Skyline Drive in Shenandoah NP and Final Days in the Shenandoah Valley…

One afternoon we decided to make a long loop drive of about 150 miles so we could drive the length of the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park. We drove from where we were staying over to Front Royal VA and entered the National Park from the north entrance. Days like this we sure appreciate having our senior National Parks pass!

The weather was partly cloudy with intermittent showers. The drive was a wonderful, slow meander through the lush and green vegetation in the mountains of the park. Driving the length of the road we often stopped at the scenic pull outs to take in the serenity of such a majestic park.

Lots of butterflies were out and a few critters such as rabbits, squirrels and deer. While taking in all the scenery we took some time to talk about what our future plans might be once we leave our friend’s place. Our first thoughts revolved around where to go this winter.

With Bonita Springs Florida having been our original destination this winter Covid-19 has changed our thoughts about going there since we mostly stay for all the social events with our snowbird friends.. Likewise another winter favorite is in Mesa Arizona where there are endless activities and live music played daily. Most if not all of these will most likely not be available this winter.

So why pay $1100 to $1300 dollars per month when we won’t be able to enjoy what these two locations usually offer? Therefore, we decided to winter this season in Texas at Port Isabel on South Padre Island. Pricey by Texas standards but for under $700 per month we figured it would be a good place to wait out Covid this winter and not incur the additional cost of amenities we wouldn’t be able to use. Sharon totally loves the beach and we will have easy access at the park we chose. Decision made.

With that decided it was time to start thinking about heading south. We still have a reservation at John Pennecamp State Park in the Florida Keys in late October so our thoughts are to start heading that way and still have time to spend a month or so near our daughter in Raleigh NC. Time to start packing, well, maybe one last stop at Woodstock Brewery….

NOTE: We have left the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia until and are back on the road south as we are heading toward Raleigh, NC…

Getting the RV in Top Shape Again…

After spending time here at the farm in the Shenandoah Valley the past several weeks we have slowly but surely brought a lot of the contents from the RV into our basement apartment. Over time we always seemed to need something else from the RV and as a result the RV is nearly empty. Because of this we have taken advantage of the situation by deep cleaning of all the cabinets and drawers. Sifting through the contents we are also getting rid of unwanted or unneeded items that have tagged along with us on our journeys.

We have also been ticking off items from our to do list, mostly minor repairs on the RV. For example, I replaced a few drawer/closet latches that were faulty and repaired a piece of trim near the entry door which would snag our socks with its sharp corner. I also took everything out of our closet and put new zipties on the shelving to better secure it as a few of them had broken over time.

I then took the time to take on a few major projects as well. The biggest one being to repair our sleep number bed. Sharon’s side of the bed had a slow leak so I wanted to see if it was repairable. This required taking the bed frame completely apart. Before that however, I had to take the sleep number bed apart as well.

Since we are staying in such a large space I reassembled the pump and the two air chambers over in our basement apartment. Then I inflated both the air chambers to 100 then waited a few days to see if one was losing air and sure enough one was. The next thing I did was to switch the inflating hoses between the two air chambers. This would tell me whether or not the problem was with the inflating pump or hoses or with the sir chamber itself.

A few days later the same air chamber lost air telling me there was indeed a small leak in the air chamber itself. After scouring the web to see how to discover where exactly the leak was I found a video that suggested using a Clorox cleaner to spray the bed down and look for tiny bubbles to find the leak. Well of course due to the pandemic finding anything Clorox became a challenge.

Another website suggested a recipe of one ounce of Clorox and a squirt of laundry soap  along with water to make my own solution. I tried this and after spraying the whole bottle I was unable to find the leak. Then I found a Walmart knockoff of the Clorox cleaning solution to try and was actually able to detect a small air leak on a corner seam.

Another video suggested using brown gorilla glue with a canvas patch as a repair. My first attempt failed as the patch slid while it was drying so I took it off and tried again. My second attempt seemed to work and now we have no more slow leak saving a few hundred dollars by not having to purchase a replacement air chamber.

We certainly couldn’t have done this repair without access to an alternate living space and so we grateful for our apartment where we were finally able to get the bed repaired. It will be so nice not having to re-inflate the air chamber every other night…

NOTE: We are currently in the Shenandoah Valley near Woodstock Virginia until who knows when…

Waiting out the Summer at the Farm…

As summer began here in the Shenandoah Valley we spent a few days taking needed items out of the RV and moving into our “apartment” in the basement of our friends’ home. We are nesting here pretty well and have fallen into a bit of a routine.

The best part of our routine is our morning 1.5 to 2.0 mile walk along the roads on the farm and around this isolated farm community.When we first got here the wild raspberries were full of fruit. It was always pleasant walking the roads and picking raspberries along the way.

Sharon also settled into her routine of her daily workouts; me not so much. However, I did get into the habit of doing a little fishing in the Shenandoah River on the property hoping to catch an elusive small mouth bass. Our friends lent us an extra golf cart to use so we take it down to the river for happy hour occasionally.

We sure do miss going out to a brewery for our happy hour but have adapted here using a couple of chairs situated in the driveway overlooking the horse barn in the valley below. It is nice watching the 6 horses (one Palomino and 5 brown horses) frolic in the large pasture they call home. Recently 2 white horses were added in the smaller pasture adjacent to the larger one giving us added entertainment.

Wildflowers were abundant here in early to mid July with lots of various colors to see. Even the trees here still have that fresh green color usually seen in the newer growth of trees.Thanks to the generosity of our friends I am pretty sure we will be enjoying this gorgeous scenery for as long as we choose.

We do know that we will leave here well before it gets cold as we still have one saved reservation for Key Largo in October for Sharon’s 65th birthday. We also have finally decided that this winter we will stay in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas since it is about half the price of either Florida (coastal) or Arizona.

While we love Florida and Arizona we most likely won’t be able to enjoy all their amenities they are charging the higher prices for so we decided to stick close to the Texas coast where we can at least enjoy a beach walk on the warmer days down there…

Cheers to you all and stay safe…

NOTE: We are currently in the Shenandoah Valley near Woodstock Virginia until who knows when…

Settling in for a Longer Stay in Virginia..

With just a short drive remaining to where we planned to stay and house sit for our friends we took our time getting ready to leave. We broke camp and hit the road right after lunch and a few hours later we pulled in to their gorgeously green farm between Woodstock VA and Winchester VA.

We have stayed here before as long time readers may know and we really love visiting this beautiful farm which is adjacent to the Shenandoah National Park. With the Shenandoah River cutting through the middle of the property there is always something to see or do.

Before we actually arrived our friends told there was a change in plans and they wouldn’t be vacating the house. That worried us at first but after talking with them they told us they had retrofitted the basement into an “apartment” we could stay in where we could easily continue our social distancing. When we saw what they had done for us in the basement we were stunned and very happy to know we had a safe place to hide out for a while. Incredible friends! We even have a patio to grill on!

Their farm sits on a hill overlooking the Shenandoah valley and is nearly 100 acres in size. Just across the river is their horse barn where a tenant is currently living and caring for horses. The horses are always a joy to observe from our window view or on our front porch as they run and play down below in the Shenandoah Valley with the mountains as the backdrop.

We have no set plan for how long we will be here but we will certainly leave long before it gets cold. In the meantime we are enjoying our daily ritual of having morning coffee, breakfast and then a 40 minute hike down to the river and back. It is feeling a bit like groundhog day once again and hey, we have actually seen a few groundhogs!

I’ll leave it right here with a final picture of where we sit each afternoon for happy hour, cheers our friends!!!

NOTE: We are currently in the Shenandoah Valley near Woodstock Virginia until who knows when