We were up at 6 am for breakfast and then to finish tearing everything down so we could hit the road. Stopped to dump our tanks, flush the black tank and fill our fresh water tank since we have no water at the next stop.
It was 8:06 am by the time we left French Creek State Park Campground in Elverson, PA for our 6 hour drive to Sherando Lake Recreation Area in Lyndhurst, Virginia. We arrived at 2:00 pm and found a few stink bugs as we began setting up because I forgot to lay out some dryer sheets. I ended up disposing of them as inhumanely as possible.
Our site was very nice. Pea gravel, spacious with trees to the side of us but none over us. We’re a few sites away from the site we were at last year, but we both liked this site better.
After a good night’s sleep we set out Wednesday morning to hike to the top of Lookout Rock in the park following a good breakfast that Cindy made. We got about three-fourths of the way up it, but it was just too steep for the three of us to make it all the way to the top. On the photo of the map of the park you can see where we hiked using the yellow line. We just had no idea that much of the trail was straight up and decided to cut our losses and hike back down the way we came. We were warned by the lady at check-in that snakes, rattlers and cottonmouths, were out and about so I carried a hiking stick with us. We only saw a black king snake during our hike but it still scared Cindy when it slithered out in front of her.
We returned to Nomad and rested a bit. Though we were both aching and sore, we drove into nearby Waynesboro so Cindy could visit a stitch shop. Then we had lunch at a little cafe called Stella, Bella & Lucy’s, did some grocery shopping and headed back to the campsite.
It’s beginning to look a lot more like Fall as we travel south. More color, cooler temperatures and leaves dousing us in showers as the trees let go of them. I don’t know why, but watching them flutter so gracefully through the air is extremely enjoyable. We used to love sitting on the deck of our cabin in North Carolina and watching the leaves as they made their way through the air to the ground.
Thursday was mostly a day of relaxation, other than walking Bella around the park.
Friday I drove into Staunton to have our weight distribution hitch (WDH) looked at. When we left French Creek the hitch looked like it had dropped and that something inside had broken, so I was very careful and nervous driving down to Sherando Lake. I definitely did not want to pull the trailer any farther without having someone look at it. First I stopped by a trailer specialty place and he confirmed the WDH was pretty much toast, but he could not get parts for it until after we would have left town.
Then I stopped by an RV dealership and their service guy agreed it was pretty shot. We would need to replace it and they don’t carry the kind of WDH we have and he said it was for reasons like this. Apparently they’re just not very high quality. I’m not surprised since the dealer we bought Nomad from “included” it at no charge.
So, we’re going to upgrade to the Blue Ox brand, which I’ve seen advertised for years in RV magazines and talked about in Facebook groups. It’s expensive, but it also has a lifetime warranty. Rather than go back and tear our site down and bring Nomad in over the weekend, I scheduled it to be installed on the following Tuesday morning when we leave Sherando Lake for our next stop.
Later that evening we met our friends Heather and Richard in downtown Waynesboro for dinner at a place they recommended. But first, we stopped next door at a delightful shop full of magickal things. Cindy bought several things including rose petals to scatter at the tree her mother loved on Mount Pisgah and where her ashes were scattered. We’ll be camping there in a couple of weeks.
Then it was dinner at the River Burger Bar. Such a delightful time, as it always is with Richard and Heather and I’m glad they humor us by meeting up when we’re in the area. For dessert we drove over to Kline’s Ice Cream where they make a limited amount of handmade flavors every day before they open. It was delicious and made all the better by getting to see Heather’s daughter, Kym, who works there. It’s been years since we’ve seen her, so that was more of a treat than the ice cream!
Before we left to head back to the campground we followed Heather and Richard so we could drive by their home and see how the front of the house/yard was decorated for Halloween. It’s on a busy street so all we could do was slow down a bit, honk and wave, and then we were on our way back to Nomad.
I had reached out to Lippert about the white stuff leaking out of the power jack (it had gotten worse) and at first they said it might be grease leaking because it was new but when I pointed out it was over a year old and sent them a copy of the receipt, they informed me they were sending me a NEW power jack to replace it! That’s a $500 piece of equipment so all I can figure is they have a known problem and are correcting it via replacement. Either way, in about a week there will be a new power jack waiting for us in Orlando when we get there in November. I just hope ours keeps on working until we get there.
Saturday morning we awoke to rain at 3 am and it stopped around 7:30 am…but brought a cold front with it. The high that day would be 62! Cold and I don’t do well together so you’ll see a photo of me freezing even though I’m wearing one of my heavy jackets.
We drove up the road north a bit to Harrisburg and visited two places that Heather and Richard had told us about. The Shenandoah Heritage Market, which was full of fresh vegetables and many, many Amish goods like furniture, kitchen utensils and jams, jellies, etc. You could spend all day in that place alone and probably never finish going through everything. It was huge! We walked out with several bags.
But even “huger” was the Green Valley Book Fair a couple of miles away heading back to Staunton and Waynesboro. This was a three-story warehouse FILLED with books for sale at several discounts. Some were older, some were newer and some were brand new and they covered just about any subject you could imagine. They didn’t have as large a selection of Science Fiction and Tech books as I would have liked, but the amount wasn’t bad either.
Sunday was another day of relaxation and walking Bella. Went to bed with the furnace on because temps are supposed to be pretty low the next morning.
Sure enough, we awoke Monday morning to 41 degrees. Brrrr! We walked Bella around the upper lake in the morning. After lunch I did some rearranging of the tubs in the bed of Voyager. Found Cindy’s Rocky Mountain Blanket, a warm hat of hers and a jacket of mine that we had been looking for (and that I had said was NOT in the tubs). So, ooopss, my bad.
It rained between 3 pm and 7 pm, that cold wet rain that you feel down into your bones. Or at least I do. I made Texas Toast Pizza in the air fryer and Cindy made apple cobbler for dessert. Diet, what diet?
Then we packed up as many things as we could for our departure the next day because it will be a busy day. A busy day indeed.
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