#80 – May 2021 – WV, VA, DE, PA, MA, NH!
Yup, 6 states and 10 campgrounds in one month. That seems
like it would be too hectic to be fun, but we actually had a great time. May
might be the perfect month to travel in the eastern US, at least it was this
year. The weather couldn’t have been better, none of the campgrounds were full and the traffic wasn’t too bad anywhere we went. I think it will be a much
different story during the summer, but we’ll enjoy it while it lasts.
As I said last month, there were several places on the coast
that we wanted to see, so we headed due east from Kentucky. The Mash Fork campground in Camp Hill State Park in Camp
Creek, West Virginia,
was our first stop and our first experience with WV state parks. We loved it. The
campground is located a couple of miles off of I77 in a very rural part of southern
WV, kind of tucked away in rugged country next to a small river. The RV sites
are very spacious and reasonably priced, for a change. There isn’t much to do
in the area except fish, walk along the river, drove around looking at the old farms
and at the natural beauty everywhere. We stayed two nights and could have spent
a week.
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| Hona Lee Vineyard |
A few months ago we joined Harvest Hosts, “… a network of
wineries, breweries, distilleries, farms, and attractions that invite RV’ers to
stay in 2005+ stunning camping sites.”
We were looking for an alternative to Walmart for an overnight stay, checked
the HH website and Hona Lee Vineyard in Gordonsville,
VA, was right where we wanted to
stop for a night. We arrived just about wine time and pulled into a big field
next to a section of the vineyard, right across the driveway from the tasting
room. We set up quickly and hustled right over to be sure they hadn’t run out.
Harvest Hosts
is a good deal for the members and the campers. The camping (one night only) is
free, but a purchase is “suggested.” That means that this free camp site cost
us about $80 for the tasting and a couple of bottles of their best. That’s more
than twice what we try to spend a night! I’m not complaining, just reporting;
the wine wasn’t bad, if a little pricey, and the setting was great.
Williamsburg and Jamestown topped Kayeanne’s list of must-see places for this whole
trip. Finding reasonably priced camp sites in that area was difficult, but I
stumbled across Colonial Pines Campground in Toana,
VA, which turned out to be a real gem, located
roughly 20 miles from Williamsburg, Jamestown and Yorktown.
It is small and very secluded, with large sites and full hookups. It is located
on the grounds of the Williamsburg
Christian Retreat
Center, which comprises
several hundred acres of forest and extensive facilities to walk around in. One
way I judge a place is by its firewood arrangement. Typically, a small bundle
of 6-10 pieces costs about $5. Firewood at Colonial Pines also cost $5, but
that was for a wheelbarrow load that you picked out yourself, and dropped money
into a cash box. That’s the best deal I’ve seen since free firewood at Burro
Mountain Homestead six years ago!
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| Pocahontas and friend |
Colonial Virginia
is lovely, very green country that has clearly been settled and fettled for a
long time. Everywhere you look are 200-300 year old homes that are still
inhabited and maintained by the 10th, maybe 20th owners. Houses
built after 1850 aren’t even noteworthy.
Yorktown, Jamestown and Williamsburg are quite
different. Williamsburg is the most heavily developed.
It’s sort of a large, living diorama filled with impeccably conserved buildings
and staffed by many “re-creators (aka actors)” in period dress. They are well
trained and quite enthusiastic about their roles, which keeps the place from becoming
just a theme park. I was prepared to scoff, but actually had a good time. A
young lady working in the blacksmith shop was particularly noteworthy. She
really knew her trade. The guy running the carpentry shop explained that the trades
people on site actually do all the renovation and restoration required to keep
the whole place up to a very high standard. He said that most of the work is
done using period techniques, tools and materials. They even blend paint and
print wallpaper in-house. Impressive, if inefficient.
Jamestown
is quite different. It is essentially an archaeological site with a restored church, a few partial
reconstructions, and a lot of artifacts and story boards. It is staffed by a
couple of rangers, a few docents and some college students working on the
excavations. The original colony founded in 1607 was eclipsed over time as
towns like Williamsburg
became established as the centers of commerce. Jamestown
essentially became a plantation and then farms until the State of Virginia and the US Government
became interested in preserving it’s history in the late 1800’s. It is now a
national historical park managed by the National Park Service. It was interesting, but not as engaging as the others.
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| Yorktown Victory Monument |
We almost skipped Yorktown,
and that would have been a mistake. Unlike Williamsburg
and Jamestown,
it is still a real town. Hundreds of people who have nothing to do with the
history of the place or the flocks of visitors just call it home. I can see why
they put up with the tourists, it really is a beautiful place to live. The town
seems to have struck a nice balance between the tourists' interests and the
residents’ desire to preserve the town as home, with some separation from the
historic events that took place there. In mid-May, it was darn near perfect. We
had no trouble getting around or parking, the weather was glorious and there is
a Ben & Jerry’s perfectly located right downtown. Best of all, no crowds!
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Site of the final battle of the
Revolutionary War |
We could have spent a lot more time in that area; we never
got to Norfolk, Newport News or Hampton Roads. But, it was
finally time to turn north. Our next stop was Mount Vernon
and Alexandria,
but first we had to get the oil changed on the coach. For some reason we kept
having issues with the places where we tried to get it done. Speedco is like Jiffy-Lube for
trucks and we've used them several times without a problem. I called the one in El Paso before we left Arizona and was assured that they serviced RVs all the time. When we arrived, they said
they’d never done an RV before but would be happy to try… Nope, not practicing on my
coach. The next one on our route was just west of Richmond. I called ahead, was told they did RVs all the time, but when we pulled in a day later were politely turned away because "the
manager had decided that RVs were too risky to work on..?" Finally, on the way to Mount Vernon
we pulled into another Speedco where they were happy to take our money. What a
hassle. Two somewhat blistering emails to Speedco corporate went unanswered, so
I guess I’ll have to find another solution next year. Ok, rant off, back to touring:
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| Mount Vernon |
When looking for places to stay near MV, I was surprised by
how few RV parks there were to chose from. Because we were early in the season,
we found space at Pohick Bay Regional
Park in Lorton, VA, about
15 miles south of MV. We were able to get a decent site, but access to it was a
challenge. This park isn’t laid out very well and the turn around’s at the ends
of the roads are too tight for coaches our size, especially if towing anything. Luckily the
site across the road from us was unoccupied so I had plenty of room to back in
“backwards”. Aside from that, Pohick
Bay was fine.
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| Washington's view from his deck |
I had imagined that Mount Vernon would be grander than Monticello. After all, as important as
Jefferson was in so many ways, Washington
won the war for independence and was the first president. It stands to reason
that his estate would be grander in every way. Right? Well, no, it isn’t. Maybe the Covid restrictions on touring it colored my
perceptions. On reflection, I think Monticello
featured more outward-facing scale and decor. MV is smaller in every way and
seemed more personal. By accounts, Washington
always rose to the occasion, did his duty and went home as soon as he could.
Jefferson certainly enjoyed being home as well, but Monticello seemed to be designed to
entertain more often and more elaborately. That said, Covid eliminated guided
tours of MV and the entire second floor was closed, so my impressions might be
different if we return without those restrictions in place.
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| Frank Lloyd Wright Pope-Leighey House |
We are always on the lookout for Frank Lloyd Wright buildings
and passed a sign on the way to MV for
the Pope-Leighey House. When we pulled into the parking lot, big signs said
that advance reservations were required due to Covid. A quick look showed that
tours were sold out, but we decide to walk around the outside and peer through the
windows. It is a classic FLW design, though much smaller than any of the others
we’ve visited. As usual, the building design and the setting went together
beautifully.
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| Bagpipe practice |
Alexandria
was great fun, at least in mid-May. During the summer heat and among hordes of tourists I might feel differently. The river front area offers great walking,
dining and drinking. Just sitting back and watching the people and the river
traffic would be a fine way to spend an afternoon. Old town is several square
blocks of really interesting period architecture, with a few contemporary places
thrown in for seasoning. The whole area is sprinkled with small restaurants, boutiques
of various stripe and ice cream shops. As we walked we very faintly heard
…bagpipes?! Following our ears up one street and down the other we found a
local pipe band practice session. That really was a “first”, and we celebrated
with great local ice cream.
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| Trap Pond State Park |
For no particular reason that either of us can articulate, we
were looking forward to visiting Delaware.
The state parks on the coast were already filling up, but we found space at Trap Pond State Park in Laurel,
DE. If you are headed to the
area, put this park at the top of your list. The park is surrounded by farms
that are slowly giving way to development, some of them fairly upscale but not
Macmansions, yet. I can’t think of a single negative about the park, and it made
a good home base to explore the state. Yes, Delaware is small. In fact, it only occupies
the northeastern portion of the Del-Mar-VA peninsula. We made it a point to get
crab cakes on the shore at Woody’s Dewey
Beach Bar. Recommended.
Our next destination was in the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, but that
was too far to drive in a single day. So, we needed an overnight spot in
eastern Pennsylvania, somewhere near Allentown. None of the
Walmarts in the area allowed overnight camping, but Harvest Hosts popped up
Stony Lake Inn & Winery in Saylorsburg, a near perfect spot for travel the
next day.
The people couldn’t have been friendlier and the site next
to the lake (a small pond, actually) was terrific. There was a small grass
airfield right across the street and we helped a guy push his perfectly
restored 1949
Waco
bi-plane out of the hangar. I love listening to that old radial engine when he
took off! I’m sorry to say that the wine wasn’t as good as the setting and the
company.
Peppermint Park Camping Resort in Plainfield, Mass wasn’t a gem, but it turned
out to be pretty nice, if a tad pricey. The park is about 80% seasonal sites
which usually means that it is pretty busy on weekends and quiet during the
week. Seasonal sites on New England are
usually rented for May through October, if not year ‘round. Everyone we met was
friendly, but it was really quiet at this time of the season.
Despite growing up near Boston,
I rarely visited the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts. We decided to spend several
days exploring the countryside and sights around Stockbridge. The town itself
is very pleasant. Low key shopping combined with a range of food options from
ice cream to fine dining and the lovely setting was pretty neat.
There are many, many things to see and do in the Berkshires,
but two of them stood out for us: the Daniel
Chester French
Museum and the Norman Rockwell
Museum. Both were very
interesting. The tour guide for the DCF workshops and studio really knew her
subject and more than made up for the house being closed for renovations.
Though best known for the statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC,
he created many, many iconic and notable pieces around the country. The pieces
that he worked on were often so big that he designed a set of railroad tracks
under the floor of the studio to move the pieces outside for viewing and,
finally, for delivery.
The Norman
Rockwell Museum
is also worth making a special trip to see. The building, the collection itself
and the setting have all been carefully melded into a really attractive,
informative and entertaining experience. Coincidentally, his house was also
closed to tours. His artwork is so intertwined with our lives that it’s part of our national psyche. While he did use professional models, he used many of his friends and neighbors from town in his art. To say that he was popular would be an understatement.
We needed a break from the pace that we had been on since
leaving Benson, so we decided to spend a week at Travelers Woods Campground in
Bernardston. I think that this may be our shortest move in seven years, just 33
miles. We stayed here in 2018 and were glad to see that it hadn’t changed much,
except that most of the sites had become seasonal, a trend we are seeing
everywhere. I think people were afraid to travel during 2020, but still wanted to
get away on weekends and on vacation. We met several people who live just
minutes away from the park that come just for an evening. I am getting the
impression that many people who tried seasonal camping last year won’t go back
on the road, especially older folks. We met some very nice people here.
May 19th is our anniversary, so we made a
reservation at an appropriate dining place that was highly recommended online
and by several locals. We arrived to discover that they seemed to have
over-committed or scheduled parties too close together. The upshot was that the
tables they had available weren’t acceptable, so we left. The limited dining options
in the area were exacerbated by lingering Covid closures, but Kayeanne saved the day. We went to the local pizza
place for our 36th anniversary, ate good pie, drank house plonk and
talked with a couple of local folks. We had a great time.
Bernardston is just eight miles south of the Vermont line. One of the
people we met at the campfire one evening recommended visiting the Vermont
Country Store in Rockingham, about 40 miles north of the park. VCS is filled
with lots of nice, very expensive stuff, ranging from anoraks to gourmet local cheese,
and kitchen gadgets to jaw breakers. Keep a close grip on
your wallet. We found
some things that we couldn’t live without but the well regarded deli was
crowded and I was ready to move along. We decided to take the road less
traveled home and discovered a great place to eat, the Townshend Dam Diner. Add
whatever inflection you’d like. I asked and the owner just grinned. There is a
dam in Townshend, but the diner isn’t close to it.
This unlikely looking place makes its own bread
every day. It grinds and blends its own burger meat. It makes almost everything
it cooks. I had the best cheese burger and fries I can remember, and Kayeanne’s veggie burger was also outstanding. I’d plan
a trip just to eat there again.
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| The famous Flower Bridge |
A couple of days later we headed to Shelburne
Falls, a small, very pretty old mill
town on the Deerfield
River. We walked all over
the place, sticking our noses into most of the stores and hiking a short way down the river. We stumbled into the
Lamson Factory Outlet Store where Kayeanne
finally found a pie server that met her exacting requirements. I bought a putty knife. <I know> Lamson has been
crafting cutlery, tableware and various edged tools since 1837, so it looks
like they have figured out the fine details of these items. Bring money, though,
even to the outlet store.
As constant readers may recall, we like food trucks and we
found a good one on Bridge Street
in Shelburne Falls. It’s name says it all: Middle Eastern Food. Boy, was it good. We ordered ONE sort of curry burrito, fusion, wrap,
whatever, and it fed both of us for lunch and we took some home for lunch the
next day. For $12! And, it was good. I’d go back again in an instant.
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| Grant and I at Heritage Gardens |
We had a short list of must-see people for this trip and Kayeanne’s bother Grant was at the top. We haven’t
seen him since 2018 and it was overdue. After a week in Bernardston we headed
east to Cape Cod Maple Park RV Campground in Wareham, Mass.,
a few miles from Grant’s place in Onset. Maple Park
was a test. It is NOT set up for rigs our size in the area they wanted us to
camp. We had to be escorted the wrong way down a one way street to be able to
get to our site. Once there I was relieved to discover that no one was home in
the site across from us. That meant I could use their parking area to swing the
front of the coach as I backed in around the trees and rocks that were
everywhere. Once we got in, the site was fine. Most of the neighbors weren’t
home when we left a few days later, making it possible to get out without
another escort. I don’t think we’ll be back there soon.
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| Mayflower ll in the background |
The campground issues aside, we had a great time. It was a
pleasure to see Grant again. He has lived at Cape Cod
for three years and appears to have spent all of his time visiting all the
interesting places and eating at every restaurant within 50 miles. He really
knows that area. We drove up to Plymouth to see
the Rock, and toured Wareham, Marion, Onset and environs. I particularly
enjoyed the Heritage Museum and Gardens in Sandwich.
It was an unlikely combination of lovely trails, lush foliage and a car museum,
but it all worked.
Grant still works for a living, so we spent a day visiting
the mansions of Newport RI and the town itself. What with Covid closures and it being before Memorial Day,
the Breakers was the only one open, but it is arguably the best of the bunch.
Finished in 1895, it was a summer cottage by Cornelius Vanderbilt ll. No
heating system was included. The house was in use for three months a year,
serving as the summer headquarters for the NY Yacht Club and the family’s
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| The Breakers from the back yard |
escape from NYC’s summer heat. It was built about the same time as Biltmore, George
Vanderbilt’s even more extravagant country home in Ashville, North Carolina.
It was quite interesting and the grounds and setting are beautiful. The house
is aptly named. It was calm the day we visited, but the pictures of the waves
on stormy days are spectacular. Once again, I’m glad we visited in May, not
during the summer tourist season. Newport
is an old town with narrow roads and lots to see and do. Even on a weekday in
May it was getting a little crowded.
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| The summer cottage |
With the Memorial Day weekend about to begin it was time to
say goodbye, and thanks, to Grant and to head north to our most favorite campground,
Casa Kendrick in Campton, New Hampshire. We have been looking forward
to seeing Charlie and Mollie again since we had to cancel our plans to get
together last year. This year, we may stay long enough to wear out our welcome.
I found copies of Ted Kooser’s older poetry on Thrift Books
and enjoyed all of them. It was interesting to read them in date order to see his writing evolve: Sure
Signs, Flying at Night and Weather Central
Since we landed on the east coast we’ve been finding more
good wines than I can keep track of. Here are three that I would happily buy
again. As you may have noticed, I’ve become a fan of big reds from Portugal:
Veramonte Carmenere 2017 – Portugal
Kirkland Gigondas - France 2018
Portal Douro Valley Red Blend - Portugal
More soon,
Bob
PS: Bonus footage!
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| Daniel Chester French Studio |
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River walk in Shelburne Falls
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| Plymouth harbor |
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Heritage Garden Auto Museum
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| Da boys checkin' it out |
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| Mount Vernon |
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