RCR Racing

On Saturday morning, we decided to drive up to RCR (Richard Childress) Racing in Welcome, North Carolina.  Since it was a Saturday, the RCR Racing Campus was pretty quiet...

...but of course it would be because everyone is at the track (which this week was Dover, Delaware).  The RCR Racing Museum was open...

...and the first thing you see when you walk in the door is one of Dale Earnhardt's earlier cars when his sponsor was Wrangler Jeans and a bronze picture of Dale Earnhardt and Richard Childress after Dale had won at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

The museum is where the RCR Racing Garage formerly was before they moved to a bigger facility on the campus.  There are 47 race vehicles and 29 of them are the No. 3 Chevrolets driven by Dale Earnhardt.

We found one man working.

Not really.  It was a picture on the door of what was the Head Engine Builder's Room with Lou LaRosa (I think) who was formerly the head engine builder.

Notice how clean the museum is?  The actual NASCAR garages are this clean...or cleaner!

The orange "Wheaties" paint scheme was Chuck's favorite.  (Hmmm.  I wonder why???)

My favorite paint scheme was the Oreos car.  :)

Do you think I can get a job on a pit crew as a gas man???  :)

One of the haulers was on display in the museum also...

...so we took a look inside.

Everything the race teams can think of that they might need at a race is hauled in the haulers like springs,

extra engines,

and of course, the race car up on the second level of the hauler.

After leaving the hauler, we walked by the 5th chassis of the No. 3 Chevrolet which was one of the most successful.  The 5th chassis was run in 15 races from March 1987 to April 1989 and finished in the top 10 in all 15 races with six wins!  

We next went through the fabrication room where the bodies of the cars are created.

The other RCR cars displayed (other than Dale Earnhardt's) included this 1937 Plymouth Coupe driven by Richard Childress in his early days of racing.

One of Kevin Harvick's car was on display.  Kevin drove for RCR Racing after Dale Earnhardt's passing away in 2001 until just last year.  The car was just like it was after winning the race...confetti and all.

There was also an old Ricky Rudd car...

and another of my favorites:  The Oreos car driven by Dale Earnhardt Jr.  

After leaving the race car displays, we walked through a wildlife display that included several mounts from hunts that Richard Childress had been on.  The polar bear was from someone else's hunt; but the grizzly bear was his.  

After leaving the museum, we drove by what we think is where the RCR NASCAR Sprint Cup Garage is located.  

As we drove around and by all the buildings on the RCR campus, we even saw these two old race cars out back by a dumpster.  

That sure was an interesting visit!  We are planning on meeting Donald & Anna in Charlotte and going to some of the other NASCAR garages in July.  :)

Forest Lake

On Thursday, we left Carolina Landing in Fair Play, SC, and drove about a little over 200 miles to Forest Lake RV Resort in Advance, North Carlina.  Like Carolina Landing, Forest Lake is a Thousand Trails campground and so we get to stay here for "free" with our zone pass (except for having to pay $3/night for 50 amp).  We chose site D-7.

Forest Lake is a nicer park with more level sites to choose from.  It also has 2 swimming pools!  Some of the other amenities like the shuffleboard and tennis courts were not in the best of shape; but it appears to have a nice miniature golf course.  It also has a small fishing lake (more like a big pond).

The walking bridge across the lake was closed and the docks were not very sturdy.  I think they are the original docks from when the park was built in the early 70's.  :)

On Friday, we walked for about an hour that morning and had planned on going to the RCR Racing Museum and garage.  After we walked, I got a shower but when Chuck got in to take his shower the hot water would not work.  He had to take a cold shower.  Brrrr!!

We began checking everything we could think of to try to narrow the problem down.  First thing we did was turn the breaker switch to the hot water heater off.  We checked around the hot water heater, under the motorhome, and under the sinks and there were no leaks anywhere.  The cold water on all the faucets would work, but we could not get any water out of the hot side of the faucets.  We tried turning the hot water heater bypass value off and on.  When the valve was on (bypassing the hot water heater), we could get cold water out of both sides of the faucets.  When the valve was off (like it normally is), we could only get water out of the cold side of the faucet.

We tried draining the hot water heater thinking maybe some corrosion had built up and was blocking the water lines but the water came out emptied out of the hot water heater perfectly clear.  And still no hot water when we filled it back up.  Hmmmm.....

We looked up some nearby RV repair services and found Kamperz RV Service, a mobile RV repair service that had excellent reviews on www.rvservicereviews.com. While we waited for them to arrive, we kept trying to figure out what else might be the problem.  We decided to drain the hot water heater again.  Unfortunately, Chuck forgot to release the pressure on the pressure relief valve first so we both got soaked with cold water.  Cooled us off for a little while anyways!  :)

While we "patiently" waited for Kamperz RV Service to arrive, we watched the clouds...

...and this little wren hopping around near us...

...until he flew away.

Later that afternoon, Kampers RV Service arrived, and within about 45 minutes he had the problem figured out and solved.  The check valve on the hot water bypass had gone bad and was blocking the hot water from coming out of the hot water heater.  The bypass valve is used for when you are winterizing your motorhome with RV antifreeze.  He removed the bypass valve altogether so the hot water would flow out of the hot water heater again.  We didn't need the bypass valve anyways because since we live in our motorhome all the time, we don't winterize it.  Yeah!  We have hot water again!!

After all the fun with the hot water heater, we decided to try some Lexington-style barbecue since we were just a few miles from Lexington, North Carolina, where this style of barbecue originated.  We went to Tar Heel Q just a couple of miles from the campground.  The barbecue is served "chopped" or "sliced" and if you get a sandwich, they put the cole slaw on top of the barbecue in the sandwich.  It was pretty good barbecue.  Sorry, I forgot to make a picture of our meal before we ate it (again).  But I got a picture of their sign!  :)

Carolina Landing

We have about two months before our 5th granddaughter is due.  We decided to not go too far from Atlanta and just travel around the Carolinas and maybe into southern Virginia for the next couple of months.

We left Stone Mountain on Tuesday and drove a couple of hours away to a Thousand Trails park, Carolina Landing in Fair Play, SC, where we could camp for "free" on our Zone Pass.  When we arrived, we discovered we were the "Guest of the Day"!

As "Guest of the Day," we received an Encore tote bag with a few "goodies" inside.  After signing in, I drove around the campground to pick out a site.  While there were plenty of sites available with full hookups, there were very few (if any) level sites available.  We ended up on Site #18 which was not level but we decided to just "make do" since we would only be here a couple of nights.

After getting set up and eating some lunch, we walked down to the lake.  The campground is very hilly and the walk down to the lake was very steep.

The campground has a boat dock and small swimming area at the lake.

We walked out on the dock, sat on the benches, and enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes.

The ramp out to the dock was wiggly so I asked Chuck to let me cross it first so we wouldn't make the ramp doubly-wiggly as we crossed back to the beach.  :)

By the time we got back to our site, we were both pooped.  It didn't seem like we walked very far but the hills were very steep.  This is a picture of our site from the bottom of the hill.

Since the temperature was very warm, we considered going for a dip in the pool,

but the pool was undergoing some renovations so I guess that's out.  :)

On Wednesday, we got caught up on our laundry again and I got caught up on the blog again.  Tomorrow, we are headed for another Thousand Trails park in Advance, NC.

Enjoying the Grandbabies

The last couple of weeks have been filled with enjoying all our precious little granddaughters.  We helped out at Crystal and Grant's a little bit.  Avery took us to the playground nearby (in her stroller).  :)  She loves to swing.

Avery also likes to crawl through her caterpillar tunnel.

And Avery really likes her little sister, Hannah!  :)

Of course, we "helped out" by holding Hannah as much as we could.  :)

We also spent time enjoying Avery and Hannah's cousins, Bell and Emmaline, who also like to swing.

Bell and Emmaline like inside camping using a blanket as their tent.  Bell got me to crawl into the tent with her.

She thought she needed her BIG red ball in the tent too.

Emma didn't want to be left out of all the fun...

...so she crawled into the tent with us.  There wasn't much room left inside the tent.  :)

Oma and Opa (Laura and Larry) Robinson came to visit their new little granddaughter Hannah over Memorial Day Weekend.  All the Robinsons came out to see us for a couple of hours at Stone Mountain. Avery thought she would try out my shoes but they were just a little big.

 We decided to walk down to the lake to get our feet wet.

Avery REALLY liked the water.  :)

On Memorial Day, Grant and Larry cooked up an AWESOME shrimp boil with shrimp (of course), mushrooms, onions, corn on the cob, okra, polish sausage, and red potatoes.  It was delicious!  After dinner, it started to rain, but we were totally entertained by all the little girls.  We call Cory (Bell and Emma's dad) the "kid attractor" because every time the cousins get together, they climb all over Cory.

We were at Stone Mountain for almost 3 weeks and it was amazing how much Hannah had changed from when she was born...

...until right before we left on Memorial Day.

It was a busy time and we enjoyed spending time with all of our "babies"!  :)