September 15, 2016

Last Wednesday morning we left Avon and the Outer Banks.  We opted for the ferry ride vs driving back up to catch Hwy 64. As we figured it out it was a saving of over 100 miles (160 km) and we could just relax on the ferry ride! 

The first of the two ferries was the Hatteras Ferry, a free 40 minute ferry that connected Ocracoke Island to the rest of the Outer Banks.  Then it was a 20 mile drive from one end of the island to the other to catch the Ocracoke Ferry, a 2.5 hour ferry ride to the mainland at Cedar Island. We pulled up to the Ferry Station at 1:00 pm (departure time). The next ferry was at 4. Anyway, as the angels are usually on our side, they held the ferry and repositioned the cars to get us on!  Wasn't that great!  

All this being said, now for the bad news!  Shortly after we left our RV Park in Avon, as we were driving toward the Hatteras Ferry we heard this pop! then phewwww! Michel pulled over thinking we blew a tire, but that wasn't the case. Onward we went only to realize that rather than a tire blowing it was our air bags!  We had a very rough ride you can imagine! But we did drive it - all the way to Wilmington, a total of about 180 miles (290 km). The reason it was Wilmington?  Triple T Equipment is the only company for miles around that could work on our problem.  And that they did! We arrived in their yard on Thursday night and spent 6 nights in their yard with the other trucks, buses and RV's. We were the only ones actually sleeping in our unit though - lol!

In the time we spent in Wilmington, we really didn't do anything. The first day (Friday) while they had our rig in the shop to access the problem and order parts we drove out to Carolina Beach/Kure Beach and had a nice relaxing time soaking up the sun.







Saturday morning Michel woke up feeling like a steam roller ran over him, so for the weekend we just hung out close to our rig in the shade. It was very hot and humid!  Come Monday morning it was my turn to feel like crap!  But our rig was back in the shop in the morning so we had to leave. Not feeling like doing anything, we found a library in downtown Wilmington and just surfed the net and read. In fact, that is exactly what we did Tuesday as well. Finally at noon on Wednesday the job was complete. Our rig was back up and running - after replacing 4 air bags and 4 shocks! Oh and don't forget 8.5 hours of labour - OUCH!!  

It feels like we're riding on air!! 


That's it for now - thanks for reading!

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