Oh $h!T

Our, Oh Shit Moment

While we were “stranded” in South Carolina, we rented a cabin at Oconee State Park for a relaxing weekend of Trout fishing with Glen and Amy. On our way home, we decided to take a small detour to go check out a lakefront property that was for sale and actually in our price range. Not that we are in the market to buy a home, but not having our RV to live in for three months had our minds wondering if this life on the road was actually meant to be. Backtrack for a second to trout fishing. Glen's recap of the weekend may sound something like “he caught more fish than anyone else AND that I caught zero fish on day one”. All true by the way. My recap may sound like “I now hold the single day record for catching trout, surpassing the previous record set by Glen the day before”. See, life is all about perspective. (glass half full)

Now to the “oh shit” moment. As we entered the mountain side, lakefront road to see the house, things began to look a little suspect. The road split. Going right, went up to the second level of homes higher on the mountain. Going left, our direction, took us down a dirt path carved into the side of the mountain to the waterfront properties. As the road descended lower and lower, the gravel road got more narrow and more sketchy. To put it into perspective, we were on a dirt path about 2 feet wider than my F-450 diesel dually. If Robyn looked out her window she saw the side of the mountain. She literally could reach out and touch it. If she looked up she would see the homes above us. If I looked out my window, I saw the edge of the narrowing road. If I looked straight down, I saw the roofs of the waterfront houses below me. Insert “Oh Shit! My truck weighs about 10,000lbs. I am on a dirt road, directly above these waterfront homes. The road is still narrowing with nowhere to turn around. I was thinking about the worst case scenario, I am too heavy for this path. If it gives out, we are landing in someone's living room. Backing up would be an option but not a great one with all the curves and blind spots. Plus WTF am I going to do if another vehicle attempts to come down this path. I put the truck in park, got out, and ran to the other end of the dirt road to see if there was room to turn around at the bottom. There was, but there was a catch, the ground was soft and wet and remember, my truck is big and heavy. I jogged back to the truck, Robyn looked at me hoping I had good news. I wasn't so sure. We proceeded cautiously down to the end of this dirt path. Robyn got out to make sure I didn't sink the truck turning it around. Lord knows AAA would never find me to tow me out. Lol As I successfully turned and was facing back towards the path, I could see from this vantage point that it was a pretty steep incline. I shifted into 4 wheel drive, as the ground was still soft with dirt and loose gravel, and we slowly made our way back up. I was never were so relieved to get those wheels on asphalt.

Robyn’s Birthday Bar Crawl

We celebrated Robyn’s birthday at the end of March and I wanted to include Glen and Amy in the Birthday celebration. One, because we like hanging out with them and two, as a thank you for letting us continue to stay at their Lake House. I am not much of a party planner so Amy quickly jumped in and came up with some fun ideas to celebrate Robyn. We started at a rooftop bar in downtown Greenville, overlooking what seemed to be the entire city. After a few drinks we headed out to play some games at Group Therapy. The only thing I can compare this to is a scaled down Dave & Busters. We had fun competing in different virtual games and testing the bartenders ability to make drinks. (I may have taken a 1 day break from not drinking). We finished the night with dinner at Mac’s, a great little dive sports bar with live music. I highly recommend giving it a shot next time you are in Greenville. As we ended the night back at Glen and Amy’s, they had one last surprise for Robyn…some delicious pastries from the local bakery for everyone to enjoy.

Animal Farm

OMG the funniest trip ever! If you have never done a drive-through animal farm, I highly recommend that you do one and equally highly recommend that you do it in someone else's vehicle. Those freaking animals have no regard for a vehicle's paint job or your car's interior for that matter. Lol. These wild, yet trained animals know you have food so they sprint over to you as soon as you cross over the small wooden bridge to get into the park. They are strategic little fuckers as they sacrifice one to stand in front of the truck as the others come to your window for food. Eventually you just have to inch forward hoping they move out of your way. I think one was trying to tongue kiss Robyn. It was actually very cool seeing all these animals up close but some need to go back to Kindergarten because they never learned to share or follow directions.

Open link to hilarious FB post with video of the animals

https://www.facebook.com/brian.gray.527301/posts/pfbid02HS6DD35tB5WKdDdjtj7HFSqbDdaoLY1QgDeDr2XifmfGyzgDpZsny2Kkg32oeKjXl

Dive Bars

Who is old enough to remember when every bar you went to had these ash trays on the bar and tables? I guess the rules about indoor smoking varies by state. This place kind of made me feel like I was back in college when going out for the night meant you were coming home smelling like cigarette smoke and stale beer.

Robyn and I were the only two people in this bar. Well, us and the very unenthusiastic bartender. She didn't seem to care if we were there or not. Glass half full my ass. Mine was empty, and she made no moves to come back to refill it, so this place was a one and done. We decided to go to a local Lake Hartwell favorite instead and headed to Tilly’s for dinner. They have live music and that night was Caleb Hunnicutt, a Georgia country artist that Robyn really liked. They also have an amazing steak crostini appetizer and a southern staple, shrimp and grits, that Robyn says is the best she’s ever had (does that even mean anything when you were born and raised in NJ?).

Waterfront Bars are more our speed anyway!

Back on The Road

When we found out that the RV was done, we got lucky and were able to book a site at Crooked Creek RV Park on the shores of beautiful Lake Keowee in South Carolina. We were ready to get back out there and hit the ground running but decided that a relatively local campground would be best as we needed to “move out” of the lake house. It is amazing how much crap you accumulate in 3 months and we had to make a few trips back and forth to get everything moved into the RV. In a perfect world we would have just hauled the RV to the house to load up but the roads in that area are hilly and narrow, plus I was not at all confident that I could back this 38ft rig up the driveway.

We decided to spend a few weeks at this campground getting readjusted to living in the RV. Plus, waking up and working out to this view for a while definitely wasn’t going to be a hardship.

Until Next Time…

We fit a lot of activities and exploring in while at Crooked Creek and can’t wait to share that with you next time.