One Month

Well, we've been in Virginia just a little over a month.  We're settling in nicely and getting to know the area.  We're hoping to take a couple of long day trips in a few weeks.  It's been very hot and humid and we're still adjusting.  It's strange that we're having an issue coping with the hot weather but we are.   It's been around 90 and humid and it seems like its been forever.  The shade and slight breeze helps every now and then when we're outside but the pollen is really getting to both of us these days.

Have found a doctor close.  Had my appointment last week and Sharon this week.   Lab results came back ok.  Just a slight change in my thyroid meds.  Apparently it's a little more active than it should be. 

We're learning other ways to get around so its not taking us quite as long to get there.  That could also be due to driving a little faster on the hilly, curvy roads.  So reminds us of when we used to visit Ruth & John in Kentucky.  Very similar indeed.

This past weekend we decided to do a little more exploring.  I wanted to go to Scottsville to locate the businesses near the James River.  Makes it easier to navigate our guests to the rafting and tubing on the river.   They have a ferry that operates just on the weekend.  But we drove down to see it anyway.  Been around since 1870.

This is the ferry building where you buy the tickets.  The stick in front of the building marks the various water levels.  That highest mark is from 1972.  Made us remember the flood of '93.

The James River is rather wide.   Found a park close by then drove into town to check it out.

They have some nice log homes out this way.

Scottsville is just a little over 20 miles away.  Sharon wanted to go to Carter Mountain Orchard to see the view from the top of the mountain.  On the way back, we saw Carter Mountain road and took it.  Thought it would take us up to the orchard.  Instead we found Albemarle House and Trump winery along the way. 

Albemarle House was having a private event so we couldn't go up and see it.  Took the picture from the road.

It looked like rain and was a little hazy on the way back.   We stopped for lunch at Trump Winery.  It poured.

Nice view from the winery. 

 

 

 

We found ourselves near Ash Lawn - knew where we were - and how to get up to Carter Mountain Orchard.   Interesting drive up the mountain to the orchard.  The road is used for deliveries to Michie Tavern and for the Orchard only.  Wanted to take some pics but I believe Sharon kept her eyes closed all the way up.  :)





 

 

They had just picked cherries that morning so we bought some cherries, tried their apple cider and tasted an apple called the Pink Lady.  Both of us liked it, so bought a couple.  It was hazy but they didn't get any rain that day.  They have concerts on Thursday night so we'll probably go back and check it out sometime.  A couple of pics from the deck overlooking the valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We're supposed to be getting rain for the rest of the week so we'll see.   Until next time.

 



 







Friday Afternoon

It's Friday afternoon, errands are done, Sharon's watching baseball so I decided to download the pictures from our tour of Ash Lawn - Highland yesterday.   Decided I might as well update the blog.  Scary, isn't it.  I've posted a few times all ready. 

I've decided that I need to find a different route to Walgreens and Walmart.  If you've ever been in Des Moines around rush hour then you know you want to avoid the west mix master or the 63rd street exit on I235.   There's a similar area in Charlottesville and it doesn't seem to matter what day of the week or time.  It is awful either going or coming.  You're not going to like the traffic - patience is definitely needed.   We thought we found an excellent time.  We drove in shortly after noon today and no issues.  Yay!  Should have known.   After leaving Walmart, we could travel about 2 car lengths at a time for the lights up ahead.  What normally takes about 30 minutes took us an hour.  And did I mention we watched an accident at one of the intersections we were stopped at.  One vehicle decided it was tired of making a left turn and turned right in front of a car.  Crash, Bam, Boom.  Yep, then they sat in their vehicles and yelled at each other.  So glad they decided to do it right in the middle of the intersection.  There are 5 lanes so we could just drive around them.  :)

On another note, we have had very nice weather the last couple of days.  We could open the windows and excellent sleeping weather at night.  Looks like the ac will be coming back on later today.  The sun is coming out and we're supposed to get into the 80's again.   Apparently it got hot earlier than usual this year. 

Back to the tour of yesterday.  We went to James Monroe's home and took the tour.  It's about 12 miles from the campground and yes, we had free passes for this one, too.  We drove up this road to get to the house, gardens, and lawn.  It's a modest house but they still have gardens and livestock.  When Monroe owned it there were ONLY 3500 acres and it's adjacent to Thomas Jefferson's home.  The tour guide that we had knew a lot about his life.  It was extremely interesting. 

We started our tour here at the front door of Ash Lawn.  This addition was added 20 years after Monroe built his house.  He sold his home when he retired from public service and the new owners added on this addition.  The second picture - the white part of the house is the original Monroe home with the yellow part the newer addition.   Since Monroe was solvent when he died, they still had quite a few of his original possessions including the presidential china used in the White House.  The Monroes were the first presidential family to decorate the White House and the first to have China.

It truly was amazing hearing about Monroe's life from the time he crossed the Delaware with George Washington, US Ambassador to France, Secretary of State, Secretary of War and 5th President.  There were a few other things in between also like governor of Virginia. 

A couple of pictures of the lawn, gardens, and view.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, until the next time. 



 

Michie Tavern

We're having a blast.  On Thursday, we went to Michie (pronounced Mickey) Tavern.  It's an historical site.  Used to be a stage coach stop.   They actually moved the building 17 miles when setting it up as a historical site.  The owner numbered the boards when moving it so it's the original building.  First was home to John Michie.  He was sent to the Americas from Scotland since he was caught as a rebel.  This is how it looks from the parking lot.

They still getting ready for the tourist season.  Some outside grooming and painting going on while we were there.  It's a buffet from 11:15 - 3:30.  They actually ring a dinner bell when they open the buffet for the day.  Dinner was good.  We took a tour of  the tavern and walked around checking out the shops and the other buildings before eating.  Some of the steps were very steep.

After climbing up the back steps to see the kitchen, necessary room, spring house, and well, we climbed back down through the wine cellar.  This brought us back out to the porch.   We then visited the shops.  After eating Sharon went back to the metal works place to get a peacock chime.  As soon as we get it hung, I'll try to remember to post a picture.

The metal works is in a one room family cabin that they moved to this site also.  This site was chosen to move all these buildings due to the opening up of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe's home back in the 1920's.    If you're ever in this area, this is one of the places you should stop in and see.

After walking around this place for most of the day, we decided that we would probably only do walking tours once a week.  We will be here for a few weeks.  It's a self-guided tour, except for the tavern.  Of course, we took our time but managed it in about 3 hours.  It was a very nice day.  Mostly cloudy as you can see from the pictures. 

As you can imagine, I'm not posting all of the pictures we took.  Yes, Sharon and I still take a multitude of pics.  This time between the two of us, I believe we only took about 80.  We loved the trees and the flowers.

Sharon with our docent.

Oh, I forgot to mention, this was all free to us since we are an employee of the KOA.  Nice perk, including lunch.

First Work Week

Well, we made it through our first week of working.  I definitely think we're being spoiled.  We work 4 hours a day so we take turns going in.  This pays for site and utilities for now.  Later on during the season we'll probably pick up more hours.  For now, we are really enjoying the time.

The weather did get hot all of a sudden.  We broke down and turned the ac on yesterday.  It was so enjoyable having the windows open and the breezes coming in until it got HOT!  They say it's hot and humid here in the summer so we'll see.

We've been enjoying watching the birds and sitting outside reading.  Not having anyone to the east of us is really nice.  Just a woodsy area and the pond. 

We keep meaning to take pictures with the smaller camera but . . . .

As you drive into the park, you stop here.  The office is to the left and the game room/laundry/pavilion is to the right.  This park was built in 1966 so it does have a unique type of layout as they have changed sites to accommodate the campers of today.

Here's our camper as you pull to our site.  Sorry, we didn't realize the camera was tilted until we saw the pic.  It looks like it's not level but trust me it is.  The little hill sort of throws it off.

Tomorrow, we're planning on going to Michie (pronounced Mickey) Tavern for lunch and tour of the grounds.  Friday, we'll probably do a little more exploring in Charlottesville - stopping at a Walmart and who know what else we'll find.

Back to the campground.  The following is one of the tenting areas.

There are levels as you go on up the hill.  Keep going straight and this road will take you back to the pool and another pavilion area.

The dogwoods were in bloom when we arrived.

We're not sure what this flowering tree/bush is.  But it was very pretty.

 Until the next time.

Charlottesville

On Monday we made our first trip into Charlottesville.  We needed to run a few errands.  We took a different route than one we drove into the campground. 

The road to Route 29 looks like this:

We thought we had figured out where the stores were that we wanted.  Wrong!  We must have drove up and down a certain section of 29 several times before we finally stopped and looked it up on my phone.  Duh!  We were just a few miles away.  I can say though that we made it by the speed gun at least 3 times.  I think the sheriff decided to move just so he wouldn't have to see us go by again.  Ha Ha!

We stopped at Wild Birds Unlimited to pick up some seed cylinders and Lowe's for a geranium and some small rock for our flag bucket.  I dumped out the bucket before leaving Springfield.  Looked like spiders and small insects were in the rocks.  Didn't want to take a chance.

Here's a pic of the flag bucket and geranium.

The bird feeding station looks great.

Just heard from Ashley.  They have decided that we will work 4 hours a day Saturday through Wednesday from 11 - 3 or noon - 4pm.  We decided that Sharon will work on Saturday and Monday and I will work on Sunday and Tuesday.  We'll switch off every other Wednesday.  So far it doesn't look like it will be too tough of work.  We will be in the office selling store items, taking reservations and registering guests as they arrive.  The weekend of May 15 is UVA graduation weekend and we are full in the campground.

The campground is small so for my next post I'll try and provide some pics of the campground.  May be posting a little more since won't be working quite as much. 

Life is good!

On The Road Again

I thought I would start writing again.  Hopefully, a little more often.   We are having some internet issues in this remote location so trying different things at different times to stay connected.  Emails and texts are going well.  Phone calls - we think we have it figured out but then . . . .

The KOA wifi works fairly well so we'll give this a try.

It was very hard leaving Springfield.  We have made some very good friends there.  We realized that we had been there for more than 3 1/2 years.  We started full-timing 6 years ago.  More than 1/2 of this time has been spent there. 

We left late morning on Thursday, April 16.  We were hoping to get an earlier start but the weather didn't cooperate very well.  There was rain several days for the week before we left and usually on our days off.    We did get all of the maintenance work done on the camper and quite a bit cleaned out inside as well as storage.  We still have a lot of stuff.

We arrived in Adel, IA later that day without mishap.  On Friday, we delivered the marble table to my sister, Marcia and did a little shopping.  Also ate at the Machine Shed.  We tried to get some more of the Vidalia onion mustard relish but the orchard was sold out.  Boo Hoo!!  This is our favorite on brats.   Saturday night we spent celebrating with my sister Pam for her 40th wedding anniversary at the Chicago Speakeasy.  All of her kids and grandkids as well as my siblings attended the dinner.  We had a great time.  Sunday the family got together at Marcia's for a BBQ.  We celebrated Steve's birthday (Marcia's husband), Michelle's engagement and Matt finishing school and getting his plumber license.  The rain held off until later that afternoon. 

We stayed over an extra day.  Saturday night, the truck sent us a message stating it needed a fuel filter change.  So, we called Monday morning and got it changed.  Fueled up and got ready to head out on Tuesday. 

Tuesday night we stayed on the east side of Peoria at a campground in Carlock, Illinois.  Travel still going well.  The next night we were near Dayton, Ohio at the KOA in Brookville, Ohio.  KOA gave us travel vouchers to stay free at KOAs so we tried to route them on this trip.  Thursday night found us in Milton, WV at a KOA there.  To say the least we were getting nervous.  The trip is going real well up to this point.  We knew the next day we would be driving through the mountains.

I talked to my brother-in-law, John, about towing through these mountains.  He was a truck driver that drove this route several times.  It gave us some really good pointers.  It went well but it was very tiring.  I think the scariest time was the 7% downhill grade that seemed to go on for miles and miles.  There was also a sign along the highway that said the truck run away lane was closed.   We figured that would just be our luck.  But we did handle the braking going down hill well.  The brakes didn't burn up nor did the truck overheat so we figured we did well for our first trip.

We arrived at the Charlottesville KOA Friday afternoon.  We didn't have to back-in to the site.  They built 3 new sites and made them pull through also satellite works at this site.  There's trees all around us but an open sky right where we are parked.  Do you think we're spoiled before we even start working. 

The couple seem to be really nice.  We've talked some.  They're both 29 years old.  Ashley and Dane have 2 children:  Charlie - 2 yrs old and Edmond - 6 mos in May.  We're meeting with them on Tuesday to discuss working here.

So far so good and the scenery is gorgeous.  If this works, we'll start taking pictures and posting more.

July

It has definitely been an interesting month so far.  We have made some hard and interesting decisions lately.

This past week we have determined that we will not be participating in the Iowa State Fair.  This would have been our 15th year but with our several aches and pains we made the decision not to volunteer.  This was a very hard decision to make for us.  We love the fair.  We talked it over with Scott & Diane to be sure it was ok for us to stay the month of August.  It worked out well for them, also. 


We have been looking for a different position the last few weeks for the summer of 2015.  We submitted our resume to a few campgrounds and we were contacted by a couple.  It was kind of nice having people contact us to work for them.  We accepted a position in Charlottesville, VA at the KOA there.  We will start on May 1, 2015.  In case you're interested here's their web address:   http://koa.com/campgrounds/charlottesville/ .    They are a young couple that have had the campground for about 10 years.  I believe her parents had it earlier.  They are looking for a couple of people to work in the store and registration only and for 20 - 30 hours per week.  We've never been to this area before so we're excited.

That's our big news for the month. 

Yesterday, we were woken up around 7am.  One of the work camping people called us to tell us that there were several policeman with guns near our camper.  Then, we heard the bull horn calling to one of our campers to step outside, they wanted to talk.  Yes, I opened the blinds and took a picture.

 

 



 So I'm sitting here at the kitchen table sipping coffee and watching them.  The person wasn't home so they finally left.

Last week we made a quick run up to Madison, SD so I could renew my license.  Long drive but it definitely showed us that we're not up to much these days.  Sharon messed up her back and I messed up my knee a little more.  But with a little TLC, we'll back in a few weeks. 

My birthday is coming up on Thursday so Scott & Diane are taking us out to eat to a local steak house.  And, of course, their dog, Petey, will sing happy birthday to me.  I'll try and record it so that you all can enjoy at a later date. 

Until next time.