On our first RV trip, we were blown away by the kindness of other RVers. In fact, the opportunity to meet interesting and unique people was one of the influences that lead to us buying an RV. Not only was the RV consistent with our philosophy on travel, but we knew it would give us an opportunity to meet an interesting array of people.
We recently returned from a month-long trip in Harvey the RV, including time visiting family and friends in South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, and New York, before heading to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It will probably take me months to get all the details of that trip written, but I wanted to share the highlights of the trip. Not the highlights of the Cabot Trail, or visiting Cheticamp and Ingonish, or the great seafood, or the amazing hiking, or the visit to the Larch factory, but the highlights of the people you’ll meet.
Fellow South Carolinians:
We arrived at Cheticamp Campground very late on our first day, so it was the next morning before we met any neighbors. Wallace did his part, flying out of the RV first thing in the morning, no leash or collar, and heading to meet another dog a few sites over. Thankfully, the dog was mostly friendly and the owners much more so. Robert and Kathy are probably 60, maybe 65. Both recently retired and from Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, just outside Charleston and close to our (now former) home of Beaufort. In retirement, they have decided to downsize and have sold their house and are moving to Asheville, North Carolina, but not before taking a few months to explore. They have a wonderful A-Frame popup that has a surprising amount of room.
After a day or two, Robert and Kathy departed Cheticamp and we said our goodbyes. They were heading across the island to Ingonish, our next destination, but the timing was off and we knew we wouldn’t see them again. So, goodbyes and best wishes exchanged, they headed out.
Imagine our surprise ten days later when, as we broke camp in Camden, and who do we run into but Robert and Kathy. We had a great chat, found out they didn’t love Ingonish as much as we did, and were having a great time heading south and back to Asheville. Of course, running into them didn’t come as a huge surprise…
Bruce:
We met Bruce on our second or third day in Cheticamp. We headed out to the lighthouse on La Pointe and noticed a VW minibus parked on the side of the road. We stopped and chatted for a few minutes, learned a bit about Bruce, the driver. Bruce is from California and had been traveling for a few months across the US and Canada. We recommended the campground to him and hoped to catch up with him later. Unfortunately, Bruce slipped in and out of the campground pretty quickly, so we never had a chance to chat.
Fast forward another week or so, and Heather and I pulled into the Trenton Bridge Lobster Pound to grab lunch after a day in Acadia National Park. As I get the RV parked on the shoulder, I hear a frantic honking and a VW bus swerves to the side of the road and parks in front of us. My first thought was, “Great, now we have some lunatic who doesn’t like my parking…” but I noticed a familiar logo on the spare tire. Of course, it was Bruce… We spent a few minutes chatting on the side of the road, Bruce shared his blog with us so we could follow his trip, and we headed inside for a great meal.
I’ll have to write again later this week with the story of Margie and Larry and Greg and Jackie, two couples that we also met while on the road. Larry and Margie are longtime GMC owners and have an identical coach to ours, while Greg and Jackie are Cape Bretoners who we met in Ingonish. Greg is a commercial fisherman and was camping at Broad Cove with Jackie as a staycation after the fishing season. Look for the updates soon!
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