Made it home in the early afternoon on Wed. Nice easy drive, except for the lousy signage in Albany area. Missed 2 fuel stops for lack of signs. Found a third one with a pump that would have run faster if I was pumping by hand.
The ground is nice and firm, no trouble getting the camper parked.
That’s it for this year!
Our last night on the road! How can it be? 14 weeks gone like that.
Today was overcast and occasionally rainy. We even had a little bit of snow in the air! It didn’t stick to anything at 36 degrees, we just saw the flakes flying around. Didn’t have to put the wipers on more than half speed, so it wasn’t bad at all. But the warmest we saw was 44.
Turns out that this museum is closed on Tuesday. So we are just parked in the yard. I was looking forward to seeing the museum! But we walked the nature trails they have around the site.
The tree farm offers a nice flat space in the parking lot with a good view of the ridge lines around us. We’re no longer used to ridge lines!
Following Springtime in reverse as we make our way north is always interesting. From fully leafed out trees in NC to fresh spring green small new leaf in Virginia to just breaking bud and new flowering trees in PA we are seeing all the variations each just a day apart. It’s going back in time each day. Along with that is the reversal of temperature. Today we are not wearing shorts and T-shirts. First day of that in weeks. And of course, we notice that we’ll get a week of rain shortly after arriving home. Vermont welcoming us.
This farm offers fresh free-range eggs, so we got a dozen, and their own craft beer, so we got a mixed 4-pack. Along with previous beer souvenirs we should have some interesting evenings at cow camp.
The church across the main road plays bells every half hour. Nice to listen to now. I don’t know if it runs all night.
As we crossed the Potomac River from Virginia into Maryland it was 11:59 and one mile into MD the radio station played the National Anthem. We thought that was pretty good timing as we had just left the Confederacy, where we had been since March 21.
We have a HH for tomorrow night at the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave NY.
Another nice driving day! Rain in the forecast. Looks right now like we should be home in 3 days. A night in PA and a night in NY should do it. We have a HH at TLC Tree Farm in Higgins PA (just north of Harrisburg) for tomorrow night. Need more research for Tuesday night.
This is a nice winery. We did the tasting with 9 wines and we liked them all! First time for that with so many. Bought one to take home.
We are camped in a big meadow across from the house & winery buildings. Very quiet. If the clouds hold off it should be a great dark sky location. Last night was excellent. It had been a few days since our last dark sky and when I looked up and saw how far the stars had moved it showed me how far we have moved; because the stars have not moved! Orion was high in the sky just a few days ago and now he’s falling over backwards.
Skye introduced us to another couple who live near here and RV. They didn’t know about Harvest Host so we talked for a while.
I went out for fuel and milk since it is easier in many places to fuel without the camper attached. Nice scenic drive around rural Virginia! I got a couple pictures.
Turns out this is not a great dark sky place, too close to Richmond, Fredericksburg and DC.
Short 135 mile drive over here on a bright sunny day. We’re parked in a clover meadow on the “back 40” of this fruit &vegetable Harvest Host farm. Skye had a nice swim in one of the ponds, we walked down to the Tar River, bought some goodies in the farm market and had some ice cream. They also promote a local farm to table restaurant nearby. We’ll try it out in a bit.
Rustic Roots farm to table is excellent!
Woke up to plenty of rain this morning. So the first st thing I did was go up to New Bern for propane. Had a hard time finding the Suburban Propane store. Because they had moved 20 miles and there wasn’t any sign. Internet search is so much fun! Found another place across the street. Still took an hour.
Met up with Dave & Gale before noon. We all went down to Morehead City where Dave wanted to check out some cable for the sailboat. Then over to Beaufort to amble around town. It had stopped raining by then. Very nice town! We stopped by the NC Maritime Museum boat shop where they were working on some wooden boats. The museum has three locations and this shop does all the repair and maintenance on all the boats. Then a tour of the museum itself. Many exhibits on the seafaring history of NC, including the pirates!
Back at D&G’s camp for some happy hour & supper. Got back to our camp after dark.
Yet another nice sunny day in the upper 70s. We started with another walk on the beach at Emerald Isle. Then packed up to head to Havalock, NC. That was only about an hour away. We hadn’t been able to get more time at Cedar Point, and Dave & Gale had reservations at Pelican Point campground on the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. He is retired Coast Guard so they can camp on base. Their sailboat is also at the marina there.
After getting settled at camp we met up with Dave & Gale, went to their camp and out to the boat. We hadn’t seen the boat in a long time, but remember Dave building it in Jonesville.
Then out to El Patron restaurant for some good Mexican food.
It’s supposed to rain some tomorrow; we’ll get together with them again and figure out what we want to do. We have one more night here, they are here until Sunday. It’s a nice camp, not many frills and no hookups, but we really don't need anything.
Beautiful day! Sunny and comfortable. We all went for a walk on the beach for a couple hours this morning. Skye went wading in the surf, she’s never seen so much water! We didn’t let her swim, there was a yellow caution flag out indicating some slight rip tide. Plus we were in Dave’s truck and we didn’t really think he wanted a soaked salty dog in the back seat. We didn’t know when or where we’d find a fresh water source to get the salt out. She was more interested in the shore birds than swimming anyway.
Back to camp for lunch and then a bike ride for about 3 hours, Carlene measured it at 10.6 miles. It was on a nice bike path in Emerald Isle. It included a stop at the Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier on Emerald Isle Beach. That’s a 1000’ long pier used for fishing and some people like us who just wanted to check out the view.
And a stop at the DQ!
Dave built a small fire this evening. I’m writing this in front of that fire.
Got up to a foggy morning on the lake. It had cleared by the time we left.
Pleasant drive over to Cedar Point Campground in the Croatian National Forest, Swansboro NC. Nice sunny day in the upper 60s. Met Dave & Gale here in the early afternoon, they are old friends from Jonesville who now live in NC. We usually find a place to camp together on these trips. It may be our third time in this camp. We have a double site with them, so their trailer is a dozen feet away.
After a very good low country boil supper we had a walk down to the water. We didn’t let Skye get wet but she did have her first taste of salt water. She wasn’t impressed. She was more interested n the mud flats since the tide was out. I managed to keep her out of that too.
We’re talking about a bike ride tomorrow.
