Tinkerbell's Travels

We left Asheville and headed over to Winston-Salem, NC.

My “dead body” friend Jeanne and her husband Bill live in Winston-Salem. Jeanne and I grew up across the street from each other in Southern Maryland. Same age. Same grade. Same sense of adolescent humor (even today).

Jay and I parked Tinkerbell in the parking lot of a neighborhood eatery Jeanne recommended for our dinner date.

After dinner, Jeanne and Bill toured Tinkerbell and met the boyz.

After a wonderful dinner with lots of laughs and reminiscing through stories over our shared 45+ year history, we said our sad goodbyes. We kept Tinkerbell in the parking lot (the restaurant owner had given us permission) and tucked ourselves in for the night.

A Dry Camp RV Lesson

We learned a new lesson for our RV travels: do not park in the lot of a late-night drinking establishment.

Even though the restaurant closed at 10pm (which is when we turned out our lights as well), the patrons continued their party in the parking lot until 3AM.

Being the good watch dog that he is, Ziggy did his job and barked (and barked) lots of warnings, “Danger! Danger! Drunks outside!”

We didn’t get much sleep that night 😉

Roanoke: Home of My “Dead Body” Friend, Elly!

The morning came early. We made ourselves some coffee and headed up to Roanoke, VA.

Another of my “dead body” friends is Elly. She lives in Roanoke. We’ve been friends since 5th grade. Elly’s mom had the unenviable job of chaperoning a group of giggly, over-excited, teenage girls spending a week at the beach after high school graduation: lots of mischief and late nights that turned to early mornings watching re=runs of M*A*S*H until dawn so we could say we saw the sunrise on the Atlantic Ocean.

It had been 10 years (our first bus trip actually… we took Kyoshi to Roanoke to see Elly!) since we last saw each other. We picked up exactly where we left off, breezily catching up on all the new news in our lives while Jay entertained himself by trying to catch chef-tossed shrimp in his mouth.

I wish I had an old picture of Elly from our childhood, but all of my pictures are at home.

This is where I flog myself for not digitizing our old pictures. Tucked away in a closet at home base in Tucson, Jay and I have a big box of cherished pictures. The box is labeled, “Someday, we’ll digitize these.” Pictures of Elly and me through the years – from grade school through college and beyond – are in that box.

Waiting to be digitized.

Having learned our lesson in Winston-Salem, we decided not to spend the night in a restaurant parking lot (even though the owner happily gave us a thumbs up). We hit the road for our next stop: Richmond, VA.

After a few hours of driving, we pulled into a nice, quiet Cracker Barrel in Staunton, VA, and called it a night. No Cracker Barrel patrons were partying in the lot. We got a good night’s sleep.

Another “Dead Body” Friend! This one is in Richmond, VA

After a hearty breakfast of fresh pancakes, eggs, and various breakfast meats, we drove to our campsite in Ashland (just outside of Richmond). We relaxed and did some laundry and other things we didn’t get to do while dry camping. And then, our friend Hannah welcomed us by bringing dinner and dessert to us in Tinkerbell!

You may remember Hannah from my 60th birhday party – she’s our former intern -who’s moved up the career ladder to big time!

While Hannah and I haven’t been friends quite as long as I’ve been friends with Jeanne and Elly (Hannah wasn’t even born when Jeanne, Elly and I graduated from high school!), she and I have become good friends over the past 12 years or so.

I’d say Hannah is definitely a “dead body” friend at this point!

The next day, Hannah gave us a tour of Richmond, showing us the neighborhoods that make up the community of downtown Richmond. We especially loved Monument Avenue! The old homes, tree-lined streets, uneven sidewalks, and friendly people reminded us of downtown Fredericksburg and Capitol Hill in DC.

We toured a few open houses (one of our favorite things to do!) since Hannah is thinking about taking the plunge and buying her first home.

After touring, Hannah introduced us to a totally tasty ice cream shop and treated us to heaping helpings of different flavored ice creams!

It was a fun day getting to see Richmond, Hannah’s apartment, and her favorite places in the city!

This Blog is Brought to You by Starlink

Before I close out, since I’m feeling a bit sentimental, I wanted to pen a love note to Starlink.

Before we left on our Summer of ’25 Tour, we cut the cable cord at home AND we (by “we,” I mean “Jay” of course!) installed Starlink on Tinkerbell.

Thanks to Starlink and near-perfect connectivity, I’m able to write the blog and post it without worrying about sudden, ill-timed internet drops. I can’t tell you how many times on previous trips, I’d have written a blog post only to go to save it and find out most of my work simply disappeared because of connectivity issues.

With Starlink, we have yet to come across a “dead zone” or have “dropped” calls. No matter where we are: back roads (we’ve been on a few this trip), small towns, or parking lots, Starlink always works! The only time(s) we’ve noticed a slight decrease in connectivity has been in bad weather and when under cover of some sort (like a repair garage).

Thank you Starlink! I think I love you!

I now count Starlink as a “dead body” friend 😉

---

Coming up: Beach Time in Virginia!