Visiting our oldest in Greenville, South Carolina

If I were moving to a new city Greenville, South Carolina would definitely be on my short list.  We had never been to Greenville but when our oldest son moved here a short time ago I started doing a little research.  Greenville's downtown is one of the best in the country according to Forbes Magazine.  CNN Money ranked Greenville as one of the top 10 growing cities in the country.  Bloomberg named Greenville as the third strongest job market in the country in 2010.  We were downtown today and we saw first hand why Forbes ranked it as one of the best downtowns in the country.  Its a nice size city with a population of about 62,000 people. It's awesome.  More restaurants and coffee shops than you can count.  Lots of people walking on the side walks several with one or more dogs in tow.   We noticed new buildings everywhere while driving from Piedmont to Greenville.   After parking the car and having drank coffee a few minutes ago I first needed to find a restroom.  We went into one of the tallest buildings in town and a nice lady ask if she could help us.  I ask her if she knew where a public restroom was downtown and she said I am not sure but you are welcome to use ours.  She proceeded to lead us to their restroom facilities.  I was expected to hear sorry we don't have any here.  Great first impression of the city.  Greenville has a humid subtropical climate with four distinct seasons.  So you have a sense of going through Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter but without the extreme cold weather. Greenville has an average daily temperature in January of 42 degrees and only averages one day that doesn't get above freezing during the daytime.  Greenville averages 4.7 inches of snow per year.

Our son lives outside of Greenville in the little town of Easley.  He lives in a nice house situated on several acres.  He loves his job and the people he works for.  I told him that is the most important thing about work is enjoying what you do.  Rarely, at least from my experience, do people work at jobs they like.  I am including myself in this observation.  Usually you work for financial security and liking the job rarely enters into peoples decision of taking or staying in a job.

We are staying at an rv park that is in a little town called Piedmont, SC.  It is called Ivy Acres RV Resort and is owned by a very interesting man called Chuck Hill.  The RV park office is in the foyer of Chuck's very nice and interesting house that he built himself a few years ago.  He was and is still a professional builder.  On the wall you see pictures of a man that looks like Chuck but one that is many pounds heavier.  He has lost 60 pounds over two years and rarely have I talked to a person who is more in touch with his body and his daily food requirements.  He was diagnosed with diabetes a couple of years ago and that kind of got his attention that he needed to do something differently.  He watches everything he eats but eats well.  He eats four times per day and has several recipes he makes of healthy tasty foods that he has on hand continuously.  His diet is kind of a mix of a low carb low calorie diet.  He only eats three fruits including blueberries, strawberries and I forgot the last one.  He says the others have too much sugar.  His blood sugar levels run around 100-110 but on a very bad day will go up to 140.   He is off all of the medication he used to take.  His last meal is at 6:00 pm and he mainly eats protein at that meal with very few carbs.  We are so glad we like this place since it's just down the road from where Gabe lives.  We will probably be stopping here twice per year.  Once in the spring on our way home and once late in the year when headed to Florida.  We already have our motorhome service appointment at Freightliner in Gaffney, SC for next November 17th which is less than an hour away.

Here are a few pictures


My son's welcoming mat.

Downtown Greenville.  These don't do it justice.

 Two big ass but pretty Cocker Spaniels

 Huli eating lunch.

 Huli practicing for her future employment as a Walmart cart jockey.

 Me and my oldest.  People say we look alike but I don't see it.  He is better looking.

 

 Huli and her oldest.  She cries every time she thinks about us leaving him.

 Now if only Jason were here we would have the whole fam damily here as my dad used to say.



Motorhome Service Time and Charlotte Motor Speedway

Last night we had some issues with the power at the first electrical pedestal we were hooked up to in the Freightliner parking lot.  My Progressive Industries surge protector told us one line of the power had low voltage.  In addition to the error message any time the voltage of either line goes below 100 volts it will shut off.  When that happens our motorhome automatically switches to the inverter and runs off the batteries except for one thing.  Every time this switch over occurs the TV's go off and then immediately come back on.  This is what was going on in Milwaukee but I wasn't sure what was causing it.  With the remote read out I installed in our kitchen I could sit and watch what the voltage on each line was reading continuously. Finally the power shut off and didn't come back on.  I went outside to the pedestal with my Multi Meter and checked to verify what I already knew and sure enough no power.  My neighbor, who was hooked up to this same pedestal was also outside.  I ended up adding a second power cord and going over to the neighbor on the other side of me to their pedestal.  My other neighbor without power backed straight up and connected on the back row of hook ups.  All was well for the rest of the night.

The next morning I learned the couple next to us without power was the sister of Joel and Mark Scrafton from Warsaw, Indiana and her husband.  I have known Joel and Mark for about 25-30 years since they both worked at Zimmer.  Her husband is a farmer from Greenwood, Indiana and they are on now their way to the Naples, Florida area for the winter.  The more we travel the more we learn how small the world actually is. 

The Freightliner service tech was at our door shortly after eight this morning.  We were ready for them with jacks up and slides in and the engine running.  One thing we did tell them was we wanted a different spot this evening when they finished so I didn't have to get out the second power cord to hook up the electricity. 

We loaded up the dogs and headed toward Charlotte, NC.  The only two things I really knew or thought I knew about Charlotte is that it is kind of the banking center of the south and it has a Nascar speedway.  I learned not only it is the banking hub of the south it is the second largest financial center in the nation.  Bank of America and Wachovia call it home.  The speedway however is actually in Concord, NC not Charlotte.  Concord is about 12 miles north of Charlotte.  So heading to Charlotte we could maybe take a tour of a bank or a Nascar speedway.  We choose the speedway.

We got to the speedway at around 10:00 and the next one hour tour for a party of two (Huli and I) was scheduled to leave at 10:30.  People here don't like the cold weather so nobody else showed up for the 10:30 tour.  We went to the gift shop and bought what we normally do.  A shot glass and a magnet.  We are convinced the weight of the magnets on our refrigerator will eventually pull the door off.  Our tour guide was Katrina and she was originally from Michigan.  She moved to NC in 2004 and is very happy here.  She works for the speedway as a tour guide and also works in the operations area during races.  In her spare time she inspects every seat in the stadium annually and creates a punch list for the operations people to repair.  She claims she can do this inspection fairly quickly since she has done it many times.  She is also a development driver which allows her to drive various new cars and she drives some kind of a truck around the track pulling a very heavy block to smooth the track out.  I know one thing for sure and that is she likes to go fast even in a tour van.

The site of the Charlotte Motor Speedway was once the site of a working plantation during the civil war.  The speedway is 1.5 miles long and has a seating capacity of 134,000 fans.  It also holds 113 box suites for the big money people and companies.  The first race was in 1960 and the speedway was built by Bruton Smith who still owns it today.  He is 87 years old and is worth around $1.5 billion.  Bruton owns eight speedways including Atlanta, Bristol, and Las Vegas.  Katrina says Bruton will still call her today and ask her about a purchase order she issued for soap she bought for the speedway.

Today we learned that there are seven race tracks at the Charlotte Motor Speedway.  Including dirt tracks, NHRA drag strips, go kart tracks, bandelero tracks(1200cc Kawasaki engine go karts), road tracks etc.  The speedway is used a lot.  Today the NC State Police had leased out one of the big parking lots and had set up some kind of a drivers skill course.  Every time Katrina would approach a state cop she would floor the tour van and then tell us they can't do anything to her inside the speedway.

After the speedway we drove back into Charlotte and hit the best Chinese restaurant we could find and then headed back to Freightliner where we found the motorhome done and in the parking lot.  Everything on the motorhome went well and nothing out of the ordinary was found.  They went through 46 different items that they either checked, changed, lubricated, or inspected.  Other than filters and oil changing the big thing on this trip was replacing the air dryer kit.  Glad to hear it was a routine service appointment. 

Below are some picture I took today for you picture lovers out there.  I took over a hundred today but narrowed it down to these.


This is the front entrance we went up to the second floor to sign up for the tour.  One of these vans is what we took our tour in.

The seats are painted multi colored so it appears people are in the seats when they aren't.  Attendance isn't what it used to be so they are tearing down one section of bleachers and are adding a motorhome park.

This is the hospital where nine doctors work during the race and they won't start the race until a helicopter is parked next to it on the helipad.

These are the garages

This is the garage to have.  I think Katrina said it is for the previous years points winner. 

This is the side of pit row that the pit row teams stand on..

How about an 80 foot by 200 foot tv that will withstand 200 mile per hour winds.

 

 This is part of the original bleachers from when the track was built in 1959.

 

 This is pit row.  Looks like somebody is doing some burn outs.

The start finish line.

This is when wild woman Katrina started to put the pedal to the metal.

At about this time we were approaching 100 miles per hour.

The turn is a 25 degree bank.

I hope she is not white knuckled.

 

  She brought us in hot and then slowed down to 45mph which is the speed limit in pit row.

This is the winner circle.

 

 This is wild woman Katrina saying she is number one and we agreed.  She made our tour very memorable and enjoyable.

This is me saying I'm something other than number one.  I am rocking that jogging outfit though. 

This is the side of the ZMax drag strip.

This is just before Katrina floored it and pushed our heads back against the head rests in the deluxe 11 passenger tour van.  At the finish line of the quarter mile we were going a whopping 88 miles per hour.  Katrina needs a heavier foot or more horses under the hood of the tour van.

This is the NC state police practicing knocking over the cones.

 

 This is the dirt track being resurfaced for some more muddin.



Freightliner Parking Lot Gaffney, SC

 Well sounds like the whole country is in for some lousy weather. It was just sprinkling a little before we left but the forecast for tonight and tomorrow didn't sound good.  We left Campfire Lodgings in Asheville at about 11:00 am which was about one half hour after our neighbors left.  The neighbors that just started full timing recently.  The ones that took 11 hours to go from Savannah to Asheville.  I intentionally waited that half hour to make sure he was down the mountain ahead of us.  Should have waited 45 minutes.  We drove on the ridge of the mountain to the office with our car hooked up ready to head down the mountain and there he was still hooking his car up.  About 10 minutes later he started down the mountain with us behind him.  I have no idea how he got up the mountain in the dark due to how long it took him to go down in broad daylight.  Oh well he made it and we weren't in any hurry so it was no big deal for us.

We stopped at the South Carolina Welcome Center and later we stopped for fuel and pissed around inside the Pilot gas station for a while getting pop and coffee and paying for diesel etc. etc.   We then took the scenic route to Gaffney and still got here at the Freightliner Service Center at about 2:30 pm.  We then unhooked the car, got into a space, took the bikes and the bike carrier off the back of the motorhome and checked in with the office to go over our service appointment for tomorrow.  We take the bikes and carrier off so they can access the engine compartment for the service work.

Here at Freightliner it is a no frills kind of a set up but we aren't complaining.  We have 50 amp electricity but no water or sewer hook ups.  This is not an issue since we can go the two days we will be here using our holding tanks for water, grey and black sewage. 

My oldest son Gabe doesn't like it when I post without pictures so I told him I would post some pictures of the Freightliner parking lot today.  Hope you like them. 



 

Here are the filters that I carry with us just in case we have a problem.  The big one is the oil filter and the small white one is the fuel filter and the yellow one is a fuel filter in combination with a fuel water separator that screws on to the bottom of it.  I put them in the seat and Freightliner will use them in this service appointment and then replace them with new ones so I am carrying new filters. 

I can do the service work myself.  In fact I bought two 22 ton jacks that I have put the motorhome on when I greased it earlier this year.  I just wanted to be able to do it in the event we have a problem and I need to change a filter or drain water out of the fuel water separator and I just want to understand where things are.  I found all of the grease fittings but the one between the axles for my big ass was not easy to get to.  Anyway I do other things myself but at least while the chassis is under warranty I will probably bring it back here and let them do the chassis/engine service work.



 

 

 

 

 

We are in the heart of Nascar country don't ya know. 

 

 

 

This is the back on the service center

 

This the front of the service center and the education facility.  Service bays on the right and a waiting room and class rooms on the left.

 This is the parking lot behind the service area.  There are two rows of motorhomes back here waiting for service.  You can't see the second row of motorhomes but they are behind the building on the right.

Here we are set up for the evening.  At around 8:00 am tomorrow morning they will knock on the door and we will get into the car and head to Charlotte for the day.  Not sure what we are going to do other than eat Chinese food.  We will have the dogs with us so that kind of limits what we can do.  We will come back around 4:00 pm where we will spend another night in the parking lot and then head down to Gabe's the next morning.

 

Precision Paint in Breman sure did a great job repairing this side of the motorhome where the guy ran into us going through Atlanta last year.  I have buffed every square inch of the motorhome this past summer which took me around 80-120 hours and I can't tell anything was ever done to it in the way of body repairs or repainting.  The buffing I did removed every swirl mark and cob web that the guys didn't get when we had it detailed in Fort Myers last year.   I think the finish on the motorhome looks better now than the day it was brand new.  Polishing it brings out a very deep shine since the scratches have all been removed.  I know Jim I am just a little anal about this.

How did you like these parking lot pictures.