Blowout!

Here at the Carolina Clan Gathering, during the day, you pretty much can do what you want, when you want.  There is no hard and fast schedule, a few times we did have some activities like the great kayaking adventure.

Another day we had a give away, everyone could bring something that they no longer needed and anybody that wanted the item could have it.

Bill, having had a career in sales, did his best to “sell” the unwanted items to folks gathered around.   He had no idea what most of the items were.  But then,  with his talent, he could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo.

His best sale?  This item, which he had absolutely no idea what it was…

…to Nancy, his wife!  She almost jumped over the others to get it.  ;c)

Huntington Beach State Park has beautifully paved roads great for bike riding.  Marti and I couldn’t wait to jump on our Dahon foldable bikes and take a spin around the park.  We hadn’t used them in a while and the tires were low.  No big deal, I whipped out my tire pump and aired up all the tires.  Just as I finished the last tire…POW!  I think I over inflated the tire causing it to blow.  Duh!

The rear tire on my bike blew out.  Great.  Some years back, I had a flat and I bought two tubes, one to fix the flat and one to keep as a spare for a future flat.  Yep, do you think I could find that tube? 

A search ended up in a complete reorganization of some of our basement compartments, and…no tube.

Hence our trip to Walmart to get a tube. Not only did I buy two tubes (another spare to lose somewhere else in the Journey), I bought a new tire pump with a built in pressure gauge.  Not going to make the same mistake twice.

Back to the Journey, I removed the wheel, inserted the new tube and put everything all back together.  Then the fun began.  The new tire pump has a different attachment for the tube valve stem.  It works exactly opposite of my old pump.  Somebody thought they had a better mousetrap. Not!

 

To use the new one and prevent it from pushing the valve stem into the rim before it can be locked on, I had to use some vice grips to hold the stem.  Sheesh!

I inflated the tire, put it back on the bike and spun it to make sure everything was aligned properly and found the tire also has a hole in it where the tube blew out.  Double Sheesh!!

Hence, another trip off to Walmart, to get a new tire this time.

Yada, yada, came back, put tire on wheel, put wheel on bike, inflate and finally it was done.

Now we were ready to go for a ride…finally.  Now we’re Happy! 

Off we went for a trouble free ride.  Right….

A little ways down the road, my rear fender started rubbing on the tire.  A bolt (seen here on Marti’s bike),

fell off of my bike, letting the fender drop down on the tire.

What to do?  Bungee cord to the rescue!

Good thing I had a bungee cord, because I wasn’t carrying any duct tape!  :c)

The End! 

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A Yachting We Will Go

It dawned a great day for a great expedition at the Carolina Clan Gathering.  The area around Huntington Beach State Park has lots of water in the nearby Intracoastal Waterway to float your boat.

And  float your boat we did, all fifteen of us.  We convoyed to the launch area and broke out the Sea Eagles and kayaks in the parking lot.

 

After launching we headed up the waterway, going with the tide.  Okay, we cheated a bit.

The scenery was great, with interesting trees,

some trees sported their own decorations.

Bill and Nancy spearheaded the expedition.  They used to live in the area before becoming fulltimers and had paddled these waterways before.

New yachters like Mike and Terri did very well on their second time out in their new Sea Eagle.

We paddled some, and drifted some.  At times a few of us would raft together and chat, enjoying the day and each other’s company.

Eventually we all tried to raft together and get a group picture.

Then everybody started clicking away.

Eventually the tide turned and we started heading back.

Gail and Rick drifted some.

The heroes of the day were Steve and Carol and their little Johnson outboard.

They offered free tows to some of the stragglers on the return trip. (Who?  Me?)

A great time, a great day and wonderful memories.  A 4.6 mile paddle many of us won’t soon forget.

Now please pass the Motrin.

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Only 179

Miles, that is.  Today's drive was too short for a couple of reasons.  One was that it was only the distance from where we were staying near our daughter's house to our destination:  Huntington Beach State Park near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  That felt like we were just getting warmed up.

The second reason?  We had that elusive and hard to find...tailwind!  Almost all the way here.  It sure was nice to see my mpg readout on the dashboard computer going up to higher numbers for a change.  I finally found the road engineers built to take advantage of the tailwind.  :c)

We're here with a bunch of really great friends for the second annual Carolina Clan Gathering (CCG).  Some 23 couples are already here, with a couple of more still due in tomorrow.  A few folks we've never met before, others we got to know through the RV Dreams rallies over the last couple of years and have become almost like relatives, keeping up with each other's travels via their blogs.

Tonight, we had a gathering around the campfire, the group was so large we had to have two campfires going at the same time.  Lots of talk, stories and laughter.  To say it was fun is an understatement. 

Tomorrow we're planning on the great CCG regatta.  Looks like we'll be yachting in our Sea Eagle inflatable boats on the Intracoastal Waterway, about a dozen boats are going. 

 

Hopefully all goes well and we don't get into any trouble where we'd have to call the Coast Guard to come and rescue us.

 

 

I'd find that a little embarrassing...

 

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