July 4th weekend - Day 1107 (Year 4, Day 12)

Washington, NC

I'm so glad I keep this blog!  The first and foremost reason is for me to remember what I've done and where I've been (as the memory is the 2nd thing to go.  What is the first thing?  I don't remember!!!).  Second major reason for the blog is for friends and family to keep track of me, as it (sadly) becomes difficult to let everyone know, on an individual basis, of our whereabouts and goings-on.  Interestingly, I've noticed that I have somewhat of a following.  Blessings to you: I hope I'm providing you adequate material to fall asleep by! 😁

I wish I could say that this past July 4th weekend was as interesting as last year's (http://mitcheryl-rv-journey.blogspot.com/2016/07/july-4th-weekend-day-744-yr-3-day-11.html) but it has not been, although there were a few highlights.

Saturday, July 1st (my mind is still in January - when did we get here???)    It should be noted that the weather has been horrible - steamy doesn't quite cut it.  Extremely hot and humid with heat indexes around 100 degrees.  I don't handle heat very well, and even going to the pool is too much.  I'm so very grateful for our a/c and pray that we don't have another breakdown.  Given the chance, I'd rather just "veg" inside in the a/c.

So, for the most part, Shabbat was spent indoors reading (they had a Bingo game on Friday night which we obviously didn't attend).  The campground, however, did have an event planned - a 4th of July parade run by the Washington Volunteer Fire & Rescue Dept, kicking off at the basketball courts.

Our only frame of reference was a real parade, so we were expecting fire trucks and perhaps a marching band.  What we didn't expect was a parade made up of patriotically decked-out golf carts!!!  It seems that just about everyone in this campground owns one and apparently one of the annual summer events is a contest of who has the best decorated 4th of July themed cart.  They all met near the clubhouse and were led by one fire truck (which let all the kids ride on it).  They then rode all around the campground, up and down every aisle.  It was truly a sight to behold and a lot of fun!

On Saturday night, there was a concert in the pavilion (looks like they'll have one every Saturday night during the summer).  This week the band was "Classic Collections," which like it's name, played a lot of hits from the 50's to 70's.  It was interactive, as a lot of folks got up to dance (from slow dancing to lindy to disco and rock & roll).

We didn't do a whole lot on Sunday as it was still too hot.  Mostly just hung out and relaxed indoors.

Monday was pretty much the same as Sunday.  Although not out in the field, Monday was still a work day and Mitch was required to do some online training.  I had a little bit of client work as well.  There was a storm on Monday evening with some very heavy rain, and once again there was a flood coming in from under the refrigerator.  On Tuesday morning (4th of July), Mitch went up to the roof to check the endcap, and it was still in position.  The only possible place the rain could be coming in from was the refrigerator vents:



Mitch spent a bit of time creating a make-shift lean-to with a tarp and stakes to cover them.  It hasn't rained hard enough again to test it, but the way it looks (not really covering the vents well enough), I don't think it's going to work.  Hopefully he can find a little bit of time before it pours again to fix or remove it.

As for Fourth of July celebrations, Washington has a huge fireworks display in the downtown area (which, you may recall, is mostly on the waterfront).  We were invited to spend the day with a friend on his boat and watch the fireworks on the water, but because of the threat of rain (and perhaps severe storms), he didn't want to take the boat out (he also thought there was a good chance the fireworks would be cancelled due to the forecast).  We didn't want to drive to the downtown area (only about 3-4 miles away) because we figured everyone who lives in Washington, NC would be there and there was no way we'd find a place to park our huge truck (let alone a car) unless we went very early in the day, which we didn't want to do because there really wasn't much to do for an entire day to kill time in the excruciating heat.  We were thinking of maybe taking a taxi, but Mitch said he was really only interested in seeing the fireworks from the boat, not standing amidst a huge crowd (I kind of agreed).  Plus, the next day was a work day and he had to get up at 5:30 am. (Note: around 9:15pm, I heard the fireworks going off, so it wasn't cancelled.  And although we did get a few showers, there was nothing major and it was gone by evening).

On a different note, below is a video I took this morning of a swarm of dragonflies!  It really doesn't capture how many there were -- literally hundreds of them!  I've never seen anything like that before. I used to be terrified of them, but now I see they're very harmless and beautiful.

And lastly, as I was wrapping up this post, we had a sun shower (no clue where the rain was coming from as I didn't see any rain clouds).  I did, however, see this beautiful rainbow: