We had thought about taking today slow and not waking up too early since we only had about 5 hours to drive. However, Robby and I decided at the last minute last night that maybe we should just get on up and pull out at 7. That time had been working for us so after a bit of late night prepping we pulled out around 7:30 this morning.
I heard Robby's musical alarm go off for quite a while this morning. It woke me up, but then I quickly went back to sleep. After I hear him stirring in the mornings, I usually wake up pretty quickly because I have to go to the bathroom. Of course that is where Robby is, so just knowing that I can't have a turn right then makes me wake up even more.
We did have to hook up the car this morning, but that went on without a problem. We were soon off to our first stop. The first stop today was about an hour away-Gettysburg. We have been here before. I don't really remember much of the last time that we were here in 2016, but Graham vividly remembers us getting ice cream sundaes from McDonalds after walking around the park. He even confirmed his memory by checking the blog, and he was correct.
We found the RV parking which was also the bus parking. It was a happening lot before 9 this morning. We were about a 5 minute walk to the visitor's center so Robby and I went to check things out while the kids started stirring. Anderson and Graham were the only ones awake.
At the visitor's center, we decided that we would not tour the museum or diorama today since history isn't cheap. However, Robby did buy us tickets to go and see the Eisenhower house. It has been closed for 2 and a half years, and today was the first time that they opened it back up.
We went back to the camper and stirred everyone who was still sleeping. They had time to eat and get ready before our bus left. We all walked back to the visitor's center and picked out the sticker that we wanted, then found our bus.
There were at least 15 workers at the Eisenhower farm, and they all seemed so glad to see us. We walked through the barn, took a tour of the house, explored the outside of the house and even found the helicopter pad. It was a neat tour and one National Park Site that we had not been to.
While we were there though we did keep noticing people who didn't ride our bus. We were a bit confused, until we saw the parking lot on the other side of the house. So turns out, we paid dearly to ride a bus to the house when we could have just driven to the parking lot. Now, WE couldn't have driven to the parking lot without unhooking the car which would certainly have been doable in the lot that we were in. It just takes about 5 minutes.
It was the fact that no one ever mentioned this to Robby. He asked about the farm tours, and they sold him tickets and didn't mention that he could drive there. He was a bit peeved. It all worked out well though, and we have paid more for other National Park things so that's life I guess.
On the way back it started sprinkling. By the time that the bus dropped us off, and we bought our sticker, it was absolutely pouring. You just can't really not get wet in the pouring rain when you have a 5 minute walk. I was wearing my crocs which get a bit slippery so I couldn't run-plus those crocs have holes all on the sides so my socks were soaking wet.
Really all of us was soaking wet. There was a pavilion in the parking lot that we huddled under while Robby unlocked the camper door and laid out towels everywhere. We all had to change clothes as it thundered and poured outside. We were unlevel so water was coming in on one of the slides which is to be expected in that kind of weather. Later tonight when we did pull the slides back out, we did see that water had some how gotten to one of my pictures and ruined it. Nothing else was wet so we think it was just a bit of water from the slides which had been outside until we pulled them in to drive off. Water is not good for a camper so water any where makes us start feeling around searching for more.
After we were all dressed again, we ate lunch and started back on the road. From Pennsylvania, we traveled through Maryland and then on to West Virginia where we stopped at Harper's Ferry. We did take the bus to the old part of the town and explored there some.
It was a neat town. Now, we have been there before, and I remember not being impressed. Today, I was super impressed-we even walked on the Appalachian Trail which is so cool to me. I even put that I wanted to return and stay there longer. It certainly did help that the weather was perfect today-well after the monsoon.
By this time, we still had about 4 hours to drive to get to our campground in Virginia. We had forgotten that even the interstates around here are pretty hilly so things just took a bit. It wasn't us that took longer on the hills, it was everyone else. We slowed down at least 5 different times. The gps would say it was for wrecks, but then there wouldn't be anything there.
Time just kept passing by with all of the slowness. We stopped for gas and went ahead and bought McDonalds for supper so we could eat on the road. Then when we did get close to needing the directions for the campground, we saw the word "sharp" turn.
This baby with the car attached can't do "sharp" anythings. You can't really tell on the gps, but we decided not to risk it. So we took a longer route to the campground tonight. It was probably only 15 minutes longer but when you are getting in at 10, it seems a whole lot longer.
After leaving the interstate, we have about 20 more miles before getting here. It was 20 miles on the side of a mountain in the dark with a line of cars behind us. It really wasn't that bad. Now once we made it close to the campground, we slowed way down-remember, we can't really turn around that easily so we didn't want to miss it.
Robby had prepared us that this campground is just a field where they have music festivals. He was right. We found the office, and he found his site number on the map. We drove right by it since it is just in the grass off the road. Campbell is the one who spotted the electric.
Oh, it was almost a comedy of errors us getting to our spot. First we passed it. Then we took off the car but had some trouble. I backed the car the block backwards to the spot. Robby had to make a loop, but it was a pretty good dip. He almost thought that trailer was stuck and tried to back up. There was no baking up so he had to drive in the grass. Thankfully it wasn't muddy from all of the rain. He made the turn and made it to the site. We unhooked the trailer, and I helped him back the camper in. Then I had to move the car while he tried to figure out hooking up.
I am sure that this place is going to look much more appealing in the morning. It could be just great, but in the dark who knows. It isn't a scary place so that is one plus. The other plus is their grass is super nice. The plan for tomorrow is sleeping in, pancakes and laundry since we have a lot of wet clothes.
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