Friday 28th October – Journey through the mountains

Our next quest was to find a campsite, heading inland away from the expensive city ones that also wouldn’t charge us extra just because it was the weekend.  Bingo - We found a PA site called Glen Maury Park in Buena Vista, Virginia to the South West of Washington.  It wasn’t too much of a drive so we had time to deal with some mundane necessities – Si had his first US haircut and I went to stock up the groceries for the week.

The drive took in some beautiful scenery.  We crossed the Appalachian trail and there were some fantastic mountain views as we drove through the George Washington National Forest.  It was Harvey’s most challenging ordeal to date making it up some of the inclines but at least going at a slower speed means you have more time to appreciate the views!

The weather was also being kind to us.  We arrived at Buena Vista RV Park about 440pm to brilliant blue skies; it was time to break out the Barbecue for the first time!  We had so much space to ourselves on the huge field, these pictures make it look like we were the only ones there.  And all for less than $20 a night! 

Lovely sunset on our first night

We paid for three nights up front to keep us housed until Monday.  This would do nicely.  It was lovely to be able to sit outside and enjoy our outdoor purchases for the first time – the folding chairs came out, the picnic table, the playing cards, the wireless music speaker and, even more importantly, the wine all made an appearance.  But with it, the realisation that this was probably quite a standard Friday night for us going forward.  Not too shabby you might say?  But at the same time; the confirmation that this trip was not going to be lots of crazy nights out in bars and restaurants surrounded by other people.  It was just the two of us, on a budget, self-catering, though this was made easier as we’d found a reasonable red wine that we both quite liked. As such, we bought a box of it to save cash!  Plus, the vast majority of campsites (especially our cheaper friends) were out in the sticks, nowhere near the night-life.  To have a booze-filled night out would consist of either driving Harvey into a City and having to find parking, meaning that one of us would have to be designated driver (i.e. me), or having to pay a large cab bill.  Just not feasible on a budget.  But this is a reasonable compromise for the road trip of a lifetime, I reckon!  We are also going to bed and waking up much earlier than at home due to the daylight hours and the fact that, by 10pm you’ve been sitting out playing cards and listening to music for hours, so you may as well!  We do have a television on Harvey with an extendable aerial on the roof but the signal is very touch and go, limiting us to one or two channels at best.  So, it’s pot luck when you arrive at a site whether you can get any TV channels and then totally random what you find is on!

So, in conclusion I’m not sure that this trip is going to do either of our rock ‘n roll reputations much good!