It all started a few months ago when my son called and said they had rented a house at the beach for July 4th week. He wasn’t sure exactly who was going to be there, but it would be a group. We ended up with Wes IV (my son) his wife Emily, granddaughter Greta, Aylea (my daughter) and her husband Jon, Carrie (Emily’s sister) and her husband Creston, Tom and Marian (Emily’s parents) and Miss Vickie and I. I said we’d love to go and mentioned that I might want to bring my (old) boat, but that I wasn’t sure cause the whole boat thing was somewhat up in the air at that point. Well now it is 4th of July week and we are happily at the beach with family, good weather, new boat, and new truck to pull it with. The in-between is quite a story.
To start with, I had some trepidation (actually a deep seated phobia) of going anywhere on a holiday week. But since the kids were willing to do it, I said what the heck. Then I read how less people were traveling this year etc. etc. so I started worrying less about it. Also, I figured all the accommodations at the beach would be slammed, and I have an additional phobia about crowds. It all turned out to be useless worry because now that we’re here it is and was no worse than any trip to the beach we’ve ever made. The crowds are definitely manageable, and the traffic getting here was pretty much a non-event.
Also in the planning stages I still had my 78 Checkmate boat and our 03 Tahoe to pull it with. In the ensuing months the Checkmate went to a good home and was replaced with a new Yamaha SX230. That happened the last week of April, and then the rains started. We bought the new boat and it rained almost every day for about 6 weeks. So we pretty much had a “yard yacht” brand new that had never been in the water. Meanwhile the beach trip was fast approaching. We had intended to take the boat on our last trip to Hilton Head, but that just didn’t seem to work out either. Then in the meantime, we determined the Tahoe was working way too hard pulling the new boat, so it went to the Chevy dealer and came back as a big red pickup with the max towing package. So all was well for a trip to the beach. I hoped.
Jon and Aylea (my daughter and son in law) came from Pittsburgh and made our house their interim stop over. On Friday before the trip, a lot of “plans came together” and our new bed rug and toneau cover were installed on the pickup. Since we didn’t really have to be at Ocean Isle till 4pm or so, we had time Saturday morning to load the truck and boat. We ended up with pretty much everything we owned that had anything to do with the beach loaded in both the truck and boat. Since it is a crew cab as well, Jon and Aylea rode with us. The queen mary pulled out of the driveway with four people, their luggage for a beach trip, plenty of water toys, 5 or 6 cases of liquid refreshment, and towing the boat. I was apprehensive how this was all going to go.
Soon however, I got the feel of driving “the rig”. We pulled out on the Ridgeway by pass and it wasn’t long till I had the cruise control set on 70. Vickie had a white-knuckle death grip on her grab handle. (which she had off and on all the way to the beach especially on the Durham Freeway) One thing is certain, for all its faults, GM still knows how to build a honkin’ big 4 wheel drive truck that will tote your stuff in comfort and safety. After a while and some driving adjustments, I was ready to pull “the rig” anywhere in the US.
We arrived at Ocean Isle pretty close to our scheduled time with the only delay being a slight backtrack in Wilmington when we thought we might run out of gas. Ooops. Did I mention that the truck fuel computer is off by about 5%? I looked at the fuel range vs. the miles left to go and decided we better get gas while we could. Rt. 17 south of Wilmington is pretty much nothing till you get to the beach turnoffs. Our truck being a crew cab short bed has only a 26 gallon fuel tank. The longer bed trucks are available with a 36 gallon tank that I wish ours had. Pulling the boat with everything we own and running 70-75 mph a lot of the time yields mileage in the 10-11 range. One time I was in the fast lane passing a Honda Prius, and I looked down (down is the operative word here) scoffing, “heck buddy, I’m using 4 times as much gas as you are”. As he looked up cowering and hoping I didn’t run over him. J I wanted to break out in a chorus of “I’m proud to be an American”.
We got close to the beach house we were planning to stay in, and called the kids. They were already there, and told us to come on in---they left us a good parking space. Turned out the parking space IS good, but involves stopping traffic on the main road to allow me to back the boat under the deck with about 2 feet to spare on either side. With the help of my son and son in law, however, we got the boat safely landed an all our “stuff” hauled in and stowed. I was glad to be here, but now have considerably more confidence traveling with “our rig”. We’re all looking forward to a great week of beaching, boating and fun.
More later,
Wes
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