Our Road Trips

8/5/2015

The trip from Virginia Beach to Rudd’s Creek was pretty straight forward. We passed through Virginia Beach, Norfolk & Portsmouth and on west on US 58 just a few miles north of the border with North Carolina. We pass through a whole bunch of small towns, a lot more fun than the Interstates. I personally love small town USA, always wondering what keeps folks there and what they do for a living.

We arrive at Rudd’s Creek about 3 pm and get set up in Site 72, a site we stayed in during our stop in 2013, a huge drive through site. We have 50 amp electric, water, internet and no TV because of the trees and distance to any major stations. We headed south about 430 towards Raleigh, NC and dinner with our niece, Stephanie, & her family. They are glad to see us and we spend the evening eating dinner and filling them in on our travels since we saw them last. Stephanie has been reading this blog and following along when she has time…having 4 boys at home for the summer probably keeps her pretty busy. But Ken helps out a lot, they are a busy family. We head back to the camper about 1030 and get back just before midnight. It has been a long day and the bed feels great…still glad we bought a new mattress.

The next day is a day at the camper and fix whatever is wrong with the blinkers on the camper. After a lot of tracing wires, and finding one circuit dead, I traced that circuit back to the fuse panel and find a blown fuse. There is a spare fuse and I change the fuse and everything is back working. I am not sure why the fuse blew, there has to be a bare wire somewhere I’m thinking. So I try to check everything to no avail. So I button everything back up and put the tools away, need some spare fuses, just in case.

We head into Clarksville, VA for fuses & groceries and discover that the Hell’s Angels are having their State convention for VA & NC at the only motel in town. They are everywhere and trying their intimidation tactics on the town…cops are everywhere making sure nothing gets started. We get our fuses, stop at the only grocery store in town for a few things…the visitors are the only subject among the few locals & the workers at the store. We hear this has happened before, seems they like this little town so they come here often. We went back to the camper and spent the rest of the day staying out of the heat and watching old NCIS episodes on DVD. The early years, the show was sort of hokey, it has improved with age. It is nice to just relax for a while, we have been on the go pretty consistently.

On Friday, I drove to Occoneechee State Park on the edge of Clarksville to inquire about renting a boat so we could explore Lake Kerr. The lady at the gate advises that the boats are all rented but collects $3 entry fee so I can go check for myself. She tells me that if I drove to the marina without a pass, the cops would ticket me thinking I was a Hell’s Angel…seems the whole town is on edge. When I got to the marina, sure enough, there are 3 cops with guns and 3 Hell’s Angels at the marina. I inquire at the marina about boat rentals and it is verified that every boat within 30 miles is reserved…seems the biker dudes are going for a boat ride. The comical thing was one of these guys taking my picture with his phone, for some reason…my guess was an attempt at intimidation. Little shithead…needs to grow up to be intimidating, not just wear a cute vest and not shave for a few years…sheeese! We determine that a boat ride is not in our future and I headed back to the camper…Barb had a nice lunch ready. Staying out of the heat is in the cards…sounds good to both of us. We have a long day tomorrow, rest is good.

On Saturday morning, we pack up early and move out, stop and fuel up in Clarksville and follow US 58 west through South Boston, Danville & Martinsville, then north on US 220 to Roanoke and I-81 south. We stopped for a break and some lunch after 3 hours, found a K-Mart parking lot next to a Wendy’s. There was a mini (4 cars) car show going on and they didn’t seem to appreciate us parking in their? parking lot…put some ropes and flags up while we were at Wendy’s…pretty comical. We moved on, I-81 to US 460 west through Blacksburg and on into W Virginia, where we picked up I-77 north. More small towns that were probably bustling cities before the Interstate system took the traffic away. But I love driving through them, reminds me of my youth in SW Minnesota in a small town on SR 60, a very busy shortcut to Sioux Falls from Minneapolis. All of that traffic went away when they completed I-35 & I-90, which was after we moved away. I-77 is a toll road and we are only on it for about 35 miles and we head north on US 19 through Fayetteville, across the New River Gorge and on to just south of Summersville and a beautiful Army Corps campground on Summersville Lake, a beautiful lake that was formed by a dam on the Gauley River built in the early 60s and dedicated in 1966 by LBJ. We will be here for 7 nights, with water on 3 sides of us and surrounded by West Virginia Mountains…gorgeous spot. The lake is a local favorite for boaters, SCUBA divers & rock climbers…there are even 2 ships sunk for the divers to explore. They say you can see the bottom in 50’ of water…pretty place. We highly recommend keeping this place in mind for camping…Battle Run Campground, an ACE Park.

I have to tell this story: The Army Corps has a tradition of naming the dams & subsequent reservoirs after the closest town to the project. The closest town was called Gad, W Virginia. It subsequently disappeared when the reservoir filled up to a max depth of 342 feet. After a lot of discussion about the name of the dam, it was decided that Gad Dam was not appropriate and thus named it Summersville Dam, after the next closest town to the project. True story. We have seen it in print, 3 times.

Sunday, we just enjoyed our surroundings and watched the goings on at this very full campground. Everyone has a boat, mostly pontoon type, and the families are having a great time. When they are not boating, the kids are riding bikes, skateboards, you name it, and the adults are sitting around fires, even though it is 85 degrees…it is sort of weird, but it must be a WV tradition…lots of it going on. I went and found a grocery store in Summersville, picked up a few things and went back to the camper. We also watched the NASCAR race on TV and I took a nice nap…been a while, so I deserved it. Burgers on the grill for dinner and we took a tour of the campground…everyone loading their boats and headed home.

Monday, we heard back from our friends in SE Ohio that we went to Alaska with and we decided to meet in Fairmont, WV for a late lunch, about 90 minutes up the road. We met at a place called Poky Dots, a little 50s type diner, good food, friendly service and these amazing desserts. We spent about 4 hours yakking, talking about their happenings and ours. We went to the parking lot when they started to fill up for dinner, talked a little more and we headed in different direction, they went west, us south. It was a very nice visit, we will see them again in Nov when they come to Florida for the winter…nice!

On Tuesday, we went exploring, small country roads, more tiny towns and finally back to Fayetteville. We finally found the road that takes you down through the New River gorge and back up the other side. We spent about 2 hours exploring the gorge, taking pictures, walking bridges & reading the signs that are all along the route, telling the history of the development of the gorge and natures re-taking the place when the coal ran out and the new bridge was built that took the traffic a different way.

We got back to the camper just before dark, sat outside enjoying the nice weather, watching people and eating homemade nachos with chili we took home from Poky Dots…it was another very fun day. We are going to do some more exploring today, taking a ride into Summersville and doing a few errands. The weather is beautiful, may as well go enjoy it. Barb made us a nice breakfast…time to go.

Steve & Barb Larson