The Land of Piggly Wiggly

Lake Murray, South Carolina

When I was growing up in rural Oregon (back in the stone age) there was a Piggly Wiggly grocery store about fifteen miles from our house in a little town called Progress. There was a small sign on the county road that said, "Watch Progress progress". Now there is a huge shopping mall, a major highway and tons of strip malls, gas stations, condos, signal lights and tons of traffic. The original Piggly Wiggly shopping complex is still there but the grocery store is gone. Next to the old store was a One Hour Martinizing (for you young 'uns that's a dry cleaners) a pet store that sold tropical fish and also an S&H Green Stamp store. We used to collect S&H Green Stamps, which were distributed by certain retailers and gas stations in proportion to the amount of money you spent at their establishments. They were little olive colored stamps that came in sheets much like the old you-lick-'em postage stamps. S&H Company would give you little booklets in which you could put the stamps and once you collected enough of them you could trade your stamps for merchandise. My sister and I spent many hours licking stamps and placing them on the pages of those booklets. We licked and worked until our tongues stuck to the roofs of our mouths and then poured over the S&H catalog to make our choice. I know One Hour Martinzing and S&H Green Stamps are long gone but to my surprise I've rediscovered Piggly Wiggly in South Carolina! Their slogan is "Shop the Pig and SAVE!". That makes me smile...for some reason. They have the same little friendly pig face for their logo.

We are just leaving Lexington, South Carolina and heading toward Charlotte, North Carolina to see John's two kids, who as he reminds me regularly, aren't kids anymore. Our stay in Lexington was very pleasant. We weren't sure that would be the case when we exited off of I-26 onto US 1 looking for the Barnyard RV Park (I know...what did we expect right?). When I began looking for a place large enough to park Mary I checked the KOA website. No luck. Then I got into the Trailer Life Directory (the phone book sized guide to RV parks across America) and to my surprise there was only one park that would handle Mary. With a name like Barnyard and a location described as "Right behind the Barnyard Flea Market!" I was pretty skeptical. But we had some business in the Columbia area so I called and made a reservation for Sunday and Monday nights. Once we got on US 1 we passed Carolina Pottery, Lowes and then a big flea market and then the neighborhood got a little dicey. We were listening to Tom Tom who was telling us that we were very close to our destination when I spotted the Barnyard Flea Market. It was huge and crawling with people. Flea markets can be pretty cool if they are in the right area. They can also be kind of scary if they aren't. Tom Tom said turn right on Oak Drive but I could see the RV Park sign two blocks down the road. John asked me what we should do. This is the problem with having a GPS unit that you don't trust (or like). Do you listen to it or do you trust your own eyes? I opted for trusting my eyes.

Murphy won that round and Tom Tom was right. I recall telling Tom Tom to shut up when it told us that we had missed our turn. Now I'm feeling a little guilty about that. More on that later. We made the turn by the RV park sign and ended up in the middle of the flea market...on Sunday...at noon. Church was over for a lot of people and I think that they all headed for the flea market to find a good deal because it looked like an ant hill. We could see the park behind the flea market but had to get there without wiping out any fruit stands or blue tarped clothing stores not to mention not making road kill out of any flea marketers. John calmly eased Mary through the crowds (as they looked up at us and scattered), around parked vehicles and by tables and tables of used merchandise while I had my own personal and silent nervous breakdown. I'm learning. Finally we found the entrance to the RV park. The office was closed until 12:30 on Sunday so that gave us a half hour to have some lunch and watch people shop.

Before I booked us in to Barnyard RV Park I checked the Internet to see if I could find any reviews. I found one by a woman who said that she originally was a little daunted when she pulled into the place but found it to be quite pleasant once she was there. That turned out to be an apt description of the place. The flea market only happens on the weekends so by 5:00 on Sunday the place was like a ghost town and the park was quiet. We spent two very nice nights at the Barnyard.

I have to report a casualty. I wish I could say that I'm sad about the passing but I'd be a liar if I did.

Tom Tom died.

I know...you think I killed him. Even though I was the last one to touch Tom Tom before he died I did not do anything to hasten his demise. I swear I didn't. All I did was turn him off. That was it. We made an appointment to see a piece of property on Lake Murray. It was quite a ways out of town so I programmed the address in to Tom Tom. John took him off of his mount in the coach and I carried him to the Camry where we proceeded to get exact directions to our destination. Well...Tom Tom didn't actually have the address that we were going to but he took us within a mile of the place and we used old fashioned Mapquest directions to double check Tom Tom and to find our way for the last mile.

When we got ready to leave I decided to turn Tom Tom back on to reverse our route. I picked him up and pushed the button but nothing happened. Finally I decided that he must have run out of battery charge so I put him down (gently) and we found our way back to Barnyard. John plugged it in and the green light came on but the screen was blank. He let it charge for hours and it still wouldn't turn on. We hunted for a reset button but none was to be found. For 24 hours John fussed with Tom Tom.

The name "Garmin" kept coming up in those 24 hours. It was mentioned three or four times. My hands are clean. I didn't kill Tom Tom. But now I'm not so sure about my husband. I caught him talking on the phone to his son Jason about his Garmin GPS unit. I don't want to think that it is possible that he murdered Tom Tom but when we were looking at the property he disappeared twice to get Breezy out of the car and put her back in. He had the motive. He hated Tom Tom probably as much as I did. And he had the opportunity. He could have dropped Tom Tom into the koi pond until he drowned and then dried him off and put him back in the Camry in the time that it took to take Breezy out for a walk. He could have offed Tom Tom.

I have to admit that I'm not without fault here. I'm guilty of verbal abuse. I cussed that little GPS until on several occasions and as recently as Sunday told it to shut up when it was telling us the correct way to go. I publicly humiliated him on several occasions on this very blog. Perhaps he couldn't take it anymore and just checked out on us. I may bear some responsibility for his death.

Or maybe it was accidental. The little piece of shit suction cup was always coming loose and Tom Tom would fall to the floor of the coach with a crash. Perhaps it took one fall too many.

I guess we'll never know.

This morning I ordered a Garmin Nuvi 660 and had it shipped home. It should be there when we get there on Sunday. For the duration of our trip we will have to find our way around using the laptop. I can deal with it. We found our way out to a local horse farm that way and found our way back. It's amazing how quickly we get dependent on our technology. As much as I cursed the GPS and as unreliable as it was, with Mary we used it as a backup to the laptop to be sure that we would get where we were going...without backing up. When I realized it was dead I had a moment of trepidation. Then we realized with the exception of one side trip out into the country which we will do with the car we will be on interstates for the duration of our trip. I believe that we can handle it.

I said to John this morning that things were going so smoothly with Mary and our travels that soon we would be the ones giving advice to other new coach owners. He pointed out that when that happens we won't have anything to blog about. Not true. No doubt we will continue to have experiences worth writing about. With Murphy as our traveling companion we can't help but to have some interesting encounters. Even without Murphy we are perfectly capable of doing dumb things.

We are now situated at a nice KOA in Fort Mill, South Carolina. It is just over the border from Charlotte. John whipped Mary into her space and within five minutes we were hooked up, set up and leveled. Mary is a miracle machine. And we are doing pretty well with her too. Tonight we will watch the American Idol finale and cheer on David Cook. We will look at some horses in the morning and then we are off to Tennessee for the Memorial Day weekend. I hope you have a terrific weekend. I'll post again after we get settled in Tennessee!