One Day at a Time: On the road again …

After a week at the beach, it was nice to return to our home on wheels. We were not able to park the RV anywhere near the beach house so we had placed it in a storage lot. Saturday the 28^th found us saying goodbye to family at the beach house and repacking our RV for our next adventure. We spent that night in a nearby WalMart.

From this point forward in our 2014 adventure, we originally had no set agenda; we were talking about driving up the coast of Delaware, maybe taking the ferry across to Cape May, New Jersey (as a former co-worker had advised), and even going "backwards" down to see friends in Dumfries, VA. However, Bruce was concerned about the diesel leak that he noticed way back in Arkansas (that was supposed to have been fixed in Belen, NM before we left !) so we decided it was best to head to Rochester, New York where a friend of ours - who is a diesel mechanic - was going to look at the problem.

Sunday morning we left the Virginia Beach area and decided that regardless of the cost, we were going to take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel to the Eastern Seaboard of Virginia. I took a few pictures of the beach as we started across and thought that I was "filming" our trip through the tunnel. Unfortunately my first attempt at a video did not turn out. I have my second but I can't get it loaded here. :(

What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon then driving on a well-paved road (most in the east are not, we've discovered) through the Virginia countryside admiring the fields of green and old colonial homes and getting a whiff of the sea air. Alas, it ended quickly.

Near the town of Exmore, Virginia, a car passing us on the left tooted the horn, gestured to open our window, and passed on the information that we were leaking something from the back. Thank you to our first Good Samaritan of the day. We immediately pulled over to the side of the road and when Bruce determined that we needed more room to investigate, we pulled into a bank parking lot. Thank heavens it was Sunday, and we had the lot to ourselves. Our second Good Samaritan couple stopped to inquire of our troubles. They said that they had a friend who worked with diesel engines, and they would alert him to our plight. Not a ½ hour went by, and along came the third Good Samaritan – Stephen. He must have spent a good 4 – 5 hours trying to help Bruce fix a leak in the plastic surge tank for the radiator. Antifreeze was what was leaking out … all over my car! Bruce sent me to the car wash next door to wash the antifreeze off (that was my first time at using a coin operated car wash, and that is a story in itself!) By nightfall, we still didn't have the problem fixed, and we knew we couldn't be in the bank parking lot come Monday morning. Our fourth kind soul at the Ace Hardware store across the street (where Bruce had been buying stuff/parts) assured us it was okay to park in his lot.

Bruce discovered a vacant restaurant parking lot close by so he drove the RV, and I followed in the car (we couldn't sit in the hardware store parking lot all day). As we pulled into the empty lot, I noticed a police car followed me in. Officer Dan stopped to inquire if we needed help, and after listening to our story, he proceeded to tell Bruce about a local company that might be able to help with what was needed. He showed Bruce the way to the store, and before his shift ended that day, he stopped back to see how we were. He also mentioned that he had told Office Jason (night shift) about our circumstances.

The store didn't have the parts, but Bruce called the company who made the surge tank, conferred with the Beaver folks about parts and numbers, and was able to have the parts shipped to him using another Good Samaritan's name and address. That night Officer Jason stopped to see if all was well with us. Both officers couldn't have been nicer! They told us about some of the local sites and some of the folklore (pirates that patrolled the waters and the ships that were sunk, the terrible past winter that they had had, and information about the towns of Wachapreague and Chincoteague). We drove around both nights after our dinner and saw quaint towns, fields and fields of corn, deer and beautiful countryside.

We would have loved to poke around more, but we still had the leak in the engine to take care of so we headed for Rochester.

Good-bye Virginia, and a huge, huge thank you to all the Good Samaritan's who helped us out. Instances like this reinforce your faith in your fellow man and complete strangers.