We Hiked the Appalachian Trail! (well, a teeny, tiny portion of it)

After a fun, relaxing week with my brother Tom and his family, our next destination was Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We parked Monday night at a Gander Mountain store in Winchester, VA and arrived at Big Meadows Campground in Shenandoah early Tuesday afternoon, 10/11.  We have just four nights here and there is so much to do – 105 miles of beautiful vistas on the Skyline Drive and over 500 miles of hiking trails, including a 101 miles of the Appalachian Trail – we won’t be able to even scratch the surface.

Big Meadows Campground is situated about the middle of the National Park and the Appalachian Trail was maybe 50 feet from our RV. Herds of deer wandered through our campsite and they were not the least concerned about us. There were also rumors of a bear sighting close to our campsite, but we never saw hide nor hair of him. I kept my trusty bear repellent (camera) with me at all times, just in case. Lol.  The bear trap occupying a site not too far from ours isn’t something you see every day.

Lots of deer in the campground.

This girl has attitude!

Not sure if this comforting or not. Lol.

On our arrival day, we did a short nature trail and walked to the Byrd Visitor Center. The history of the Shenandoah National Park is fascinating – In the 1930s, Shenandoah National Park was pieced together from over 3,000 individual tracts of land, purchased or condemned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and presented to the Federal Government. In the process, at least 500 families were displaced and some fought it all the way to the Supreme Court. While we certainly enjoy our National Parks today, it is interesting to learn how their creation was often controversial and caused real hardship for some people.

Our weather is supposed to be pretty good, with the possibility of a little rain on Thursday. What wasn’t in the forecast are the falling acorns! There are huge oak trees everywhere and the dropping acorns sound like gunshots when they hit the roof of the RV – which they do at random intervals all day and night! Let’s just say my startle reflex got a good workout. Lol.

With so many hiking options available we asked the Park Ranger for some recommendations and consulted our REI National Park Trails app to plan our attack. Turns out there were two great hikes starting right from our campground and more close by. We decided to skip the Skyline Drive – we did get to see a small portion of it on the way into the campground – in favor of more hiking time.

Sunset from the Appalachian Trail just a short walk from our campsite.

Pretty colors at dusk.

Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore. The next three days are all about the ups and downs – should be fun (not!). Lol. On Wednesday, 10/12, we did the Rose River Falls Loop trail and added in a detour to pick up the popular Dark Hollow Falls.  We started off from our campsite and walked the first section of our hike on the Appalachian Trail. Woohoo! 

Oh yeah, that is me on the Appalachian Trail. :) 

This was our first real hike in quite a while and it showed. Speaking of “showing”, allow me a (somewhat) brief rant. Several of the hikes we have planned are to picturesque waterfalls. Many folks hike to these popular falls just to photograph them. What is with people who park themselves in the middle of the scenic shot and camp out?? We had the misfortune of following a couple whose bucket list appeared to include not quite skinny dipping in each of the falls on our hike. At both of the major falls, I could hardly get a picture without them in it! You have no idea how tempted I was to pick up their clothes and turn them into lost and found at the park office. Lol. Another gal felt the need to do multiple yoga poses in front of the falls and yet another couple climbed out onto the rocks so they were perfectly framed in the middle of the falls and set up a picnic lunch. Arrrrgh! 

Rose River Falls

Water cascading over boulders on the Rose River. 

Some of these pretty waterfalls don't even get a mention on the map.

The lovely Dark Hollow Falls (photo bomb top right - arrgh!)

We have two more days of hiking with several more waterfalls. With over 500 miles of trails, surely we won't run into these same folks again!  

A Full Week of Family Fun

This past week has been wonderful. I wasn’t lying about spending it in my baby brother’s pocket. We arrived on Monday, 10/3, and spent time together every single day. The tough part is that, although we had a great time (or at least I did!), I’m not sure you all will find our long stroll down memory lane nearly as fascinating. So feel free to skip this post and pick up again when we hit our next stop at Shenandoah National Park.

Evening light on the Juniata River next to our campsite.

For those still reading that may not know, I have two younger bothers (no, that’s not a typo) – Tom is 4 years behind me and Tim is 11 years younger. We grew up in Strodes Mills, PA (you need a really good map to find it) which is about 6 miles out of Lewistown. Tim moved out to Washington when he was still a pup and currently resides in Seattle. Tom and his truly lovely wife, Kim, still live in Lewistown.

I joined the Army and left home in 1979 and have only been back a handful of times. So getting to spend a whole week with Tom and his family was a rare treat. Although we did spend an inordinate amount of time just sitting around and telling stores, we were not total slugs. Honest!

On Tuesday, 10/4, Rog made some long delayed upgrades to his bike. New tires and a set of gears so his single speed is now an 11 speed. Much easier for climbing those crazy steep mountain bike trails. In the evening, we visited a pumpkin patch and corn maze – a first for me! The farm had lots of activities for the kids, both the littler ones and us big ones. Last year Kim and Adrianne (Tom & Kim’s 12-year-old granddaughter) got lost in the corn maze and barely made it out before full dark. This year we made sure to exit the corn maze in plenty of time, but still ended up on the last hayride and had to be escorted out by flashlight.

All hands on deck. Lol.

Rog, Teddi, Tom, Adrianne, and Kim at Snyder's Farm.

Kim and Adrianne paint pumpkins.

The official greeter. :)

Fun for the big kids too.

Baby brother beats big sister in an oversized game of Connect 4. I demand a rematch!

Corn maze at dusk - yeah, I am outta here. :)

We were up early the next morning to hit the Belleville Sale – a combination farmers market, flea market and livestock auction that is very popular with the Amish community. The baked goods are to-die-for good. So much for eating healthy – moon pies, homemade bread, whoopie pies, sticky buns, apple dumplings… yeah, I got it all! This was about reliving my childhood (no wonder I was fat!). Lol.

Whoopie Pies - a staple of my childhood.

Don't see many of these in Seattle's rush hour traffic.

In the afternoon Kim gave me the full treatment – cut, color, and style. I was about four weeks overdue when we arrived and asked for a salon recommendation – turns out Kim used to be a hairdresser and still does some on the side. Wow. She did an awesome job. I’m trying to talk her into coming down and setting up shop in Key West in another six weeks or so. 

 

Thursday, Rog dropped me and our laundry off at Tom’s and then headed out for a mountain bike ride in Rothrock State Park. He was excited to find a whole slew of trails in the area and decided on a 26-mile expert level ride. He had a grand time, although he did take several spills including one pretty bad one where he launched himself over the handlebars and landed hard in a rock garden. That one left a mark. Some rock bites and an injured (possibly cracked) rib which is still giving him some trouble. Near the end of his ride, Rog had another thrill – a fairly close encounter with two black bears! They were about 25 yards away when he first saw them, luckily they headed in the opposite direction and paused about 50 yards away. Meanwhile Rog was frantically trying to pull his phone out to take a picture only to find the battery was dead. Arrrrgh. He finished the ride and made it back in (mostly) one piece and considered it all great fun. To each his own I guess – pass me another whoopie pie. Lol.

 

That evening we had a really nice dinner out with Tom & Kim. Through Yelp we found Revival Kitchen, a great little farm-to-table restaurant in a nearby town. Excellent food and awesome company.

Double date night!

Friday, Rog worked around the rig and slow cooked a pork butt on the Traeger. I went with Tom and Kim to pick up their 3-year-old granddaughter Abigail (Abi) to see if all the rumors were true - how she’s amazingly funny, adorable, brilliant, etc.  Yep. All true. Lol.  We had everyone over to the RV for dinner – pulled pork sandwiches, veggies, salad and s’mores. Yumm.

This is Abigail - too cute for words.

Dinner at our place.

S'more time!

I do believe that I put on nearly 5 pounds in just the week we were here. On Saturday, we were joined by Kim’s daughter Jenn for a dinner cruise on Raystown Lake. The prime rib dinner they served must have contributed at least 2 pounds to my total! The slabs of prime rib were HUGE.  We caught a break in the rain after dinner so we got to enjoy the view from the top of the boat. Sunset over the marina was lovely. Luckily nobody caught a video of my pratfall on the extremely slippery pier.  I ran down to take just one more picture and as soon as I stepped onto the slick, wet, algae covered wood ramp I went down hard. It was so slippery I had to literally crawl hand over hand up the railing to get back to stable footing. Between Rog’s sore rib and my sore bum, we’re quite the pair. Lol. 

Our dinner awaits.

Dinner cruise crew - Rog, Teddi, Tom, Adrianne, Kim, and Jenn.

We got a little fall color from the boat.

This sunset picture was literally a pain in the butt. Hope it's worth it. Lol.

Our last day of family togetherness was Sunday. I abused Kim’s hospitality one more time and did a final load of laundry. Their machine doesn’t even take quarters – almost forgot what that was like! Lol. We had fun (sort of) when Tom and Kim tried to teach us a new card game – interesting teaching method: wait until I do something wrong and then explain the rules. I’m thinking there was payback for some sisterly abuse going on there – we got cut no slack at all. Lol.

We did a final trip down the culinary memory lane and got hoagies and had chocolate cake with peanut butter icing from a recipe my Mom always made when we were kids. Kim was worried that it hadn’t turned out because it had sunk in the middle. No, it always looked like that! Lol. Then they surprised me with candles on the cake and birthday presents. (Thanks all!) 

Yes, I'm putting out the blaze!

That evening we had fun taking a drive through the neighborhood we grew up in and just reminiscing about all the stunts we pulled that did not end in tears or police involvement (and a few that did!). It was really hard to leave on Monday. Not sure how my bratty little bother ended up in his 50’s. Thank heavens I’m not getting old! Ha!

Maine to Pennsylvania and our First Match in Months

Ok, so I am waaaaaay behind on our travels. This last week I’ve pretty much been living in my oldest baby bother’s back pocket – spending as much time together as we can. I’ll save all the family fun for the next post and try to get caught up at least part of the way.

We left Schoodic Woods on Sunday, 9/27, and made it as far as Saco, Maine. We actually had access to the Eastern Rail to Trail pathway from our campground, but only managed to walk a few miles of it since it was just an overnight stop. Our second night was spent at Wells State Park in Sturbridge, Massachusetts. That was a lovely wooded park and we squeezed the short bus in among the trees – a few hairy moments when we got a little too close to those lovely trees for (my) comfort. Again, we got a little hiking in around the park but pulled out the next day and made it to Middletown, New York. We boondocked that night in the Gander Mountain store parking lot – quieter and more spacious than many campgrounds we’ve been in. Lol.  

Tucked in (tightly) among the trees at Wells State Park.

We arrived on the fourth day at our destination for the next three nights – the Allentown KOA in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania. We’re here to shoot the East Coast Regional ICORE match.  ICORE (International Confederation of Revolver Enthusiasts) is an organization of member clubs that host revolver competitions. Rog and I both have been members for many years, but don’t have a local ICORE club in Washington. We shoot steel and some other matches, but since we are headed to the “big” ICORE annual International Revolver Competition (IRC) in Florida we arranged our schedule to get in just a little trigger time on the road.

ICORE matches are great – lots of fun courses that use a combination of paper and steel targets. The East Coast Regional match did not disappoint with eight stages and about a 250 round count. There were around 50 participants in four squads. In our squad we had some local shooters, several Canadians, and a group of “Jersey Boys” that missed no opportunity to heap good-natured abuse on each other and tell stories that kept us in stitches half the day.

Rog and I both shoot .38 super caliber, 8 shot Smith & Wesson revolvers. Rog uses an optical dot sight so that puts him in Open class, I use the iron sights (so I have an excuse for missing so much) which puts me in Limited class. Since Rog and I haven’t done any shooting in well over two months, we were happy to get a chance to play. Actually, you could count the number of times we’ve shot in the last year on your fingers and have enough left over to make a fist. We thought retirement would mean plenty of time to get out to the range, but that obviously hasn’t happened. Lol. 

As for how we did…. Well for me, I keep the bar low – have fun, do not get disqualified and do not come in last. I managed all of those – so consider the day a success! While we both ended up a little further down in the standings than usual – Rog was 11 out of 19 in Open and I was 12 out of 16 in Limited – it was a great day at the range.

Rog shooting his Open class revolver.

One of our favorite stages. Starting seated, you turn over a disc to determine which color targets you shoot first.

Rog heads for the shooting box.

All the blue targets and THEN all the red. Penalties for anything shot out of order. 

My turn - which will it be....

... blue ones first!  Thinking and shooting - whose idea was that??!!

Managed to do it without screwing up. Yeah!

From here it’s a short hop to my hometown of Lewistown, PA. We’ll get there on Monday, 10/3. We don’t have a lot on the schedule, but I have years of sisterly abuse to catch up on so that’s my top priority. :)

Stimulating the Local Economy, Lunch with the RV Blog Gods, last Acadia Hike and a Secret Cove Sunset

On Sunday our plan was to start the day with some shopping in Bar Harbor. We hit the weekly farmer’s market first and scored some homemade granola, local cheese, bacon, cider and produce. Yum! 

Then we covered the town pretty well and did our best to ensure that the local economy will have a strong third quarter. There are lots of fun touristy shops and I wanted to make sure Rog had an opportunity to snag that Spiralite pendant at the Rock & Art Shop for my birthday. Lol.  Of course, it goes without saying that the Mt. Desert Ice Cream shop was on our list. I refrained from having another 4-scoop tasting flight and settled for a double – although we did get a pint to go! Lol.

Randi - I found all the sparkly things!! :)

Hand cast bronze ship's bell by local artist Richard Fisher.
This may be on Rog's Christmas list. 

While we were enjoying our ice cream and debating what to do next, the clouds opened up and it started pouring. It was amazing how quickly all the outdoor patio seating emptied out. Lol.  Since cold and rain do not make for a fun bicycling or kayaking experience – we decided to just head back to camp. On the way we were treated to a fantastic double rainbow. Awesome! 

Storybook perfect...

...and then it went double!!!  

A lot of factors contributed to our decision to spend a year on the road in our RV. But I don’t think you could overstate the influence of the full-time RVer's blogs that we’ve been following for several years. Sometime around 2011 or so, my brother Tim introduced me to RV Dreams. In 2005, Howard and Linda Payne quit their day jobs in their early 40’s, bought a 5^th wheel, and set out to live and make their living on the road. Howard posts a DAILY journal of their travels, logs their expenses, and generally has created a forum to connect and help folks interested in full-time RVing.  (Can’t even begin to imagine you how much work that is!)  

I noticed some time ago that Howard and Linda were doing a volunteer stint at Schoodic Institute during our stay here. Their job is to count migrating sea birds for a few hours each morning and afternoon at Schoodic Point (for awesome pictures and details see Howards blog here: http://www.rv-dreams-journal.com/)  We stopped by Schoodic Point several times, but our timing was never right to catch them. 

Since I’ve read the RV blogs for years but never commented, Rog calls me a “blog stalker” and I hesitated to bother them. Monday was our last day in Acadia and it was their “day off”, so I figured I’d missed my chance. But, I knew I’d regret at least not trying to connect (and besides I knew it would make Tim jealous if I did) so I emailed Howard on Sunday evening and offered to get together for lunch if they weren’t busy. We met at Corea on the Wharf (more lobster rolls and some to die for homemade blueberry pie) and had a delightful time. Howard and Linda are even more awesome in person and we chatted for several hours. We may even get a chance to meet up again in Florida this winter. It was fun finally meeting them in person and I’m so glad it worked out.

Howard & Linda Payne - RV Dreams blogger extraordinaire and general all round great folks. 

We spent our last afternoon hiking the Alder and Anvil Trail Loop and visiting a “semi-secret” cove that Howard told us about for pictures. We liked the view so much we came back at sunset – a beautiful spot. Amazing what a difference a few hours can make. For our last night, we had a campfire and enjoyed the warm fire, a starry sky, hot coffee and another slice of that incredible blueberry pie (yes, of course I got two pieces to go! Ha!)  It was a great ending to our stay at Acadia. 

Rocky, rooty climb on the Anvil Trail

The sorta secret cove and then again just a few hours later. 

Secluded coastline.

Looking across at Cadillac Mountain.

Yeah, this is the life.  Just gonna sit here and watch the sun set. :)

Nice spot for our last sunset in Acadia.

Colors changing every minute.

Tide is coming in, sun is going down. Beautiful.

Last shot of Cadillac Mountain.