Natural Chimney Regional Park - Harrisonburg, VA

We have been here before.  There are no little driveways to indicate where to park.  If you can reach you utilities, you are in your spot.  After our lengthy hike in the mountains, we are ready to just sit and relax.  Do some e-mails, read some internet posts...participate in our interconnected world.  But no, not even a snippet of internet.  All we have for entertainment is each other...that only goes so far!  At least we have television, and tonight is the final Biden-Trump debate.  So at the logistics meeting...AKA dinner, we discuss the options.  We decide to watch the news, enjoy a fire till 9:00, watch the debate, go to bed, get up early and drive 38 miles to the closest interstate rest area for showers, breakfast, and of course, Internet.  But there is a flaw in our plans.  This could be our last outing, and we would be dumping our waste tanks BEFORE our showers.  New plan...shower tonight.  Everything is set.  After dinner, we watch the news, Deb takes a shower and I start the fire with the left over wood from last night.  The fire is lovely, until it isn’t.  I tried to restart the fire by blowing on it, without much success.  Finally, I took Deb’s hair dryer out to blow on the fire.  Wow, that created a roaring fire...sort of like a blast furnace, until I turned off the hair dryer, then the flames just went out.  Somewhere in the middle of all this Deb quietly snuck inside.

We watched the debate, went to bed, up at 5:30.  Off to the scenic rest area for a beautiful sunrise over the foggy valley, with coffee, breakfast, and internet.  And so ends our 2020 RV season!

Loft Mountain - Shenandoah National Park

 Note to self: a no generator area is quiet only if you are not the first site in the no generator area right next to the generator area.  

This was leaf peeping at it’s finest.  The Shenandoah Parkway was just radiant with colors.  Our site was a tad funky.  A pull through site with the door toward the road.  We put our chairs around back, got some wood had a lovely fire (I bought two bundles of wood, but Deb wanted to save one for the next night).  

We are seasoned campers and usually discuss logistics at dinner.  Deb has picked a hike that has a vertical drop of 1,200 ft, and the hike starts a mile away from the campground with another 500 drop to get to the trailhead.  Checkout is 12:00. So the plan is to drive to the trailhead and start there...good choice.  After dropping the 1,200 ft, visiting two waterfalls on the way, we have a choice...return the way we came or continue to follow the stream as it flows down through the valley.  Returning the way we came is a 3.5 mile hike.  Continuing on is an 8 mile hike.  We chose to defer the climb and opted for the 8 miles.  Deb marvels at my stamina.  She doesn’t know that she has to stop to catch her breath about two steps sooner than I do.

There is something quite exhilarating about returning to your vehicle with the feeling that you might not have been able to make it even another fifty feet.

Kiptopeke State Park - Cape Charles, VA

 This is our final stop.  It’s a strange park with a reef made up of 300 feet of partially submerged old WWII concrete liberty ships.  The park used to be the terminus of the ferry going to Norfolk before the bridge was completed.  There are remnants of the start of a housing development. The  campground is just a couple of the old streets.  

We hiked some of the trails which were lovely.  We even found a wildflower garden that needed to have a few seeds removed and a shore that needed a few shells removed.  I found several boardwalks that didn’t really need to be boardwalks, but we walked them anyway.

Since the campground is nothing exciting and our home is only a few miles away (as the crow flies) e have decided to spend the night there.

First Landing - Virginia Beach

This is our final outing of our VA State Park challenge.  We have visited all that we really wanted to visit, and did lots of hiking in each park.  Of course, First Landing is an old favorite, we have hiked the trails before, but it’s always nice.  And the beach is just an added joy.  All our favorite sites were already reserved so we got to try a new site.  By driving in instead of backing in, we got to surreptitiously monitor our strange neighbor...a pastime that has been lost in these COVID times.  

Our water faucet did not work properly which meant we had to use our own water pump.  Deb was concerned that the noise might upset our neighbors, but I tried to point out that the Blackhawk night-ops from the Navy base next door was probably more disrupting.

From here it’s off to a Kiptopeke on the eastern shore.  A total of 34 miles of which 27 is the bridge.

Sea oats 

Staunton River State Park - Scottsburg, VA

The only other time we were here was in late fall, around Halloween.  Some campers near us, we strolling the campground for trick or treat, but they were the ones handing out the candy.  Somehow, we snagged a pull-through site.  Not too level, but yech, close enough.  Lots and lots of hiking trails.  We shared one with about ten equestrians, who kept say “wow...you’re walking!” as they passed. After three or so miles, we headed back to our own stable.  With a little chill in the air, I got 14 sticks of wood ($.50/stick) for our campfire.  By midnight, the rain came and continued through the morning, so we left quietly and headed home.

Occoneechee State Park - Clarksville, VA

 So the big question of the day was...have we been here before.  Doing a search on our blog reveals that indeed, we have been here.  The blog entry is humorous, but the entire entry is about another park.  As we pull into the campground, several retired synapses kick in and I know that we have been here before and had wanted to make sure that if we ever came back, we wanted to be on the water (fortunately, we are).  We are in a lovely site (#30) and #29 is also lovely.  So we should have that information for posterity.  

As usual this year, which is unusual that anything would be usual, the remnants of Hurricane xxx are heading our way, so it will be rainy soon. Knowing this we are adjusting our hiking schedule to accommodate the upcoming rain.  We are doing some short hikes and then moving on to Staunton River to do some hikes.

Claytor Lake State Park - Dublin, VA

 With the pandemic in full swing, many people have turned to RVing as a way to get out of the house.  Many don’t have the luxury of going out during the week, the way we have been doing.  Because, the parks we are visiting are in the far western part of the state, we extended our normal two or three days out, to four for this trip.  I was able to snag a spot at Claytor Lake (there was one left) on a Saturday night.  There are some nice back-in spots here, but our spot was in the area that Deb referred to as a COVID cesspool.  Here, “social distancing” is how far people come from to see family.  The only face mask we saw was, literally, a man with a small gift bag over his mouth.  

It has been getting colder, which was Deb’s excuse for not going outside.  I did get out for about five minutes, but she quickly returned to the interior comfort of the RV.  I could tell she was thinking about spraying the door with Lysol.  The next morning, while the COVIDers slept, we snuck out for a quick little trip to see the lake before departing for home.

Breaks Interstate Park - Breaks, VA & Elk City, KY

 It’s another naming problem.  Breaks Interstate Park is one of two parks in the US that is in two states.  About 99.8% is in Virginia, with the rest in Kentucky.  The park is really close to...nothing!  Thirty-five miles of winding narrow roads through the Appalachian Mountains and you’re there.  It’s not the most beautiful campground, but $28 a night for full hook ups doesn’t leave feeling gypped.  

It’s Friday night which is date night.  For dinner, we had shish-ka-bobs.  Little tiny potatoes (1/2” in diameter - oh yeah definitely Whole Food offering), pearl onion (Deb loves them, if someone else peels them), heritage cherry tomatoes, with New York strip steak.

 

The hike was somewhat ambitious and we were somewhat apprehensive due to various posts about trails that go nowhere, and hikers lost until after dusk.  With my trusty phone (With GPS) we headed out for a really fantastic hike.  This is called the Grand Canyon of the East, and in fact is the deepest gorge east of the Mississippi, but I am fairly certain that whoever named it that had not actually seen the Grand Canyon.

Strangely enough, we did not get lost, did not fall off the cliffs surrounding the gorge, or require park ranger assistance.  We also found out that if you leave the park and go through Kentucky and West Virginia, it’s a much more pleasant trip.

Natural Tunnel State Park - Duffield, VA

 So first of all, I did not get the name wrong.  There is a Natural Bridge State Park, as well.  This just isn’t it!  This tunnel has train tracks going through it.  And on the third Saturday in July, every year, you can actually walk the tracks.  Talk about bucket list things!  

To get here, we had to go through Tennessee.  We spent two hours at the Tennessee Welcome Center, sucking up all the internet we could find before heading back into the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. From the entrance of the park to the campground is about half a mile of first gear hills.  This, of course, means that everything in the park is seriously downhill, and conversely, returning to the campground is seriously uphill.  But the elevation has given us some internet.  We took a short hike to an overlook above the tunnel before heading back for Curried Chicken over rice and internet.

The piece de resistance of the park is the TUNNEL.  During the summer you can take a chair lift down to the tunnel entrance, but that’s not really hiking.  As we got back to the overlook we had stopped at, we could hear the train whistle, so we got to see the train passing through the tunnel.  Forgive us, but we kinda got a rush out of it.  There a big lights to to shine on the canyon walls and on the tunnel.  Apparently, in non-COVID times, they have shindig at Christmas.  Well that made to Deb’s bucket list.

Hungry Mother State Park - Marion, VA

 We left the house at 9:00 and at 4:00 in the afternoon, we were still in Virginia (I know, reminds you of an old Ford, you once owned).  It has finally turned the corner and is actually a little chilly.  For our trip, we made some beef stew and cooked it in a tiny little crockpot that fits in the sink, as we trapsed across Virginia.  Shortly before we got there, they lost power to the entire park.  It didn’t really bother us, after all we have enough battery power to run for a few days.  But wait besides not having power, they had no internet.  Now we have a HUGE problem.  My ebook is about to expire, I have nothing to read.  So I set the clock back on my iPad (I actually got a year younger) to keep my book.

With no power and no internet, Deb and I decided to have a campfire.  I bought $6 worth of wood from the host, used my self made candle wax and cardboard fire starter and after a long smokey beginning we had a lovely fire that burned for hours (and hours).

By morning, Hurricane Sally decided to visit with a slow steady rain that was going to last the entire day.  After donning our rain gear, we took a nice hike up a fairly steep ridge.  With a nice view of the lake and the mountains, we found a little tiny bar, not much bigger than a human hair, but just enough to get our email and text messages.

Off to a rest area, with real bandwidth for lunch.

Shenandoah River State Park - Front Royal, VA

Shenandoah River State Park

 We are continuing our summer of Virginia State Parks.  We visited Shenandoah River State Park years ago.  Deb was totally unimpressed with it.  So unimpressed that it does not appear in any of our blog postings.  We have no pictures of it.  She has removed all traces of our visit, yet here we are, ready to make a memory.  Well, whatever it was, isn’t anymore.  We have a lovely little hidyhole.  Strangely, it shares the driveway with another campsite, but the other site was unoccupied.  My goal, especially when being watched, is to have the awning out, both chairs set-up with the table and the footstool on the rug and the welcome mat at the door, in less than four minutes.  Then swing around hook up the power and the water in three minutes, then back in my chair with my iPad and a cool one in another minute.  Well as I sat down, boom came the rain and the thunder. The next morning we headed out for a great walk which started along the ridge on the way out and dropped down to the river on the way back.

Sky Meadow State Park

 After lunch, we went to Sky Meadow State Park.  It costs $7.00 for a day pass, but all we had was a $20, so we put in the slot but we didn’t punch out the day of the week on the little ticket that you are suppose to hang on the rear view mirror, with the idea of using it again at some other park, like a prepaid ticket.  Deb was noticeably sweating on this flagrant violation of state park ethics.  It didn't get any better when I parked our RV in the "Van and Bus" parking area since we were neither a van nor a bus.  The hike was gorgeous, but pretty steep.  We got back to Shenandoah, backed in, put out the awning, sat down with my iPad and a cool one...boom came the rain and the thunder.

Seven Bends State Park

After a quick walk through the pollinator field (it's the IN thing this year), we headed down to a brand new state park, Seven Bends.  After a few miles of wet dirt roads, and a terrifying "low profile concrete bridge" we ate lunch, agreed that we should return again, some time in the far distant future when it is slightly more developed.  With a short walk, mindful of a 5:30 hair appointment in Mathews, we returned down the slippery roads and terrifying bridge and headed home, arriving in Mathews at 5:22.  Deb, quiet and noticeably nervous about arriving so close to her appointed time.  Me?...wondering what I could have done with that extra eight minutes. 

Lake Anna State Park - Glenora, VA

After a week of tropical storms, thunder storms, and any other scatalogical storm you can think of, we are back on the task of conquering every state park in Virginia.  Just before we left, we got an e-mail from the state of Virginia saying that due to the tropical storm, the dump station at Lake Anna will be closed for the rest of the year.  When we got there, we found that the storm had left a twenty foot hole where the dump station used to be!

The weather has cooled significantly, but all the storms have left everything exceedingly wet.  Our first evening, Deb suggests a short walk after dinner.  There is a macadam path to the beach which is about half a mile away.  From there we decide to hike a short little loop trail to a point not far from the beach.  The path is about a mile and a half and it is half an hour before sunset.

  Just before sunset, we reached the point, with only another mile through the dark, scary woods to go.  I'm starting to see headlines, "Couple survives COVID, but die, lost in the woods twenty feet from their RV."  With the light fading, we found our RV and our adult beverages.

Our plan My plan was to visit three day only state parks on the Potomac and then return for a second night at Lake Anna.  Our GPS directions to the first park, led us into a high end, gated (and guarded) housing community.  After explaining to the guard that it was the GPS and not me, we did a U-turn.  With a few reroutings, we bypassed the housing development to get to Widewater State Park.  The park had virtually nothing except a huge modern visitors center.   With limited internet, I figure out that the next park may have even less than this one.  My plan, skip park number 2 and go straight to park 3, Mason Neck.  It's a lovely park with miles of trails...yes!  With a win under my belt, we head back to Lake Anna for the night. 

Because of all the rain,  the mushrooms are out in full force, from King Bolete's to Death Trumpets.  We take a final hike through the woods before leaving for home.

Old Smokehouse

Our final day is, of course, somewhat compromised by full holding tanks with no place to dump.  With a side excursion to Belle Isle for lunch and a dump, we reach home just in time to mow before the next rain.

Twin Lakes State Park - Burkesville, VA

On to a new Campground.  After 300 or so nights in campgrounds, Deb and I have it all down pretty well.  As we get to the site, Deb gets out and backs me in.  Typically, I find the wooden rail on the drivers side that marks the right edge of the driveway, then Deb motions me back, watching for overhanging branches.  This time as I find the rail, she is motioning me to the right and she is pretty adamant about it.  So I back more to the right. OMG! There is a huge tree right in the middle of the driveway.  None of the sites are particularly level and all have some interesting obstacle.  This is sort of like a miniature golf course, with new things at every site.  Of course, this makes for wonderful people watching.  We had nearly an hour of delight, watching a new camper trying to get a 20 foot trailer in a massively unlevel twenty foot site.  Of course, there was the late check in, with headlamps  strapped to his hat, trying to level his 40 foot trailer in the dark.

As the name implies, there are two lakes, we typically do two hikes which would logically mean that we would circumnavigate one lake in the afternoon and one lake the next morning.  And so it shall be!

Powhatan State Park - Powhatan, VA

It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood.  That should be the title for our little local trips to see all the state parks in Virginia that we missed.  This time, Powhatan State Park, about 70 miles from home.  With torrential rains as we traversed Richmond, it felt more like a full day of driving.  As we arrived, the rain stopped.  We set up everything in about 5 minutes and then the rain started again for the rest of the evening.  We got to enjoy one our favorite things.  Talking with with wine and cheese, watching the lightning and listening to the patter of the rain and the occasional claps of thunder. 

Last night we ate dinner (smoked turkey with roasted garlic sauce) on our new cushions.  They are an absolute delight but terrifying.  Neither one of us wants to be the first to spill something.  As the man of the house, I think I should be first.  After all, I have always been the first to spill on everything.

Before  leaving, we hiked down to the river.  By now, we are getting to be Virginia State Park aficionados.   We rank the quality of the campground,  maintenance of the trails, attention to pollinators, and even informational signage and trail blazes.  The park got excellent grades except for two Trail blazes nailed to a tree that was less than an inch in diameter.

Bear Creek Lake State Park - Cumberland, VA

High Bridge

Okay, first to the important part.  In these COVID days, getting a hair appointment is not easy.  Deb has an appointment today at 2:00 which sets the agenda.  We decided to go to High Bridge Trail Park, a 31 mile linear park (which translates to 31 miles of railroad bed turned into a bike/hike trail), yesterday instead of today.  This turned out to be an excellent choice because what we wanted to see was the high bridge, not the other 30.75 miles of railroad bed.  Our first two or three entrances to the park were no where near the bridge.  Finally, we found the Camp Paradise entrance which was a couple miles of washboard gravel road but ended very close to the bridge.  It’s a 2,400 foot span, 150 over the Appomattox River.  It is rich in Civil War history as the final retreat of the Confederate Army.  There were still trains on the tracks as late as 2008.

High Bridge

With that hike and the 4 mile hike in the morning behind us, we snuggled into our site at Bear Creek Lake (I have no idea why it can’t be just Bear Lake or why Smith Mountain Lake couldn’t just be Smith Lake). The rain came and it cooled off somewhat, but got humid, air on, got cold, air off, made dinner, air on, watched Frozen, air off, went to bed, air on, couldn’t sleep, air off.

This morning, 5 minutes into our little hike, it started to rain, so we made it shorter than usual.  This an old park, built by the CCC, it’s rustic building style is called “parkatecture.”  Well off to the hair dresser.

Bear Creek Lake State Park

Pocahontas State Park - Chesterfield, VA

Another Virginia adventure, this time slightly southwest of Richmond.  Pocahontas State Park has a very nice aquatic park but like the rest of the world, it’s closed because of the pandemic.  We decided to take a hike once we got there but it was too hot, we decided to go before dinner but it was too hot, so we decided to just sit outside and enjoy the ambiance, but it was too hot.  So we went inside to cool off, just like home.  Deb’s folks called but we couldn’t hear so we turned off the air conditioning, we were going to talk for awhile, but it was too hot.

We watched some television and went to bed with the air conditioner on.  By midnight, it was too cold.  So we turned off the air conditioner and opened the windows and it was just right!  This might have been the basis for the story of the three bears.

By morning it was cool enough for a walk around the park.  The highlight for Deb was the pollinator garden, for me it was the boardwalks, of course.  Today we are off to Bear Creek Lake or High Bridge.

Westmoreland State Park - Montross, VA

This is a brand new Virginia State Park for us.  It’s about 50 miles from Washington, and in “normal times” has a really nice pool right on the banks of the Potomac.

The park is on the top of Horsehead Cliffs.  We got here fairly early, after driving 30 miles from our last overnight, so we had an opportunity to take the beach trail, down the cliffs to the water.  The last couple of hundred feet was in a single wooden staircase.  One slip and you would tumble to your death.  We decided to take the road back.

Dinner was chili with some cord-on-the-cob that we bought at a local farm stand.  With a short hike this morning, we are off to a new park, Caledon State Park.  There are no camping facilities, so it’s a day trip.

Belle Isle State Park - Lancaster, VA

We have been here once before on a day trip, but we have never spent the night, after all, it only 25 miles from home.  Our new plan is to visit as many Virginia State Parks as we can, while we wait for the “COVID thing” to pass.  Strangely, snuggling into our little hidey hole is just as nice after 25 miles as after 600.  After our last trip, Deb has decided that July in the south is not the best time or place for dry camping.  It’s lovely to sit outside, knowing that within a few seconds, you can be cool.

We have decided to take a little hike as soon as we settle in, well, maybe before dinner, but definitely after dinner.  Well actually, it turns out, after breakfast.  We probably do not need to hit the road too early, since the next campground is 30 miles away.  I took the opportunity to cancel our west coast trip to see the kids at the end of August.  Interestingly, if we continued our 30 miles a day all the way across the country, we would be there at the end of August.

Merchant Mill Pond State Park - Gatesville, NC

With the COVID thing looming around, we have not been able to travel much.  Our trip through the four corner states was just not going to happen, because of the positivity rate.  I always thought that “positivity” was a Sesame St thing.  “Ya gotta have posivitity,” but no...

We have always loved Merchants Mill Pond, and there was no one there.  Of course, dry camping when the heat index is 110 with no chance of air conditioning is a turn off for some, but not us.  We endured for one of the two nights that we reserved.   We sat quietly, and sipped our beverages (non-alcoholic, of course...NC is a “no state”), Deb drank her white grape juice, while I sipped on hoppy water.

The best part of Merchant Mill Pond is the canoe rentals with the trails through the swamp, but because of the “pandemic thing” (the ranger’s words, not mine), there were no canoe rentals, so we just walked around the swamp.  There were some lovely boardwalks (I love boardwalks).  During our walk, we determined that a second night might not be as enjoyable as the first, since the heat index was going to 116.

Well, Merchant Mill Pond does not even have a dump station.  What are we to do?  My mind races! Aha!  Chippokes Plantation State Park has a dump station, and it right next to the Jamestown Ferry (I love ferries).  I pose the idea to Deb, trying to look forlorn about the prospects of a slightly longer return trip.  I am even thinking about putting on my face mask to cover my grin, but she slowly acquiesces.

By the time we get home, the sky has darkened.  We have restarted the air conditioner in the house, and we sit quietly sipping our now legal adult beverages waiting for the storm to pass.

First Landing - Virginia Beach, VA

We were going with our plan, sell the RV and tour Europe.  We had tickets, hotel reservations, the works...and then came COVID-19, and the world closed.  After 94 days sheltering in place, we decided to pull the RV out of mothballs (nobody’s buying RV’s right now anyway) for a trip to the four corner states. Before launching a cross country trip, we decided it might be prudent and possibly even enjoyable to spend a few nights at our favorite local haunt.  Of course, we are still in Phase 1 of the “reopening” and because of Police injustice there is rioting on the streets of Virginia Beach and an all night curfew.

The RV was completely emptied and nicely cleaned last year.  So everything that was normally “just there,” just wasn’t....bath mat, citronella candles, mixing bowls, cheese board, grater...just to name a few.  Since the RV was empty, I thought it might be nice to fix a few of the storage “issues” we have had in the past.  My ideas have met with mixed success...well, really no success at all.  Well, without failure there can be no improvement.  My favorite camping accessory is “Dragon-in-a-Box” firestarter but is no longer available.  For this trip, I ripped up cardboard and soaked the pieces in melted candle wax as a substitute.  Of course, you can’t have a nice roaring fire when there is a curfew because people are lighting things on fire.  So it’s long socially distanced walks on the beach, haute cuisine...well as hautie as you can be using a sauce pan as a mixing bowl and potato peeler as a cheese grater...and quiet evening with nothing but the sounds of sirens and helicopters to break the serene sounds of waves crashing on beach.