After leaving Newport we continued northwest into Massachusetts and out onto the Cape Cod peninsula.  Perhaps complacent from the lucky streak we have had, where each stay included at least half of the days with beautiful weather, once we got set up in the cute ocean side Campers Haven RV Resort in Dennisport we settled in for the day rather than take advantage of the clear skies and warm temperatures to explore.  Unfortunately that would be the only nice day of our stay, with the remaining two being dreary and wet.

Dennisport is roughly half way across Cape Cod.  We selected Campers Haven for location and price: of the three places offering the Passport-America discount it was the only one directly on the peninsula coast.  Though only scheduled for a partial hook up site in accordance with their discount policy, they went ahead and upgraded us to a full service site.  We enjoyed the 50% rate for our first two days but had to pay full price for the last night since it fell on a weekend.  You see all sorts of limitations at campgrounds and resorts that participate in PA, and weekend exclusions are pretty common.

Campers Haven offered a nice price for the location.  Private campgrounds in populer tourist areas do not usually offer the wide open spaces and greenery that one finds in state parks but our site was reasonably spacious and the neighboring RVs didn’t impinge on us at all.  The spot was level and the services excellent: in addition to full hook ups, a helpful front desk, and powerful hot water in the bath house, they also had fully working free WiFi provided by Tengonet, and cable TV via a coax connection. 

Both of those are rare enough to warrant specific comment.  We have not always had the best of luck with Tengonet and like services; the portal capture technology does not always work well, along with the usual problems of free WiFi, i.e., too small a pipe for the number of users and to weak a signal due to limited antennas.  Cable TV hookups, once a mainstay of RV resorts, has become rarer as more RVers purchase their own satellite TV systems and use WiFi for their video streaming.  Since we don’t have the former and the latter is often constrained, it was nice to have the cable TV rather than rely on the wasteland that is over the air television. 

Despite the drizzle we braved the weather our second day there to explore the general area, finding one incredibly quaint neighborhood after another and getting lots of advice and recommendations from locals for restaurants and the like.  The last full day we drove an hour back to Falmouth in order to catch a ferry over to Martha’s Vineyard.  There were closer ports of departure, but Falmouth had the cheapest rate since it is the closest to the island.  With a $2 military discount, we ended up paying $18 each for a round trip ticket, with multiple return times offered. 

We had really pushed the timing, and not wanting to take a chance on missing the next ferry we settled for the nearest $15 per day lot rather than search around for something more competitive.  Nor had we been able to grab breakfast along the way.  Don’t make that mistake, eat something before you get to the ferry because their snack options were pretty awful, and the prices on Martha’s Vineyard are not exactly cheap! 

Upon arrival we deviated from the standard tourist paths heading to the many boutique stores and restaurants and instead hiked a couple of miles to the nearest lighthouse that we had spotted while sailing in to the port.  The tourist map was a bit deceptive since it was not drawn to scale, and I estimate we did a four mile round trip, but for much of the time we had great views as we walked along the seaside paths and roads.

On the way back we explored a very cute little chocolate and jewelry shop before we stumbled back into town with food and a drink on our minds.  We settled into Nancy’s bar for some beer and an affordable yet fantastic clam chowder.  Had the weather been nicer and the budget bigger we might have stayed longer, but we caught the first of the afternoon ferries back to Falmouth.  Our last enjoyable view of Martha’s Vineyard was watching the Ospreys from the nearby nest taking turns minding the nest and hunting for fish.

We ended our trip with a quick stop at Sundancer’s restaurant, strongly recommended by some locals, where I had my first Lobster Roll in years, but definitely not the last of this New England trip.  It was fantastic, as promised.  We hunkered down for the rest of the night before bidding adieu to Cape Cod late the next morning as we headed back east to Connecticut.

Wow, last month I was reporting that we had just left Florida, and this monthly we are already in New England!

The Distance: 1467 miles, which nearly double the distance from April, which had been our biggest month of the year until that point.  I doubt we will keep up this nearly 1500 mile per month pace now that we have nearly reached Maine, the wedding there having driven our schedule these last couple of months.  Our total for the year so far: 3053 miles.

The Places:  Eleven locations for this month.  We started off with a four day stop in the immaculately maintained Joint Base Charleston campground to check on The Big Kahuna before continuing up the coast to visit my Mom and Stepdad Tim in Wilmington.  Then it was three days in the Chesapeake region, parked at the Navy’s NorthWest Annex to see Jayson and Linda, before we sprinted west to the Shenandoah National Park (our first NP of the year.)  We cut that visit short by a day to swing back towards D.C. for a whirlwind of visits with friends from my time on USS Carney.  This included a one night stay in the parking lot behind the Centreville Moose Lodge in Fairfax, VA and splitting our four day stay in Annapolis between the Annapolis Moose Lodge and the navy’s campground across the Severn River from the Naval Academy.

After that streak of friends and family, we had two stops just to ourselves, the first at Trap Pond State Park in Delaware, then a short stay at the Naval Weapon Station in Earle, NJ. We closed out the month with a one day stop to see Star and Michael in Mahopac, NY and a five day stay at the navy campground new Newport, RI.

We had full or partial hook ups for 21 days, dry camped for five, and stayed in friend’s or relative’s homes for five.  Broken down by type of park: we stayed in in public campgrounds for seven (3 national, 4 state), in friends/relatives’ driveways, houses, or other property for five, in military camgprounds for seventeen, at moose lodges for two, and didn’t spend a single day in a private RV resort.

The Budget:   We were on track to finish 5% under, but then ended up splitting the cost of a new tire between the May and June budgets, so we finished exactly even.  This was possible only because we sold so many things on Craigslist after pulling the last of our items out of The Big Kahuna in Charleston, and several pieces of Rosemarie’s jewelry at her Etsy store.    It also helped that we kept our campground costs pretty by staying in military sites for so many of the days, and with family and friends for a few.

The Drama:  We had to replace another tire on Serenity, the cost of which will effect our June budget.  We also had some excitement chasing down an electrical problem in New Jersey which took out our inverter and several power outlets, though we solved that one at no cost.

The Improvements:  We have now replaced three of the six tires, and after our working port in Charleston, done a major reorganization of our entire stowage compartments.  nothing significant to report.

All of our monthly reports, as well as our first full year report, 2015 in Review, are linked below.

2016 Reports:

• January Report
• February Report
• March Report
• April Report

2015 in Review

• January Report
• February Report
• March Report
• April Report
• May Report
• June Report
• July Report
• August Report
• September Report
• October Report
• November Report
• December Report

Our original plan had us cruising up the east coast, hitting each state in turn, arriving in Maine by early to mid July.  Based on an impending wedding near Portland we accelerated the schedule by about four weeks.  More recently, we arranged to pick up a couple of relatives and wedding attendees in NYC and take them with us in the RV to the big event. Because we can’t pick them up until just a couple of days before the wedding (they have pesky interference like work and school) this presented a scheduling challenge given that we still wanted to visit all of the New England states before turning west.  I mean come on; we stopped in New Jersey, so do you think we would skip New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, or Massachusetts?

What we came up with is to sprint beyond New York and visit Newport and Cape Cod, then cut back to Connecticut for a few days.  We would then pick up Titi Maria and KayKay in our Geo Tracker, bring them north to our Connecticut campground for a night, and then continue on to Maine the next day.  Other relatives will be taking them back to NYC, so after we are done exploring Maine, we will visit New Hampshire and Vermont.

So that is how we ended up at the Carr Point, part of the Newport Naval Station’s property, and a little known gem among military RV campgrounds.  Even though the park only has six sites and we were arriving on Memorial Day weekend, we were still able to make reservations less than two weeks in advance.  Our timing continues to be fantastic this year; the park had only just opened for the season the week we arrived.

The six spots are situated right on the water overlooking the Narraganset Bay.  We pulled in forward rather than back in so we would have the great view through our front window. The park has 50 amp power and water, but no sewage at all, not even a dump station.  At $20 a night, it is still a fantastic deal, you just need to arrive with your grey and black water tanks empty, be conservative with the water use while there, and if you are staying a while perhaps plan to drive to the nearby private RV park in Middletown and pay the $15 fee to use their dump station.

We had great weather on each end of the five day stay, with a day and a half stretch of near continuous rain and drizzle sandwiched in the middle.  We loved the location (and the price) so much we extended our reservation from four to five days, sliding our Cape Cod and Connecticut reservations to the right.  We explored downtown Newport, the historic district, mansion row, Ocean Drive, the marina’s, basically everything we could fit in during the good weather days.

On the rainy days we spent a lot of time hunkered down at the base internet cafe catching up on shows, news, and this here blog.  The one day extension allowed us to stumble upon the base thrift shop’s annual sale: $4 bucks for whatever you could fit in a paper bag, excluding uniforms and a few other categories.  Holy crap.  No wonder there was a line outside half an hour before they opened.  We kept it real, we only have so much space, and walked away with but two bags.

The 23 items within them averaged less than 35 cents each, for which we got a handful of DVDs in Rosemarie’s preferred genre of bad horror, four box sets of complete seasons of my preferred comedy shows, a pair of boots, multiple dresses, a purse and matching winter hat, a high quality winter jacket with hood, etc etc. For an additional $3 I also replaced my four cup coffee maker, rusted enough to become a possible electrical safety hazard.  What a score.  We donated a small bag of things upon arrival, but now we would need to do some serious cutting of our existing clothes in order to stay true to our “one in, one out” rule of items in the RV.

While there we met the To family, our neighbors for the stay, the father, Kam, a freshly minted (though prior enlisted) Navy Ensign supply officer attending classes at the Newport Naval Station.  During their time in Newport they were living in a small Class A motorhome, which strikes me as a bit ingenious.  I can’t even count the number of military courses I attended while in service, and some of them simply did not provide adequate housing.  Department Head school in particularly would have been a much nicer experience had I possessed a decent RV rather than have to stay in the crappy dorm rooms the school provided for us geographic bachelors at the time.

Our last day displayed the unique weather of New England islands.  During our afternoon drive around Ocean Drive and Fort Adams State Park we passed through large patches of rolling and thick fog.  Turning back towards the Newport Harbor, it disappeared completely, resulting in a beautiful clear sunny day, allowing us to watch the near shore sailing races from the harbor docks.

We’ve stayed in six military campgrounds this year, a big change from our grand total of two in 2015.  My past resistance to them, based largely on the additional rules, scrutiny, and bureaucracy found within the facilities, has melted in the face of the subsidized prices for often extraordinary locations.  We still love the nature experience provided by national, state, and county parks, as well as the amenities provided by private resorts (especially when they offer the 50% Passport-America rate) but for the rest of 2016 and beyond we will remain much more open to the military campground options along our route.

 

So, I am still not quite sure what I did wrong.  I asked my google maps to route me from New Jersey to Mahopac, NY and avoid tolls in the process.  It produced an option that appeared to go just a bit north of NYC before crossing the Hudson River.  Lacking local knowledge, I went with it, and cruised up 9 and then 440, then truck route 1 and 9, and truck route detour 1 and 9, only white knuckled in a few places, though increasingly concerned about the number of signs indicating we were headed to a vaguely familiar sounding bridge or tunnel that really seemed like it would have a toll.

Sure enough, we hit the George Washington Bridge toll booth an hour into the trip.  The small sign on the booth indicated that cars were $15 and trucks started at $15.  Outrageous, they were going to charge us $30 just to cross through NYC!  I was wrong, of course.  The condescending toll monitor informed me that it would be $84.  The size of our truck warranted $21 per axle, and she then helpfully pointed out that $21 x 4 did, in fact, result in a product of $84.  It didn’t matter that two of those axles were on a tiny car which unconnected would have passed for $15.  It was not disconnected, and therefor would be an additional $42.

This is one of those reasons that non-New Yorkers have, shall we say, strong feelings about New York, or at least the city.  Heck, its one of the reasons New Yorkers often feel the same, other than when they are aggressively defending the state and city to outsiders.  It ruined my mood for the rest of the trip.  The absurdity of having to pay that much money to cross a damn bridge is just nonsense.

Fortunately, the rest of the day went much better.  We arrived at Star and Michael’s house around three, and just as promised they had a huge and accessible driveway that easily accommodated Serenity.  Our hosts pulled out the stops for our one day visit, preparing a delicious stromboli as a late lunch and later a wonderful steak and baked potato dinner. They invited Pad Kee Meow into their impeccable home for the evening as well.

In addition to the free flow of wine and beer they also opened their liquor cabinet, commenting that they collect a lot of stuff, mostly purchased in vacation duty frees, that they simply don’t drink and that we should have at it.  And that is how Rose and I reluctantly agreed to have a very small pour of Johnny Walker Blue before switching to something affordable.  Michael wouldn’t hear of it, and insisted that we top off with the good stuff.  We managed to stop short of emptying the bottle.

After dinner they had an unusual power outage, apparently the result of a blown transformer that took out the lights all over town, so we all got to pretend we were drycamping somewhere, and Michael and I started his generator to provide a bit of power to critical items.  The rest of the night was filled with catching up, stories, and laughter until at least 2 AM.  We crashed and slept late until Star made us yet another big meal.  We parted a bit hung over, bellies stuffed, in the early afternoon bound for Rhode Island.  I am still not sure what i did wrong with my google maps routing.  Maybe the “avoid tolls” option on my phone only included road tolls and not bridges?  No idea, more research required before I ever cross through coastal New York again.

Having had a great four day stay in a beautiful state park in Delaware, we continued north 194 miles into New Jersey, dodging a couple of tolls by avoiding part of the turnpike. Having splurged a bit in Annapolis, we were still aiming to save a bit of money on the back side of this month so we elected to stay at our fifth military campground of the year, the RV park on the Earle Naval Weapons Station.  Having been there multiple times on a couple of my ships, I was familiar enough with the area to know that it would likely involve a lot of woods and few temptations to spend excessively.   It delivered on both accounts.

I’ll give some props to the weapons station: they had the easiest check in process of any park; private, public, or military, that we have every experienced.  Once we cleared security we simply pulled up to the secondary gatehouse, showed ID, and promptly received an envelope with our site pass and other pertinent information.   Less than a mile later we pulled into the rather oddly laid out RV campground and backed into the spacious site #2.

I say oddly laid out because it looks like there used to be something other than RVs on each site, perhaps some sort of housing, with sidewalks and paths that didn’t seem to have a lot to do with the current lay out.  Additionally, the sewage connection was centered in the concrete pad, meaning that once we backed up I had to crawl part way under the rig to hook up the hose.

Pretend there are a couple of very nice pictures of the actual campsite and surrounding area here and after the next paragraph.  Due to as yet inexplicable technical error, we lost the ones we took.  

That is our only complaint, though, because this RV park defied our material condition expectations.  We are accustomed to Navy parks being a bit shabby and run down compared to their Air Force equivalents, which is rather representative of the respective services’ bases as a whole.  Not so this one: other than the odd lay out, the connections, bath house, and laundry facilities were excellent.  Even the WiFi was great, allowing full streaming any time of day.  We took advantage of the quite affordable washers and industrial dryers to do three loads of laundry for less than $7, and caught up on season 2 of Gotham.

Continue pretending you are seeing a well framed photo of the RV campground. Ooooo, ahhhh.

While there we planned to do nothing, not even leave the base if we didn’t have to. Unfortunately, Serenity’s house electrical system had other plans.  On our second day I noticed that several of our standard outlets were not charging our electronics.  Further investigation revealed that our house batteries were not getting charged by the inverter/converter either.  After checking the main pedestal breaker, we figured out that everything else was working: outside, front, and GFCI electrical sockets, air conditioners, and the refrigerator were all good to go.  I opened the breaker panel and flipped all the breakers just to make sure: no change.

Examining each breaker, I discovered that both the nonworking sockets and the battery inverter were on the same dual 15 amp breaker.  Bingo!  I called the place we bought Serenity to get a phone assist, Chris was happy to oblige, and he confirmed that my thinking was along the right track and I probably had a bad breaker.  So I set about confirming this by switching the wiring about, and managed to make things worse by knocking out the front air conditioning entirely.  Arghh!

Off to Home Depot I went, grabbing two breakers, believing that I had started with one bad breaker and possibly broke the second during my half-hazard trouble shooting attempts.  While talking with the employee who helped me find the right breaker, I had one of those “doh” moments when I realized that the input power was supplied via a copper plug to the back of each breaker, but only if it was properly seated.  During my troubleshooting, I had not actually reseated the breakers after I pulled them out to redo the wiring.

Excited that I had probably not actually damaged a breaker, I celebrated by finding a nearby geocache before hurrying back home to, hopefully, make repairs. Once their I properly seated the front AC breaker and voila, it worked just fine.  I replaced the breaker that caused all the problem in the first place and… nothing.  Still no battery charging or power to the affected outlets.

I did a bit more visual inspection, noticing that the copper plug in the slot of the nonworking breaker looked a bit discolored.  On a whim, I switched the breaker to an open slot, flipped the main and individual breakers back on and was instantly rewarded with the steady hum of the inverter charging the house batteries.  A quick check with my handy dandy electrical socket checker (a portable hair trimmer) confirmed that we were back in business, and for nothing more than the cost of gas to drive to Home Depot, at least once I returned the now unnecessary new breakers.

The stress of a possible RV mechanic bill and time delay removed, we relaxed in the campground, watching three deer wander through the back field.  The next morning we packed up and headed north to New York.

Though we have been exploring more military campgrounds this year, that has mainly been as a cost control measure.  Our preferred camping experience involves being surrounded by nature to a greater degree than most military or private parks provide.  As such we have an affinity for state and county parks, finding that they strike the right balance between services and environment.  Since we would only be in Delaware for four days, we decided that a state park would be the right choice, but which one?

We had wanted to stay in the Brandywine Valley area, which we had heard great things about and was much less out of the way for follow on trip north, but the state park there did not have any RV camping.  We considered going even further out of the way towards Rehobath Beach, but the popularity of the place, particularly on a weekend, just didn’t quite appeal, so after some research we selected Trap Pond over a couple of other also well reviewed options.

So we concluded our four day stay in Annapolis late Friday morning and headed south east across the bay to Delaware.  Now that’s the sort of ride between sites we like: less than two hours, only 82 miles, on mostly good quality highways, in good weather and with limited traffic.

Early afternoon we checked in at the ranger station and headed for the site I had selected close to the water in the C loop.  Unfortunately, just as we found at Oscar Scherer and a couple of others, the utilities were poorly positioned, and though I could string together 75 feet of water hose, there was no way to connect electricity with my 25 feet of shore power.  I called up the ranger station and per my request they moved us to the next site over.

Though a touch further from the water, it was still a great site.  Heck they all seemed like great sites.  The park contains four loops containing 142 sites (130 with power and water) under the canopy of a tall loblolly pine forest.  There are several connect ponds, and miles of bike, horse, and hiking trails.  The wildlife was abundant, particularly the active squirrels and water fowl.  The there is no sewage connection, there is a standard dump station, and a decent shower/toilet house.

We had glorious weather our first full day, and enjoyed the nearby areas of the park as well as driving through the nearby towns.  During the middle two days or our stay we experienced, unfortunately, near continuous rain and drizzle.  We hunkered down and watched recorded videos for much of hat time, but eventually we braved the wet roads for a day trip to the two large farmers/flea markets in the area.  We incorporated some fresh fruit and spices from one of them into our next couple of meals.

We also found a very welcoming moose lodge 20 minutes away in Seaford.  We liked the ambiance enough that we made two visits during our four day stay.  Like a lot of lodges, they don’t seem to get a lot of out of towners, and members are eager to hear what brings us by.  This often involves a free drink, so there is that.  A big thanks to Moose Lodge 1728 for the welcome.

The weather cleared on our last day, allowing a bit of day hiking, exploration, and the bagging of handful of geocaches within the park.  During that process I jumped a guard rail and nearly landed on top of this guy, which though he has a head and body shape similar to the viperid family of venomous snakes, is more likely just an Eastern Hognose.  Feel free to chime in if you disagree.

We are really happy with our choice for Delaware, and hope the rest of our one stop states provide as much enjoyment.
 

We left Shenandoah National Park a day early in order to catch Hans, a shipmate from my time on USS Carney, and his wife Rachel before he headed out of town on business.  Since he is now residing in Burke, VA, which is just a bit west of D.C., this placed him right on our path to our next destination, Annapolis.  After a bit of quick research using the Big Meadows Lodge’s WiFi, we found a Moose Lodge in Fairfax, just up the road from Burke. There were few other options in the way of legit RV campgrounds in the area that could accommodate a rig our size, so after a call to the Moose to confirm we could overnight camp behind their building, we headed up the Sky Line drive the 22 miles to Thornton Gap, the next park exit point.

In addition to another exciting drive through twisting mountain roads with periodic fog, the trip also entailed going through the Mary’s Rock Tunnel, which has a height restriction of 12’8″.  I was quite confident we were under this limit, but we pulled over at that stop just south of the tunnel to climb atop Serenity and verify that the 12’3″ height listed in our manual was accurate.   They seem to put a bit of slop in that measurement; I found our highest point to be a closer to 12′ even.

We continued through to the pass and then east down the mountain range towards D.C., arriving at the Centreville Moose Lodge in the mid afternoon, and set up camp in their nearly empty back lot, save for one other long parked RV.  We stepped in for a drink or two and to socialize, making sure the bartenders and patrons knew we were members and that it was our rig parked out back, rather than a portable meth lab.

Once evening rolled around we headed over to Hans and Rachel’s house for dinner, to meet their kids, and catch up on everything.  Many sea stories were (re)told, much wine was drunk, and we were entertained by the imagination of their children, Josiah, Annika, and William, particularly Annika’s personally created and fully realized manga-style graphic novels.  The problem with visiting friends that are still employed is that they have this annoying interference with their lives called “work.”  In deference to that, we made it an early night and headed back to our home for our one night stay.

The next morning it was on to Annapolis.  We had attempted to secure a site at the small Navy owned campground just across the Severn River from the Naval Academy, but they could only accommodate us for three of the four nights we needed.  Since it was the latter three, we needed another one night spot nearby, and bit of research revealed that the Annapolis Moose Lodge was one of the rare one’s with official RV parking including electrical hookups.  Our  call to them confirmed the situation, so we were pretty pleased with the way things were turning out.

Unfortunately, the official RV parking sots with electrical hook ups were almost impossibly positioned in the grass area hemmed in between trees and a hedge line, and the one readily accessible spot was already taken.  We gave it a go, spending about an hour carefully backing and filling to work our way in, only to find that we could not reach the electrical connection without completely overrunning a group of landscaping bushes.   Frustrated, we worked out way out and back to the parking lot, and got permission to drycamp there for one night before moving on to a real site at the Naval Academy.

During our four day stay we managed to continue our USS Carney mini-reunion, meeting up with the Hoffmans and Robertsons at Davis’, a great little restaurant grill just a couple of walking blocks from Derek and Sarah’s.  Since we were in Maryland, we had the mandatory crab cakes, improved from their already great condition by the addition of a local craft IPA.  Lubricated by such fare, the sea stories, ranging from exaggerated to purely apocryphal, flowed like rivers of B.S. combining with our tears of laughter.  Having been five years since we had seen them, it was fantastic to catch up with them and the four fantastic kids, Max, Charlie, Holly, and Sean.

Later that week we were able to meet up with Derek and Sarah again, attending a cub scout meeting for which Derek is, masochistically, the Troop Leader.  I was introduced as the guest judge for a rain gutter boat race contest.  We very much look forward to seeing Chris and Krissy again, in Annapolis or wherever they end up next, and visiting the Robertsons in Dublin following their impending move there.

Beyond the visit with friends, Annapolis was all about dining out, something we try to limit in most of our towns, but this one called for a bit of splurging.  So in addition to our meal at Davis’ we also had a set of drinks at Pussars Dockside Bar and a great happy hour dinner at the very hip Preserve, the highlight of which was the Sangria and a fantastic hot goat cheese and garlic bowl with soft bread.  Budget-wise we knew the three outings in four days would require us to crank down a bit during out next few stops, but since we planned to be in a state park in Delaware and a Navy campground in New Jersey, we were confident that the temptation would be significantly reduced.

Thus we left Annapolis and Maryland, heading 80 miles south east to or next destination.

Though Stewart Campground on the Navy’s Northwest Annex in Chesapeake worked out pretty well for our short visit to Norfolk area, it’s southern position meant driving through the downtown area and the bay bridge tunnel to intersect I-64, at least if we wanted the shortest route by time.  And considering that I had planned an aggressive 230 mile run up and over to Shenandoah National Park, we definitely wanted the shortest.

We find that two hours is a great drive, three is OK, but four begins to push the comfort level. Yeah, that may sound a bit weak, but driving a connected rig measuring 50′ feet with the tow vehicle, and nearly 30 thousand pounds gross weight is simply more stressful, particularly when you have either city traffic or winding mountain roads.  And of course, this day we would have both.

The trip had been mostly unremarkable until the last hour wen we encountered both drizzle and road work on US-33.  They had a lane closed down and had positioned the traffic cones so far over that we were driving partly in the oncoming traffic lane along the winding road up to the skyline parkway.  With trucks barreling at us from the other direction, it made for some tense driving, but once we turned onto the park entry road things calmed down considerably.  We paid for our $80 annual national park pass at the guard station, knowing that though we would probably not see 21 national parks like we did in 2015, we would be visiting enough to justify the expenditure rather than pay for individual entry fees.

There are three big rig accessible campgrounds in the Shenandoah National Park, and after careful research we selected Big Meadows for our stay.  It would be the shortest route not involving back tracking, had the best reviews (though only by a touch), access to some great day hiking trails, and had a robust camp store and lodge should we need a bit of civilization. We were taking a bit of a chance by not making reservations because there were no online reservable sites available for our full three or four day stay.  Instead we relied on the two large loops designated for walk up reservations.

This worked out just fine; upon arrival the ranger provided us a list of a dozen or so site options and let us explore them, set up camp, and come back later in our tow vehicle to fill out the paperwork.  We drove through the “C” loop, selected our top pick there, but continued on to the “I” loop just in case.  We liked the spacing and old growth trees all over the I loop much better than the slightly more compressed and open aspect of the C loop, but the available sites were heavily rutted and laughably unlevel, and I didn’t want to spend the weekend heavily canted back and to the left.

Once settled in we took a spin up to the lodge to use the WiFi and make a few phone calls since there was no cell service within the campground at all.  But considering our arduous drive we made no attempt to do any hiking or other exploration until day two.  By then we were recharged enough to make the two mile moderate hike down to Lewis Falls, a beautiful 81 foot waterfall northwest of the campground.

That little hike was a warm up for our last day, when we did the somewhat more arduous and longer Rose River Loop Trail to see the Rose River and the Dark Hallow Falls.  We prepared much better for this run, having packed more water, snacks, and a meal.  In addition to a beautiful walk along brisk running streams, we had the luck of seeing three black bear, a mother and two yearlings, a couple of hundred feet off the trail just as we were leaving Dark Hallow.  We neared the completion of our hike just as the cold drizzle started, making it to the warmth of our trusty Geo Tracker only a bit wet.

We cut our original four day stay down to three once we learned that our great friends Hans and Rachel were living in Burke, VA, along the way to our next stop in Annapolis. and Sunday would be the best day to stop by for a visit.  More on Burke, Annapolis, and a couple of Moose Lodge parking lot camping nights next post.

First I want to point out that in my last post I called the Preakness right, with Exaggerator finally beating Nyquist on a muddy track.  Too bad I didn’t bother to put any money on it. After leaving Wilmington we mostly avoided interstate travel and instead chose state roads and the like for our run up to Chesapeake, VA.  I attempted to find a place to park the RV for free like we had in Wilmington, but the navy facilities I called either didn’t return the call or didn’t have availability.  Fortunately my discussion with one of the helpful representatives at, I believe, the Virginia Beach Naval Station’s recreation office led me to a campground in Chesapeake that isn’t even in the All Stays, Campendium, or RV Park Reviews databases.

The navy maintains Stewart Campground, a small, 14 site place on their NorthWest Annex. It has power, even 50 amp, but water and the sewage dump are a central location rather than each site.   It is located off an easily handled gravel road in a clearing amidst a small wooded area.  The facility is no frills and what I will call “standard Navy quality” (as contrasted with the usually top notch recreation areas managed by the air force.  As the old joke goes, when the Air Force gets funding for a base, they build the golf course first, knowing that it will be a lot easier to get Congress to pony up additional money to finish the runways than it would be for the links.)  At $18 a night for partial hook ups in an attractive setting, though, the place was just short of ideal for us.  We spent the first night there after arrival, but for the next two days it was just an elaborate storage lot since we stayed with Linda and Jayson in their townhouse.

While there we assisted a bit with the renovation and prep work Jayson has undertaken on their new place, a single family style home just down the street.  He has done a rather lot of remodeling in preparation for their impending move in, and though my quality or craftsmanship was not quite up to his standards, my labor rate was tough to beat, and I did a bit of caulking around the ceiling moldings and baseboards.

Pad Kee Meow loves visiting  with Linda and Jayson since she has the run of the house and she and their dog Precious get along well enough.  We were gone after a short two day visit, on our way to Shenandoah National Park, though we will see them again next month in Maine when a lot of Rosemarie’s family will gather for cousin JuneJune’s wedding.   Next up, our first National Park of the year.

Our timing this year has been damn near perfect, at least once we modified our original schedule to accommodate a wedding event in Maine that has accelerated our run up the east coast.  As a result of that change we managed to run through Gainesville just in time for my daughters birthday and stumbled into a free flight from Allegiant Airlines on tax day when we worked in a trip to Indiana to see my dad and stepmom.  The latest fortuitous timing: we managed to arrive at my Mom and Stepdad’s in Wilmington for Mother’s Day weekend and Tim’s birthday as well.

Having done all we could in Charleston, we left the Joint Base, crossing into NC almost immediately and cruised 180 miles up the coast to Wilmington.  The four hour drive is about the maximum run I prefer in the big rig, but we are finding it easier to manage such trips in Serenity than in The Big Kahuna, even with Loki under tow.  With the old bus, whatever estimate we got from google maps we had to add at least 25%.  With Serenity, we actually manage to be pretty close to the time of arrivals.

The one big concern for our Wilmington visit was where we would be stashing the RV while we stayed with Mom and Tim.  Their house lacks a front driveway, and the back entrance would involve mangling an iron gate and possibly knocking over at least part of a brick wall to manage the turn.  Thankfully Wilmington RV Sales & Rentals, the place from which we bought The Big Kahuna, allowed us to drop off Serenity into their back lot for the duration.

Our past Wilmington trips have involved more than a few great meals out in local restaurants, especially along the river front, but this trip was all about dining in.  Tim and I combined resources to create a few good dinners on his beloved Big Green Egg.  We had beef and chicken tacos for Cinco de Mayo, grilled burgers for the sixth of May, then salmon steaks, and finally a delicious meal of lamb for our final night.  And of course, breakfast in the garden the next morning with leftovers from the previous night made into omelettes, especially for our great Mother’s Day brunch.

We dropped by the riverfront farmers market, picking up fresh mint just in time for me to make mint juleps before the afternoon running of the Kentucky Derby.  We all picked horses to cheer for (other than the odds on favorite) and I am only a touch disappointed to report that my selection, Exaggerator (selected to match my story telling style) finished second, a bit behind Nyquist after a huge push down the final turn and stretch.  I still think he has a strong chance to spoil another triple crown hopeful in the Preakness.

Lastly, I spent an hour or two crawling around a couple of wrecked Geo Trackers in a pick and pull salvage yard trying to get replacements for the half dozen broken plastic brackets that secure the convertible rag top to the rear of the vehicle.  It is apparently very common for seven of these cheap plastic pieces to break and shatter to the point of uselessness.  Five of ours are indeed in bad shape.  I didn’t find any perfect replacements, but for $5 I found one rear bracket less damaged than our current one, and a totally broken piece that I think I can repair to install where we are completely missing a piece.  Victory!

Another state down in our sprint north.  Next up, the first of two stops in Virginia.