Yesterday was another short driving day for us, just 77 miles! I could get used to this laid back lifestyle!

We left Round Top Campground in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania just before 10 a.m. , got on U.S. Highway 15 and followed it south to Frederick, Maryland. U.S. 15 is a nice, divided four lane highway that crosses through some very pretty country. At Frederick, we picked up Interstate 270 and followed it about 30 miles to Interstate 495, better known as the Beltway around the Washington, D.C. area.

I had hoped that on a Sunday morning, traffic wouldn’t be too bad, but I was wrong. It got noticeably busier from Frederick south, and as soon as we got onto the Beltway, it was petty much bumper to bumper all the way to College Park, a distance of about 9 miles. We got off in College Park, and then had just over a mile of surface streets to drive before we arrived at Cherry Hill Park, less than 90 minutes after we hit the road. Did I say I could get used to this laid back lifestyle?

Here is our Winnebago in our site at Cherry Hill, our home for the next week while we tour Washington.

Cherry Hill is the most expensive RV park we’ve ever stayed in, at $58 a night (less 10% discount for FMCA members), for a back-in, full hookup 50 amp RV site with cable TV. But, I think it’s the best location for visiting Washington. We can buy tickets for the Metro in the park office, and a city bus comes through every half hour and delivers us right to the station.

We know folks who stay at outlying county parks, private campgrounds, and Elks and Moose lodges, then drive to a Metro station and park there, but for us, the convenience is well worth the extra cost. I know my motorhome and van are in a secure place, and all I have to do is get on the bus and go.

Once we were hooked up and settled in, we drove to a nearby Five Guys for lunch, and then went in search of a Best Buy to get a spare battery for my Olympus digital camera. The GPS took us several miles to Wheaton, Maryland, and then when we returned to College Park, we saw a Best Buy just down the road from the campground! Terry got a chuckle out of that.

We stopped at a grocery store for a couple of items, then came back to the campground and spent the rest of the day at home, just relaxing before we start playing tourist again today.

We weren’t hungry when dinnertime rolled around, but about 7:30 p.m. we wanted a treat, so we walked across the road to the campground’s Conference Center, which includes a TV room, pool, hot tub, laundry, and cafe. We ordered ice cream sundaes, and were shocked at how big they were. This is a “one scoop” sundae!

Terry originally ordered a two scoop sundae, but had to cancel that after she saw how big it was! Even so, there was no way I could finish mine. It must have had a pint of ice cream in it, along with whipped cream, nuts, cherries, and sprinkles. And then we were shocked at the price – just $3.80 for two of these monster desserts!

I had several blog comments and e-mails from people wanting to see me in my new hats, so here you go. But don’t blame me if your kids get born cross eyed or something!

Just like Gettysburg, there is so much to see and do here that we know we can only scratch the surface this trip. But we’re looking forward to visiting several of the museums and monuments we missed on our last visit. It’s going to be a fun week!

Thought For The Day – I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days get together and gang up on me all at once.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally

We were up by 7 a.m. yesterday, which is way too early for us, but we had a lot of miles to travel. We pulled out of Pony Express RV Resort in North Salt Lake, took Interstate 215 around the west side of Salt Lake City to where it joined Interstate 15 on the south side of town. I-215 was a nice road, but as soon as we hit I-15, we ran into heavy traffic and road construction that lasted all the way south to Spanish Fork. By the time we left the interstate there and got onto U.S. Highway 6, I was sure glad to get off the superslab.

It was 133 miles to Interstate 70 at Green River, and a lot of it was two lane road. U.S. 6 is a good road, but not one where you’ll go very fast. In some places it is narrow, there are no shoulders, and it does some climbing.

It also has a couple of steep downgrades, but they are relatively short.

 

Did I mention it has a lot of twists and turns, especially as it goes through Price Canyon? Note the road sign. It didn’t exaggerate!

Price Canyon was pretty impressive, in spite of the bug on the windshield.

We also had several stretches of road construction to deal with. At one point, the road was down to one lane, and we passed a long line of cars and trucks headed the other way who were waiting for their turn to go.

We also saw a wind farm. Nothing strange about that, except most of them that we have seen are on top of ridges to get the most wind. But these were down low.

Miss Terry ran down the batteries in both of our Olympus digital cameras, but she got some great pictures. There were quite a few railroads tunnels through the mountains.

Once we passed the little town of Price, about halfway along U.S. 6, the road became wider and the countryside flatter. We even had some four lane stretches of roadway.

It was hot! When we got onto Interstate 70, my dashboard thermometer said it was 104 degrees, and later on, as we crossed into Colorado, it was 106! But, our Winnebago performed well and climbed up the steepest grades without hesitation.

We saw some gorgeous scenery in western Colorado, including lots of impressive rock formations.

The scenery was absolutely spectacular, and the highway had lots of curves and, of course, more construction zones.

The highway follows the river, and we saw lots of rafters and fly fishermen.

Did I mention the road construction?

The battery in the second camera died just as we got to Glenwood Canyon, which was disappointing, because it was breathtaking.  I want to go back and drive this stretch of road in the van, and see it again.

We arrived at River Dance RV Resort in Gypsum just after 4 p.m., covering 397 miles in one day. That’s a lot of driving, and we much prefer 250-300 mile days. But sometimes you just do what you have to do.

Rusty and Rebecca at River Dance are super friendly people and really made us feel welcome. There was a little snafu, because the full hookup site they had reserved for us was still occupied by the previous person, and he was off sightseeing somewhere.  Rusty had us pull into another site, with water and electric, so we could plug in and have our air conditioner on while we waited. They were both very apologetic, but what the heck, things happen. It was no big deal.

Once we got into our site, we had a great view out of our windshield. You can’t see the Eagle River in this picture, but it runs right alongside the campground, and if we had time, I’d launch our kayaks.

Here is the view behind us. I don’t think there is ten feet in flat land in all of the western half of Colorado!

By the time we were settled into our site and hooked up, we were famished. Terry drove the 7 miles to Pazzo’s Pizza, in Eagle, where we had one of the best pizzas we have had in years.

Between getting up earlier than usual, the long drive, and the elevation, we were really worn out by the time we finished dinner and got back to the campground. The mosquitoes here are about as big as sparrows, and as aggressive as hawks, so we made a mad dash for the RV. But I still got bitten two or three times before I could get the door unlocked and we could get inside.

Today we plan to sleep late, and then do a whole lot of nothing. We had a busy week in Salt Lake City, and we have a busy weekend ahead of us, so we need to take advantage of every quiet moment we can.

Thought For The Day – The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway.

Click Here To Register For Our Eastern Gypsy Gathering Rally!

We had a surprisingly quiet night at the Georgia State Welcome Center, and were on the road by 8:30 a.m., which is probably a new record for us, but we had a lot of miles to cover.

We had a little technical issue I wanted to have looked at, so I called the Camping World in Pooler, near Savannah, and the service manager said to come right in and they’d see what they could do. It was only nine miles to Camping World, so we were there in just a few minutes. I checked in and was told there was one rig ahead of us, and it would probably be about an hour before they could get us into the shop.

Since we didn’t have an appointment, I figured that was pretty good. But an hour later, they still had not pulled that motorhome into the service bay, so I asked again about the time frame. Then I was told it would be about 1 p.m. before they could get to us. We decided that we’d deal with it when we got to Florida.

We got back on the highway and had a quick trip south to the Florida state line, even though we drove through a 20 mile long construction zone north of Brunswick. Regular readers Lucille and Larry Tillotson had e-mailed to advise us to take the I-295 bypass around Jacksonville rather than stay on the more challenging I-95 through town, and we found it to be an excellent road.

We knew that the space shuttle Atlantis was supposed to be launched at 2:28 p.m., and I told Terry we might get lucky and see it. She got her Olympus digital camera out, just in case, and sure enough, right on schedule, we saw it streaking toward outer space.

We were going down the highway at 60 miles per hour, but Terry managed to get a couple of photos through the side window of our Winnebago before it sped out of sight, leaving a thick contrail in the blue sky.

Earlier Terry and I had been talking about the space program, and I questioned whether it was worth all the money we had poured into it. She pointed out that it has brought us all kinds of things we take for granted today, such as satellite TV programming and GPS systems. Okay, that’s a good deal I guess. We spend billions of dollars, and in return we get perpetual reruns of Roseanne and The Beverly Hillbillies, more home shopping channels than I will ever have time to skip with my remote control, and an electronic backseat driver nagging me to turn left.

We left the highway in Titusville and pulled into The Great Outdoors, one of the premier RV resorts in the country. When we said we were headed to Florida, our longtime friends Pete and Connie Bradish had generously invited us to be their guests for a few days, which we very much appreciate.

This place is really impressive. They have two swimming pools, hot tubs, an eighteen hole championship golf course, fitness center, stocked fishing lake, recreation hall, as well as an on-site post office, bank, hair salon, bank, and RV service facility.

There are hundreds of full hookup 50 amp RV sites, as well as RV ports, chalets, and upscale homes, some of which sell for over $600,000. Lots here rent for over $1,100 a month during peak season, and the resort’s newsletter listed RV lots for sale by private owners for as much as $115,000. That’s a bit out of our price range, but we sure are going to enjoy experiencing the lifestyle of the rich and famous for a while! I think I just heard Robin Leach talking about champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

Thought For The Day – The heart that loves is always young.

Register Now For Our Arizona Gypsy Gathering Rally