July Road trip

Posted 7-28-2014

7-26-2014 Millie and I have been on the road again. It’s a short trip and I wasn’t going to write about it in the blog but Millie said we should just for our own recollection. It’s a writer’s morning here in Mount Rogers National Forest, overcast with a spattering of rain, no cell service and no internet, so I’m tapping out an entry. If you ever want to just get away from everything for a bit, come to southwestern Virginia. Most of Mount Rogers National Forest is beautiful tree covered mountains and very few people. Few people mean few potential customers for the cell companies which mean no cell towers. Folks who live out here still rely on land line telephones, imagine that! We’re here to visit Millie’s sister Betty and her husband Paul who have a small blueberry farm in the shadow of Mount Rogers and White Top Mountain.

We had barely been home from the 5 month road trip before heading out again. We haven’t been up north to visit family for a while. We are already making plans for next winters cross country adventure and wanted to visit family first, so after six busy weeks in Myrtle Beach it was time to go again.

7-13-2014 Once again we took highway 17 north thru the Carolina’s, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. Our first day took us to Virginia Beach where we stayed one night at Indian Cove Resort. It is a Coast to Coast Affiliate and as members it only cost us $15. 

7-14-2014 Day two took us to our destination in Delaware, Lumm’s Pond State Park.

Delaware has many nice parks in all respects except camping. Lumm’s only has six campsites with electric service. They are almost always booked on weekends so once again our visit was restricted to weekdays. We visited with my parents, brothers and son but missed seeing some of my old friends.

L-R Millie, Dad Midash, Mom Midash, Delaney-Larry-Kristie Midash

7-16-2014 On Wednesday I took Millie to Winterthur, the DuPont mansion in northern Delaware. The house is supposed to have 175 rooms but the tour only went thru about a dozen, don’t know what they’re doing with the rest of it. We’ve been thru so many old houses filled with stuffy old furniture and dark old pictures I guess we’re a bit jaded when it comes to historic mansions. We were impressed with the wide plank flooring and the gardens surrounding the house are very nice. The highlight of the mansion at least from Millies vantage was the display of costumes from the British show Downton Abbey. Winterthur is a real life example of life in the Fictitious Downton Abbey time period.

Winterthur

Downton Abbey exhibit

7-18-2014 Next stop was the Elks Lodge on Kent Island, Maryland. The Stevensville Lodge has four RV sites and we were the only RV there all weekend, cost for visiting Elk members is $20 a night.

7-19-2014 On Saturday we drove the jeep across the Delmarva Peninsula to my brother John and his wife Sandy’s new home outside Lewes Delaware. As expected they have a beautiful new home on a large country lot. 

Baltimore Inner Harbor

7-20-2014 Sunday we went to Baltimore where we toured Fort McHenry. I recommend doing the video presentation before walking the fort. The short film details the events that put the British, the Americans and Francis Scott Key in Baltimore harbor on Sept 13 1814. The end of the film is of course the dawn of the next day when the rising fog revealed the American flag still flying over the fort. Next the screen rolls up exposing a large window looking out over the fort and our flag flying as it did that fateful night.

I know I’m being a bit of a spoiler writing about that but it still raises Goosebumps every time I experience it and I hope it will inspire you to go.  

Fort McHenry

Afterwards we had lunch at La Tasca in the Baltimore tourist area called The Inner Harbor. We enjoyed our meal al fresco, our table overlooking the colonial era warship the USS Constellation. It was our first time at a Spanish restaurant and it was an interesting experience. The food is sold in small portions, the idea is you each chose several and everyone shares the selections. The food was good, reminiscent of Cuban food but not as spicy. While in Baltimore we also did a driving tour thru Fells Point, John’s Hopkins, THE BLOCK, and past the Orioles and Ravens stadiums. 

Naval Academy

7-21-2014 Monday we went to Annapolis to visit the Naval Academy. Annapolis was a frequent port of call in my boating days so I’ve been to the academy several times. In fact we used to ride bikes around the campus before terrorists and the locking down of everything. After going thru security we signed up for a guided walking tour and I highly recommend it. Our tour guide took us inside many buildings that we would never have seen if we were on our own.

Naval Academy

As we walked back to the city dock I suggested lunch at Phillips Seafood which overlooks Ego Alley. The alley is the deadened canal past the city docks which all manor of boats slowly cruise. The parade of watercraft passes the docked boats and tourists of the city dock, the patrons of Prussers’ dockside bar and the experienced eyes of the old naval types at the Fleet Reserve Club, then one by one each craft turns about in the tiny basin and putts back out past the observers. It’s the see and be seen event of the Annapolis boating world. It sounds very vain but it is fun, I’ve done it myself.

Our lunch at Phillips was, sorry to say disappointing, especially to me as I had just told Millie that it originated in Ocean City and was considered the epitome of Maryland crab cuisine. She said Phillips must be a chain as we used to have one in Myrtle Beach. I said a lot of Marylanders would cringe at Phillips being called a chain. Phillips closing down in Myrtle Beach makes sense to me now, our town has hundreds of restaurants and only the very good ones survive.   

7-22-2014 On Tuesday we departed Kent Island and crossed the Bay Bridge for the third time in as many days. Our first stop for the day was due west of the District of Columbia so in keeping with our local road philosophy we shunned the many ribbons of beltway and took the motorhome with jeep in tow straight thru the capitol. We even went down Constitution Ave past the Memorials Mall and all the museums.

Constitution Ave in DC

A word of warning; just about every traffic signal we went through in the city was a photo enforced red light. As is usually the case the light timing was very short, the system is clearly more of revenue generator than safety device. 

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

West of the city we stopped at Dulles International Airport to visit the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center which is an extension of the Smithsonian air and Space Museum. The museum has many finely restored civilian and military airplanes as well as space exhibits, the most prominent being the space shuttle, Discovery. The most famous aircraft on the aviation side is the B-29 bomber that ended World War 2, the Enola Gay. 

Space Shuttle Discover

Before leaving the museum we found my Dad’s name which is engraved on one of the foils that frame the entrance to the museum. He spent his whole working life, including 3 years of World War Two in aviation and my brothers and I thought it would be appropriate for his name to be a permanent part of the museum.

Entrance to Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

Moving on we drove west to Front Royal and overnighted at Skyline Ranch Resort. It is also a Coast to Coast Affiliate so only cost us $15. The next morning we did the long drive down I-81 to the southwestern corner of Virginia. I-81 is actually a very scenic, when you drive down Skyline Drive the highway you see in wide valley to the west is I-81. So 81 is kind of like Skyline Drive except its straight and shared with 60,000lb tractor trailers doing 70mph.

That brings us back to Mount Rogers and our stay in Southwestern Virginia. Besides visiting with family where we also we picked blueberries, we rode bikes on the Virginia Creeper Trail. The Virginia Creeper is a railroad to trail conversion, the popular portion of it runs 17 miles from the top of Mount Rogers to Damascus Virginia. We rode the entire distance which sounds very impressive, until I mention that it is almost all downhill. 

Virginia Creeper trail

7/27/2014 We drove home to Myrtle Beach today. It was an easy uneventful ride. We really enjoy our time on the road but it’s always good to be back home again!

Home again