For the winter, we stored the Dutch Star in the motorhome Taj Mahal that my brother Keith built on his property. He lets us keep it in there to keep his Tiffin Allegro Bus company. It’s large, weatherproof, and heated, but Keith and I still decided to winterize the rigs in case a power outage took out the heat for an extended time – the consequences of frozen plumbing in a motorhome are catastrophic. Winterizing involves putting RV antifreeze in all the water piping and appliances (dishwasher, washing machine, and refrigerator lines). It takes about five or six gallons to do a motorhome. The antifreeze is nontoxic, but that doesn’t mean that it is pleasant. It has a bit of an odor, and will stain sinks, showers, etc., if it is left in contact with them. As it turned out, the power stayed on all winter, so winterizing wasn’t really necessary, but better safe than sorry.
Keith and Rene, Ray and Terry, and Therese and I arranged for a late April camping excursion to Virginia and North Carolina. Keith and Rene have the aforementioned 38’ Tiffin Allegro Bus that they recently acquired (a few months before we got the Dutch Star), and Ray and Terry recently bought a 24’ Leisure Travel Van Unity model. Our plan was to go near the end of April, when the weather (particularly further south than Pennsylvania) would already be well into Spring, but before there would be any crowds to deal with. (Spoiler – the second part worked, but it wasn’t as warm as hoped). Our departure date was Sunday April 22, so Therese and I retrieved the motorhome from Keith’s on Saturday to get it set up. De-winterizing consists of attempting to rinse out as much of the antifreeze as possible – running all the faucets, putting the dishwasher and washing machine through a cycle, getting the icemaker to make ice cubes to toss out, etc. It’s not difficult but takes some time. It is difficult to completely rid the unit of the antifreeze, and it definitely makes the water taste bad until it is all gone. We put in some clothes and food and then we were ready to go.
On Sunday morning we set out to marshal the convoy. We started from our house with the Dutch Star’s odometer reading 11,369 miles. We were supposed to meet at Keith’s driveway at 12:30, but the Jeep Grand Cherokee we tow didn’t feel like behaving correctly. It has air-adjustable suspension height, which is supposed to be set for “Normal” when towing. In fooling around with it, it decided to set itself to “Offroad” setting, which lifts it about 3 inches from Normal. After trying everything to get it to go back to Normal, I finally gave up and towed it at that setting, but the delay caused us to be 15 minutes late getting on the road.
The actual trip was pretty easy – we headed west on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Carlisle, and from there took Interstate 81 south through Maryland (for about 10 miles), West Virginia (also about 10 miles) and then into Virginia. We arrived at the campground (Endless Caverns RV Resort) at about 4:00 with the odometer reading 11,614. Endless Caverns turned out to be a good pick – it is one of the nicest campgrounds we have been to. The campsites are all large, and they are in real woods. This has been a cold spring on the East Coast, and I think that has kept the trees from leafing out as early as they normally would. When we arrived on Sunday, there was only the hint of leaves, but every day the woods were greener and nicer.
We had reserved three adjacent campsites at the very end of the road in the park, which also turned out to be a good move. We set up camp. Ray had an auxiliary tent-like contraption called a “Clam” that was pretty cool – Keith and I just put out our chairs.
At first there were some annoying bugs, but they gave up after a while and left us alone (perhaps influenced by Rene’s declaration of chemical warfare). Sunday evening was very nice – temperature in the low 60’s or high 50’s, and we all had dinner at our campsite, followed by a campfire (firewood was available for sale at the camp office six dollars a bundle, which worked out to approximately $1/pound).
On Monday, we got off to a slow start – camping and taking a walk around the RV park.
And then finally going down to the campground office for the $15 Endless Cavern tour that started at noon.
The cavern was discovered in the 1800’s and has been a commercial operation since the early 1900’s, starting with candlelight tours until the ’20s, when they ran wiring and lit it up. While not quite “endless”, it was a pretty substantial tour – a mile of walking over about and hour and 15 minutes.
The cave isn’t quite as pristine as some we have seen – when they first opened it up, visitors were encouraged to write their names on one of the stalactite formations and to take souvenirs – but it looks like they are now doing a better job preserving it. Still, you have to wonder about some previous generations of humans – in what alternate universe was it a good idea to write on and chip away a resource that it obviously took millions of years to form?
Certainly, preserving a cave is a bit of a balancing act – lighting it risks causing algae to grow (which ordinarily wouldn’t have a chance in the completely dark environment), but unless it’s lit up, nobody could enjoy it. There were some pretty cool formations, and in once place you could see the underground stream (about 40 feet below the vantage point) that must have carved the cavern in the first place.
Monday’s dinner was at Ray’s campsite – a delicious boneless pork chop cooked over his small charcoal grill. The weather held out for a while, but it started to rain before we could have another campfire.
On Tuesday, steady rain continued, so we decided to try an indoor activity – the Virginia Museum of the Civil War, which is at the New Market Battlefield State Historical Park. The museum was mostly dedicated to describing the New Market battle, emphasizing the role played by the Virginia Military Institute’s cadets in what became know as the Battle of Lost Shoes, so named because the ground was muddy from days of rain, and as the VMI cadets charged across the battlefield, their shoes got stuck and were left behind.
The museum also had some interesting information about the start of the Civil War and quite a bit about the weapons used. At the very beginning of the war, the South captured a Northern armory and made of with many finished and partially finished rifles.
That was crucially important because the North was far more industrialized. After the stock of seized firearms was exhausted, the North’s advantages in numbers of soldiers and factory capacity eventually won out. To hear it told from the Virginia Museum of the Civil War Museum, the military leadership of the South was superior, and the heroics of their soldiers carried many of the early battles (including the New Market Battle).
In addition to the displays, there was a 30-minute movie about the New Market battle, which was well done. The Museum is attractive and modern, with a nice theatre for the movie. It is surrounded by the State Park, which features a number of short walks that take you to historic buildings from the war era. Unfortunately, we didn’t visit any of them because of the persistent precipitation.
We elected to eat dinner at a local Southern restaurant (appropriately named Southern Kitchen). Plentiful fried chicken and other local fare was provided. They even had liver, one of Keith’s favorites. Nobody with half a brain likes liver. The waitress seemed surprised that anyone would order it, and nobody wanted to sit near Keith due to the distasteful smell of the liver.
The rain continued after dinner, so we were again unable to have a campfire. Since we were leaving the next day, we had to abandon nearly half of the $12 worth of firewood we had purchased.
The weather on Wednesday was better, and we set off for our next stop, departing at 9:15. Right before getting back on Interstate 81, we stopped at a Liberty gas station/truck stop to fill up all three of the rigs, then we headed south.
Unfortunately, we ran into a huge traffic disaster only about 50 miles down the road at Harrisonburg. There had apparently been a tractor trailer accident, closing all Southbound lanes. We crawled along a few miles to where they diverted everyone off the road, then crawled some more through Harrisonburg until we finally got back on the highway two hours later. That was the worst traffic snarl we had been in in all our travels in the Dutch Star, so we can probably count ourselves lucky. Our finely planned schedule was thrown off, but we bravely soldiered on.
Most of the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful – Interstate 81 to Interstate 77 to Interstate 40 to Marion NC, but the last five or ten miles of the trip was on some pretty narrow and winding roads, past a sign that said “Trucks not recommended”. As we pulled into Mountain Stream RV Park, the odometer read 11,969, for a total of 355 miles. If possible, Mountain Stream RV Park was even nicer than Endless Caverns. Our sites were all in a row, and all right next to the honest-to-goodness mountain stream, which was running vigorously from the spring rains. It was a much smaller campground than Endless Caverns, about 25 sites or so, but the owners lived right onsite and kept everything very nicely tended.
Rene hosted us for dinner Wednesday night, with a delicious shrimp dish, with Klondike bars for dessert. Unfortunately a lack of wood prevented pyromania.
On Thursday, we decided to take a hike from the Blue Ridge Parkway, which was only about five miles from our campground. Using the “All Trails” app, we picked an approximately 4-mile hike to Crabtree Falls. The trailhead was at the Crabtree Meadows Campground (part of the Pisgah National Forest), about 10 miles north on the parkway. The campground wasn’t open for the season yet, and the trees at that elevation (about 3500 feet) were not yet leafed out. The temperature at the start of the hike was about 55 degrees, warming slightly as the day went on.
The hike was very scenic, with some pretty steep parts on the way out. Rene was a bit under the weather with back pain, but she managed to keep up. Luckily, the return part of the loop trail wasn’t as steep.
The falls are about 70 foot high, and there was a lot of water from recent rains. The trail was uncrowded, and well maintained.
After getting back to the parking area, we ate lunch at one of the picnic tables near the Crabtree Falls campground.
Since we had some more times, we drove further on the famous Blue Ridge Parkway, stopping at a number of the scenic vistas. There was comparatively few other vehicles on the road, but a few were motorcycles flying by at high speed – one of the things the road is known for is as a fun workout for sports cars and motorcycles.
That evening, we had a pot luck dinner. Therese contributed some chicken enchiladas and some of the fixings for burritos, while Rene brought over beans and corn and fajitas. It was a little rainy, so we ate in the Dutch Star, which is pretty cozy for six for dinner.
On Friday morning, Ray and Terry left first, since they had decided to drive all the way back to Pennsylvania since Ray was playing with his band (Voodoo Deville) on Saturday afternoon. Keith and Rene left next, headed for a campground back on Route 81 not far from Endless Caverns. Therese and I were headed to our house on Lake Keowee in South Carolina, only about 130 miles away, so we didn’t actually leave until about 10:00.