, the young lady who processed us that we would be approved and would receive our reentry “number” by email by the end of the week.  We walked out of the Charleston International Airport terminal to our very illegally parked truck and trailer with absolutely no more deadlines in our foreseeable future.  (If we had in fact received a ticket, the customs officer said to tell them that “Officer Clark” said that it was ok for to park there (Neat guy!)  Officer Clark advised us that the area where we had reserved a room for the night might not be the most secure place to leave the boat so we called and cancelled our reservations and picked a Hilton Home 2 motel for our resting place. 

Our next significant order of business was to fill our very empty stomachs.  We had not taken time to eat lunch on the road.  We unhooked the boat at the motel and found a Bonefish Grill where we dined in fine fashion on stuffed tilapia and au gratin potatoes.  Wow, what a feast.

Back in the room by 6:00.  A long wonderful shower (probably the last for a while) and bed by around 7:00.  By the way, did I mention that the temperature in balmy Charleston SC is 30 degrees and rainy.  Uggh