A Day of Many Stops

Today's first order of business is to announce the winner of the November linky party. We spun up the random number generator and came up with:

#1--Nan Brown!

Nan, I've sent you an email, so check your inbox.

We spent the day doing a little of everything yesterday. Our first stop was at Camping World. We only found a few of the things we were looking for, but they had fresh popped popcorn...always a favorite...and I amused myself by looking at the Christmas ornaments.

Next up...we tried to lead ourselves into temptation with a stop off to get a look at an RV we've been eyeing. You'd have to ask Mike what the deal is with the RV's because I could swear we'd seen this exact RV at one of the RV shows. He says no. It was the same floor plan, but a different manufacturer. He wanted to see the one built by Alpine, and he found one at a dealer here in South Carolina. So we took a look at it, and it is definitely the RV of our dreams. 

We looked at a couple of different ones, but this is the one we're lusting after. It has the most beautiful kitchen. On that far wall is a floor-to-ceiling pantry.

It also has a full-sized refrigerator. The one shown here is a domestic refrigerator, but we're wanting one that can run on propane as well as electricity. It would still be the same size as the one you see here. It also has a microwave/convection oven above and a regular gas oven below. Some manufacturers have done away with the gas oven. Our truck camper has no gas oven, for example. The convection combo works fine, but I still want the option to use a gas oven if I want to. They've also upgraded the ovens so they now have electric starters rather than a pilot light.

And (swoon), this one has a dishwasher. Can you believe that?

It also has a beautiful stainless steel sink.

The island kitchens have always bothered me a little because there isn't much room between the island and the back counter, and so storage there is difficult to get into. This manufacturer installed a pull out cabinet next to the dishwasher where trash and recycling go. It makes good use of an awkward space.

The bedroom has a king sized bed. Our current RV has those little windows next to the head of the bed, and we've always liked those. This one has them too. There's a nice big closet which is lined with cedar.

We were having a problem getting the doors opened, but to the right is where the washer/dryer combo goes, and you can see the cedar is there too.

Finally, the bathroom. The shower stall is nearly as big as the one at home, and it's just a very nice bathroom all around.

The living room has two recliners and a sleeper sofa. On the wall opposite the recliners is a large television and an electric fireplace below. (I'm not a fan of the fireplaces in RVs, but they all have them now.)

The small table has a leaf and so it can be expanded if you have other folks over...we usually just open it up for ourselves since we keep the laptop set up on the window side of the table.

So, nice, huh? We had absolutely no intention of buying it when we went in, but then the guy priced out all the options we wanted and came back with a killer deal. Oh. My. Gosh. Well, we spent the next couple of ours gnashing our teeth about this, but ultimately came to our senses and we're going to pass. The timing is all wrong, and it isn't in keeping with the plan about how we wanted this to play out. When you're laying out such a big chunk of change, its best not to be hasty. We're acting like grown-ups for a change. The dream lives on, however. Sigh.

After that, we stopped off at a quilt shop. This one was a very small shop, and the woman working there was sweet as she could be. I'll tell you about the quilt shop in a separate post. From there, we headed off to find a seafood market. They were all up and down the main drag in Murrells Inlet, near our state park. We scored a dozen oysters for Oysters Rockaway. I had dinner in the crockpot already, and so those are chilling in the refrigerator. We'll cook them tonight.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped off at a lagoon we cross over inside the state park. When we drove into the park the day before, we noticed a number of egrets and herons on the right side of the image below. As we drove out yesterday morning, the water level was higher, and we saw none. When we came back in the afternoon, it looked much as it did the day before, with lots of photographers packing long lenses. 

On the right side, it looks like this. You can see there is a long wooden boardwalk out in the distance. We're going to walk that today sometime.

On the left side the water is deeper and less marshy in appearance.

There's another shorter boardwalk and overlook there. At the end of the line is a sign discussing the fact that alligators live in these waters. We haven't seen any...yet. There are also signs posted around advising that feeding alligators is illegal.

So, I had only my point and shoot camera along, and I'd like to try again for more bird pictures. For yesterday's shoot, I saw a few of the larger birds. In the image below, you can see a Great Egret on the left and a Great Blue Heron on the right.

Next is another shot of the same birds from a different angle.

Here I was able to zoom in on the Great Blue Heron. It's not a bad shot, but I'd still like to get a shot of these birds with my DSLR camera and telephoto lens. I'm hopeful we can do that later on this afternoon.

This is the Great Egret. It's almost as large as the Great Blue Heron.

This next one is a Snowy Egret. They're smaller than the Great Egrets, and their bills are black instead of yellow.

There were also some smaller birds. I believe these are the Semipalmated Sandpipers.

An informational sign told me there were fiddler crabs in these waters as well, but I didn't see any. We'll get back over there this afternoon, and I'm hoping I can get some better shots.

After that, we headed back to the RV and got Smitty out for his promised walk.

He could be a high model for these harnesses, don't you think? Such a handsome hunka Mancat.

This is a very nice state park, and we got lucky with a very nice spot. There's a sort of secluded area among the trees there where Smitty can listen, look, and stay hidden. On the other hand, we saw an off-leash cat running around here yesterday, and don't you know that got his blood boiling. He's claimed this territory as his own, and we can't have off-leash cats running around fouling the air.

So that was our day. Today we'll spend some time here at the park. We want to walk that marsh boardwalk, and I want to try again for some better pictures of the birds. There's also a nice beach access. We walked out there last night, and it was perfect viewing for the super moon. It should  be a nice day ahead. I hope you have a nice day planned for yourselves.