Red Pearl

I ended my last post telling you it wasn’t always smooth sailing. That must have been foreshadowing of the next few days on our adventure. It has been a bit of a rough patch, BUT God has been prompting me and reminding me that He is present in the rough times (which I know well!) but also to not take Him for granted in the good times. The last several days have a wonderful mix of both and I am working on saying “Blessed be the Name of the Lord”.

We have been leap-frogging our car from marina to marina. We say a day in the boat is an hour in the car. As we have just spent 7 days moving the boat it was going to be a 7 hour drive back to Charleston. We only had the rental for the day. We asked to rent it in Norfolk and return it to Charleston, but Avis said no (curse). But if we got the car at 7 a.m. we would have plenty of time (blessing). As Larry rents cars every week for work he is “Avis Preferred” and can usually walk right up and get a car immediately. Well, Norfolk doesn’t have that feature and we had to wait more than thirty minutes to get the car (curse).

We get on our way down the road and about 30 miles I turn to Larry “Do you have the car keys?”. Nope. So we turned around and drove back to the boat (curse, BUT a blessing that we were only 30 minutes down the road and not the whole 7 hours!)

At this point it’s going to take a miracle and no traffic (HA!) to get the car returned on time. Larry decides to try again and calls Avis and gets a rep who happily changes the return destination at no charge (blessing!).

We do hit some traffic (curse) and we stop not once, but twice at Buc-ee’s (Blessing!). We finally make it home to the boat a bit before 2 a.m. safe and sound (blessing!)

We had already planned for a weekend visit to The Outer Banks and Kitty Hawk (blessing). So Saturday we head out once again in the car.

Our first stop was The Orville and Wilbur Wright Memorial. Definitely a thumbs up experience. It has a nice indoor museum plus hiking trails with a monument and a sculpture of a recreation of the first flight.

Sunday morning we made our way to Jockey’s Ridge State Park which is home to the tallest living sand dune system on the Atlantic coast. It was a lovely cool morning and we were able to hike and take some great pictures in comfort (blessing).

As we were leaving the park and sitting at a red light waiting to turn onto a busy 2 lane highway, warning lights on our truck began to flash (curse). Larry had the presence of mind to put the car in reverse and pull off to the shoulder and underneath a shade tree (blessing) just as the car died.

We called for a tow and began to look for an automotive shop, realizing that everything was closed. We also began to look for a rental car and once again everything was closed on Sunday. (Curses!). Our tow truck driver showed up and told us there was a shop that just started working on Sunday’s and we called and they could get us in (blessing!). Our driver also gave us the number of his buddy who rented 4WD trucks for riding on the beaches. We called and we were able to rent a Hummer! (Blessing)

The automotive center was not able to get our car finished, so we found another Airbnb for the night. We decided to take advantage of having the 4 WD and go to Corolla Beach which is known for the wild horses that run free on the beach and in the dunes. In order to be safe, you must let the air out of your tires down to 18 psi (it allows the tires to work like a snow shoe in the soft sand).

It was a great adventure and we were so glad we had the opportunity to do it!

We explored a little more and then settled in for another night.

As I am writing this, we are at our 3rd BnB. The car is not fixed yet. We are hoping by noon tomorrow. We will see what God has planned for us next! So far on our Looping Adventure we have definitely learned patience, problem solving, kindness to one another in all circumstances, and to wait upon the Lord. Thanks for joining us in the journey.