Clarksburg, West Virginia

With the mountains of Virginia and the Skyline drive.

The visit of Historical Harpers Ferry,  West Virginia.

Left to right are Nancy, Sherry, Mishell, Joe and myself.

 

A visit with our son Joe and wife Mishell with a dinner at a local restaurant.

We bid our good-byes until the next time.

 

Thursday was the moving day and as much as I like two lane roads over interstate roads.

I will have to say I wish I had taken the big highway over route 50 across West Virginia.

The scenery was nice but the road is a up and down and a mighty curvy road and I would not recommend it for rv travel.

The route just plum wore us out.

 

We did arrive in Clarksburg yesterday with an overnighter in between to visit Sherry's daughter Amanda and her daughter Abby for a few days.

Yes Nancy and I are Great Grand Parents many times over.

 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.  

Visiting

                                                            Guess where we are?
No we are not in California, we have been parked in the Hollywood Casino parking lot here in Charles Town for three nights and tonight will be the last night while we visit with our son and his wife Mishell who live in Martinsburg, West Virginia 12 miles from here give or take a few miles.

Tuesday, we did a tour of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  This was the town that is famous because of the raid in 1800's by John Brown and some think it may have been the start of the Civil War.

Here is the C&O Railway trestle crossing from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia over to the state of Maryland.

Harpers Ferry, barely an hour away from DC, and what a beautiful setting. Perched on a hill with an idyllic feel-everything about it was out of some Hollywood set. The railroad, the confluence of two rivers; Potomac on the left and Shenandoah on the right; the quaint town!

 

 

 

 

 

This is how John Brown looked through the years.

 

A couple of photos of the town of Harpers Ferry.

We enjoyed this day as our daughter Sherry, son Joe and his wife Mishell, Nancy and I were all together for the day.

Joe has the day off work today so it will be another day together visiting

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day. 

 

 

 

 

Skyline Drive again

We finally are out of the boonies and have all the connections that everyone has these days.
It was not really that bad since Nancy and I grew up without most of the things today that make a bunch of people happy and think they couldn't live without.

Ok first we went on the Skyline Drive after checking in at the ranger booth with Ranger Ken, who was also on duty when we did this last year in august.
Ranger Ken told us the bears are plentiful this year and that made Sherry happy to hear.

After pulling over at the first overlook so Sherry could get one of many photo's that she has.
Of course Mom Nancy had to be in many of these.

Our first campground was Loft Mountain which as all the other campgrounds on Skyline Drive just a spot in the woods without any hookups. There is a dump station and fresh water spigot, also you can take a shower with the cost of $1.75 for five minutes.

We noticed that at all the campground there were as many tent campers as were trailer campers.
There are really people that love to "rough it".

This was one of the sites along the drive.  Really out in the edge of the woods.

Here is a deer that came around to see us a couple of evenings that posed for Sherry to take a picture.

One of the 95 overlooks along the 105 mile Skyline Drive.

Well look here what we saw as we were about to bull out of one of the overlooks.
The momma has a time coaxing the little one that the stone fencing was not to high for it to jump over and join her to go across the road. But after a short time it did and momma seem to tell it see I told you could do it.

Many of the overlooks are so close together that you are looking at the same spots along the valley.
But plenty of opportunities for the photo buffs to take a photo with a different image in the foreground.

Same photo as above without the foreground effect.

One day Sherry decided she wanted to take a hike and see the Dark Hollow Falls.
Well seeing the sign 1.8 miles that's not very far "a piece of cake" yeah right, the only thing we took a wrong turn along the way no water fall.

But as many times when you take a wrong turn you get to see some interesting things along the way.

We did press on to see the falls.
Oh, along the way we met a man "Chang" and his wife coming up the mountain from the falls.
He said it was hard to climb the mountains at 67 and asked how old I was which I said 81 and as I always add two heart attacks.
Somehow he thought that was something and asked I would take a picture with him which his wife did so.

Sherry and I were much wore out for the rest of the day.

Nancy, Sherry and Myself enjoyed the six nights in the three different campgrounds in the Shenandoah National Forest and the Skyline Drive but, could not believe we did not see a bear this trip.

Last night we arrived in Charles Town, West Virginia and spent the night in the parking space of the Hollywood Casino with a couple of motor homes and truckers.

This a free parking lot for the overnighters and we did this last year also and no we did not go in the casino. 

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.   



 



 

Skyline Drive

Sunday we left Stony Fork Campground to get on I-81 and head North once again.

I found out again why I like to stay off the interstate highways and drive the two lane roads.  The highway was so crowded with trucks and cars in such a hurry but at one point we slowed down to 20 mph for six miles while the highway patrol cars lead us through a construction zone.

This is what was behind us and just as many before us.

The first rest area was so crowded that the cars and trucks where backed out on the interstate.
So I had to go pasted that one and pull in the second one that had room and it felt good to get out and walk a little.

At times there might be a little history lesson at a rest area.

 

I drove all the way to Waynesboro, because I was wanting a early star getting on the Skyline Drive where I could take my time and enjoy at a slow pace.

We had a nice quite free place to stop for the night.

Yesterday morning we woke up and had an early start of the day.

 

It was a short drive of 8 miles when we were pulling off the main

road to inter the Shenandoah National Park and unto the Skyline Drive.

 

 

 

 

Soon we were at the ranger booth with Ranger Ken and after showing him my Golden Age Passport and driver license for ID we were all set to enter.
But not so fast my friends, I had to talk with the ranger a bit before leaving.  I asked about if the bears were plentiful this year and he told me we should see many bears because the count on them were up this year.

A short distance into the park we saw the Doe with her two Yearlings.

Our first pullout and reading the information stand that was there.

Skyline Drive is 105 miles long with 95 pull outs along the way.

We could only get a fair view because it was hazy yesterday.

Nancy and I did take time to pose for Sherry.

We got a camp site at the Loft Mountain Campground.  This is  camping spot only but they have a dump station with water and a shower house that you have to pay to take a shower.

We had a nice cool night to sleep here on the mountain top with the window open above our heads.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

 

 

 

 

 

Princeton, West Virginia for a visit

Yesterday after we got ready we made the 30 mile drive in the car to visit Nancy's sister Callie.
This is the first time that we have did it this way, we usually are in the motorhome.

But we are taking a different route this year going North on I-81 to do the Skyline drive through the  Shenandoah National Park.

We arrived at Callie's house within the hour and sit on her patio visiting for an hour or so before deciding where we would go to eat.

So it was off to Ryan's Buffet to eat.  But I think we must have talked as much as we ate.
After our meal (Thank you Callie) it was back to the patio for more visiting.

Yeah, there was a lot of talking after all we had a year of catching up to do since our last visit.

As the evening was getting late we had to leave and also we needed to do a little shopping at the Kroger's for things we needed.  

Today we will be going North on our journey heading for the drive on the Skyline Drive which will start tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.  

Wytheville, Virginia

We are now in the Stony Fork Campground which is in the Jefferson National Forest.
It is close to seven miles North of Wytheville Virginia. 

There are two ways which you can get to the location, either by route 52 or you can take I-77.

I prefer route 52 as it take you the seven mile through beautiful rolling hills and farm country.

I like to see the fresh cut hay rolled you and it looks like this year they may cut a couple of cuts on it.

Coming back home today from getting a haircut I could see there was rain on the mountain in the background, where we are in the campground at the base of it.

We did get a good campsite in which we have electric (30 amp) and water.
Also we have a good cell phone signal (ATT) and internet signal.

They have this warning posted on the shower houses.  We have not seen any bears in the years we have been coming here, but they do have them roam through at times.

We will be staying here for four days to visit Nancy's sister Callie that lives in Princeton, West Virginia 30 miles North.

Thanks for stopping and have a great day. 

Statesville, North Carolinia

Well the visit with Nancy's brother Don and his wife Linda was very good and long over due.

Don is a very good cook so he cooked up a chicken and steak stir-fry for us and sure enough it was a very good and satisfying meal.

Here is Nancy and "little" brother enjoying each other's company during our visit.

It sure was good to see Don and Linda once again after tooo many years have gone by and the visit as always was to short of time.

We left the Springwood RV Park yesterday and drove all day with a rainy nasty day.
We stopped early so we could have a late afternoon breakfast and what better place than Cracker Barrel for that meal.
Nancy was in need  of a couple of medications filled so we also went to the Walgreens to so.
With Walmart in the same area why not do a little grocery shopping.

By that time and with a rainy day I just called it a day.

We spent the night at the Home Depot after asking permission to do so.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Simpsonville, South Carolina

We were on the move again yesterday leaving Parson's Mountain Lake and going north.

We were so in the boonies that there was no internet, cell phone or tv and needless to say Nancy and Sherry didn't enjoy that very much.

We are now in Simpsonville, South Carolina to visit Nancy's brother which we have not seen in a few years.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

Moving again

Yesterday was a getting ready to move day.  Yes today we move out after eight very nice days here by J. Strom Thurmond Lake. 
This is one of our usual stopping places on our way north where we will be going to visit family.

Today I will be getting the rest of the things ready by loading up the grill,  chairs cleaning the windshield "if it doesn't start rain".
Yes after all the sunny days we have a forecast of rain today.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

A little work and a lot of relaxing

We stayed home yesterday after running around the day before.

My day started with the usual big Saturday breakfast.  This one I had two eggs, potatoes with gravy, Hungarian Hot Peppers, bacon and sausage, tomato, biscuit and coffee to wash it all down.

I needed to drain the tanks and when they are full its a little rough to do.
I only have a 10 gallon tank because anything larger will not fit in the outside bay.  I've tried larger ones through the years but had to attach it to the roof ladder and that just did not look good to me.
So yesterday it was a six tank day before I was finished.

After the tanks where emptied it was time to relax and we did that by watching the boaters and kayaks going up and down the lake.

Of course at the end of the day you got to have a sunset photo.  But you can't get a very good one between the trees.

So you got to go down the waters edge to get a better view.

Another good day we had at the lake.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.