We did another car move day today. Two choices presented themselves for this move - a short move to Hampton, Virginia or a much longer move to Annapolis, Maryland. We opted for the short hop as the longer move looked only reasonable with a night's stay at a hotel.
With two bad experiences, we have discovered that Monday is the worst day of the week to rent a car at Enterprise Rental Cars as the offices have less cars available on this day than any other due to company policies on how they deal with body shops. I am not sure I understand the policy details, but I certainly understood the effects of it. When we arrived to pick up our reserved rental car, none were available to be rented.
This is the second time we have shown up at an Enterprise agency and been told there are no cars in inventory. One wonders what the word "reservation" means. The assistant manager at the New Bern agency bent over backwards to make things right for us. Customer service is definitely their strong point. Eventually, we got a car and got underway for our drive to Hampton, Virginia.
Google Maps showed the drive distance to be just over three hours each way. I find it interesting to travel by car the area nearby where we will travel by boat. The differences between land travel and water travel become apparent as the scenery can contrast greatly. Some elements of being on the road in North Carolina / Virginia stood out.
The first thing that I noticed was the number of churches along the way. Our travels took us through rural sections of North Carolina. Towns where I saw no gas stations or food stores had multiple churches. I wondered at the sizes of the congregations given so many options. Many of the churches had names I had never heard of before.
Another startling attribute of North Carolina was the size of the logging industry here. We saw more trucks than I could begin to count fully loaded with huge tree trunks. I expected to see bare land for miles around. All along the road we traveled, posted signs warned drivers of logging trucks entering the roadway.
In terms of houses, we saw a large number of mobile homes in North Carolina. After we entered Virginia, brick-built homes lined the sides of the road. As a wild guess, based on the size and design of the homes, I would estimate the homes to have been constructed in the 1960s or thereabouts. Certainly these houses do not date back to colonial times as one might surmise of brick houses in Virginia.
We arrived at the Hampton Piers about 1:30, stayed long enough to park our car, and talk to the dock master before setting off again for our return trip to New Bern. Google Maps indicated that we would arrive back at the New Bern Enterprise Rental Agency around 5:20. We hoped to be able to arrive before they closed at 6:00 to eliminate the need to deal with the car tomorrow.
Due to some delays caused by frequently stopping school buses, we managed to arrive at the car rental agency just after 5:30. The two reps at Enterprise, that worked with us in the morning to find us a rental car, could not believe we managed to get back from a round trip to Hampton before their shop closed. They fully expected us to bring the car back the next day.
Besides watching the clock for the agency's closing time, we also watched the weather closely to see if we would get caught in a downpour before we could get back to the boat. As we left Enterprise, Clark snapped a couple of pictures of the dark clouds.
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| Clouds forming over New Bern, NC |
Walking back to the boat, we stopped and talked to the captain of Act III whom we met in Marathon in 2016. He told us that we would find it "sloshy" when we got back to the boat. Instead of sloshy, what we saw as we approached Sunset Delight filled us with concern. All three of our fenders that should be hanging down between the boat and the dock to protect the boat from damage had pulled out from between and instead sat on the dock.
Our walk back to the boat rapidly changed from a stroll to a near run. It took the two of us applying our weight to the boat to push it away from the dock to get the fenders back in position. Once down, I lengthened the line on each one. Where previously they were hanging above the water, when done, they all sat in the water - better wet and doing their duty than dry and sitting on the dock. We examined the boat for damage and found none. Either we got lucky and the fenders had not been out of position long, or the metal rub rail around the stern of the boat protected the gel coat from harm.
Knowing that rain would soon come our way, Clark filled our water tank to get that chore out of the way while he could stay dry. While he waited for the tank to fill, he took some more pictures of the on-coming storm.
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| Clouds over the docks in New Bern, NC |
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