“Wild and Wonderful” West Virginia?

**Disclaimer: I had no idea Rob had already posted about our day when I wrote this, so just ignore mine!*

Jill's Journal: We left Cave City yesterday morning with no idea how far east we’d make it. The answer turned out to be 370 miles, a far cry from the old days, pre-kids and pre-fifth wheel, when a good day of driving on a road trip was easily twice that. But as Rob put it last night, we have a “lot of baggage” now and we were very pleased to get as far as we did. Especially in West Virginia…

Billed as “wild and wonderful,” we instead found West Virginia to be heavily wooded and pretty wicked. Rob and I had spent a weekend in Charleston once before and enjoyed it, but it was long before things like campgrounds became important to us. Or mountains with pulling such a big load. Rob’s truck dropped an injector in/near/around the Alleghany Mountains (or maybe the Appalachians or maybe just really big hills – we’re not even sure where we are!!) and that’s going to be an expensive fix.

The campgrounds here are few and far between and the ones that do exist can’t fit decent-sized fifth wheels. And then there’s those that don’t exist…such as the one we found in a campground guide in Beckley. No one answered the phone there, but it was after 6pm on a Saturday, so we decided to just show up and take our chances because we couldn’t find anything else. We followed the directions to a tee, found a new sports complex in its place, and us down a narrow dead-end road. This is a big problem with a large rig!! It was getting dark at this point and Rob could either back up for over half a mile or try and swing around off the road. He chose to swing around, couldn’t see part of a gate sticking out in the dark, and definitely made contact with the rear bumper of the fifth wheel. We have suffered our first casualty, luckily just cosmetic and minor in the scheme of the things. It will be a big reminder of this state, which right now ranks as our least favorite! It was a rough day.

A much-longer story heavily abbreviated, we spent the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot! I never thought those words would come out of my mouth, but there you have it. Wal-Marts are known to be RV-friendly and before the night was over, three more fifth wheels/travel trailers joined us, as did a semi.

And we learned yet another important lesson today: we can’t live by the seat of our pants quite as much as we thought with kids and a fifth wheel! We absolutely have to have a plan. So, before leaving this morning, we’ve already booked our spot for tonight and the rest of the week. Destination: Richmond, Virginia, approximately 250 miles away. It’s a big enough city that hopefully we can get the truck fixed with no problem…now just to nurse it along that far!

Confession

Jill's Journal: We have no idea where we’re going on Saturday when our time here is up! Absolutely no clue. We have reservations on Assateague Island on the coast of Maryland in a week – these are the reservations we had to make a year ago to get a spot – but it’s a long way from Cave City, Kentucky, to Assateague Island, Maryland. Over 800 miles, to be exact. Our plan wasn’t to drive a long distance at any point during this trip, but it seems we’ll have to make an exception.

I think we’ll need to pull out a map in the next couple of days and pick a town/city/area for next week. The only certainty is that it will be somewhere between here and the coast of Maryland. We’re leaning toward doing one long drive this weekend, in the range of 600 miles, so that we can be a lot closer to Assateague and our original plans of not driving more than 100-200 miles each weekend when we move. It’s kind of fun to think about where we might end up!

Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park

Jill's Journal: We said farewell to our luxuries at Cave Country RV Campground and went back to camping reality, moving just about two miles up the street to Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park Camp. The girls have no idea who Yogi Bear is, but they are enamored at every turn – pools, waterslides, miniature golf, a duck pond, and more. It’s also absolutely packed with people here, particularly youth groups, and the pool today had to have exceeded its maximum occupancy rate.

Highlight of the day: a 300-foot waterslide. Erika had no fear and happily went time and again. Madelyn hesitated, but when she saw Erika come down with a smile on her face (and not drown), she decided to take the plunge too. She LOVED it and was pretty proud of herself for being such a big kid! A father of another 4-year-old asked me her age and pointed out to his son that if a girl the same age could do it, he should be able to also. Poor little guy!

Victoria was dying to go, but they don’t let a parent ride with a child and I couldn’t send her by herself with only a lifeguard to catch her on the other end (or wait at the bottom and trust that she go). I explained carefully to her that we had to wait for her Daddy to join us on the slide in a day or two and then she could go all she wanted. Thank goodness she agreed to be patient and wait…she’s our volatile one and normally has quite the attitude if she isn’t able to keep up with her sisters! She must be growing up too; patience is a big thing to learn.

Hillbilly Disneyland

Jill's Journal: We headed south out of Bardstown to our destination for the week: Cave City, Kentucky. This place is hilarious! I swear, the only way I can describe it is the hillbilly equivalent of Disneyland. I had no idea. It’s campy and goofy and oh, so much fun. As we drove down the street to our campground, the girls were treated to the sight of everything from dinosaurs to a knight in armor to wigwam teepees to a giant chicken statue to live goats being chased down the street by locals. Names like “Redneck Golf,” “Guntown Mountain,” and “Hillbilly Hound Fun Park” leapt out at us.

With such campy things just waiting to be explored, the girls were highly disappointed at our choice of campground. But alas, Cave Country RV Campground is the place that actually had an opening on the Fourth of July! The girls don’t understand such things yet. :) We’re in what looks like a relatively new park – it’s all flat with only small trees, very unusual for Kentucky. It could not be more different from our Bardstown campsite. There’s plenty of space between campsites and the sort of amenities I get excited about: flat ground (I’ll never again take it for granted!), full hook-ups (which means I can catch up on laundry!), and wireless internet. Even though the campground doesn’t have a lot of personality, it feels like great luxury (and at a very, very good price). There’s even cable t.v. service! I don’t know how to work our television yet, but I promised the girls they could get a huge treat and watch cartoons in the morning. Somehow that didn’t take the sting out of seeing the campground we’ll stay at in three days (a Yogi Bear Jellystone Park kid camping mecca). Oh well, they’ll get over it eventually. :)