Nice slow day, only about 3 hours driving time to the Virginia Beach area. I wanted to stay at Fort Story (Cape Hatteras) campground, but when I called, they said they were booked up. So, here we are at Dam Neck Navy Base. It is a nice, rather new, campground with just a smallish sand dune between us and the beach. It was hot today, but a front has since moved in and the wind is blowing in off the ocean quite cool. In fact, I’m going to have to close the door. Ought to sleep cool tonight.
Joyce fixed some chicken breasts for sandwiches right after we arrived. We were all three starving. After dinner cleanup, we took a stroll through the park and planned on going out on the beach. But, to get to the beach was actually quite a walk and neither Joyce nor I was up to it. We’ll check it out tomorrow as we leave. However, this cool front is just that, cool and the high tomorrow is predicted to be below 80 and cloudy. So, no sunshiny beach here.
I checked the Internet and found I had not used the recommended amount of bleach for the amount of onboard water. I should have used ½ cup instead. Oh well, an extra day of treatment won’t hurt. So, I added more bleach and filled some more empty water bottles at the spigot. Phew! The water really smells of bleach now. If any bugs survive that, they’ll kill us for sure.
I was hoping to make it to Virginia Beach tomorrow, but it’s just too far for us. So, we’ve opted to stop at the next Corp park along our route. Appropriately, it is Kerr Lake, or rather, John H. Kerr Reservoir. It was a short 3-hour drive so we took advantage of the free time this afternoon and took sorely needed showers.
Now, we’re just sitting quietly in a crowded but also quiet campground just doing nothing. Well, I am writing this and Joyce is poking around on the Internet…and the water is still swimming pool water. I’ll drain and refill the water tank tomorrow.
We left out about 11 am, our standard departure time. We dropped down on Hwy 23 to US Hwy 58 and headed east. I remember taking this route once heading west coming from Virginia Beach. But, that was about 40-45 years ago. Funny, it didn’t look the same.
It was a fairly relaxing drive today. We didn’t get lost and the GPS remained civil. Joyce did complain of the fresh water smelling. I smelled it and, sure enough, it had that familiar rotten egg smell. Time to freshen up. So, we stopped at a grocery and I bought some chlorine bleach. A little dab will do ya. I drained the water tank and hot water tank while back on the road.
We stopped for the night at Goose Point Park on Phillpot Lake. It’s a nice Corp of Engineers park that had been recently redone.
I added about ¼ cup of bleach and refilled the fresh water. I’ll let it sit overnight then drain again and refill. In the meantime, drinking, cooking and teeth brushing water will come from a bottle or directly from the faucet outside. Otherwise, it’s like drinking from a swimming pool.
Well, that didn't work. Oh, the GPS worked fine after the overhaul, but our route plan didn't. My goal was Salt Fork Creek near Wytheville, Va. However, along the way, we were looking for a place to stop for lunch and a rest when we spotted a sign for Kingdom Come State Park and since we'd always heard of Kingdom Come, but never been there, we decided to stop. Of course, it was a lot further off our route than we planned, but it was worth it. Now we can say we've been there.
There was one small problem. After leaving Kingdom Come my will was not done, but maybe His was. We got lost. Here we were in the middle of Kentucky coal country - where many mines have closed and left a lot of folks in dire straits. Folks who some reminded us a little of Deliverance, although we saw no banjo players. The GPS did not break down on me. It just plain ol' lied. We were tooling along up a narrow valley. It was beautiful but kept getting narrower with steeper sides. Finally, the GPS gave up. It didn't crap out, it just didn't know where it was. The road finally came to an end at a played out coal mine loading conveyor. So, we turned around and headed back out. Gypsy finally got her bearings and led us out. We made it out to civilization but had lost too much time to make it to Salt Fork as planned. So, we're at a private campground in Big Stone Gap just past Appalachia, Virginia. What a day. I'm bushed. Oh, yes. For anyone keeping score, it’s Jessie Lea RV Park. Nice park.
Well, there goes the quiet. A tree trimming crew pulled in around 9 am and set up shop right behind us. They’re trimming trees now and another truck just rolled in with a big wood chipped. Things should be getting real noisy shortly. Get we’d better get breakfast and morning chores done and get out of here.
We were headed for a campground just over the line into Virginia, but I started having trouble with my GPS and realized the campground was too far for one day. So, after dinking around with “Gypsy” for a while, I gave up and we settled on the Levi Jackson State Park near London, Ky. It’s another nice, well run campground and busy, too, like the one at Ft. Knox. So, what going on? There are even a lot of kids camping here…on a school day.
After we got set up I found a way to reset my GPS back to factory settings. So far, so good. If it still has trouble, I’ll have to find me a new one. I’ve gotten to where I really depend on it for locating campgrounds so I’d hate to have to make this trip without one. Ain’t technology wonderful?
Tomorrow I plan to camp at Stony Fork Creek Campground near Wytheville, Virginia. I had to load GPS coordinates for it since none of my campground data had it listed. So, tomorrow should be a good test of old Gypsy.
Woke up early this morning (early at least for me). The sun is bright and everything is very wet from dew. I took Ditto out for her walk and she got a surprise. Right across the road were two horses munching on the grass. At first, I thought they may have gotten loose, but then I saw the hobbles they were wearing. As we walked along the road past the horses, I noticed Ditto had gotten on the other side of me so I was between her and the horses.
Good morning!
I’m not sure yet where we’re heading from here. My original plan had us stopping at Fort Knox. Pumpkin has a few cargo carrying weight to spare and I thought I might just top it off with a few gold bullion ingots. But, that would mean we’d have to carry that excess weight a long ways. That would be a waste of diesel.
Okay, went to Fort Knox after all. The Army has a FamCamp (family campground) at nearby Lake Carlson, so that’s where we landed for the night. It’s a bit crowded, but it’s quiet and well kept.
Up and at ‘em…at about 9:30 am. Actually, I was up at 6 am and walked Ditto, but I went back to bed after that. Now that we’re up for real, I walked Ditto again so she could chase squirrels. It was still dark at 6 AM so she had been cheated of that little life’s pleasure. As we (Ditto and I) returned, I noticed a weird orange stain running down the front of the RV above the windshield. A huge stain. I got out some spray windshield cleaner and my squeegee and tried to clean it, but it wouldn't come off. I hope it will come off later when I get a chance to do it right. Sure looks awful, like someone sloshed orange Kool-ade on it.
Well, we’re off track. Can you believe it? We wound up heading more southerly than my plan. It’s amazing what a 1-2 hour late start can do to shift the entire plan. We angled southeast instead of northeast. A rest stop in Maysville, Ky. They had a nice city park. We parked under a tree and watched an old black man slowly working on a smoking pipe while sitting at a nearby picnic table. I didn’t watch for long, as I soon dozed off. So, tonight we’re camping in Wrangler Camp on Land-Between-The-Lakes. It’s a horse camp with several horses and a mule or two in among the camps. Needless to say, Ditto is very interested. 
The campground is mostly wide open to accommodate large horse trailers and large 5th wheel campers. Big dually pickups abound here. Luckily, it’s a cool cloudy day, so shade is not needed. That gave me the opportunity to set up my Dish TV satellite and catch up on the news tonight. What?! No news?!
Oh, when we first arrived and were assigned a camp spot, we found a squatter on the site.
It was a woman traveling by bicycle. It sure looked like a lot of stuff to pack on a bike, but she managed to pack it all up the next morning and wave as she pedaled off. Actually, the campground keepers knew she was there but just forgot to reflect it on their map.
