Friday, April 18, 2014

We arrived in New Bern around 11:30 this morning

 Working boat!

Shrimpies!

 Free Dock

2 days a month you can stay at this dock for 

free!  Sweet!

 Toucan Restaurant here at the marina

We came in early this morning and got our slip so we could get our grocery shopping and laundry done.  Checking in with the dock master was pretty interesting.  He gave us a lot of good information but "didn't tell the whole story" about things.  For example, I asked about laundry and he said "yes we have a laundry mat and gve me the code to the room".   We go walking in and there was a woman working there doing some laundry.  I look at the washer and dryers and they were humongous!  I was so excited!  The she proceeded to tell me that the washer and dryer for the marina was in the room next to that one.  Very disappointingly we walked out, and there was one washer and dryer hidden in a corner for us to use! We had at least 6 loads we needed to get done....this was going to be an all day job now!  So, I went and talked to the guy again and I asked if I could pay his staff to do my laundry and he said "no, we frown upon that."  I said "ok, do you have a laundromat close that I can go to?"  No, nothing close.  So, we did one load at a time for 5 hours!  Never did get it all done.  Well come to find out, there are two more washers and drying in another building that is closer to us that we could have used, but he neglected to tell us that. 

Now let's talk about the Walmart Express that he told us about.  We asked if there was one in town, and he said yes, and told us how to get there.  So, happily we (Derek and Shelley also) headed that way because we needed to replace one of our heaters that just stopped working, and the other one sounds like it is on it's last leg....and we are too big of wimps to make it home without heat! So we pull into the Walmart parking lot, see a huge sign on the side of the building right in front of the car that none of us took time to read, and entering the store we were stopped by 3 employees that happened to be outside smoking in front of the door,we told them how excited we were to be here and to be able to do some shopping, and they just kind of look at us and said "We are not open yet.  We don't open until May 2nd" (which is what the sign said in front of the car!).  Again, why didn't the guy tell us it wasn't open yet???  There was something else he told us, but I can't remember what it was, it's just been really weird!

So, Bob did about 5 loads of laundry for me while I cleaned the boat and got Derek's and Shelley's bedroom ready.  By the time we finished, we were too tired to walk to the store, and besides, they had called and they weren't going to be here until really late due to traffic, so we sat down and rested for a bit!

D & S showed up about 10 p.m.  We sat up and talked until about midnight then went to bed so we could had a great day tomorrow!