I've Had My Philadelphia

Day 1: August 20, 2005

Yay—we are on the road again! I’d hoped to leave by 8 a.m., but considering that Joe went to sleep at 1 a.m. and I went to sleep an hour later, we were fortunate to leave the house by 10:30 (we both had a REALLY hard time waking up!) By the time we left Highland Park with a full tank of gas, it was just 11:00. It’s interstate highways all the way at the moment—I-287 to I-78 to I-81 to I-76 (Pennsylvania Turnpike) to I-70, which will take us to St. Louis, MO, our first planned stop.

On our minds was the fact that we needed to dump our waste tanks, and there are precious few places to do that in New Jersey. However, I had a brainstorm and remembered Cabela’s, in Hamburg PA just about 90 minutes or so from home, has a lot of RV-friendly features. I confirmed on RV.net that they indeed have dumping facilities, so we stopped there at about 12:45 and did the deed.  We also walked Cassie and had lunch before leaving; we managed NOT to spend any money inside, although use of the dump was $5. Fortunately, it wasn’t free—otherwise we’d have felt obliged to give the store a little business as a “thank you”, and we would have spent a LOT more than that!

Just after leaving Cabela’s, we ran into some fairly heavy rainstorms, which continued through much of the afternoon. Around 4pm, we stopped at a rest area, thinking to walk the dog, but just as we parked, the skies opened again. I was driving—Joe had already gone to take a nap, and I decided to join him—as he said, “We’re on vacation, we can DO things like that!” So we napped to the sound of rain on the roof for about an hour. At about 5, we continued on our way. It was too bad that the weather wasn’t better—southern Pennsylvania is really beautiful, with rolling green hillsides and farmland. We did see a lot of clouds sitting on top of the mountains instead, but it’s not quite the same. I didn’t take any photos—one day I’ll have to take some “stock photos” of Pennsylvania for my first-day blogs. 

We stopped at a rest area at 5:30 for a dog walk and ice cream break. Soon after that, we got a call from Ben and Miriam. They had just left their home in Denver and are planning to spend the next couple of weeks camping with their two daughters, ages 1 and 3! So we are going to meet up with them in a week or so.  We are pretty vague about our schedule for Colorado, but camping in the mountains with people we love can’t be bad!

Sometime during the evening, we started a new game--we are looking for towns with names of states, so that it's a "double state". It started when we passed Washington, Pennsylvania, and just before that we'd seen a sign for California, Pennsylvania. We have friends who live in Delaware, Ohio. So now we're searching for more of the same. (Facebook friends contributed Indiana, Pennsylvania and Florida, New York to our list.) We'll be watching for more.

Joe also killed me with a terrible pun. We passed a sign for Triadelphia, West Virginia. I read aloud, "Triadelphia?" He answered quickly, "No thank you, I've had my Philadelphia." GROAN. But in tribute to the fact that I really DO love awful puns, I've memorialized it in the title of today's blog.

We stopped again at about 8pm at a Flying J to get gas and eat some dinner (scrambled eggs and salami—quick and delicious!) And now we are on the road again. It’s 10:20pm and we’re now in Ohio—our plan is to spend the night at a rest area. With luck, we should get to one at about 11pm, which would make this a 12-hour day. I probably would have been happier if we’d put more mileage behind us on our first day, but this is about par for our usual beginning. With luck we’ll sleep a solid 8 hours, and be on the road tomorrow by 8am or so.

Mo's Obituary

Written 2012-12-02 but not published until 2013-02-24

Mo took us to 42 of the "lower 48" states

It is long since time for me to update this blog, and memorialize the last story of our first motorhome, our beloved Mo.

Our ride home was easy and uneventful, but we certainly did not feel too rested after our “non-vacation.” We went back to our real lives, hoping to hear good news from Burt Wolfe Ford. After about two weeks, they let us know that they were finishing up all the repairs. But we knew that an extensive test drive was needed to make sure that no other damage or problems were lurking behind the problems which had already been diagnosed.

Unfortunately, almost as soon as they took Mo out for a drive, the engine overheated again. Their new diagnosis was basically that we would have to just replace the entire engine if we expected Mo to be able to run well. And that was the end of the road, literally, for us and for Mo. An RV of this age (almost 25 years old) is just not worth putting any money into—we have probably invested far more than most people would have done already. Plus we knew that the mechanical issues were only part of the things we would need to deal with—there were some serious carpentry problems involving the overhead cab which also needed a lot of attention. It was just time.

Mo in the Badlands, 2009

Joe had a long conversation on the phone with Tim, the guy in charge of the repair department, discussing the options. 1) Have Mo towed up to NJ. Well, THAT was not happening! 2) Have Mo towed to a junkyard in Charleston. Sad as it sounded, it seemed like this was the only real choice. Then Tim said to Joe, “You know, this is the kind of project I wouldn’t mind working on myself. I could probably get the RV working again.” So, we decided to make a deal with Tim. He was able to get the dealership to reduce our bill down to essentially the original estimate (from before all the time and work had been expended on the RV.) And his taking the RV off the Ford lot saved us the towing and junkyard fees. So we sent him the paperwork from NJ, and said goodbye.

Turkey Swamp County Park, only 30 minutes from home

We loved Mo so much, and despite all the problems we had through the years, we can never forget all the wonderful roads we traveled together.  Some people would probably think we were just dumb for not getting rid of Mo a long time ago, but we know we will probably never love another RV the way we loved Mo. We are undoubtedly a little bit crazy. But so be it. We are hoping to hear from Tim sometime in the future—he promised to send us a photo when he gets Mo back on the road. I hope he does—with a good rebuilt engine, someone else could probably have some fun in that old, dilapidated thing. 

We will always remember our funky, fun Tioga,

Mo.

Friday Night Update

Mo's repairs are not finished. So just after noon, we headed out to Yeager Airport to pick up a minivan. Our drop-off of the small car we've been driving for 9 days and pick-up of the Dodge Caravan minivan went smoothly. Then after lunch, we went to the Ford dealership and talked to Tim, the Ford repair manager. He called for them to make Mo accessible to us, and we pulled up right behind Mo in the very last repair bay.

Our transfer of basically EVERYTHING inside, with the exception of some odds and ends, to the van went fairly smoothly. It took us almost two hours in 96-degree heat. With 50% humidity and the back of Mo closed up with no fresh air coming in, packing was brutal.  The van is now completely full but somehow we will need to wedge into it the stuff that is in our hotel room. However by the time we got back to the hotel, neither of us could move a muscle, we almost passed out from working like that in such hot weather (Joey says the Marines cancel all maneuvers and exercise when it gets this hot!)  Thank goodness I planned for us to spend another night in the hotel, because we would never ever ever have been able to just hit the road--we stumbled back into the room and collapsed onto our beds trying to cool down.

They still hope to complete the repairs. We added the cost of a new radiator into the job (no extra charge for labor since they have it all taken apart anyway.) We figured for another $300 we should get that done now, because although they say it is still functioning, it is apparently quite rusted. And like I said, there's no extra charge for the labor. So far, the total for such a lengthy job is still fairly reasonable, TTTT. It's just that it has been so time-consuming .

 We have no idea when it will be done or when we will get down here to retrieve Mo, but once we get home I guess there's no big rush. Tim says they will keep Mo on their lot until we can get here. He said we were patient with them and they will be patient waiting for us to get back. This is reassuring since after next weekend, we are busy every weekend until October. Of course, when we do get down, we will not really be able to "camp" on the way back home again, because we've removed all the bedding, dishes, pots and pans, and everything else that would make the vehicle "livable-in". This is a precaution, on the offchance that once they finish what they are doing, they discover some horrendous problem with something else that makes it financially stupid to continue to put any more money into this vehicle. But right now, it seems repairable.
 
We got take-out Chinese food for dinner and ate in our room--we were too pooped to do much else (I went and picked up the food.) Then I soaked in the hotel's hot tub for a while, while Joey just relaxed. We finished up the evening watching Michigan State on TV winning their first game of the season. Our plan now is to get up tomorrow morning as early as possible and head home. I love our van--it has very comfortable seats, all kinds of fancy extras (including a very useful back-up camera, which since we can't see anything out the back window of the van, is a great thing to have!), and it should, I hope, be a comfortable ride.

This is the second time we've come home from a vacation without Mo. It is not a great feeling but there's really no choice. So we are doing our best to deal with it.

A Brief Update

Thursday, August 30, 2012

So at 10am this morning, Joe called Tim at Ford, and got the welcome news that the part had come in, they were working on Mo, and they thought they'd be done by tomorrow, or even the end of today! We were thrilled with the first good news we'd had in a week. After that, we enjoyed our morning at Ed's house, and Ed and I ran some errands before Joe and I packed up the car and left Floyd at around 2pm. Our ride was uneventful through beautiful green mountains.

The bad news was that when we called Tim at 4:30, Mo was not ready to go. And he is still are not sure if everything will be done by tomorrow--I get the impression that he sounded less hopeful and/or positive about it than he did on the phone this morning.

So our plan to pick up a minivan around noon and pack up to go remains in place. We are prepared to tweak our plans should we get lucky, but we are not counting on anything. And being so uncertain about tomorrow has pretty much deflated our hopes. We are watching TV and just vegging out in our hotel room now.

And that is about all there is to say about today.

Scenes from a Comfort Inn

Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012

We have had a very nice day, due in no small part to our stay at the Comfort Inn in Cross Lanes, WV.  As I wrote this morning, we realized we would be here all day, so we settled in for the duration. After I posted my quick update, I went to the exercise room to use the treadmill--I was feeling itchy and just wanted to move a little bit rather than sit. I was so good--I walked for 30 minutes, and then I even used a couple of the other machines to give my arms some fun [grin]. After that, I came back to the room. When Joe said, "Sit down," I thought, "Uh oh!"

Sure enough, it was disappointing news. Joe had talked to Tim at the Ford place, and they are now telling us they will not be finished working on Mo until Monday. Needless to say, my heart sank... and Joe sure looked miserable about it. I quickly ran a few scenarios by him of how we might handle this setback, and he wanted to "think" about it for a bit (he was also deep into his book by then.) So, I left him to "think" and, I hoped, relax, and I went to the pool and had a delightful swim. As you can see from the photo, the pool at this motel is nicer even than many pools at much more "upscale" places. I felt like I was on a cruise; it was glassed in on 3 sides and had that wonderful indoor-pool smell and was so pretty (it even had a waterfall, and mosaics on the walls). I ignored the parking lot--you can't have everything, right?

Even though I mostly don't like swimming that much, this was just perfect, and helped me calm down and think about what would be the best thing to do. The biggest handicap we have in this situation is having Roxy with us. We can only stay in hotels which accept dogs, which greatly limits our options (the Comfort Inn chain is wonderful for this, but there is not always one right where we might be.)  Even more limiting is the fact that we can't leave her alone in the room, and we can't take her with us to any "attractions" we might go to, and we certainly can't leave her in the car in this hot weather. So unless we find attractions with a kennel (Disney World?) or kennel her in each city we go to for a day, or leave her here in a kennel until we come back for Mo, we really can't do much. Juggling kennels and hotels was just not realistic.

So we decided we are going to spend the weekend with Ed in Floyd, VA. But the motel is so nice, we decided to stay here for tonight anyway rather than leave this afternoon. It's relaxing and comfortable and we held a wan hope that at the end of today, Tim might say he was unduly pessimistic and we can have Mo tomorrow.

I shared this conclusion with Joe, who agreed he'd be happy staying here until tomorrow. But we did agree, we did NOT want to spend the day in our room. So we packed a few things and went to Arby's for lunch (we ate in the car with the AC on, with Roxy) and Walmart for a gallon of water.  Then we found a municipal park about 3 miles or so from our hotel. We found a wonderful, deeply shady spot where we set up our  chairs, the dog's dish, and tied the leash to the tree, and then we plopped down for almost 3 hours to read. The breeze blew, the shade was lovely, there were no insects to bother us, and it was just very sweet. I should have taken a better photo of Joe than the one at the top of this blog, but you can get the idea.

At about 5:30 we packed up and headed home, after discussing dinner. We decided to eat "at home" tonight (I mentioned we took all our refrigerated food, which we transferred to the refrigerator in our room, so we are quite well stocked!) We stopped again at Walmart and picked up some baked potatoes, steamable green beans, and salt and pepper (I didn't think of packing the spices from the RV.) And then we came back to the Comfort Inn. We nuked the potatoes and beans in the microwave in our room, and Joey set up the grill on the picnic table where he grilled two filet mignons (gifts from one of his patients, which we had brought with us.) And we had ourselves a filet mignon dinner sitting at our picnic table. It was perfect and delicious.

So that was our day. It is now almost 8:30pm. We plan to check out of here at noon tomorrow, and check in at that point with Tim one last time. Assuming he still tells us Monday, we will head to Eddie's house after lunch. If he thinks there's a chance he MIGHT be finished tomorrow night, we will spend another afternoon in a park someplace and check back at the end of the afternoon. We can always leave here later if there seems to be a hope of waiting. Floyd, VA is 3 hours 15 minutes from here. We planned to stop and visit Eddie on our way home, but seeing him this weekend will be fine--it behooves us to be flexible, and luckily he is okay with us descending on him at the last minute. And then we'll come back Monday morning, hopefully to retrieve a repaired Mo, and continue on our way.

Let's just hope!

Thursday morning update

Thursday Aug. 23 (had to check online for the date--I am so confused!)

A quick update for those anxious to know the latest: we heard from Tim, the Ford service manager, this morning. They are working on Mo, but not sure if it will be done today. Everything is so old that every time they try to take off a bolt, it breaks from the rust, and has to be drilled out. I am hoping for the best, and revised our itinerary based on the optimistic notion that we will get Mo back tomorrow and be able to continue on our trip.

At the moment, we are relaxing in our hotel room. Joe is reading a largish book, and I am going to go use the treadmill in the exercise room and then take a swim. Roxy, who is driving us nuts barking at every thud and every person who walks past our door, is mercifully napping in a sunny spot on the floor and the quiet is wonderful! I guess some folks do hole up in hotels on vacation.... not our usual style, but for now it beats the heck out of a car dealer's customer waiting room, or the side of the road! So we will survive.

Hope Springs Eternal

Wednesday, August 22 (continued)

We woke up this morning to truck noises and a dawning hot day. Joe walked to the service entrance a few minutes after 7, and explained to the Ford service manager why there was a tan motorhome in his lot which had not been there the night before. Before long, a couple of tech guys came out to peer into the engine. To our delight, the engine (now of course quite cold) turned over with a little encouragement. The guys watched the temperature rise rapidly, added coolant, and watched while the temp continued to rise and lots of liquid ran onto the ground.

They weren't too impressed with the sound of the engine itself, but to Joe and I, it sounded normal! Which was a huge joy considering it sounded miserable and sluggish and very unhappy  the night before. The diagnosis of the Ford techs was that the water pump had broken, which was consistent with the symptoms. Before 10am, they had ordered a new pump to be delivered late today or tomorrow. They can't do any more diagnostics without that, because the engine immediately overheats.  Of course we are dearly hoping that this is the only problem and it will soon be solved; but we are trying to be cautiously optimistic and not get our hopes too high.

This left us with some decisions. We considered going to see Joe's brother and wait out the repairs at his place, but he is 3 hours away and Joe didn't feel like driving there and back again. So we decided to decamp to a hotel, and I spent some time in the service lounge (free wifi) finding a dog-friendly hotel with an indoor pool and hot tub. Then the service manager called Enterprise, and we rented a car to get around. By then it was noon, so we had lunch in Mo, and then packed bags of clothing (for 2 days), electronics, books, dog gear, and anything else we thought we might want. We also transferred the contents of our refrigerator to our cooler, and packed a bag with paper plates, flatware, plastic bags, etc. 

Since the hotel check-in wasn't until 3, we decided to find a park first, just to get out of the Ford parking lot, which was a very demoralizing place to be sitting. So in addition to the above, we threw two folding chairs, a picnic blanket, and our grill into the trunk of the rental car. Our idea was that maybe tonight or tomorrow we'd have a picnic in the park for dinner.

We left Bert Wolfe Ford at about 2, and using our Magellan, we located a largish park--Cato Park-- not far from us. So we drove there first. It was very pretty--high high up on the hill (the streets getting there were like San Francisco and I said to Joe, this would NOT be fun if we were driving Mo--narrow and steep!). At the top where we parked, we were still not at the top per se--we climbed a steep hill to a large pine tree where we could overlook the playground and the hills beyond. Then we just plunked ourselves on the ground and lay there in the grass, finally enjoying some green again, and the sound of cicadas, instead of black asphalt and truck noises.  

We just lay there feeling ourselves relaxing a little, until around 3pm. And then we programmed in the hotel address and came through Charleston--down the mountain past huge elegant old homes (obviously the expensive and historic district!), over the Kanawha River, and back up the mountain on the other side.

We are now ensconced in a very nice room at a very nice hotel with two gorgeous pools and a hot tub, an exercise room, free breakfast, and is really altogether lovely. It even has an outdoor picnic area! We decided to book it for two nights, so that if it takes all day for them to deal with Mo tomorrow, we have a place to hang out and be comfortable while we wait.  Our only problem is trying to convince Roxy to stop barking every time she hears someone leave (the exit is right near our room) or walk past us in the corridors. If she behaves, we will hopefully be very comfortable here tomorrow, while we wait for whatever news is coming.

Greetings from Bert Wolfe Ford, Charleston WV

Wednesday, August 22 (I think)

Well.... we are not where we thought we'd be. But we could be in worse places, I suppose.

Yesterday started in a lovely way--Joe, Roxy and I hiked down to Blackwater Falls. It is a beautiful waterfall in a beautiful valley. Nothing but dark trees everywhere. We all loved the trek down 214 stairs, and back up again. As  I said.... lovely.

Then we took off on our drive south. Our destination was the New River Gorge Bridge and vicinity. It is an area which draws a lot of folks to the water sports (canoeing, white-water rafting, etc) and the views of and from the bridge, which is very high and elegant looking. By this time of day, when I realized it was a 3 hour drive, I thought we'd spend the night in a nearby state park or wildlife preserve, and then this morning we'd do something on the river--most likely take a jet-boat trip.
 

The first segment of the 3 hours took us over a windy mountain road which was fun for Joe to drive. We went through some picturesque small towns (there are quite a few old towns in these mountains) and passed the Kingsford Charcoal factory. Then we picked up a 4-lane divided highway, and stopped at a Visitor Center to have lunch and upload Monday's blog. 

Then we joined the interstate for what was to be about 30 miles. We stopped along the way to put air in one of our tires, which delayed us another 30+ minutes. And then we realized we'd passed our exit--we were about 24 miles past it, in fact. We were both so lost in our thoughts that we just never paid any attention.

Exit 34 was coming up (our intended exit was 59) and we were prepared to adjust our route, when suddenly we heard an unusual noise, smelled something burning, and then the engine temp gauge shot up to overheated. I yelled to Joe, "Turn off the engine!" and he did--we were already on the approach to the exit when it all happened. Joe said, "the engine just died" as we coasted down the ramp off the interstate and rolled--agonizingly slowly--along the access road, just making it off the road onto a short gravel shoulder before the momentum stopped.

The engine was steaming when Joe opened the hood, and there was radiator fluid all over everything. Joe couldn't find any leaks or burst hoses, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to know that something really bad had happened. We called Good Sam, our roadside assistance plan. It was about 5pm, I think... and 4 hours passed as the Good Sam lady looked for a campground to tow us to (unsuccessfully) and Joe spoke to their tech guy (thank God for cell phones). The tech guy was pessimistic as to the damage to the engine, and he and the lady working on our case decided to have us towed not locally--she was totally unable to find a campground anywhere nearby anyway--but down to Charleston, 34 miles further south. (As it turned out, therefore, it was very lucky we had passed our exit--we were that much closer to the only large city in the state!)  

A side note here: we were really in the middle of nowhere, in terms of population. The nearest towns were 6 miles away in either direction. There is a small parking lot right next to where we stopped, and there were a half-dozen cars in it when we arrived. It seemed like the locals used it as a park-and-ride to form carpools, or just to meet friends. As people came to pick up their cars, or drove past, at least 12 people stopped to see if they could help us.  One guy saw the engine overheating and came back (without asking) to give us some radiator coolant because "it looks like you might need this." And two different highway patrol people (not cops, but people who cruise up and down to see if anyone is in trouble) stopped to see if we were okay and find out if we needed anything, and to give us their number if we needed help. This is to compare with the time we were on the side of the road in Connecticut, actually ON the Interstate shoulder, for about 6 hours, and NOT ONE PERSON, civilian or cop, stopped to see if we needed help.


So at 10pm we ended up in the parking lot of Bert Wolfe's mega-car dealership--Ford, Toyota, Audi and Porsche. The tow truck dropped us at the far edge of the lot, outside the truck service area, and that is where we spent a very sad evening. We were pretty sure, given the fact that the engine refused to turn over and by the sound of it, that it was finally going to be beyond repair. We discussed what we would do if we had to leave Mo, how we'd get home, etc. We were both pretty heartbroken at the whole idea, but trying to deal with it. At about 11:30pm, finally we had nothing left to do but go to sleep and wait for morning. The service area opened at 7am, so we set our alarm for 6 so we would be up and dressed in time. I don't think either of us slept very well.

Warm Springs and Other Things

Monday, Aug. 20, 2012

We got another late start today but no worries; we drove through some windy back roads for about an hour to Berkeley Springs, WV. Berkeley Springs is of course named for the warm (not hot) springs which bubble up there. George Washington came there to soak, and the place was originally known as Bath. We found a curbside parking spot off the main street and ate lunch, before going to look at the springs and the spa buildings in the State Park which sits on the site. 

The town is cute—a little artsy, and very reminiscent of a smaller version of Hot Springs, Arkansas, which we visited in 2007.  There are two old buildings which contain public bathing facilities. One (built around 1915, if I recall correctly) includes massage facilities and separate pools for men and women. The older one, which has been in continuous use since 1815, has Roman Baths. These are fully tiled rooms with steps down into the water; the description and photo sounds precisely like a mikvah! These rooms are private, but lead to a larger pool which is available to families. Finally, there is a large outdoor pool with changing and shower facilities. The indoor pools were all open, but the pool is now closed except on weekends because schools started today. 

In between the two buildings is a waterway which channels the runoff from the springs past “George Washington’s Bathtub” (two people were soaking their feet in it) and a couple of larger pools, plus the “Gentleman’s Bath” area adjacent to the 1815 building. Upstairs above the Roman Baths is a museum giving a history of the town and the “healing waters”.

Although I had originally planned for us to “take the waters” this morning, our late start and the overcast weather made us decide to skip it, especially since the outside pool was closed. (We did taste it though, since there was a water fountain right by the pools.)  Instead we spent some time in the museum. 

Just as we went outside, it began to rain. We decided to duck into the antique store across the street. The store turned out to be one of those multi-dealer places, with loads and loads of stuff, and we waited out the rainstorm in there. We even found a few things to buy (a couple of gifts, and a Tweety Bird glass for me!)

The rain had let up by the time we finished browsing, so we went back to Mo and headed south to Blackwater Falls State Park. The drive took us through a lot of small towns, and a lot of areas with no phone service. We drove over Saddle Mountain, which turned out to be the birthplace of Nancy Hanks, Abraham Lincoln’s mother. At 2840 feet high, it was small by last year’s standards, but it was quite a windy road and Joe enjoyed driving it. (His favorite part of today, however, was when the GPS took us onto a road so small that it wasn’t on my maps, and which twisted and turned for about 20 minutes until we emerged back onto the main road.)

We arrived at Blackwater Falls at about 7pm, and are camped in a mostly empty campground. It is very pretty and we are looking forward to visiting the falls tomorrow before continuing on our way. When I will upload this blog, however, is a question mark, since there’s no wifi here, and I have no idea when we will encounter any. (Added: we found wifi at the Visitor Center in Elkins, WV, where we stopped for lunch on Tuesday.)

Harpers Ferry, WV

Sunday, August 19, 2012

We have had a nice and slow first vacation day. We got 10 hours of sleep, which was much needed, and took our time in the morning. Joe got up on the hood of Mo and put Eternabond tape onto all the front seams on the cab overhead, hoping to keep the rain out in the future. I spent the same time cleaning up the inside of the RV and we were both very happy with the results of our labors.  Then, after going to the tourist info booth right outside the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to pick up brochures, we went into the park. 

By then it was lunch time, so we decided to eat. But just as we finished lunch, it started to rain—HARD! We were so happy that we had closed up a lot of the potential leak sites earlier in the day! The nice thing was, we hadn’t left Mo yet, so we just shrugged and relaxed…. Which turned into naps. The rain stopped around 2, and we left to explore.

We took a shuttle to the top of the nearby hill called Bolivar Heights. The Union troops surrendered to Stonewall Jackson there in 1862, but the hill subsequently changed hands 8 times during the Civil War. The view was nice, although a little foggy (and surprisingly cool) because of the recent rain storm. It had a view of the Potomac down near Harpers Ferry just below the place where the Shenandoah River joined it. The trestle bridge is the same one we drove across yesterday.

(photo of bridge from Bolivar)

After a nice chat with the ranger while we waited for the shuttle, we went down to the town, right at the point of confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. There are a lot of preserved buildings in the “old town”, with some new stores farther up the hill. We wandered through the streets, then crossed the footbridge over the Potomac (and thus walking back to the state of Maryland along a very small snippet of the Appalachian Trail, which crosses this bridge.) The rivers at that point are beautiful but this time of year, not very deep—we saw tubers and swimmers, the latter standing on rocks in the middle of the Potomac just below the point of confluence of the rivers.  We didn’t really envy them, though—it was quite cool today, and not really swimming weather in our opinions.

(Confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers--the Shenandoah can be seen joining the Potomac from the center right of the photo. The Potomac continues flowing to the left of the photo.)

 (View of the Potomac. We walked across the railroad bridge on the left to Maryland. The Appalachian Trail continues around the base of the mountain along the river and north, to Maine.)

 

 On the Maryland side, we walked along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal towpath for a little bit. Then we walked back to West Virginia and, after spending a little more time in the town, took the shuttle back to Mo. We decided to do some grocery shopping before returning to the campground, so we travelled about 5 miles down the road toward the next town. We found a Walmart, where we stocked up on groceries and a couple of other items. In the parking lot was a big trailer with a black smoker on the back and a big BBQ sign. Being that we were in West Virginia, at a Walmart, it seemed like the next logical thing in that sequence was BBQ from a truck! So that was what we had for dinner. Joe says it was the best BBQ he’s had in years (I must confess, all BBQ beef sandwiches taste exactly the same to me—I guess I’m not a connoisseur of the stuff!) 

We moved campsites tonight, and although the Wifi is strong, we are not connecting with the Internet for some reason. So I'll have to upload this tomorrow. This is an interesting campground--there is a Civil War trench ("earthworks") a few feet behind Mo, and signs around the campground noting several battles and the site of artillery locations. I wonder how they know so much about exactly where these cannons were placed? It's a very pretty campground, but just a little too crowded--although tonight is much less hectic than last night was, far fewer kids and dogs and lots of empty sites now that it is Sunday.

Tomorrow we will continue our leisurely travels through West Virginia. First planned stop: Berkeley Springs State Park.

We're On Our Way!

I thought we might never get out this morning—even though Joe finished all his paperwork by about 10am, I was far behind him. I have no idea why everything took so long, but we didn’t leave town until 1:15pm, after struggling to put air in our tires, and filling the gas tank. But we finally DID get out, which is all that matters.

The ride to Harpers Ferry KOA, in West Virginia, was uneventful but long. It’s only about 230 miles from home, but for some reason it took us 6 hours to get here—we arrived just after 7pm.  The Pennsylvania vistas were gorgeous, however, and Maryland was very pretty too (we left the interstate at Harrisburg and the road was lovely.)  KOA stands, in this case, for Keep On Adding more leveling blocks—our site in the woods is quite uneven and we used every one of our 30 Lynx blocks before Mo was on an even keel.

Joe and I are both exhausted, after getting less than 5 hours sleep last night (I was up until 2 doing paperwork and he was at the office until almost 3) and driving. We are happy to be away, and will probably get a slow start in the morning because we would like to do some housekeeping. Having Mo at the mechanic for so long until just before we left meant I had no time to come in here and clean. On the other hand, the engine ran so smoothly, and we think our gas mileage improved.

I am thinking maybe we will look for some place to access either the Potomac or Shenandoah River tomorrow—we crossed them both to get here, and they are just gorgeous in this spot where they converge. We saw some folks coming up from the river in bathing suits after what was obviously a day on the water, and that looked so nice! Also, the long bridge which crosses the Potomac has a sidewalk, and there is a pullout right nearby. It was so beautiful coming over, and I’d love to walk it before we leave this area.

I have just been told I have 5 minutes until dinner—steak, salad, and pasta. YUM!!   So I will post this and start relaxing!