Hades

The temperature was beautifully cool on the Outer Banks. After a nice morning swim in the ocean, we headed south. Before returning to the mainland, we made a short stop at the Wright Brothers' Memorial at Kill Devil Hill. I had always wanted to visit this spot. My daughters were less enthusiastic. I hope when they read this ten years from now that they realize what pinheads they were (more realistically, they'll point out what a blockhead I was). We didn't stay long. I thought it was cool to see the stone markers depicting the length of the first four successful flights on December 17, 1903. I remember reading lots of books about the Wright Brothers when I was a child. I was fascinated and inspired by their cleverness and persistence. It was a good feeling to walk the site where they made their first flights. It would be fun to see their shop in Ohio, too. Doubt if I'll be able to convince the kids to swing by on the way back to Massachusetts, though. 

The Wright Flyer makes its first hopsOur

Although we had a great (short) stay on the Outer Banks, our luck had started to change for the worse. Bennett Lee must have filled the futon we slept on with rocks because I woke up the next morning barely able to walk. The recovery from my February patella tendon rupture and surgery had been going very well, but it felt like I had reverted three months in just one night. My ankle and foot were all swolen and my knee looked like someone had stuck a softball under the skin. I have no idea what happened, but I must have bruised it somehow while sleeping. The long drives sitting in the car probably didn't help. Whatever caused it, my mobility dropped to almost nil overnight. Very strange. I didn't even attempt to climb the hill to the Monument at the Wright Brothers Memorial site. 

The Wright Brothers Memorial at Kill Devil Hill

We were lucky that it was cool on the Outer Banks because our RV air conditioner had gone on the fritz again (yes, the one that we had "repaired" in Washington, DC). A call to Cruise America informed us that the nearest repair facility along our route was 5 1/2 hours away in Wilmington, NC. We were headed that way anyway, so we hoped that we might be able to get this issue resolved for good. We were headed to one of the top-reviewed campgrounds in the country, Willow Tree Resort near North Myrtle Beach, SC. We expected that this would be a fantastic place for Rachelle and the girls to hang out while I dealt with the RV repair issues. What we didn't expect was that we would heading into the hottest temperatures the region had seen in in four years. 

It was a long but beautiful drive through tobacco fields and state highways. We arrived at our final destination at about 11 PM—at least that's what our iPhone/Googlemaps navigator told us. That we were in a parking lot in front of an all-night Bingo hall suggested that there might be a few inaccuracies in the database. We were all so punchy from the drive that the ensuing scramble in the darkness was like an Abbott and Costello routine. Thirty minutes later, after a few raised voices and a lot of laughs, we were safe in our campground site.

The next morning, I took the RV to the repair facility about 45 minutes to the Southwest in Conway, SC (where Keith McIver grew up) while Rachelle enjoyed some fun in the sun with the girls at the campground. Of course the 98° temperatures chipped away at the "fun" portion of the equation. The repair facility wasn't exactly what I had expected. It was a one-man operation in a field. Fortunately, the one man seemed to know what he was doing. Within a few hours he had determined that the compressor was faulty. It was only drawing 4 amps when it was supposed to be drawing about 12. That's right, it had been defective the for our entire trip—only cooling at partial capacity even when all of the gauges in the RV indicated that it was working properly. So, the whole "repair" in DC was just an illusion. It was vindicating to discover that our suspicions about the AC unit being defective were justified, but that wasn't going to help us stay cool over the next few days of sweltering heat. It took another day to determine that no replacement units would be available in less than four days' time. At this point in our trip, we had spent the better part of 4 days trying to deal with this problem and I had had enough. I decided that I didn't want to spend another minute of our precious vacation worrying about this ridiculous thing.