Surf City, NC a Near Disaster

September 30, 2012

We left Trantor's Creek Resort around 11:00 am and headed to Surf City, NC.  We are headed south on US 17.  this route will take us through several towns, so we had a lot of stop and go on this trip.

Lanier's Campground is directly on the Inter Coastal Water Way. It has 487 sites, most of which are taken by folks that rent sites annually. All of the stop and go made the 98 mile trip longer than expected and we arrived about 1:30 pm.  But, little did we know, we had just avoided a disaster! 

After getting set up, Kitty mentioned she thought she saw something on the inside of both back tires of the RV while following me here.  So, we checked the tires and found bubbles on the inside of three of the four RV tires.  That makes all four tires bad since we had to change a tire in Hatteras for the same problem.  Only the one in Hatteras went flat, the other three tires are still holding air- at least for now.

Our first priority is to find a tire store close by.  We located a tire store in Holly Ridge about 6 miles away.  Since today is Sunday, they aren't open.  But, we will be paying them a visit Monday morning.  Our tires are original equipment and are only three years old.  We weighed our rig last May and have not added any heavy items since then, so we feel we are not over weight.  These Load Star tires were made in China, and that may explain why the tires went bad in only 3 years and less than 10k miles.  I check tire pressures before each trip and we keep tires covered when we are not moving. So, these tires have not been neglected.  These RV tires carry 110 PSI and when they blow at highway speeds, bad things happen.  Not only bad things, but expensive things!

There was nothing more we could do today regarding the tires, so we took a walk around the campground in the warm humid salt air, and took some pictures.  The campers are really packed in here and it's a popular campground for those that like to fish.  There's a mixture of campers, boats, golf carts, and park models here.  But, this campground is not as well maintained as Trantor's Creek.

 

 

These local fisherman are cleaning today's catch.  These fish looked pretty clean to me!  Ha!

 

 

 

Since it was still early, we decided to jump in the car and do some sight seeing.  We drove into town and headed north along the beach.  All of the beach area for several miles is private access only.  We saw a lot of nice beach homes, but they all blocked our view of the ocean.  We headed back to the campground and fixed supper.  It wasn't long before it started raining.  We did some reading and went to bed.

 





 

Monday, October 1, 2012

 

 

After having our morning coffee and breakfast, we headed to Holly Ridge Tire Pros.  I had already received tire prices from Camping World, so we know what to expect for prices.  The folks at Holly Ridge Tire were very helpful but I wouldn't call them tire experts.  However, they were able to order the Good Year G614 14 ply steel belted tire we were looking for.  These are expensive tires, but we didn't want to put a price on safety.  The tires would be delivered to their store no later than Thursday.  We were scheduled to leave here on Friday, and they do not have a mobile service to install the tires at our campsite.  So, we will have to pull the fifth wheel the six miles to their store and hope we don't have any blow outs.  If all goes well, we will be on the road Friday afternoon headed toward Georgia. 

 

We made a couple of stops on the way back home.  It's raining on and off and we really can't plan any outside activities today.  More rain is expected tomorrow and possibly Wednesday.  So, we did some reading and took a walk between showers.  It was supper time before we knew it.  We are looking at some options for tomorrow in case it rains all day.  Stay tuned for more later.