Rudds Creek Campground and a hike in Rochichi Wildlife Management Area VA…

After spending only a single night in Appomattox we headed on down the road on a southernly route for a short drive to a Corps of Engineers Park in Boydton, VA. Rudds Creek Campground is yet another great COE park located on the John H Kerr Reservoir. We had a back in site which was spacious and secluded.

We also were happy to see we had a nice view of the lake through our front windshield which was great as the plan was to spend a few nights here to unwind. We set up camp and walked around the park. This park was fairly packed mostly with locals since it is bit off the beaten path. There weren’t many tags that weren’t from either Virginia or North Carolina which is only a few miles south of the lake.

Each morning after breakfast and a little time to digest we would venture out for a 1.5 to 2 mile hike around the park. What is great about COE parks is that they are usually huge with ample places for a nice walk even if it is just inside the campground. The dense Pine and Harwood Forest  has kept us shaded evenl during the heat of the day.

Nearby we drove over to the Rochichi Wildlife Management Area one afternoon to hike the trails in it. The trails here were not maintained at all and were mostly along an old logging road that had patches of coarse gravel here and there making the walking not as fun as we hoped.

What was interesting though was the abundance and diversity of fungi growing in the understory of the woods. We really had fun looking at and photographing the various mushrooms and fungi. After photographing them I spent some time on the web to identify as many as I could and was able to place a name or two on some of them. Note the watermarks in the photos for what species I think they probably are.

Afterward we drove over to the Buggs Island Brewing Company to check it out. Since it had a nice area out front to sit outside we stopped and and ordered a few craft beers to enjoy. Maybe not the best craft beer we have had but it was nice just to be at a brewery during this pandemic and the staff was especially welcoming..

NOTE: We are currently in Raleigh, NC probably until the end of September…

Pondering as we tour Appomattox Court National Historical Park…

Wow, we could not believe how much stuff we had taken from the RV to the downstairs apartment we stayed in once we began to move back into the RV.  It seemed to take forever to put everything back in its place. We started packing the night before and finally finished up in the morning. And good news, the RV started up just fine after sitting for so long and once it was fully packed we hit the road.

We drove a fairly long way the first day as we covered over 180 miles via small shouldlerless roads that years ago would have had me white knuckled but now are not a big deal whatsoever. Our first stop back on the road was at Parkview RV Park in Appomattox, VA.

I wanted to stop here to check out the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. The RV park we were stayed at was nearly within walking distance of the park but we drove over to the main entrance. There was no fee to enter and we had no problem finding parking near the main entrance.

With Covid-19 masks were required for entering any of the buildings and most buildings were open for touring except for the visitor’s center. There were a few people visiting the park with us but it was quite easy to socially distance ourselves the whole time we were there.

“On April 9, 1865, the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia in the McLean House in the village of Appomattox Court House, Virginia signaled the end of the nation's largest war.”

This park is a preserved 19th century village which is where the house of Wilmer McLean is located. It was in this house that the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee surrendered to the Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865. This act is what effectively ended the American Civil War.

The village was at one time nothing more than a stagecoach stop along the Richmond-Lynchburg stage route in the early 1800’s In 1842 it became the county seat and developers were excited about the possibility of its future growth. However, in 1854 train depot stopped three miles west in Appomattox, Virginia and the area went into decline ever since. The park service did an amazing job resurrecting it.

The park is rather spacious and as we walked around looking at buildings built during the American Civil War we could only imagine what life was like during that tumultuous time in our history especially given the civil unrest our country is currently going through. To see both Union and Confederate soldiers buried side by side gives one hope that better times are certainly ahead of us…

NOTE: We are currently in Raleigh, NC probably until the end of September…

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

Virginia is Soooo Green!

We enjoyed our one night stay in Virginia at the Fort Chiswell RV Campground and since we had decided to stay longer at our next site we didn’t hit the road until about 10:00 am. We would have stayed later but the next stop was at a first come first served place and it was very close to the weekend so we thought we better get there a bit earlier.

Our planned stop was an easy drive up the highway to Buena Vista VA where we found our way to the park. I accidentally posted the photo above in the last blog but this was painted on a building in the town of Buena Vista and I loved it… “6002 Happy Citizens and 3 Old Grouches”.

Passing through town we crossed a bridge into Glen Maury Park. We pulled up to the office to pay and were told to just go pick a site. Well we looked around and could only find one power box with no one using it so we pulled into the site. It was then we discovered we were on a 30 amp site with no sewer unlike what we had read about this campground.

It turns out they do have some 50 amp with sewer sites however all but one was taken and all of those sites were located up a steep hill with lots of overhanging branches. Thus we decided to simply stay at the 30 amp site. The lower campground  is really just a large open field but is adjacent to the Maury River.

There is a cool older home on the site called the The Paxton House, but it's apparently closed to the public now. We also walked along the river as far as we could until the trail became in poor shape revealing it was obviously a hangout for kids. There was an old rope swing on a tree over the river and lots of trash. It’s sad how some choose to treat our scenic sites.

It was however a great place to stay to explore the Blueridge Parkway. One day we drove all the way from where we were to where the Blueridge Parkway meets the Shenandoah National  Park. Nearby was one of our favorite breweries so we talked about it and decided to go have our first craft beer at a brewery since the pandemic began.

When we arrived at Blue Mountain Brewery we were delighted to see that their large outdoor seating area was even larger than we remembered. We donned our masks and were seated by a masked hostess at a table on the edge where we we no clsoer than 10 feet to any other table. It felt almost sinful to be enjoying our first draft craft beer since March and gave us a very slight sense of normalcy albeit only for a fleeting moment…

Before leaving the area we also checked out a little brewery called Devil’s Backbone in Lexington Virginia. We picked up a growler and a few six packs from their curbside service. On the way back we checked out Lexington which appears to be a very cool little town. When all of this virus stuff is over we will have to further explore Lexington…

Cheers!

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