Saturday, May 09 – Travel Day

On the road again!  Today we are heading to the Lebanon KOA leave at 830a;  64,798kDrive is 5-1/2h.  It will take longer, because, after our 14 days in Fancy Gap with access to nothing, we’re going to stop at Kroger’s to restock, then get fuel. 

Allan is not a fan of tunnels, and here we are quickly approaching one

It’s a nice drive through the mountains.       

Nice, unless of course you are a trucker who’s brakes fail!

Steep runoff ramp…       

Allan, don’t look now!   Another one!!   

We’re now in

We pass several sets of 3 crosses.               

What is the significance, my friend, Google educates me.

Slow down, we don’t want to be tipsy 

Yippy tolls, haven’t been through one in a bit.  Luckily they take the E-Z Pass transponder we have.

What’s that?  A railway bridge.         

               Woohoo !!

Another toll.  Total toll count: 3; cost $18

These purple flower trees, look like lilacs, line the highway. Hard to get a good photo, this doesn’t do it justice.

Love the lush, greenery                 

Heading into Dunbar, WV for groceries.  I thought it was close to the highway,  not so much.

Groceries bought, on the road again.  Oh good, a 2 lane highway for how many miles??

   Ohio, made it!                         

Construction, we are on the right route. 

Made it to the #KOACamping after driving through Historic Lebanon and some narrow streets.  Arrived at 430.

Longest drive to our site, the park is not that big!

This police car  isn’t singling us out. 🙂

Keep going and going

Made it!

Set up, social distancing !!                     

Dinner then a fire.  As my friend, Eva would say… Life is good!

 

Friday, May 08 day before travel day

Goodbye to Fancy Gap KOA  Recap of our 14 quarantine days.

We have the best site!  #24 So easy to social distance. I’m a little concerned about back to normal life.

This is the hay ride tractor, hopefully it will be operational again!

We arrived here on the 25th, on April 27 we look outside and see the police parked in front of Bailey.  He’s not leaving, wonder why?  Is he plating us to ensure we don’t leave before the 14th day.  Would there be a nation wide Bailey hunt if we do?  Do we ask?  We’re still in our jammies, better not.

We are missing Florida weather.  Sad when Newmarket is warmer than here.  Lebanon is our next stop.

We buy some firewood, cause by now, ya’ll know we LOVE fires.  Hum, the wood is damp so doesn’t burn well.  We’ll Amazon us an ax!  So happy when it arrives.

Allan in action  Chop, Chop

After the chop chop Allan chiseled the ice out of the freezer.  Fingers crossed it doesn’t break before we make it back.     Relax time! AKA beer time!!  When space is a premium where to you store your beer??

Before and after ax fires…

Look up                     

Lets go twigging to get some more kindling.  Who is that “Twigger” in the background??                                             Never a dull moment! Look at us getting our steps and passing time.  A different experience every day!!  Try it!!!

The owners, Angie & Dave are very  nice and helpful people who make a killer shredded pork and brisket sandwich.  Gone to quick for a photo.

There are cute statues, spinners, flags throughout the park.  Also a “find the bear flag and metal art sheep” game.

Confess, we did have a little help finding them.

Bailey’s white roof, do not get to see it often.  In fact only once before.  We were interested to hear Warren Buffet speak.  No further comment.

Good night, travel day tomorrow.  For all you travelers, we highly recommend Fancy Gap KOA!!

Saturday, Travel Day

Today’s destination Fancy Gap, VA.  It is a short, easy drive so decide to leave about 11, km 64,565.  Bye bye, Fort Mills.  The day started off sunny and warm, by the time we pull out it is starting to sprinkle.

Only a few miles to North Carolina       

There are more cars on the road then we expected

Welcome to Virginia       

Rain continues.  Good thing Allan applied the Rain.X, it makes the rain just rolls off the windshield.

It only gets better, NOT…   Fog is rolling in.

Almost miss the exit

The road into Fancy Gap KOA

Made it!

Our spot is a little uneven, a few attempts at leveling does it. So far, we’re liking it here.  Not many others here and Allan has a fire pit, unlike the last place – just make your fire anywhere.

IndyCar iRacing and snack time,any guesses what’s on top of the popcorn?

Hum, forecast not that favourable but we’ll have fun

Friday, April 24

I’m doomed to not sleep in!  Yesterday garbage bin pick up, today my iPad alarm went off at 435a.  I have never used the alarm on my iPad.

Today’s exciting day!  Aldi food delivery! We have been adding items to the order since we started it last week.  We leave here tomorrow and will be quarantined in the next camp for 14 days.  Suits us fine but don’t want to run out of stuff.  There are a few items Aldi doesn’t carry so I’ll go, with my new mask, to Publix.

I’m back in record time.  It is only a 2 minute (This is a stock photo, Allan didn’t take a photo when he met me today) we bring the buggy to Bailey then return it.                                                                   

Meet Diego our excellent Aldi shopper.

Our no contact drop off, he puts it on the picnic table.  We retrieve when he’s gone.   

We put stuff away, divided up the meat in meal size portions.  That took over an hour, we deserve it beer/wine time!

It rained most of the day yesterday streaking our windshield so Allan buffed that up.

Now walk time

We missed out on breakfast so decide to have dinner early.  I have a hankering for Chinese style beef.   My chef springs into action

I stubbed my toe, been icing it but still ouchy.  Suspect wine will cure.  Need a walk/hobble to get 1201 steps for my 10k today.

This is a new sign, were they getting complaints?  They made considerable progress since we arrived on the 18th

A few others arrived, still pretty empty.They do not appear to take social distancing very seriously.  When we arrived we called ahead to ask for “no contact” check in.  It sounded like we were the first to ask.  We now think they think we are “virused” because they haven’t put anyone next to us.   Yahoo for us!!!

Our last fire here               

Off to Fancy Gap in the morning.

Wednesday, April 22

Every day we have a job to do.  Today! Get the bugs off the front of Bailey and the windshield.

Our Amazon Prime order for masks that was supposed to arrive Sunday arrived today.  This is what 2 for $53.59 masks look like.        Allan thought I was crazy for paying so much, I did too but if it happens to save us or keeps us from eating  we may be good.

Out we go move the picnic table and begin. Some of those bugs just don’t want to go but it looks much better than when we started.

Now Windex the windshield and apply the rain.xHopefully with this application and the new wipers, we’ll we able to see next rainstorm.

Thursdays & Mondays are garbage pick up days.  Why am I sharing this information?  They come between 530 & 540AM.

This is how close the bin is to us                           

Guess what time I’ll wake up?

 

Saturday, April 18th Decision Day

We are scheduled to leave here on the 25th, where to go?   These are such nerve racking times.   We go for a walk to figure things out.

The park isn’t big, we decide to walk the subdivision  they are building. There are not many construction peeps working today.Do a 180 this is the RV park. 

Are they taking the virus seriously? No photo but I know you’ll believe me-nothing to wash up after using the port-a-potty.  But there is this, hand sanitizer on each side of the pole no where near the potty.

Productive walk, decision made, we will leave on Saturday.  States we go through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania & New York.  Many of the camps we select, are Covid-19 closed or restricted.

With camp information overload  – we decide to stay here a week longer.  We do not want to be back in Ontario until our park opens.  We can stay but only until May 01 as they are fully booked. Good for them for filling all these empty spots.

Back to the planning board, we revamp the direction instead of heading north we’ll head a bit west.  Allan likes this new plan as one of the campgrounds he wanted to go back to is Camp Turkeyville.  It is on this route. We find a resort in Fancy Gap, Virginia.  But,       OK, we’ll stay the required 14 days.  Doesn’t matter where we stay as all our time is spent around Bailey or avoiding people when we go for walks.  Saturday a new adventure begins.

TP management!  This implemented..

Happy to report, one of these rolls lasts 7-8 days in the powder room.

Yes, I was impressed.             

Today’s excitement just doesn’t stop!

Amazon delivers our new crib board.  Such a tiny one, we didn’t realize it was half a game so you go around twice. 

Think we were still on the TP high, (so many days from one roll) and not thinking 

Guess who’s silver and won our first game??

End the day with a fire, second only to a hot tub.  Wonder when hot tubing will resume?

My next Amazon purchase       

Stay safe!

Friday, April 17, 2020

Have to share our exciting day!

Bailey’s new wipers arrived yesterday, thank you Wipers123, making today,  Installation Day!

The tools!                                                   The man!

Here we go

Allan comes in, seemingly only a few minutes after I took the last photo.  “What do you need” I ask.  “All done” is the reply.

Well that was 

Just hope the next rain we’ll be able to see out the windshield.

 

April 14 & 15, 2020

This is by far, our least favourite KOA, but we’ll get used to it.  The good thing is there is, within a 2 minute walk, Gold Hill Discount Spirits and Publix  Neither one of us has been in a grocery or “spirit” store for about 5 weeks, we now have the need.

We decide to divide and conquer; Allan will do the spirit store.  He doesn’t want to wear a bandanna but as it’s good enough for Matthew McConaughey it’s a must for Allan.  Good thing we have coffee filters. He’s so cute!

             Mission Accomplished! 

Tomorrow I get to go to Publix; we’ll be out of eggs again.  I say out loud if I sniffle tomorrow it’s likely because I have a slight sniffle today.  It’s colder than we are accustomed to.

There are sites with fire rings, not ours.  We ask the dude if he could get us one.  No need, you just have a fire on the gravel.  We have some wood left over for when were stayed at the HitchinPost.  Let’s see how this goes.

Mr Squirrel stopped by!

04/15:  Eggs all gone.  My turn to suit up   

This is outside Publix; sign says seating area is closed.  They “close” it using string.                       

The shopping was a better experience than anticipated.  It wasn’t too peopley.  Most had masks, only one other had a fancy bandanna mask like mine!  People respected the social distancing.  Floors were marked where to stand and a plexi shield was at checkout.  I wondered what they looked like, now I know.

I got the eggs, some veggies, meat but NO masks, hand sanitizer, wipes.  Didn’t check the TP supply as we’re good for now.  I’ve checked Amazon several times for masks but none, before leaving for the store I looked again and they have 2 masks for 49.95.  Allan thinks I’m nuts but I want us to have masks especially for our drive home trip.

I had on jeans, turtleneck, jacket – walking back was pretty warm.  I put the stuff away, then we head out for a walk.  Allan wearing shorts.  I swapped out my turtleneck for a T-shirt.  Fortunately, it’s a small park because we were freezing           

We hightailed it back and had a snack

We are here until the 25th; we haven’t figured out our next destination yet, stay tuned.  I don’t think anything worthwhile chatting about will happen till.

We’ll  work, do the occasional trip to the food & spirit store, have multiple fires, play crib, check social media, our stocks (likely make more bad decisions, grrrr), check in with family/friends and EAT & DRINK.

Until then be safe, be positive and

 

 

 

 

Easter Monday, the 13th

Up early 530 perhaps in anticipation of today’s travel day to Charlotte, SC.  We want to get close enough to the border that we could cross in one day.  From Charlotte it would be an 11h drive.  Way longer than we’d like but doable.

We are missing Pinellas Park’s weather.  Richmond Hill, where we are, is a suburb of Savannah, it’s also of Toronto – not where we are.

Thunder and lightning storm going on, haven’t heard either in eons.

This is getting serious, not only pouring Rain so much we can’t hear the radio but our cells go off with the deafening Amber Alert.    This one is really a tornado warning.

The rain has subsided, we leave the park at 10a  km 64,158.  This is the road out

We cross into South Carolina.  A new state for us, Allan gets to update our US travel map.New signage every few miles     🙁This guy should have stayed home he rolled the car.

The tornado caused many downed trees.  Glad we didn’t come through any earlier.

Ours. or rather my, dreaded must stop for diesel fuel.  Seems truckers are immune, bless their hearts. I value each and everyone of them but I have yet to see one wearing a mask or gloves.  We are only down 1/4 tank but with these times better to fill.  Love, Love’s app – it allows Allan to select the location, the pump and activate it all from the comfort of his seat,

Out Allan goes humouring me by wearing his gloves and a bag over them

We called the KOA and asked if they have a no contact check in.  No, regular check in – are you f?<&#ing kidding me??    Guess they see the errors of their ways cause they call back and offer a no contact check in.  Call when we arrive and they will guide us to our site #72 Hello!! Are you there??     

We figured out they though we were “virus’ed” when we asked for a no contact check in.  This is where they put us and told us they were upgrading our site from a back in to a pull through. Looks nice until you see the other angleWorst site we got in all our travels so far!!

Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think???  Our last grocery order we asked for romaine lettuce, shopper communicated they were out should he sub iceberg.  Yes.  When it arrived it was cabbage not iceberg.  Tonight, we are out of all sub’ed lettuce.  He also sub’ed roma tomatoes for the vine ones I wanted. The cabbage salad tasted really good.

Anxiety, there is a grocery store a minutes walk away Publix Fort Mills, need groceries but can I do it???  I don’t want Allan to go, he can drive a sick me home – I can’t him.  Stay tuned 🙂

I should dress like this, no-one will come close, but still WISH we would have masks