Camping In Fayetteville NC: Art's RV Sites

Nick and I aren't particularly fancy people.  We like good food and being comfortable and that keeps us pretty happy.  In the RV being comfortable for us means being warm, and besides heading south, staying warm means being plugged into shore power.  Which is exactly what we did at Art's RV Sites and it was perfect for us.  The sites were surrounding Art's house and dispersed throughout his yard.    We had a full hook up (water, electric and sewer) for $12.50 a day with our Passport America membership.  You can't beat that with a stick.  We were comfortable, it was convenient and we didn't have, nor did we need any of the bells and whistles of other RV campgrounds or "resorts" like the pool, which isn't open this time of year anyway.  Art was a classic southern guy who loved classic American cars.  He drove his 1940 Ford around everyday while enjoying a good smoke.  You could tell he was a collector of sorts by the El Camino in the yard and the 1920 something restored vehicle in the garage.  There didn't seem to be too much going on in this town but everyone was pretty damn friendly.
We stayed a few days and enjoyed the decent weather and the affordable full hookup campsite.  We would pay for a day thinking that we were leaving the next day, but then the next day we found ourselves staying another night.  We knew we wouldn't find another campground as inexpensive,  comfortable and welcoming as Art's.
 It was pretty quiet, except for the distant rumblings of what we assumed were cannon's firing from Fort Bragg.  We weren't hassled when we had an unexpected visitor.  Our friend and fellow musician Jay D Clark, who introduced Nick and I 7 1/2 years ago,  came to visit us from his last road tour The Exam Jam. That was pretty cool meeting up on the road in a different town away from home. He spent the night and slept in our rig on the kitchen table that doubles as a bed. We woke up the next made some breakfast, Jay D grabbed a shower and off he went on his was back to Philly before his next show in Connecticut. It was cool being able to provide a warm meal and a hot shower to a fellow friend/musician travelling around.
  All in all Fayetteville was a nice stop along the way there seems to be more to this little town than meets the eye.  We will definitely be visiting Art anytime we pass though.

RV Camping in Myrtle Beach

Myrtle Beach is WAY bigger than the shore towns that I'm used to in Cape May and Wildwood NJ.  Everything is lit up and oversized or as I like to call it  "american sized".  I was shocked at the restaurants, shops and mini golf courses mile after mile.  We stayed at two locations here.  The first was Briarcliffe RV Resort.

This place was pretty much like living in a condo development, except everyone had an RV instead of a condo.  All of the RVs were beautiful.  Big with slideouts and some had matching golf carts parked along side them.  All of them way nicer than our 20 year old Southwind, and the "resort" seemed to cater to an older crowd, but full time RVing tends to do that.  Everyone was friendly, but I got more of a yuppie vibe from the people.
 The designated Pet Areas were pretty small and once Honey had peed on all the trees in this area, he was pretty disinterested in doing his business there again.  Internet, which we were told was "very slow" was $5 a day per computer!!! Really?  What century is this?  We used our Passport America membership to get a full hook up site for $22.50 during the weekdays. The discount didn't apply on the weekends so we would have to pay the winter rate of $34 sat and sun.  This was reasonable, as their winter rate on the weekends, but we soon learned that Myrtle Beach State Park was just 12 miles or so south of where we were staying which was a closer location to central Myrtle Beach.  Their winter rate was about $30 for a full hook up, so we packed all our stuff away and drove to the State Park, oh and they have free wi-fi.  Much to our delight the lovely Alaskan snowbirds behind the desk gave us an additional 25% off so we were paying the same $22.50!

Hooray! AND look at the difference!  We are just off of the beach and we can hear the ocean waves from our site at night!  We are in a park with trails and trees and nature rather than the concrete "resort" where we were before.






We can't even believe the difference! State Parks are definitely the way to go whenever possible!!

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Big Harry's Tavern Open Mic: Fayettville NC

I found Big Harry's Tavern on openmics.org. We stopped into this local establishment around 9:30 pm.  As usual, we weren't too sure what we would find here, but that's how we like it.  We got IDeed at the door by a little guy named Peanut. I thought nothing of it really but Nick noticed that he checked the ID of an older gent that was clearly of the age and when Nick asked Peanut said he checks EVERYBODY's ID. Turns out Peanut takes the stage to sing a meddley of songs every week and we were priveledged to catch his act. There was a house band playing which is great for me, since I decided to do a music tour with no band.  I looked through their lyric book in front of the stage, but it was all country tunes, most of which I had never heard of before.  The audience consisted of a mixed bunch of local musicians, non-musicians and those that just can't stop coming back to enjoy some good music like Scott Hamilton.  (No, no, not the olymic ice skater).   It wasn't packed, but there were enough people there to make us feel welcomed.  Randy, who was playing guitar, greeted me and asked me what I wanted to sing.  I opted for Bobby Mcgee by Janis Joplin and Chain of Fools by Aretha Franklin.  I know that I need to grow my songlist but these were the songs that I chose to do. They knew the songs and played them like pros.

After the first song, I seemed to have everyone's attention.  We ended the short set by jamming out some blues.  The guys were great to play with and the audience seemed to be having a great time. After I finished singing everyone kept saying that I needed to do something with this voice i possess. Good Times!! This is another venue/open mic I would definitely stop by when passing thru these parts another time.  The best part of the night was when Randy and his daughter Randi aka R2 did a duet.  She is a talented young lady studying several musical instruments and singing her heart out at the tender age of 17.  She was sipping her water at the bar and singing all the words to the songs when I was performing.  I was so happy to chat with her after the show and become FB friends.  I'm definitely interested in seeing where her musical talents will take her. Well stay tuned for more from The Dream It True Tour as it continues "going down the road feelin bad"....

The Judge's Bench Open Mic

When Nick and I were staying with his brother in Maryland, I decided to hit up an open mic.  I wanted to stay pretty close by so I went to openmikes.org and found The Judge's Bench in Ellicott City.  The reason I chose this open mic over others is because of their FB group page.  There were tons of people talking on the group page the day of the open mic and there seemed to be a good vibe going on.  I arrived on the later side around 10pm there was free parking just across the street, (which is great coming from Philly where Parking Wars is filmed), and I signed up to sing.  I was the last one on the list for the night but I expected that since I arrived so late.  I asked Mike, the host, if there were any musicians who might want to play with me.  He immediately pointed to Tim for guitar, Butch for bass, and David for harmonica.  I introduced myself and I got a very warm welcome.  I had to wait till about 1am to sing and it was a great time.   Both young and older people all drinking and playing together.  The bartender held it down by himself with 50 people in the bar and their rotating beer selection is pretty impressive.  All in all it was a great night and I would DEFINITELY hit this open mic up again on the way back up north.