Tag Archives: Virginia

Reversing Course

Posted on by
Reply

We spent a few days in eighty-degree weather in Naples, Florida, a couple of months ago, but had to head home eventually. You can read about the beginning of this trip in Escaping the Snow and Warmer Weather. The trip home saw the temperature slide lower and lower the farther north we went.

But our first stop, less than an hour northwest of where we stayed in Naples, was one of my favorite places ever. Corkscrew Swamp Wildlife Sanctuary. While Mark went for a run, I spent more than two hours wandering the boardwalk, listening and looking for birds. It was a little crowded. With people, not birds. But I did manage to see at least one bird I’d never seen before: a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. So, it was a good day. The photos might not be museum quality, but they prove that I did see some wildlife. 🙂

From there we headed northeast to a KOA in Crystal River, Florida. Somehow, in all our trips to Florida, we’d never been in that area and had never stopped to see any manatee. But that’s what we did the following day. At Three Sisters Springs we caught glimpses of them as they swam, surfaced, and rested in the warm waters. One even sported a clumsy-looking tag on its back resembling a miniature buoy. At times, it was hard to tell if we were seeing large boulders in the water or living creatures.

That afternoon, despite a menacingly dark sky, we stopped at Seven Mile Loop Trailhead for a walk/run.

The Harvest Hosts site we’d booked for that night looked a little sketchy, so we moved on to a KOA in Kingsland, Georgia. The following day was basically a travel day, though we did stop for a walk/run at White Oaks Trailhead in Woodbine, Georgia. The trailhead was actually at a small post office.

As we headed toward Charlotte, North Carolina, the next day, we made a stop at Santee Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina. Mark went for a run while I checked out the wildlife. I found quite a few birds, although some were well-camouflaged in the brush. I’ve included a few of them here.

We spent the weekend with our friends, Cathy and Don, in Charlotte. We visited the Carolina Raptor Center and Latta Nature Preserve and saw several large beautiful raptors. They were all in cages, so I didn’t take any photos. Our walk through the nature preserve was nice but chilly!

The next morning, we went to mass at the Basilica at Belmont Abbey College and had lunch at Jekyll & Hyde Taphouse Grill downtown. The food and the beer both got a stamp of approval.

We left Charlotte on Monday morning, stopping at New River Trail State Park for a walk/run.

That night, we stayed at a KOA in Natural Bridge, Virginia. And, of course, had to go see the Natural Bridge the next day. Formed by water that has long since receded, the height and breadth of the bridge was mesmerizing. It was cold and early in the day, so we had the place to ourselves for the most part.

After a bite to eat in the van, we travelled a short distance down the road to Blue Ridge Trail so Mark could get a run in. And I took in the view of the mountains and the local wildlife. 🙂

As we headed north from Virginia, it was hard not to start thinking about getting home. We stayed overnight in Pennsylvania, then made a stop at Fidens Brewing in Albany, New York, for an early dinner the next day. Three hours from home doesn’t feel like much when we’ve been on the road for any length of time, so we made the trek after dinner, arriving home two weeks and two days after we’d left. And home is always good to come back to.

Escaping the Snow?

Posted on by
2

The day before we left on our latest adventure, it snowed about a half-foot. At least two more storms were in the forecast. We left home on a Monday and drove south, as far as Jonestown, Pennsylvania. It was still frigid in Jonestown and the campground was covered in a layer of icy, crusty snow. The next day, our first planned stop in Gettysburg was half indoors, out of the elements, and the second half was out in the biting wind around town.

We’d never visited Gettysburg before, and I’m not a fan of war history, but it was very interesting and informative. We browsed some of the museum artifacts while we waited for a short film about the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) to begin.

The narration at the beginning of the film included some eerily relatable words about national divisiveness and political unrest. I found myself empathizing with those who lived in 1861. Please, let’s not let ourselves turn against each other like that again.

After the film, we viewed a cyclorama of the battle, painted by French artist Paul Philippoteaux in 1883. The 360-degree depiction of Pickett’s Charge on the third day of the battle is fascinating. We got to see it in brighter light than usual because it was undergoing its annual cleaning and restoration. In the following photos, look at the foreground which is not part of the painting but rather actual 3-D materials. This helped to make the whole painting look three dimensional. And note that, hidden among the battle scenes, the artist inserted himself, some of his assistants, President Lincoln, and even an older, gray-haired pair of men whom he’d actually interviewed during his research about the events of that day.

Back outside, we grabbed a quick lunch in our van before heading off to a few chosen spots on the self-guided Gettysburg tour. And I caught my first sighting ever of a Red-headed Woodpecker before we left the parking lot. We visited Gettysburg National Cemetery where Lincoln gave his famous address, the Eternal Light Peace Memorial dedicated in 1938, and Little Round Top from which we could see some of the battlefields spread out before us.

The biting winds were a precursor to a snowstorm predicted to start later that afternoon. So, we left Gettysburg before 2 PM, hoping to visit The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, before the end of the day. Flurries started before we arrived. And when we arrived we were greeted by someone coming out of the building to tell us that the museum was closed due to the weather. But we could look in on the Basilica where mass had started about twenty minutes prior. Disappointing, but we did get to view the beautiful mosaics and marble work, and the Altar of Relics where her remains are kept.

It was snowing when we left—they closed the Basilica as we departed. We arrived at Harper’s Ferry KOA in West Virginia about an hour and a half later and hunkered down for a snowy night, dreaming of warmer weather somewhere south.

Homeward Bound

Posted on by
1

As with most road trips, once we start heading homeward, our sense of adventure wanes slightly. But we still try to break up the trip home with a few activities, mostly focused on stretching our legs between long hours of driving.

We left Wilmington, NC, on Wednesday morning, aiming for Dismal Swamp State Park in Camden County, NC. The name itself made us want to check it out. We found a boardwalk loop and other walking trails along a canal. As usual, we heard more birds than we actually saw. A foursome of deer surprised us on one of the trails. Or maybe we surprised them.

The park was on the North Carolina/ Virginia border, so we crossed into Virginia soon after leaving there. Wednesday night, we parked overnight at Chesapeake Golf Club in Chesapeake, Virginia, as part of our Harvest Hosts membership. Their restaurant was closed, so we took a ride downtown to eat supper. Then, we had the parking lot at the golf club to ourselves for the night.

Golfers started arriving early on Thursday morning, so we drove to a nearby Walmart parking lot to make our breakfast in the van. Then, we were off to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel before the traffic got too heavy. It was 79 degrees out, as it had been for days, but the wind was gusting. The bay waters were choppy, but strangely we didn’t feel the gusts while driving across the bridge. The bridge-tunnel spans about seventeen miles. It was an experience, for sure. I unexpectedly found myself a little motion-nauseous by the end. Here are a few pics taken as we crossed.

Just over the bridge, we found the Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge. We needed to get out and stretch our legs anyway. As you can see, you never know what you’ll find at one of these places…

After that adventure, we made ourselves lunch in the van and got back on the road. We left Virginia for Maryland, made a pit stop somewhere in Maryland or Delaware where Mark made a new friend. Yes, that’s a pedal-powered car!

The temperature dropped from almost eighty to the mid-sixties as we traveled north. We arrived at Fordham & Dominion Brewing in Dover, Delaware, late Thursday afternoon. Just in time for Mark to sample their beer, share some Treehouse with a few people, and order barbecue from a food truck, before the trivia night crowd packed the place.

We retreated to the van where I joined my chorus rehearsal via Zoom. At 10 p.m. we heard faint music which we slowly realized sounded like Taps and was probably coming from the Air Force base nearby. Felt like we were being sent off to sleep in style. We spent the night parked at the brewery as the temps dropped into the forties.

Friday morning, after hitting yet another Walmart parking lot, we drove to Blackbird State Forest in Smyrna, Delaware, for a little exercise despite the cold wind.

From Delaware, we drove up to Poughkeepsie, New York, to stay at a Holiday Inn for our final night. The temperature had dropped into the thirties by the time we arrived and promised to drop into the teens overnight. We left the heat on in the van all night to keep everything from freezing. In the morning, we blew as much water out of the lines as we could before we left the hotel parking lot. Light snow fell as we finished up and pulled out onto the road.

The snow got heavier for a while, but then tapered and stopped completely as we entered Massachusetts via the Pike. We were glad to leave the flurries behind because we knew our driveway at home was already covered in snow and ice from the recent storm. And we’d heard reports that another storm would be coming in a few days. To our surprise, we arrived home to find that some nice neighbor had cleared a spot for us in our driveway.

At the end of another adventure, lest you think it was all fun and games, let me remind you that no road trip is flawless. Life doesn’t work that way. But that’s OK. We may have had a glass jar full of homemade maple-rosemary nuts come flying from an overhead cabinet and smash on the floor, and a leaky cooler that soaked my camera bag and sheet music and ruined my Peterson’s bird book. But it’s all part of the adventure. Hope you enjoyed it. We did. 🙂

What Happens In Virginia…

Posted on by
Reply

If you need to catch up on the first leg of our recent van trip, check out From Wilmington… To Wilmington… We left off in Fredericksburg, VA, on a drizzly Wednesday morning. The rain didn’t last long and we pulled out of the KOA about the time the sun was struggling to come out. We spent the entire day traveling and visiting in Virginia.

On the way to our third Wilmington, we stopped at lovely Lake Anna State Park. We hiked, ate lunch, and enjoyed the view.

When we left Lake Anna, we went in search of the next Wilmington on our list: Wilmington, VA. Having no idea what to expect, we were surprised to find it so obscure that we drove by it at first. This is all we found:

Apparently, Wilmington, VA, is an unincorporated community in Fluvanna County. Several online searches yielded very little additional information. So, we moved on to Richmond.

The two Richmond breweries on the itinerary were The Veil Brewing and The Answer Brew Pub.

At The Veil, Mark finished his tasting with a Double Raspberry Fizzy!

We ate dinner at The Answer, where we picked up a four-pack of a special-release dessert stout, Diablo Forever Coconut.

After supper, we drove south for another hour plus to the Holiday Inn in South Hill, VA. We treated ourselves to hot showers and a room for the night.

In the morning, we headed for North Carolina. Lots more adventures to come… 🙂