July 10, 2021

Kutztown, PA to Edinburg, VA

We woke up fairly early and pretty much got right on the road… with one minor issue. I had ran the refrigerator on battery power instead of propane the night before. The battery was seemingly dead and we couldn’t shut the slide out. I tried to shut the fridge off completely and then there was enough juice to get the slide in. Whoa that could’ve sucked so much! Luckily we do have a jump starter battery pack so we would’ve been okay.

I made some bento boxes for lunch for us. Tofurkey and Chao cheese with microgeeens and vegan mustard (yes! Not all mustards are vegan). Also some SoDelicious coconut milk yogurt with chia seeds and Kind raspberry granola. Just added some almonds on the side and threw in a banana for good measure.

As we get on the road we decide we need to find a hike to get the dogs’ legs moving before the next long drive. Using the AllTrails app I find something a few towns over in Reading, PA that looks like a creek is beside it. We turned the GPS in that direction and took off.

When we arrived, we noticed this wasn’t going to happen. It was a city walk through a planetarium parking lot and we definitely had no where to park. This hadn’t even crossed my mind to this point. We hike all the time. Drive our car up to the trailhead, park it, and we’re off! But not now! Not with a 20 ft travel trailer with us. Lots of choice words ran through my mind as I tried to furiously look for a new place for the pups to get their miles in.

We put in a new location to the Nolde Forest Trail and hoped for the best. It had a parking lot so we figured we might have a chance. Ehhh not so much. We baaaaarely were able to navigate around the parking lot to get out. We followed the trail map and found that we could swing around and get on through a different way, made it over and we were able to park along the side of the road safely. Phew!

As we are meandering through, we are noticing so many different tree and plant types. I personally love texture pictures of barks and leaves so I will take a lot of those shots on this trip.

A few deer jump out and cause a stir with the pups. Luckily Jason had the leashes at the moment because I was taking pictures. We look a little further ahead on the map and I see it! It’s a sign that we found the right place! There is a trail in this forest called the Owl Trail. And you know whoooo was so excited to walk it!

The hike lasted about an hour or so. We got back to the Rpod and had to use 4 Wheel drive to get it back onto the road but Jason handled it with ease.

Jason wanted to hit up this very big farmers market in Lancaster, PA. We were about 30 minutes away but the hardest part was finding a place to park in the city. We found a few coin pay locations but we were afraid to get boxed in. Jason found a baseball field to park next to and it was perfect. He ran into the Central Farmers Market and I watched a ball game be played. He returned with a whole lot of things. Blueberries, peaches, garlic pickles, jam, sourdough bread, oyster mushrooms, salad greens, microgreens, kale empanadas, mango avocado deliciousness and something with chickpeas and tomatoes which was amazing.

While Jason was being the gatherer, I looked for shelter. Remember- no reservations! We knew we wanted to be near the Shenandoah National Park so I looked high and low, mostly using Campendium and Recreation.gov to find a place. After the issue with the fridge the night before we wanted full hook ups. I called 5 places and looked online for availability and nothing. Eeeek. One place told me she would take us but they didn’t have the right electrical plug we needed, 30 amp. Then, out of no where, one of the places called me back saying there was an unexpected opening if we still wanted it. I screeched yes and not even two minutes later Jason was back at the rig with his gathered food. Perfection.

A side story I missed is to let you know the name of the camper. I wanted us to be reminded daily of what we need – the Bare Necessities, which lead me to sing the song and it hit! Baloo needed to be our Rpod’s name. In my mind, Jason just gathered and I hunted for a location. We totally are living with the bare necessities right now.

With shelter secured, the GPS guided us forward. Jason asks me where we are heading, what towns are nearby, anything to do, etc. I call out a few places but when I said Gettysburg he was intrigued. After thinking about it and checking to see what is in Gettysburg, we quickly change routes and decide to take a slight detour through the historic city.

Gettysburg

I will be honest and say I’ve had zero interest to ever see Gettysburg. Seeing a site of a massive military battle where thousands of lives were lost does nothing for me. I wasn’t even sure what we would see, but one thing I know wasn’t on my mind was this…. Gettysburg Bike Week. Jason’s eyes lit up and I felt a twinge of “oh crap, if we hadn’t already secured a location, he would’ve wanted to stay here tonight”. I do not love motorcycles. I like Jason’s Buell and I will ride on it with him, but I do not like how loud they are. Sensory overload times so. many. times.

Since I only found out we were going to Gettysburg 25 minutes prior to arriving, I didn’t have time to get my bearings. What I did find was an Auto Tour around the city to the different significant battle locations. 16 stops in all, usually takes about 2 hours to finish. Being able to see these types of historic monuments with the Pups safely in the car was amazing. One of us would jump out to get pictures but they were never alone. There is a audio/video portion of the Gettysburg tour on the National Parks Service website so we listened as we drove along.

We did about 3/4 of the tour and decided to head to the campground in Edinburg, VA. We followed the GPS…right into the bike rally. Oh. No. The police had closed certain streets down. The cars in front of us could turn around but no… not us… with our 20 ft Baloo in tow. Luckily we see an opening in the parking lot besides us and were able to creep ourselves onto the road going the opposite way… or so we thought. Not even a minute later, it happens. A five minute long parade of motorcycles! I have it all on video but it’s too large to upload. Once again though something we thought was going to be a negative turned into a positive. I was able to handle the sound but Jason definitely gave me a few moments after to collect myself while he listened to soft jazz instead of funk like he has been playing the past two days. I appreciated that he recognized what I needed to recover before we had to set up camp together! We drove by this beautiful building and I grabbed some pictures of the sky as well. What a nice drive!

Edinburg, VA

We arrived fairly late to our campground but it was still plenty light out. We were at the Creekside Campground in Edinburg, VA, very close to Shenandoah National Park abs Luray, VA. Our site was perfect, right on the end of the row at the start of the creek. Without much readjusting Jason got the camper in place. After leveling, we hooked up the water and electric and decided to wait on the sewer tank until morning. Not something I wanted to tackle after this long day and we had plenty of room in the tanks.