On down to Advance

After overnighting at Beckley, W.Va at Wal mart, we headed for about 180 miles or so down I-77 to Advance, NC to Forest Lake, the Thousand Trails campground.

It was gray and rainy on the way down, temps not much above 50. 

We took the day off and rested.  Tomorrow, we'll head on over to Greensboro to the Guilford Courthouse National Park, and then see if there is anything else in the area.

Monday, we'll visit with friends of Bette's from her New Jersey days- she hasn't seen them for over 30 years. 

Our spot here in Forest Lake is in C-1, a nice spot, full sat, 50 amp and sewer.  They charge 3.00 a night extra for 50 amp, fine, we'll run all the juice we can to get our money's worth. 

Right across from us, and right behind us, the park has completely roped off 2 prime sites and labeled them "this site could be yours". meaning that they took 2 prime sites off the grid advertising them as for sale seasonal sites.  Another prime example of how Thousand Trails is screwing members, especially like us, who paid premiums for memberships to be "assured" of sites, and then run into crap like this-  There was also a big sign out front:  Public sites available... which means so much for membership sites. 

Since we pulled in, several coaches have driven by, and there are no sites available in the "prime section" of the park.  We run into the same thing at Parks like Hershey, and our favorite at Moody Beach.  Sturbridge is also hard to get a good spot anymore. 

We used our RPI membership more than ever before this summer, and will continue to do so-  Thousand Trails and ROD had a pissing match and have cancelled off each others reciprocity, so now our ROD is worthless after March of next year-  They wanted 1500 dollars for a "new" membership. 

We also became expert at finding and using COE sites this summer, and spots from recreation.gov also.  And, with our new coach, it is not a hassle and is actually comfortable for one nighters at Wal Mart.  Thousand Trails be damned! 

Sadly, the majority of our trip next summer will be at Thousand Trails sites.  Hopefully, we'll be able to get in and park for the times we will be wanting. 
Rant over.

We dropped a day off our stay here at Advance, so we will now be heading over to Chattanooga earlier, and may just go ahead and do the drive in one day instead of the original plan to do it in two days, and then get to Atlanta earlier for our Coach Care stop, and then add to our stay in Greenwood for up to a week perhaps.  I've gotten to the point that I cherish any time I can get with my grandsons, and Bette wants to work up in Bev and Dave's shop, so were good to go. 
St Augustine by about October 1st maybe.