Patrick Henry's Home, Red Hill & Lunch in Brookneal

This morning we drove 19 miles south through the town of Brookneal to go to Red Hill - The Patrick Henry National Memorial. We drove east on Patrick Henry Road and saw a sign directing us onto Red Hill Road.

From Red Hill & Patrick Henry

A little further on we saw another sign for Red Hill

From Red Hill & Patrick Henry

and kept driving on the narrow 2-lane Red Hill Road.

From Red Hill & Patrick Henry

We passed by the Patrick Henry Boys & Girls Homes.

From Red Hill & Patrick Henry

We arrived at Red Hill at 11:00 and parked the car. We saw signs for the Quarter Place Trailhead and walked down it to the reconstructed log cabin.

From Red Hill & Patrick Henry

The Quarter Place Trail continues on further to some cabin foundations, a tobacco curing barn and an African-American cemetery. It was already getting hot and we just went as far as the log cabin and then walked over to

Doing Laundry in Rustburg & Satellite TV, Finally

This morning after breakfast I gathered up our laundry and Mike put it in the car for me. The Goose Point Park Corps of Engineers campground where we were before coming to Lynchburg Preserve didn't have a laundromat, so now I have several loads of laundry to do.

When we were driving around here at Lynchburg Preserve trying to decide on a campsite, we stopped by the laundry here to see what was available. There are 2 washers ($1.50 a load) and 3 dryers, except 1 of the dryers was out of order. There are over 200 campsites here and that just doesn't seem like an adequate laundry.

Yesterday when we drove through Rustburg I saw a laundromat by the Post Office, but we didn't stop to check it out. So my decision this morning was whether to spend HOURS at the campground laundry or go into Rustburg and get it all done at once. Well, Rustburg won out and I drove the 6 miles into town.

There was no one at the Rustburg laundry when I got there. I unloaded my laundry and ended up using 3 regular washers ($2.50 a load) and 1 triple load washer ($4.25 a load). There was a change machine in the laundry and I was able to get more quarters to use in the dryers. I got 8 minutes for each quarter in the dryers and they only took $1 to dry each load - even our heavy bath towels. It ended up costing me more to do laundry in town, but I got it done in a third of the time it would have taken at the campground laundry.

Mike and I had swapped cell phones before I left, so he could use mine to wifi while I was gone. Wouldn't you know it - the local Dish Network technician called Mike's cell while I was at the laundry. I gave him my cell phone number and he called Mike. Anyway, he told Mike what to do and said that our receiver is working (we thought maybe the receiver had gone bad).

This afternoon after it had cooled down a little, Mike put the Dish 500 antenna back out and we were finally able to get a strong enough signal that we now have satellite TV.

Shopping in Lynchburg

We've been spending so much time trying to get satellite TV reception that we hadn't taken a photo of our campsite. Mike took one this evening and I don't want to forget to put it in, so here it is.

From Lynchburg Preserve

This morning I located a local Dish Network provider (Satellite Headquarters in Lynchburg)and Mike called hoping to talk with a technician about our problems tuning in a signal. We've used the satellite signal meter we bought at Camping World and are picking up a good sat signal, but can't tune it in on the receiver. Anyway the technician was out of the office and the lady in the office said she would give him our name and number and he would call us when he got back in to the office.

Later this morning we drove the 15 miles up to Lynchburg to do some

Goose Point Park to Lynchburg Preserve

We got up this morning around 8:00 and after breakfast began breaking camp. It didn't take quite as long since we didn't drive down to the dump station to dump our holding tanks. We stopped just outside of the exit gate to hitch up the car. I handed in our campground pass to the ranger on duty at the gate and he told me that they only had 3 tent sites that hadn't been reserved for the Labor Day weekend.

We left Goose Point Park just before 11:00 and headed south on Goose Point Road.

From Goose Point Park to Gladys, VA

We stopped to take a photo of the sign for Goose Point Park since it was too dark when we arrived to get a photo of it then.

From Goose Point Park to Gladys, VA

We then drove east on SR-57 and drove through the town of Bassett where

Last Days at Goose Point Park

We said goodbye to our neighbors Darlene and Tony yesterday morning. They are heading down to visit Charlotte, NC and then on to Savannah for a visit before going back to Texas.

We are now the only ones here on Loop A since all of the other campers had left yesterday by 4:00 - the checkout time here at Goose Point.

We took another look at the dump station entrances when we went down to take showers at the bathrooms and showers. Mike and I were the only ones there taking showers. The showers are nice, but no private dressing rooms - just a long bench outside of the showers.

The turn into the dump station would be tight for us to make and that is after we make the hard right turn (another tight turn) out of Loop A just to drive down to the dump station. Since we've been economical with our water usage and used the campground's showers, we've decided to not dump our tanks before leaving the campground tomorrow.

Our Garmin GPS and Streets & Trips both have us driving back up to Rocky Mount on the long winding roads we took to get to Goose Point before turning east to go to Gladys, VA. We've chosen a different route that will take us on larger county roads and US highways.

One of the park rangers came by yesterday and put reserved signs on all of the campsites on Loop A. She said that practically all of the campsites here a Goose Point are reserved for the Labor Day weekend.

Goose Point Park

We didn't get up until 9:30 this morning after the long day we had yesterday getting here to Goose Point Park.

This morning I uploaded our photos from yesterday and wrote up yesterday's travels on the blog.

Goose Point Park is a Corps of Engineers campground. We have 50 amp electric and water hookups here. We're paying $12.50 (half price) a day with our Senior Pass and will be here for 4 days. There are a lot of trees and we've tried tuning in our rooftop satellite dish, but no luck. We are able to get 4 local TV stations and one of them is a CBS station.

From Goose Point Park

We are surprised that we have 4G service out here and my photos upload to our albums in no time.

This afternoon after lunch we drove down

Only 140 miles to travel, but it took 11 hours

We left Stoney Creek Resort this morning at 10:30 and drove out on Lake Drive which is one of the roughest roads we've driven to get to a campground.

From Greenville to Goose Point Park

We got on I-81 at Greenville and drove south for 14 miles and stopped at a rest area for 15 minutes while Mike did his walk-around of the RV and I walked Tinker. We hadn't driven too far south of Exit 167 at Buchanan when we saw a flashing highway advisory sign of a road hazard ahead. Well, it wasn't too long before we saw that the southbound traffic on I-81 was backed up for miles - as far as we could see and it was 11:54.

From Greenville to Goose Point Park

We crossed the James River at 12:10 (we had driven about 2 miles).

From Greenville to Goose Point Park

We crept along until we reached the next exit (Exit 162) at 1:00 and left I-81

Dinner at the Edelweiss German Restaurant

This evening we went to dinner at the Edelweiss German Restaurant that is about 4 miles from the campground. We had passed by the Edelweiss Restaurant on our way to Stoney Creek Resort and decided that we would go there for dinner while we were at Stoney Creek Resort.

We arrived at the restaurant at 5:45 and stopped to take a few photos before going in.

From Stoney Creek Resort

From Stoney Creek Resort

We were seated next to the fireplace with a display of German nutcrackers on the mantle.

From Stoney Creek Resort

Mike asked our waitress to take a photo of us by the fireplace.

From Stoney Creek Resort

After looking over the menu and hearing the specials for tonight, Mike

Stoney Creek Resort & Satellite TV Finally

Another cool morning today - 59° and sunny. After breakfast we took the garbage down to the dumpsters which are finally empty. Mike had started to take the garbage down the other day, but the dumpsters were so full that people were putting their garbage backs on top of the dumpsters.

We took our camera with us when we walked down to the dumpsters and Mike took photos of the campground.

We are a little late taking photos of our campsite, but we got some this morning.

From Stoney Creek Resort

There are a LOT of permanent RVs here that I guess people use on the weekends.

From Stoney Creek Resort

There is also Stoney Creek Lake here for fishing and swimming.

From Stoney Creek Resort

There are ducks that live around the lake and they come up to the office to be fed twice a day.

From Stoney Creek Resort

There are also some ducks kept here at the campground just across from

Rain all day

It was 64° when we got up this morning and raining. Fortunately it wasn't raining too hard when I took Tinker out for his first walk of the day.

One of the workers stopped by the RV this morning and told us that our mail was here. I walked over to pick it up and found out it had been here for 2 days. We called on Wednesday and it got here on Friday. We didn't check with the office about the mail, since we didn't think it would be here so quick.

It has rained all morning and finally quite around 2:00. It was still overcast the rest of the afternoon. We didn't try working on tuning in the satellite TV today. We just watched the Create channel on PBS - lots of cooking shows and some travel shows.

I worked on labeling and organizing the photos we took on our trip to see Fletcher in Washington, D.C. and the photos we've taken since then. I also worked on our blog about our trip to D.C., but didn't get it posted today.

We watched movies on DVD again tonight. Some of the shows on the Create channel tonight are repeats of ones we watched earlier today.

Illumination Night

It was 66° this morning when we got up. After breakfast we tried again to tune in our satellite TV, but no luck.

We have a good cell phone and 3G signal here and are close enough to the office to pick up their wifi signal. They had told us yesterday when we checked in that a storm had damaged some of their wifi antennas in the campground and the best place to pick up the signal was in the Events Hall. Their wifi signal is so good (and faster than my 3G on the cell phone) that I'm going to use their wifi except when I do any banking on the computer.

Since we have such a good wifi signal, I've been able to upload our photos for the Luray Caverns, Skyline Caverns and our trip to Winchester to our web albums. I've also spent the day posting those trips to our blog.

Tonight is Illumination Night and one of the workers came by with a flat bed trailer

Loft Mountain to Stoney Creek Resort

We got up at our usual time this morning and had broken camp and leaving our campsite at 10:45. We stopped at the Dump Station to empty our black and gray tanks and hitch up the car. We left Loft Mountain Campground a little after 11:00 and drove south on the Skyline Drive.

From Loft Mountain to Greenville

From Loft Mountain to Greenville

We exited the Skyline Drive at the Rockfish (south) Entrance Station a little before noon.

From Loft Mountain to Greenville

We drove west on I-64 to Waynesboro and took exit 94 to go to the Martins grocery store to get some groceries before going to Stoney Creek Resort. We decided to stop somewhere for lunch and saw a Wendy's just off the interstate exit.

We found a place to park the RV and fed Tinker his lunch before we walked

Enjoying Loft Mountain Campground

We've been enjoying the cooler weather up here at Loft Mountain Campground the last few days.

From Loft Mountain

Some Boy Scouts set up their tents in the group campsite next to us on Monday.

From Loft Mountain

We don't have cell phone service at our campsite, so Tuesday Mike drove over to the Ranger Station and called Stoney Creek Resort to confirm that they accept mail and then he called American Home Base to have our mail sent to Stoney Creek Resort.

Tuesday was warm (mid-80's) but we had thunderstorms that night with heavy rain that

Front Royal, VA to Loft Mountain

Since we only had 75 miles to travel today, we took our time this morning breaking camp. We left North Fork Resort at 11:00 and drove south on US-340 through downtown Front Royal.

From Front Royal to Loft Mountain

We had frequent glimpses of the South Fork Shenandoah River when it wound close to US-340.

From Front Royal to Loft Mountain

There weren’t a lot of places on US-340 where we could pull off to have

Problems with Cell Phone

It is going to be a while before I can update our blog and photo albums. We use my cell phone for our mobile hotspot and it isn’t maintaining a good connection to the data signal. Mike’s phone is working fine. My phone shows a signal of 1x with 2 bars and Mike has 3g with 3 bars.

We are leaving tomorrow to go up to Loft Mountain Campground in the Shenandoah National Park and we won’t have cell phone service there. We won’t be close to a Verizon store until after we leave Loft Mountain on Friday.

I don’t know if I need a new phone or the problem can be fixed. Once I can get back on the internet, I will be able to write about our trips to the Luray Caverns, Skyline Caverns and our day trip over to Washington D.C. to see our son, Fletcher.

Sightseeing in Washington, D.C. with Fletcher

We packed up Tinker's food, treats and water and the 3 of us left the campground at 10:00 to drive the 79 miles to Washington, D.C. to visit Fletcher and his friend Mark.

We took I-66 east to exit 73 and crossed the Potomac River to M Street NW and meandered through shops and homes in Georgetown.

From Day Trip to Washington DC

We arrived at Fletcher and Mark's apartment just before 11:30. Fletcher had parked Mark's car a block away at Meridian Hill Park, so we could park our car at his apartment. After letting Tinker, Vala (Fletcher's dog), Penny and Emily (Mark's dogs) have some time in the back yard, we went into their apartment.

From Day Trip to Washington DC

We visited for a while and discussed where we wanted to eat lunch and what sightseeing we wanted to do today.

From Day Trip to Washington DC

We left the dogs in the apartment and walked 5 blocks over to U Street NW to eat lunch at Alero Lounge. Mark had the Brunch Buffet, Mike had the Mexican Burrito and Fletcher and I had the Chicken Quesado - all of it very good.

After lunch we walked east to the U Street Metro station (Ben's Chili Bowl - a favorite place of President Obama - is across the street) to go on

Skyline Caverns & Genealogy Research in Winchester

We left the campground this morning about 10:15 and drove the 7 miles south to visit the Skyline Caverns.

From Skyline Caverns

From Skyline Caverns

I had picked up a brochure on the Caverns that gave us $2 off the admission tickets, so we paid $16 for each ticket. We only had to wait a few minutes before the next tour of the caverns started.

From Skyline Caverns

Brent was our tour guide and he explained how Walter S. Amos, a retired geologist and mineralogist, discovered the caverns in 1937. The caverns were opened to the public in 1939. While the Luray Caverns are illuminated with regular lights, the Skyline Caverns have colored lights for illumination.

The temperature in both the Luray Caverns and Skyline Caverns is 54°. It didn't feel that cool yesterday when we were in the Luray Caverns, but it did feel like 54° in the Skyline Caverns. We didn't bring any jackets, but the cool temperature felt great after the summer heat.

One of our first views in the caverns was the Capital Dome

From Skyline Caverns

 

Dish 500 works and visiting Luray Caverns

This morning after breakfast we connected the Dish 500 antenna again with the switch box and still no satellite reception. There was a Dish 500 a couple of campsites over from where ours was set up and Mike walked over to look at the connections. There were 2 cables connected to the antenna, but only 1 was connected to the RV.

So Mike disconnected the switch box and tried connecting to just one of the cables and it worked! According to the directions we had we should have connected to the satellite 119 cable (that hadn't worked), so Mike connected to the satellite 110 cable and success. We now can get both 110 and 119 satellites and we're finally able to watch all of the channels that come with our Dish package.

We had an early lunch and then drove south on US-340 for 30 miles to visit Luray Caverns. I had a coupon that I had picked up last month when we in eastern Virginia that gives us a $5 discount on an adult ticket to the caverns.

From Luray Caverns

We arrived at Luray Caverns at 1:30, parked the car and walked up to the entrance. We paid $19 for each of our tickets. The regular adult price is $24 and the senior ticket price is $21, so we got a good deal using our $5 discount coupon. After purchasing our tickets, we got in line for the cavern tours.

A few minutes before 2:00 we walked down some stairs and met Hannah who was our guide through the caverns. She told us that the caverns were discovered on August 13, 1878 when Andrew Campbell, his nephew and 3 other men were

Errands in Front Royal and Dish 500 still doesn't work

We took Tinker to Shear Elegance this morning to be groomed.

We stopped at Food Lion to buy a couple of things and I used our debit card so I could get some cash. Our next stop was at the Plaza Dry Clean and Laundromat to wash our queen comforters (1 for our bed and 1 we cover the sofa with) and some throw rugs.

While I was doing the laundry, Mike drove to a car wash and washed the Vue. When he was done, he came back to the laundromat and sat out in the car listening to Sirius radio while I waited on the laundry to finish. It cost $19.50 to wash the comforters and throw rugs.

Since I couldn't find everything on my list at Food Lion, we went in to the Martin's grocery store near the laundromat. Martin's is part of the Giant grocery store chain and I had a Giant bonus card, so I was able to take advantage of their sale prices on the items we bought. The Martin's store seems to be newer than the Food Lion and seemed to have a larger selection of products.

We had just gotten back to the motor home and were getting ready to fix lunch, when the

New Dish 500 antenna

This morning we called a local dog groomer, Shear Elegance, and made an appointment for Tinker to be groomed tomorrow morning.

We then called tech support at Dish Network and spoke with a RV technician about our problem and not being able to get satellite TV. We were able to pull in a strong signal for satellite 110 (we couldn't get any programming, though), but we couldn't get satellite 119 which is our normal satellite. Long story short - we decided to upgrade to a Dish 500 antenna and the Dish technician gave us the name of the local Dish provider.

After lunch we drove out to Via Satellite and bought a Dish 500 antenna, the twin LNBF and let us have an old switch box . One of the technician told us how to set up the antenna with the switch box and said we could call if we had any problems.

We stopped at Wal-Mart Supercenter to get a couple of coax cables and then drove into Front Royal to check the route to the dog groomer.

Afterwards we decided to have dinner at Jalisco Mexican Restaurant. We had eaten there when we had stayed in Front Royal a few years ago and had enjoyed the food. Mike had the Burrito El Paso with rice and beans and I wanted something different from what I normally have, so I ordered the Burrito Frito (fried burrito). Neither one of us was disappointed in our choice and the Negro Modelos weren't bad either.

After we got back to the campground, Mike set up our new Dish 500 and after several tries, we just couldn't get any satellite reception. So, it is another night of watching DVDs.

Traveled 4 miles today

We got up at our usual time this morning after spending the night at Wal-Mart Supercenter's parking lot. Last night we set up a 12v fan in the bedroom so it would blow air over the bed while we were sleeping. But it was still warm (we took the comforter off of the bed) until early this morning when the temp cooled down.

A little before 9:00 we walked over to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. The restaurant wasn't very busy even though it's right off of an I-66 exit. I ordered my usual Old Timers breakfast and Mike got the multi-grain pancake breakfast. We left Cracker Barrel at 9:30 and walked back to the RV.

Mike stayed with Tinker in the motor home watching TV while I walked over to Wal-Mart to do some shopping before we move over to the campground.

We left Wal-Mart at 11:20 and drove south on US-340 to SR-55 and then west to Homestead Drive and out to North Fork Resort..

From North Fork Resort

We checked in at the Security Gate at 11:30 and were given a map of the resort and directions to our campsite. We are staying here with our Coast to Coast membership (7,000 points) and paid $5 a day for the week so we could have 50 amp electric. Since we trade in our credit card rewards points for Coast to Coast camping points, our daily cost for staying here is the $5 fee for 50 amp.

From North Fork Resort

From North Fork Resort

We are in site R-159 that has full hook-ups (50 amp elec). It is a back-in site that backs up

Gordonsville to Front Royal

We didn't rush to leave Shenandoah Crossing Resort this morning since check-out time is noon. We left the campground at 11:40 and drove to Gordonsville and stopped there just long enough to drop our post cards in the mail.

We took SR-231 north and drove past farms and horse farms. All of the farms were named and we saw farms that dated as far back as the early 1800' and late 1700's.

From Gordonsville to Front Royal

The farther north we traveled the landscape changed

From Gordonsville to Front Royal

and we saw cattle farms and fields of peanut plants and tall corn fields. All of the crops we've seen here in Virginia are healthy and green - not the

Montpelier, Michie Tavern and Monticello

We didn't too much to write about yesterday. I worked on genealogy and we planned our route for sightseeing today.

We left the RV this morning a little after 9:20 and drove through Gordonsville

From Montpelier & Michie Tavern

and then north to visit Montpelier the home of James and Dolley Madison. We arrived at the Visitor Center at 9:45.

From Montpelier & Michie Tavern

We paid $16 (senior price) for each of our tickets and then went in to the theater to watch a 22 minute slide presentation about the history of Montpelier and the Madison's. Then we walked up the path to meet our guide Mike on the front portico of Montpelier.

From Montpelier & Michie Tavern

Our guide Mike was very knowledgeable about the construction of the home and about the lives of James and Dolley Madison. He told us that James Madison could read and speak Greek, Latin and Hebrew. His political career included Secretary of State, House of Representatives, Continental Congress and  2-term President. It was here at Montpelier that

Campground Photos and shopping in Charlottesville

We left the campground this morning at 9:00 and drove west to Charlottesville which is about 32 miles away. We drove west on US-33 and could see the Appalachian Mountain range in the distance.

From Shenandoah Crossing Resort

Mike had called Jenkins Automotive in Charlottesville yesterday about the brakes on the Vue and got an appointment for this morning. The brakes have been squealing lately and we wanted to have them checked out. We arrived at Jenkins a little before 10:00 and after the technician checked the brakes, he found that there was nothing wrong with them. Since all they did was check the brakes, the visit didn't cost us anything.

We stopped at a Hess gas station and filled the tank in the Vue and paid $3.129 a gallon for gas. We next stopped at Lowe's to buy a filter for our air conditioner and a couple of other items that Mike needed and then went to Sam's Club to do some shopping.

After leaving Sam's we stopped for lunch at a Five Guys before driving back to the campground. We had our usual order of little Bacon Cheeseburgers, regular order of fries and regular drinks.

After lunch we drove back to the campground and stopped by the laundry that is closest to our campsite to see if the machines were being used. There are 2 washers and 2 dryers there, but the machines were already being used.

After unloading our purchases from the car and feeding Tinker his lunch, I gathered up our laundry and Mike put it in the car for me. I decided to drive over to the laundry that is near the Lodge and use the machines there. They have 6 washers and 6 dryers in that laundry and it is air conditioned (the one closest to our campsite isn't air conditioned).

I brought my laptop with me so I could get some work done on the blog while I was waiting for the clothes to get done. I forgot to mention that the laundry machines here at Shenandoah Crossing Resort are free.

While I was doing laundry, Mike took a couple of photos of our campsite. The campsites are covered with rocks, but are uneven. We had to put our right side front tire up on blocks in order to get the motor home level.

From Shenandoah Crossing Resort

You can see by these photos how many trees there are around us, but they keep our campsite well-shaded and keep us cooler than if we were sitting out in the sun all day.

From Shenandoah Crossing Resort