Well, soon it will be fall again already. Summer went by fairly quickly, but it was a lot shorter than we had planned. The summer of 2021 for us has become the Summer of Breakdowns. Our air conditioning unit in the coach stopped working, the replacement propane regulator finally went belly-up (this was expected) and the trailer brakes stopped braking. We had a new regulator with us and Check was able to install it pretty easily. The worst part there was that we were boondocking so the fridge stopped cooling. We had to high-tail it to a plug-in RV park to save our food! The trailer had to have all the brakes replaced because of bad bearings. Not a good thing to happen in the White Mountains of New Hampshire! But a trailer shop got her fixed up and we hope these will last a little longer. For the AC, we tried replacing some items, but after spending almost half of what a new one costs we decided to just order a new unit. Replacing the Coleman Mach wasn't possible since they are on back-order and we don't really want a new one of those anyway, so we ordered a different brand. It should be here tomorrow.
When things began to break down, we decided to head to North Carolina. Some friends live close to the Parkway and we thought it would be a good place to park ourselves for a while to receive parts and do work. We ended up buying the six acres next to them, but I'll save that for another post. Three years ago - the last time we were at the Parkway - we met a couple who volunteered at the Cradle of Forestry near Brevard, NC. Long story short, we are staying here and I am volunteering three days (24 hours total) per week. In return we have full hook-ups in a gated park and access to an Activity Center with full kitchen, showers and laundry. And it's four miles from the Parkway. We've been here over two weeks now but I've only worked three days. Another couple came down with COVID so they shut the Cradle down while everyone gets tested. Coincidentally, a massive amount of rain has caused mudslides and road closures here, so we would have had to close anyway. We are scheduled to reopen on Wednesday as all the other volunteers have tested negative, including me.
I never get tired of that view!
Check at the bottom of Crabtree Falls
The Cradle of Forestry main building
This is home until November 21st