May, 2022- The Trip that Wasn’t
This trip wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It should have been listed under the TRAVEL link above, not in the Airstream Adventures blog.
When we first started dating in 2019 we had planned a BIG adventure. The end of the world, Patagonia. But then 2020 came and changed those plans, so by the middle of 2021 we were raring to go someplace….Patagonia was still on the mind, but we decided instead to take a Black Sea cruise and see Turkey, Romania and… Ukraine. By November plans were made and tickets were bought. And then the craziness in the Ukraine happened. At first the cruise was re-routed, something we weren’t too thrilled about about but was completely understandable given the circumstances. It definitely was a classic “first world problem.” But then, a mere eight days before we scheduled to leave, the cruise was cancelled because of mechanical failure.
So now we have a hole in our schedule, a dogsitter booked for the time we were supposed to be gone and an Airstream that hasn’t been out in a few months. We must improvise.
We quickly came up with plan B. It involved mountains, rural countryside, battlefields, art, architecture, family, ocean and swamp, all in 10 days. Pretty all encompassing for a short order adventure. I didn’t quite go as planned but it all turned out fine and fun in the end!
So our first stop is Bulltown State Park, in Napier WV. Remote and only a few campers in this stunning campground. We did a lot of hiking and relaxing- but Tess almost got blown away by a surprise windstorm coming over the mountain- I was talking to a neighbor when it hit and I saw Tess’s new awning start billowing like a sailboat and when I jumped in to help I nearly got lifted off my feet trying to hold it down. But we got it safely stowed before any damage occurred.
After 3 nights in WV we packed up and head toward Mill Run, PA. and stayed at Christian Klay Winery, another Harvest Host. We came here specifically to see Falling Water, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright home- a bucket list item for both of us! But we also got to see another of his designs, Kentuck Knob, since it was in the general vicinity. Tragedy struck however, and we lost one of the side access panels to Tess, forcing us to finish the trip using cardboard and duct tape in it’s place. Ok, it’s a first world problem, but still….
We left Mill Run and headed towards Gettysburg and stayed at Battlefield Brew Works (HH). Parking was good and the food and beer were tasty. But overnight the clouds we’d had for days became heavy, non stop rain which threw our plans around a bit. We toured Gettysburg museum and did a drive through of the solemn battlefield- too wet to walk around. Our plans had been to stay in Amish country, so we set the GPS to Lancaster, which of course brought us to the small city, not rural Amish countryside…we drove through town and, failing to find a Harvest Host on the outskirts, we pushed onward to Lums Pond State Park in Delaware to visit my daughter who lives nearby. After a nice rain soaked visit, during which she drove us up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, we said our goodbyes and headed southeast. Our plan had been to head down to Chincoteague and stay there, but the wind and rain was too intense and the water was blowing over the road heading out to the island- so we we thwarted and turned around. Undaunted we pushed further south to the Great Dismal Swamp, only to find we were still in heavy rain, with no change in the forecast predicted anytime soon. After some long debate, which went kind of like this- “You like camping in a swamp during a deluge?” “Nope.” “Me neither.” we decided to keep pushing west until we saw sunshine, which led us to Medoc Mountain State Park, in Hollister NC, where for two days we basked in sunshine and relaxed until we pushed on home.
One of the coolest things, I thought, was going through the Chesapeake Tunnel while a HUGE freight ship passed overhead! Yeah, I know the physics behind it, but it was still interesting (to me) that we were driving underneath all that weight.
