Lark takes a Lick'in

Dec 13, 2015

Ed takes great pride in his "fleet".  He believes maintenance always keeps you on the right track. Cars and the Lark have several coats of wax, rain-ex on the windows, fresh windshield wipers and oil changes and tires rotated.  Licensed and insured, he is ready for anything. The Lark has been a joy to own and that is because Ed takes such good care of her.

We added six new tires this year with fancy stems to take the pressures easily. All systems are go before we leave the drive. Then we hit Sunday, Dec. 13th.

We were just south of Atlanta, rolling down a fast and truck traffic  I 75.  Not our fav drive for sure when CRACK went the windshield!  A stone slammed into the windshield  just below the passenger wiper. Left a hole but not a growing crack. After the initial startle...I could see Ed was not a happy skipper. However, thinking further we both realized this was the first time in 50 years of us both driving, we ever had this happen. Pretty amazing.  And we are insured.

We arrived at our evening camp outside of Macon Georgia. When we set up, we both have chores to get completed to enjoy an evening by the fire. A lovely quiet camp lakeside with only a few other rigs for the night. As the camp had no water tie; I flipped on the water pump and very shortly heard Ed bellow "turn off the pump". Too late, the water valve had failed and dumped all our fresh water from our holding tank onto the ground. Hmmm that's not good.  We did have a nice bath house with running water.  Ed attempted a fix, but needed parts.

This was becoming a long day. And our bad fortune wasn't over. Grilled chicken sounded good for dinner. Ed had a supply of charcoal, however it had dried out and would not light. OK dinner was a wash out. I can always improvise in the Lark galley. By the time dinner was over we were beat.

Ed turned in and I stayed up to watch The Good Wife.  The quiet was broken by an enormous BOOM and the power went out!  Transformer we figured and pretty close. Blacker than black outside. We use a big power surge protector between us and the park outlets. Good thing....surge reset and power on.  There were a few  moments;  Ed finding his pants and me finding the flashlight on my iPhone.

Too much excitement for one day.  I will say there are moments we feel vulnerable. The adventure can be  a little more than we bargained for.

Heading into Okefenokee Swamp for two nights off the grid. Just Ed, me and Eze and the black bears and alligators. Later.

PS:  remember the valve we needed?  We stopped for gas and across the parking lot was an Ace Hardware. I mean  in the middle of no place Georgia. Ed rushed in and I figured he was after parts. Thirty minutes later working with two good 'ole boys from Ace, he came out triumphant. It took the two Ace guys and Ed in the back room rummaging to find the valve we needed. It took so long and he was having such a great  time, I thought we had bought into the business! :)

******

Lake Tobesofkee, Moseley Park. Macon, Georgia. County park. Lovely sight  right on the Lake. Nice showers. Good stopover. Ace hardware down the street for emergency parts. More of a local weekend park. Quiet during week off season. Found on Google, half way from Atlanta to Okefenokee  Swamp.

Found on Google, half way from Atlanta to Okefenokee  Swamp.