Jill's Journal: It was a long, slow trip, made slower by mountains and even slower by an overturned eighteen-wheeler in front of us (the fellow cars also at a complete stand-still for more than an hour on the interstate were beginning to eye us with visions of bathrooms and food gleaming in their eyes)…but we made it! We gave a little whoop of joy (okay, in the interest of full disclosure: a big whoop of joy) when we crossed the border out of West Virginia and into Virginia. And before long, the breathtaking Shenandoah Valley stretched out below us. I could look at that every day of my life and not get sick of it. Just beautiful.
We finally limped into our campsite near Ashland, Virginia (apparently also called North Richmond) after dinnertime. We were tired, we were hungry, and we still had to set up. This is not our usual m.o., but we survived. After the girls were fed, bathed, and put to bed, Rob and I breathed a big sigh of relief. Those 620ish miles felt a heck of a lot longer than that!! We’re happy to finally be here.
There will be time enough to lick our West Virginia wounds this week. In the meantime, we’re going to have a quiet day today. Four of the five of us seem to have exited West Virginia with a slight cold (adding insult to injury!) and we’re all ready for a little downtime. Our campground this week is nothing fancy, but it has lovely, tall trees and a pool. It’ll do just fine.
Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label West Virginia. Show all posts
Monday, July 12, 2010
Sunday, July 11, 2010
“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!
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!
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