Blogging Our Trip

I have a lot of folks who want to keep up with our travels but aren’t on Facebook, so I thought I’d try this.. maybe a little more content here. Jim will add on if he wants and he’ll format for me. So here I go!

We’re a month later leaving this year, as our plans take us further north in the Southwest, and we’re hoping for warmer weather. First a two week stay in St. Pete, at Fort DeSoto County Park, which is near to Jim’s Aunt Judy and many of her children.

Our original plan was to get an early start on Monday morning and drive as far as Harrisburg PA area. Usually we drive to NJ or PA and stay with Jim’s brother Pete, but they were away, so headed a bit further west. The weekend before was busy, last minute packing and laundry and hooking up the camper, then birthday fun for me and grandson, Calvin. His birthday is two days before mine. It was nice to be home this year and celebrate with the family. After a mid afternoon meal with all on Sunday, so happy Cindy and the girls came up and surprised me, we got home and thought, let’s go. Weather on Monday sounded very rainy and pretty lousy, it was still light and we figured if we could get past Worcester or Hartford it would cut our driving for the next few days. We drove 250 miles and parked (with permission) at Costco in Waterbury, CT. It was a wild and very windy night, a lot of rain and heavy winds. Our camper is not dewinterized, so no water at this point. We went out for breakfast and washed our faces in the restroom and continued on.

I found a KOA in Williamsport, MD with full hookups and it’s warmer, so Jim drained and flushed the system. We had left over corned beef and cabbage for St. Pat’s Day. The grass is green and it smells like spring…and cow manure. Today, Tuesday, we woke up and found out there had been a frost the night before, luckily nothing was damaged and everything dried well and we were off. We had only a 3 hour ride to our destination for tonight, so spent the morning at Antietam Battlefield National Park. I had been before with my geocaching friends in 2015, but Jim had never been. It was a lovely, warm, blue sky day, very few people at the park. We spent a good bit of time following the tour with our truck and camper. Then a three hour ride to Roanoke, VA. to a Harvest Host, Brady’s Distillary. Harvest Hosts are generally businesses that have a few extra parking spaces and allow members to stay in their self contained unit. We’ve stayed at farms, breweries, wineries, some private homes. Our obligation is to buy something to support the business. We each had a drink, and sat outside in 72 degree weather. Grass is really green here, daffodils are in bloom, magnolias are flowered, many buds on other trees. I took a half mile walk to do four geocaches in town. We are cozy and still hooked up to the car. The only downside is the train track right behind us… we’ll see how that goes!

I did bring my temperature scarf with me, my librarian gave me warm colors for the trip. So in three days, I have used three new colors, for high temps above 45, 55 and 65! Met a nice man at the grocery store who asked about the camper, he and his wife want to try camping. We showed him ours and recommended renting a few different kinds and sizes to see if it’s what they want to do. We also met a nice guy at the National Park, exploring Civil War sites. Used our senior pass and had him come in with us. Sitting here on Tuesday evening, listening to our Celtics and catching up. Will write more in a few!