Back home again!

 The last 235 miles from Ommegang Brewery to Richmond featured yet another bright sunny day.  Traffic around Albany was typical, which isn’t too bad.  Once we reached Saratoga it was just a normal drive back from many shoots at Circle K.  

We got in about 2, parked and since it’s supposed to rain tomorrow for our benefit (getting back for a whole winter of sunny days) we wanted to unload today.  I wasn’t interested in doing that in a cold rain.  There is still plenty to clean out, and clean up.  Later.  😄

Numbers?

11,178 miles on the truck.

7950 miles with the camper, no wonder we have a few issues.

I played another number game while driving, I kept count of a few odd things I saw on the side of the road.

6 deer either grazing or running across the road

43 deer carcasses

62 scorch marks, places where car fires left burn marks on the pavement.  Three even had a car, truck or trailer still in place.

5 opossum

2 skunk

1 armadillo 

Well that’s it for this year.  Our 8th trip, and still having more fun every year.  Bookmark it and be sure to come back next year!

Ready to hit the road one more time

And here we are back in Jonesville

Yeah, not summer yet, but that grass is quite green

Happy dog, back in her own Huntington River

Coltsfoot

Bloodroot

Both owners found while Skye was swimming

Cooperstown NY, final night

 This is the final night of Winter Trip ‘26

We are at the Ommegang Brewery a bit south of Cooperstown NY.  Only another 200 miles home.  We could have made it today but what’s the rush?  That’ll come tomorrow 😆

I notice that it’s supposed to be a rainy day Sunday when we want to unload the camper.  It rained off and on most of today during the drive but was a nice sunny afternoon once we arrived.  That let us take a nice walk around the frisbee golf course and sit in the sun while Skye had a great off leash run.  And she got a few ticks out there too.  

This fire department was a Harvest Host

Rainy driving.  A very rare thing this winter

Serviceberry

Jim Thorp, PA

 We took a little drive on our one-state-a-day journey.  Finished off Virginia, crossed Maryland and are camping at the Penn Forest Township Volunteer Fire Co. fire station No. 1 in Jim Thorp, PA.  

We met a couple of people here tonight   One guy is trying to start a Lions Club in town and was hoping he had found a fire dept member here when he saw my red lights.  Had to disappoint him   

Then the dept President saw my open hood and stopped to be sure we were OK   We were   I had the hood open because I was checking oil and coolant levels   I don’t think we’ll meet anyone else unless they have a call   He did tell us about a good ice cream place in the village about 5 miles away  so after supper we unhitched and went to Annie’s   Yup, it’s a good place    The a quick tour of the town   They sure build on steep hillsides around here   

True to last nights comment, we have gone back in spring time.  Many trees during the day were in “spring green” color and now we have bare trees that have not even budded out yet.

The trees are not in spring yet but it was still 90° today and we’re sitting in the shade in shorts and T Shirts.  Skye is hanging out under the camper.  She is dreaming of another lake but there isn’t any water here!

Just one more night remaining after this!  We have a HH site at the brewery near Cooperstown NY for tomorrow night.

This might be an interesting area to check out, but we are always ready to be back home by the time we get this far north.  And in January it’s too cold.  So I don’t when or if we’ll ever get around to it

 And to top it all off, we had a brief thunderstorm just now.  It lonely lasted 5 minutes.

How about a purple ambulance?

Camping at the fire dept.

Warrenton, VA

Today’s drive through upper NC and up a lot of central Virginia was very pretty.  Lots of rolling hills and well leafed trees.  I say that because in the next couple days we will going back in time as we travel north and see spring in reverse.  We already see farms fields in ever earlier stages of corn growth.  

We are just west of Washington DC, at Fauquier Stables horse farm HH.  It is a boarding stable, event host, give riding lessons.  There are a couple of houses and apartments.  Very nice pond with a small dock for sitting and viewing the geese and ducks that share the place.  So far we have seen 8 geese and 3 ducks that seem to live here.

Now, at 10:15, there is a deer behind the camper snorting at Skye, who is laying beside the camper watching it.

Bunn, NC

 We had a nice morning at camp with Dave and Gale before heading out around 11.  Skye had a swim in the brackish water of Boathouse Creek next to Cedar Point  campground  

Nice easy trip up through NC, even through Kinston!  

So we are now in a beautiful open meadow at the Vollmer Farm in Bunn NC. We were here a few years ago, very restful place.  Unfortunately they closed 15 minutes before we arrived at 2:15. We missed their homemade ice cream! 😢

They open at 7 so we’ll get some breakfast on our way out.  

Skye had another swim in the pond here.  We have a large area to walk around as much as we want.  It was 85° so we don’t want all that much.  We saw a few horses , some chickens and their apparent guard turkey.  I have not seen a guard turkey before, but this turkey hangs out with the chickens and made a warning to us as we approached. 

We went back to the camper to sit in the shade.  I did get to clean my pistols from the match.  I had just packed them in anticipation of a day like this on the way home  

And later today:

Nothing like a good back rub in the grass

Map of the property 

Fixed and made it to NC

 We got a tow this morning and arranged a repair with Hickman’s Auto in Turbeville, SC all through Good Sam Roadside Assistance.  The tow guy was here at 10:30 and we were at the shop at 11.  Turned out to be the lower radiator hose was disconnected from the radiator and drained out.  When I had the hose replaced in Phoenix they didn’t put the hose clamp in the right place so the hose just popped off.  That was 7 weeks and 4000 miles.  I could have fixed that myself t the rest area if I had been able to see it, but I would not have had any coolant to replace what was on the ground.  I was suspicious of the hose, but more of a defect than an oversight.  So all done for the cost of the coolant.  The shop only charged for the coolant, not the 10 minute fix.  It took longer to wait for the coolant to be delivered from the auto parts shop 2 miles away than anything else.  

So we were back on the road again by 12:30 and in camp before 5.  We spent a fine evening with Dave and Gale here at Cedar Point Campground in Swansboro NC.  We will have most of tomorrow morning too.  We got a Harvest Host in Bunn NC for tomorrow night so have a short dive tomorrow.  then about 4 days to home.  Hard to believe 14 weeks are almost gone.