There’s no electricity as I write this.  We have it, but it comes at a premium.  This stop is our second experience at dry camping.  Last night was our first.  We left Tuesday to go to Jordan Lake and invited our friend Puja and her daughter Sophia.  It was a late start.  Most of the morning was spent at NCDOT getting plates and the title transferred to our name for the trailer.  We didn’t get on the road until after 3pm.  Jordan Lake was nice again.  This time we stayed in Parker’s Creek, Loop 2.  Lots of shade, so that was nice, but lots of ticks too.  We found four in two days.  Thursday morning we broke camp and made a quick stopover at the house.  We did our first load of laundry at the lake, but drying it was harder than we expected.  Took it back to the house and ran it thru the dryer.  Picked up some pillows and some first aid supplies, our water jugs and a few more toys, and headed for the coast.

Right after our first gas stop, we caught up with Doug and Andrea.  Cape Hatteras is an old haunt of theirs and the wanted to use it to (among other things) introduce us to dry camping.

We fell in line behind them and made one more stop to grab a snack and stretch our legs, and then one more to top off the tanks before crossing the bridges to the Outer Banks.  Cape Hatteras Campground didn’t open until Friday, so we stopped up the beach at Oregon Inlet.  The roads there were narrow, and the camper pads are almost perpendicular to the access road.  It wasn’t unmanageable, but had to have Mary hold the flexible campsite post out of the way so I could get the truck to turn enough to get the trailer straight.

Woke up in the morning and were on the road before ten.  When we got to Cape Hatteras, we pretty much dropped the trailers, opened the awnings, and headed for the beach.

My legs got a decent burn, and so did the face on our middlest. Doug’s been fighting some roving hive thing for two days, and has been under the influence of Benadryl…but he got a decent nap in at the beach!  The girls took their boogie boards out, and I got to horse around with the boy in the ocean for a bit.  Mary took over and I (against my intentions) got soaked playing with the middlest.  After that, I laid out in the bed of the truck to get my burn a little deeper.  You can drive on the beach here if you have four wheel drive.  Very cool.

Went out for dinner last night up by Oregon Inlet.  The food was good, but the poor girl serving us couldn’t keep up.  Andrea and Mary put dinner together the first night in Cape Hatteras.  Venison shish-ka-bobs, cooked carrots, salad, beet greens w/white beans, and broccoli coleslaw.  Not my typical choices, but it was completely delicious!

After dinner, Doug and Andrea’s kids showed up, and we all went into town for ice cream!
Today was completely action packed and went great.  Mary and I were talking, and we noticed that today, the kids were only inside for about a total of 45 minutes today.  I can’t remember the last time that’s happened!

Also, we tried our hand at some more laundry today.  Did a pretty good job at it too, but we learned some things.  First, don’t premix the soap (we’re making our own).  Second, it’s going to take more than this five gallon bucket to do it right.  We can’t get all our clothes in one “load”, so we might need to find a bigger bucket.  Also, we tried agitating it without the plunger, and that seemed to work just fine.  But, using a 5 gallon bucket, it takes 2-1/2 gallons to wash a load, and 2-1/2 gallons to rinse it.  And just for giggles, I rinsed it a second time.  The rinse water was still coming out a little soapy, so, either I’m not agitating it enough, or it takes 7-1/2 gallons to wash half our clothes.  We’re going to have to get better at this.  And we need to get the clothesline situation handled.