We are leaving Virginia Beach KOA at 9:20 am with 4,019 miles of our trip under our belt. It dawned clear and sunny this morning after the rain, lightning, and thunder of last night. We are glad that we can hook up in the sunshine and not the rain but everything is muddy and wet.
Michelle lovingly got up early to come down and help us this morning. We have had a wonderful time here. We can finally visualize her friends, home, street, favorite haunts and the beach where she takes her walks.
The drive out of Virginia Beach is on I64, the interstate we will be on until Lexington Kentucky. It passes through Norfolk, New Port News, and Hampton Roads, on to Williamsburg and Charlottesville. We are driving on the tunnel bridge one more time and we cannot believe how large the Chesapeake Bay is—how deeply it cuts into the land. And then all the rivers. Again we are amazed at the amount of water and greenery that is in this part of our country.
Our drive today is through the mountains of Virginia the highest peak of which is 5,700 ft complete with ski areas. All of the mountains are old and rounded on top, not like our jagged topped like our Serria Nevada’s. The Blue Ridge Mountains are hazy in the distance and our highway is wide and sunny and beautiful. For lunch today was asked our GPS (Rosemary) for a place near Charlottesville. She came with many suggestions from which to choose. After reading through them, Yvonne naively chose Mitchie’s Tavern. Now some of you may recognize that this tavern is right outside of the gates of Monticello and an historic mill and tavern. And it is of course restored and “Disney’ed” up with people in period costumes and craftsmen in their workshops. Bus loads of students make this stop for a tour on their way to Monticello.
Never the less we had a lovely country lunch of , fried chicken, mashed potatoes, slaw, and the best peach cobbler we have ever eaten (Yvonne bought the cook book).
Lest I lead you to believe that we did not like the place, let me say they do everything really well and it was fun to see all the families and kids enjoying the historical ambience.
After lunch we had to keep driving so we only stopped at the tourist info office after we crossed the border into West Virginia to get directions into tonight’s campground. (Rosemary could find Summersville but not the address). The young woman there was quite impressed with Yvonne’s binder of campground reservations and MapQuest directions. She said that most people come in with pages falling all over and some arrive with everything stuffed in a paper bag.
Following the directions she helped us with we found our campground on Summersville Lake just up the river from the New River Gorge Recreation Area—a really big river in a really deep gorge which we drove over on the longest single span bridge in the US. Also in this area is the new high adventure BSA camp (Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve). We did not stop but we can really understand that the Scouts will enjoy the mountain climbing, white water rafting, and high adventure hiking provided in the area.
After crossing over the dame that creates Summersville Lake we turned down into our campground, grassy hills with sites right down to the lake. The campground was nearly full with RV, trailers, tents, boats, jet skis, kids running round in bathing suits and towels hanging out to dry.
It was warm but not has humid as Virginia Beach in the rain so it was quite pleasant. Yvonne fixed a plate of cheese and crackers and apples and grapes, Stanley got the wine and the peanuts in the shell and we sat outside to enjoy our “Dinner” and the setting sun.
Between our CA car license and our “Dinner”, our neighbors noticed that we “weren’t from around here.” Several wandered over to talk about our Hi Lo trailer and to tell us what we should stop and see as we leave in the morning. They suggested that we stop and look at the out flow at the bottom of this dam and they also told us about Gauley Bridge and waterfall. We put those on our list for tomorrow and went to bed.
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