20040713

July 13, 2004
Teusday

Start: Wright-Patterson AFB FAMCAMP
End: KOA Washington PA
Miles: 232

Temps: High 92.7, Low 68.7

Not a very exciting day. We got up, ate, dumped the trash, unhooked, and drove off.

We got onto I-70 East and stayed on it the whole day except that we turned right onto I-79 South for 3/4 of a mile, then turned right off onto US-40 West, then turned right off that to the campground. Tomorrow, we'll retrace our steps and get onto I-70 East again to go to Manassas via the Pennsylvania Turnpike (yuk) and Breezewood PA.

There are hills around here. The turn we took off US-40 was a lulu; a turn into a single lane between close-together poles and down a 15% grade. When we got to the campground we had to go up a hill to get to the office and up another hill to get to the camp sites. We managed to level the trailer without unhooking from the truck, so we're here for the night.

We started thawing the meat and sausage for spaghetti and simultaneously took out a beer - a "Burning River" from the Great Lakes Brewing Company - named for the time the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland caught on fire in 1969.

The day's drive was normal for I-70, which carries lots of truck traffic. We just got in line with the trucks and kept plugging along.

We'll just stay in tonite and watch TV.



20040714

July 14, 2004
Wednesday

Start: KOA Washington PA
End: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
Miles: 253

Temps: High 98.4 (impossible), Low 70

It was warm today, but not as warm as the high/low thermometer thought it was.

After breakfast, we wandered off the hill and up onto the next hill back to I-70 East. Then we just slogged along with the trucks. In two places, for long distances, trucks & busses were told to use the left lane so we did also. Then the road would narrow, with jersey wall to my left and no right shoulder for those next to me in the right lane. Of course, the lanes narrow there in the construction zones so concentration was mandatory.

Pennsylvania construction zone marking stinks. In several places, there would be signs for an active construction zone which would have two people working in it five miles down the road - and the zone would continue beyond them for ten more miles. Once, two zones overlapped so the "end of construction" sign for the first one was seen just after the "start construction zone" for the second. Very confusing.

We came blazing down the Town Hill grade toward Hancock MD and stumbled into a radar trap doing about 65 in a 55 zone. I was passing a truck and there were cars lined up to pass me. For some reason, the officer pulled over the SUV behind me. Maybe he couldn't swear to a good reading on me because I was next to the truck. Gotta be more careful.

The traffic peaked after Hancock, just like it always did. It got fairly hairy until we left I-70 at Frederick MD to go down US-15 into Virginia and to the campground. It made us remember one of the reasons we left this area - traffic.

This campground has been here for a long time. Dolores recalls Girl Scout picnics out here and Bill remembers Halloween things here in his youth. This will be its last year of operation, if we have it right, since the land will go to developers for houses. The setting is great, on a little man-made lake, so I can see high-dollar homes going onto the shores around it.

We backed into the site and hooked up all the utilities, then left son Bill a voice-mail to call us when he left work. He called on his way home from the Navy Yard where he worked today. We agreed to meet at Blue Ridge Seafood House after he got changed.

We met. He looked at the Florida plates on the truck and at the floral-print shirt I was wearing and told us it looked as though we'd turned into Floridians. We talked and ate and ate and talked for a couple of hours. We brought him up to date on Susan & Wyatt's activities and he told us what was going on around here. He'd seen our notes from the road.

He's taking a week's vacation later in the month to go to Edisto Island SC with a friend for golf and whatever. He'll try to get to our place in Sept/Oct, but for sure at Christmas. He heard Susan's idea about going to Disney World just before Christmas and wasn't sure about it, but thought we ought to look into it more.

We finally ran out of talk and left the restaurant, then we talked some more in the parking lot. Bill has lots of work tomorrow so we'll see him Friday night and Saturday. The Conley's invited us to dinner tomorrow night at their place (bring the swimsuits for the hot tub). If we can work in a trip to Baltimore to see Brian and Maggie, we'll do that, too, but maybe that will have to wait for the next pass through town.

We went through a front on the way into Virginia; the high temperatures for the next several days should be in the low eighties and fairly low humidity. Wow! Talk about timing!


20040715

July 15, 2004 (the Ides of July?)
Thursday

Start: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
End: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
Miles: 0

Temps: High 77.9, Low 62.4

A beautiful day in Northern Virginia. Low humidity, reasonable temperatures (far below average). Tomorrow's forecast also to be great, but the weekend is iffy for thunderstorms.

We went into Manassas and found the traffic to be as bad as when we left or worse. First stop was Camping World for comsumables and new fresh-water hose filters. Then a stop at the credit union here for some cash (we'll close the accounts on our next pass through the area). We took a look at Olde Towne auto service to see if we could get in to change transmission fluid but there were so many cars stacked around the place it appeared futile.

So we took our paperback book trading stock and a credit slip for $19 to McKay's Used Books. We came out with a mess of books and a credit slip for $0.53 - pretty good guessing.

Then we took a tour past our old house; it hasn't changed, but the house next door (John & Hildegard Owens) has had most of its trees pulled down and there's a big dumpster outside. They'd talked of selling out when they were at our going-away party, so either they've sold and gone or they're doing radical surgery in preparation for selling.

Then to the grocery store for our groceries plus a six-pack, a bottle of wine, and a Key Lime pie for dinner with the Conley's. We brought that back to the trailer and stored it, then loafed for an hour or so. Val called to say she was leaving and we could head for their house. We got there just after she did. Pat came in a few minutes later.

We did a session in the hot tub followed by steaks and corn-on-the-cob on the grill. We chatted all through this and laid plans for the next couple of days.

We left after 9:00pm to return to the little house in the woodsy campground to settle in for the night.


20040716 PhotoLink

July 16, 2004
Friday

Start: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
End: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
Miles: 0

Temps: Not noted

We hopped up and out and joined the Conleys for a run out toward the Shenandoah. We stopped at Pearmund Winery to taste their wines and bought six bottles and some accessories. Then we continued to one of our old favorites, Linden Winery. We bought bread, sausage & cheese, and a bottle of seyval, and had a mini-lunch there. We bought three bottles of the Avenius Sauvignon Blanc (beautiful stuff).

Then we headed back toward Manassas, but Dolores yelled "Peaches", so we turned hard left into the orchard off the road to Naked Mountain. We picked a small bag of nice peaches. Then we resumed the trip to Manassas.

There, the Conleys took us to an icecream store called Coldstone, where we each got a terrible concoction (actually, terribly good concoction) of our own design - mine was Black Cherry flavored ice cream to which they added halves of black cherries, then poured caramel over it. My dish overflowed, which was fine until everything got sticky - the manager came out with another cup and said they should never have put that much into a cup. We finished the ice creams and went back to Conleys.

Val had developed a backstrain or backache, so they said they'd stay in while we took Bill to dinner and an old favorite, Mama Mia. Sami (owner) and Elly (waitress) make a big deal of seeing us again and talked with us even though they were fairly busy. The folks there are in good shape and doing well. We enjoyed the food and the staff - we've never found a place where you're made to feel you're part of the family like this one.

We then went to the trailer. Bill & I took out bottles of beer and sat at the picnic table with the outside light on the trailer for illumination. Suddenly, a person on an ATV roared up and asked if this was where the party was. Turns out Bill had called a girl friend of his ("Dina" in North Carolina) to tell her we were there; Dina called her father, who is part owner of the place. Bill told Dina we said the campground was "rustic", which Dina took the wrong way, so he had to tell her than "rustic" did not mean "bad", it just means (in this case) scattered through the trees as opposed to open-parking-lot with paved sites, and so forth.

Dina's dad (Denny Leach) joined us and Bill introduced us. He understood what we meant by "rustic" and concurred with it and said he wouldn't have it any other way here. Then we got into a long chat-session, some of which centered around Denny's tour of duty as an inspector for VDOT when they were constructing the I-64 highway over the Afton Mountain pass west of Charlottesville. We finally all headed for our respective beds with promises to meet again in August.

We went to bed without doing these notes (done the next night).



20040717

July 17, 2004 PhotoLink
Saturday

Start: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
End: Mountain View CG, Haymarket VA
Miles: 0

Temps: High 80.2, Low 61.2 (over 7/16 & 7/17)

We were up a little early and off to the Conley's to join them. We whipped onto I-66 toward DC and called son Bill to see if he was coming along - he said he'd be along shortly. We waited at the Vienna (VA) Metro station; when Bill joined us, we took the metro for the Eastern Market station. There, we joined Pat & Val's daughters, Mary and Maggie and Maggie's husband Brian and Maggies daughter Clare.

We entered the Bread & Chocolate restaurant at the corner of Pennsylvania and 7th SE for brunch. Some had their fancy french toast, some Eggs Benedict with salmon, I had regular Eggs Benedict.

Then we hiked up the street to DC's oldest neighborhood farmer's market at the Eastern Market building (a long, narrow, barn affair). There are also booths outside. We picked up sausage and berries and a Mongolian miniature painting (butterflies, cherry blossoms) from the various vendors. We wandered back toward the metro, said our good-byes to Brian, Maggie, and Clare (who had driven in from Silver Spring) and went underground into the metro. Mary's train came first, so we all said bye & waved, then got our own train out to the Vienna stop.

Bill went to his house. We rode to Pat & Val's with them, then said our bye-bye's there. We went to the trailer to put the perishables away, took a short break, and then went to Bill's house. We sat & chatted with him for a while.

Then we left to join the reunion of the old Amberjax Swim Team at UNO in Woodbridge. There, we re-aquainted ourselves with the (former) kids and parents of the Amberjax team of 15 years ago or so. It was great to see Coach Rose & husband Jerry, the Wolfes, Shelly Monroe (pregnant with #2), Faye Cochran and her son and daughter-in-law Tripp & Michele, Jen Grob (Bill's girl back when, now married) and a few others.

We chatted and ate and chatted and drank and chatted until we finally left, maybe the first to do so. We returned to the little house on wheels and prepared to leave tomorrow morning for Delaware.

This was a really good day.