Where am I and where did I leave off? I have at least three days to catch up on, so I may end up leaving out some stuff. I left Rob and Gabrielle’s somewhere around noon-ish. I can’t seem to get my act in gear and get out too much earlier than 10:00 a.m. If I took the Interstate, my GPS had me go all the way back up to Chesapeake, VA. Instead, I decided to cross straight over to I-64. The GPS had me take roads I had no business taking that van on. Many were back county roads that were curvy and not plowed. Why is it that when the road was nice and straight, it was also clear, but when a rather sharp curve came up, the road was covered with snow and ice???
This was a traveling day. There isn’t much to report on except some of the sites. Because of the road conditions, I couldn’t chance pulling off to the side to take pictures of some of the things I saw. I assumed the shoulders would either be too icy or too mucky to risk getting the van stuck.
The only wildlife I saw were birds and dead deer – lots and lots of dead deer. I saw a great blue heron standing in a ditch not more than 20 feet off the side of the highway. I also passed a field of geese. There had to have been 100 or more geese in this field. Expecting them to be Canada geese, I was surprised to see that they were white. Could they have been snow geese?
Most of the day was pretty uneventful. My destination was the Popular Point Campground which is part of the Jordan Lake Recreation area outside of Raleigh, NC. I got to the campground just before dark, only to find out that it was closed. This is not only a campground that was open all year; it also had the hours posted on the main gate: 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. It was only 5:30. Now, it was getting dark and I had absolutely no idea where I was going to stay. I pulled out my 2-inch thick Passport America campground directory to see if I could find a campground close by. I came to the horrible realization that, although the directory had a lot of information about its campgrounds, including their e-mail and web addresses, there was NO phone numbers listed. Who would put together a campground directory and not list phone numbers of the establishments????? I was lucky that I had a “smart phone” with Internet access and I was even luckier that I had service.
The nearest campground was about 20 miles away. As I was getting directions from the owner, he said, “Be careful on such-and-such road. I was just told it is very icy.” Just great! Just what I need. Driving in the dark in an unfamiliar area on icy roads – and, it was raining. The owner wasn’t kidding about the icy roads. Luckily, I got behind a tractor trailer. I figured, if I was going to go sliding off the road, so was he and I also figured, if he was safe, so was I.
We both turned down the road that the campground was on. About a mile in, he turned off into the lot of some kind of refinery. The place was all lit up and looked like a space shuttle launch with all its Erector Set-type construction. The campground was about a mile past the refinery. It was dark. The road into the campground was so icy, I couldn’t tell what was road and what wasn’t. I ended up pulling into the first spot I could find and figured I’d worry about paying for the site in the morning. All I cared about was having electricity so I could have my electric blanket on.
Pictures of Hope and Olly in their typical riding positions. Notice Olly's extended arm:
The sun setting near Jordan Lake:
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