When you travel, weather is always a concern, but sometimes the results of weathermen are amazing. The location I’m visiting is Shenandoah National Park, and we planned to stay through a weekend. I obtained reservations for Wednesday and Thursday nights at Loft Mountain Campground, the more southern large campground in the park, and I had a spot at Big Meadows for Friday evening, but I needed one in Big Meadow for Saturday and Sunday nights. I checked the reservations for the park online for Big Meadows, and there were no reservable spots. It looked like all of the Washington DC metro area was heading to the mountains before the Labor Day weekend. Continue reading
Category Archives: Virginia
Looking for Spring
Travel in March can be a parade through the seasons if you go in the right direction, and you are lucky. Departing New Jersey was done in winter and now that I’m heading toward Alabama, Spring is starting to creep around the corner. Back in 2014, when Louise and I headed west for our most excellent adventure, it was May, and Spring had been late in showing up. I promised her that I would show her Spring and find her fields of Spring flowers, just like the ones we had seen in the past. 2014 was a tough year all over. I never did find Spring for her, no matter the altitude, latitude or longitude. We were either in pre-Spring or full blown Summer. When Spring shows up late, and God arranges for only four or five hot days in a row, Spring disappears and Summer is on stage. Continue reading
Off to Florida
The start of the day was inauspicious. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts for coffee and on the way back to the RV, I noticed the power cord dangling from the rear. The 15 amp adapter wasn’t attached as it should have been, or not, depending upon your viewpoint. In my excitement to get away from the cold and into the bosom of Florida heat, I neglected to unplug the rig from the house and just drove away. Violation of one of my rules (check the RV before proceeding) at the very start of the trip didn’t bode well. We turned around and headed back home to locate the missing adapter when we were met by a really nice guy, beeping and waving. We stopped and he handed us the adapter with a “Here you lost this”, and like the Lone Ranger, was off. Continue reading
Stationary Camping
We’ve been in Virginia celebrating the arrival of our first grandson. Not wanting to upset the balance of family life, we made arrangements for a car to be available and have been staying at the same site for over two weeks at this point. I’ve never done this before, and It’s been quite an adjustment. We’ve had the same neighbor this whole time, and we look forward to seeing him periodically. We have water and electricity at the site, and have been careful of our usage of water, so we’ve only been to the dump station once, mostly then because we had the time and I wanted to take care of it. Continue reading
Shenandoah National Park July 11
We woke early, turned over and went back to sleep. Vacation is great, especially when you have a loose schedule. The plan for today was to get to Loft Mountain Campground and see the sights. Cereal and coffee started the day, we broke camp, and it’s getting easier all the time, and headed south. We hit all the overlooks and drove through Lewis Mountain Campground. The camp seemed mostly 1930’s style family cabins. We continued south and at Eaton Hollow Overlook we spotted what I thought to be a fishing lure at the top of f tree. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but that’s what it looked like. Turned out it was a bird. It stayed there and sang for a long time, so long that I was able to change out lenses to get a better picture, and then return for the video camera. No video, it flew. A quick reference in the bird book, and Lo!, it was an Indigo Bunting. A beautiful bird that somehow glowed blue/turquoise with a very sweet song. We really enjoyed its presence. Continue reading