Friday, August 6, 2010

The Never-ending Ride to Wilmington

Thursday, August 5th we headed to Wilmington, Virginia. We left our camp site around 9am. On our way out, we stopped at an auto place to have the battery looked into. We were lucky that the battery was still under warranty, and this place used only our specific type of battery. They had to test our battery to see that it was really the problem. That took a while. Sure enough, the battery was not holding a charge. They replaced the battery and just charged us for the labor. Yippee! Our stop there put us on the road a bit later than we had hoped. We all sat in the car through the whole thing, thinking it would be done any minute. It was 11:30 before we were back on the road again. By this time we were all getting hungry. We got part way out of town and found a Subway to stop at. It was not a great stop for Eric, but he made do. Finally, we were on our way!
Along the way, there was a complete downpour, making it hard to see where we were going. We had experienced this before, but Suzi was new to this, and not liking it too much. We stopped at a grocery store during a lull in the storm to buy groceries. By the time we were done, it was coming down again, and hard. Suzi parked her car up under the eves of the store and we loaded the car there in the relative dry. By the time we got to our KOA, it was dinnertime. What had happened to our little 3 hour drive?! It had taken all day! Poor Suzi had been in the car by herself, with the miserable driving conditions! If we had known the drive would take so long, we would never have done it with the Colvins. Not the most productive way to spend their last bit of time. Suzi had yet to dip her toesies into the Atlantic. Not good! That night we tried to find a restaurant on the beach to try to replicate our earlier experience, but no go. While we were doing that, Suzi found a beach she could step on, just in case it was her only chance! We felt so bad!! We dined together, and then Suzi went to stay at Lynn's sister's place.

The next morning, we went to Carolina Beach State Park to walk a loop trail where carnivorous plants grow in the wild. We were in search of the evasive Venus Fly Trap (found only here in the US). We found a nice big bunch of Pitcher Plants, but no Venus Flytraps. Next we headed to the beach very close to where our friend Lynn's sister lives. The beach was great! This time Suzi was able to join us for a while. The boys body surfed, and the adults waded and chatted. The Colvins had to go to get to the airport where their flight would whisk them off to their cruise. We stayed at the beach. We were having such a great time, we didn't want to leave. We sent Marcus off to hunt us some lunch. Not long after he left, Colin came screeching out of the water, saying his leg hurt. I looked at his leg and didn't see anything. At first I assumed he was making a big deal out of nothing as he sometimes is known to do. He kept on and on, though. I checked out his leg several times and couldn't see anything. I was beginning to think jellyfish, but wasn't sure they were common there. I was trying to think what to do. Meanwhile, Colin was still in pain. Finally, several big welts popped up in a half circular pattern on his leg. Something had indeed gotten him! I decided to go look to see if there were any signs warning of what might lurk in these waters. Just as I was heading up the beach, a lifeguard came by on an ATV. I asked him about Colin's symptoms and he said: jellyfish! He got out his handy dandy bottle of vinegar. First he told Colin to go rinse his leg off real good in the ocean. Then he poured some vinegar on his leg and told him to take some sand and rub the sting vigorously. Then he poured more vinegar on the sting. I told the guy how glad I was that he was there and had vinegar with him. I remembered learning with Derek from one of his merit badges, that for a jellyfish sting, you treat it with beer, meat tenderizer, vinegar, or urine. Since I didn't have the first 3, I was worried I was going to have to find a way to pee on my son's leg. That didn't appeal to either one of us, so thank you thank you dear life guard for saving us from that experience!! Just after that was sorted out, Marcus came back with some sandwiches. We were enjoying these as a major thunderstorm blew in. The sky grew VERY dark, and rain started in, and soon there was thunder and lightening, so we headed back to the trailer.
A couple of things we have noticed: When not raining, it has been cool enough in the evening to be outside!! A novel idea! The ocean temperatures are definitely dropping significantly as we go further north. I do better with blogging when we are not driving, and not visiting. This seems to be a bit limiting. I was able to catch up a bit at this site.

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