Winnona’s Newest Campsite

Sunday October 30, 2011
59 days til’ On the Road Again

 

When we arrive back
in the Charlottesville area
for the annual checkups for people
and vehicles, we
have to leave Winnona parked
in town which is 23 miles from
the farm.   So we go there first
and then out to check out the 3/4
mile long farm driveway to see
what has happened to the road
and how much the trees and bushes have
grown into it.

 

This time there was the usual trimming
that needed to be done before
she could venture down the lane.
So she hung out in town for a while.

That’s David in the 1986 Chevy S10 pickup.
A virtual antique which just luckily runs and runs
and waits and waits without much complaining.

 

 

and because of all the rain from this
spring, the road needed gravel
to fill in some potholes.

 

Look at that poor little truck.
He tolerates anything.

 

 

This is  just one of the holes.
Farm house in the distance.
Winnona in the barnyard is the goal

 

 

It actually took two loads and probably could
have taken more.

 

 

And then of course there is the yard.
OH DEAR!

You can’t tell the fenced in yard from
the fields.
Guess this is the result of all those spring rains
everybody in the Mid-Atlantic kept complaining about.

 

Who could have thought mowing the grass could be so much fun??

 

 

Sure looks much better!!!

 

Time for Ruby’s oil change and transmission fluid change
and cabin filter change and whatever else is in
the 66K mile service plan.

Time for Ruby’s state inspection.
It went off without a hitch.
Went in,
15 minutes later
out we go with a new due date.
It’s not always that quick and easy
but if you keep your vehicles in good
condition it is.

The last time we had it done was
when we were here in June of 2010
so we were long overdue
but thankfully they don’t send the PO-lice out to
get you if you aren’t even in the state.

Everything is ready for
Winnona to come on out to
her Greenfield Mountain Farm Campsite
But first, while she’s in town,
her turn for state inspection

I actually believe in State inspections
in order to keep folks who don’t believe in mufflers or
pollution equipment in line or off the roads.
And here in Virginia they only cost $16 so I’m not complaining.

In she went

Out she came with new wiper blades and
the little sticker that says reinspect in 10/12.  
Well maybe.
If she’s around here.
OR maybe not.
J

And ultimately she made her way
for her stay in Site NUMBER ONE
at the Greenfield Mountain Farm Campsite

where she hung out for the big
Virginia October Snow Storm
which roared in Friday night!

The BIG snow was melted in about an hour.

J

Spud Update

Friday October 28, 2011
61 days til’ On the Road

I was surprised that only one commenter
had a unique place
they would tell folks not to miss.

I was hoping I would learn about some great places for
my “to be visited list”.


Well two actually since Dave
put me on to another Spudnuts in Berea, Ohio
where he says they  are also “the best donuts in town”.

Thanks Dave I’ll definitely be swinging by there
when I go through northern Ohio.

But it seems I didn’t explain the Spudnuts thing
very clearly or actually at all.

Spudnuts is not a franchise anymore.
It was in the beginning when the Pelton brothers
started it in Salt Lake City in 1948.
Then you could open a shop by
paying a $50 fee and buying 100 pounds
of the special potato flour.

By 1954 there were more than 300 shops
and a cartoon character,
Mr. Spudnut,

who appeared in their ads,
(check out the price for a dozen)
in the shops and even in parades.

The Brothers sold the company in 1968.
And then it was sold again several times over the next 20 years.

In the 1980’s the parent company closed
leaving all the franchises to fend for themselves.

The original recipe was no longer available
from the company and the stores had to create their own.  

Over the life of the company there were 600 stores
in the US, Canada and Mexico.

In 1975 there were 170 in Japan.
But by 1989 there were only 28 stores.

The information I found says there are now 35 stores
http://spudnutshop.com/
but the list on line is way longer than that.
Although I can attest that not all of these stores
are actually there as you know from my search
to find them.

Call before you go is my advice.

But keep trying, they are worth it.
At least the ones here in Charlottesville and
Dave’s store in Berea!!

Tomorrow I’ll let you in on what’s been happening
in the annual “services stop over”.
Bet you can hardly wait!   HA!!

Are you SURE you don’t have a
Unique place we all should check out?
J

FINALLY….spudnuts

Saturday October 21, 2011
On the road again in
67 days 18 hours 7 minutes and 2 seconds

If you’ve been following along on the quest for
Spudnuts you will know that it has been
completely unsuccessful despite all my
efforts to find the locations around the country listed
on the spudnuts website.
Phone numbers that no longer are in service,
shops that have moved or
addresses that don’t exist.
It’s been frustrating.

But no more.
I know the location of this one
and I set out early
for my potato donut fix.

I promised I would not put a picture
of the lovely proprietress on the internet
so sadly you will not get to see her
smiling face. She told me to take
her son’s picture instead. He was moving
trays of donuts from the kitchen to
the sales room but adopted his
mom’s fear of fame as you’ll see.

I’ll just let spudnuts speak for itself.
But notice that it is only 7:30 am and
the shelves are already emptying.. The baker
is working as fast as he can but
they are flying out the door dozens
at a time.

In your travels, when you come to
see the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge
Parkway and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
and the serpentine walls at the University of
Virginia which he designed

– and you know you will at some point-

don’t miss these great SPUD DONUTS.

But get there early!! J

I took away a dozen coconut!
Mmmmmmm
fresh hot coconut donuts.
I’ve waited a LONG time for these.

What’s the unique place in your current or former home town
that you would tell folks not to miss?

Record SMASHING Miles

Tuesday  October 18, 2011
Virginia Stop Over

 

Well we’re off the road for a bit
but the count down to back on the road
has already begun
and stands at 70 days 18 hours and 25 minutes.

But let me recap.
We left West Virginia on I 68
and soon found ourselves in Maryland
Remember what I said about not wanting
to do too much back roading in Almost Heaven.

Nice sign.

 

Where we drove about 100 miles
running directly parallel and just north
of the West Virginia state line through
lovely fall scenery which looked deceptively
like West Virginia.

 

 

Lots of steep grades and had plenty of cautions

 

 

We got off just in time to miss the Pennsylvania
Turnpike (WHEW) and traveled south down
the lovely US 522 where we slipped back into West Virginia

We made a couple
of stops for various types of fuel

 

and shortly found ourselves going by the
sign for our home state before we knew it.
This Fuji camera I’m trying out isn’t
the quick draw my Canon Powershot was.

 

 

We were headed for New Market
a long travel day for us at 195 miles.

But as we got closer, we decided that
this was our neck of the woods,
Interstate 81 had never seemed like
such a good road to drive until
we had tried lots of other states roads
over the past 6 months and now it seemed
like we could just cruise right on.
And so we did.
I 81 South to I 64 East,
to familiar signs of our neck of the woods

 

 

 

 

We pulled in at TWO HUNDRED SEVENTY EIGHT miles
(yes you read that correctly 278)
and weren’t too tired to get the car off the dolly
the dolly off the RV, the kayaks off the car, and
the bikes off the car and all of it put away before dark!!

We’ll be hanging around here for the aforementioned
amount of time to do all those things  you
have to do ….doctors, dentists, get poor Ruby’s hail
damage fixed, oil changes, transmission fluid changes,
vehicle inspections and holiday celebrating.

Next plan is to get this all done and
meet up with Nancy and Bill Mills
in warmer (WE HOPE)
Florida for some serious FUN!!
(including ice cream)

J

I’ll  keep you updated on the progress
and the count down.

Not quite Heaven

Monday October 17, 2011
Cooper’s Rock State Forest
West Virginia

First off I want to
say how much I appreciate all of
your comments.  I know only
a few of the folks who read the blog
comment but it is SO nice to know
who is out there and what they think
So thank you all!!

Boy Sunday night was a GREAT quiet night last night.
As you saw, we were the only
ones in the campground.
We thought seriously about staying
a few more days to enjoy it even more fully
but we have a lot of appointments
to take care of in Charlottesville
and the sooner we get them
underway, the sooner we
can be on our way again.

We were out by 9:00
but by the time we stopped by the dump
and got the car on the dolly we have decided is
a tad too small for our Honda Accord, it was
9:50.   Still that counts as “Out by 10, in by 3”.

Zanesville is very close to the West Virginia line
and soon there we were and there were the
Alleghany Hills.

 

East into Pennsylvania.
Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania.
The states are flying by.

We nearly always stop at the welcome center for a state
and get the highway map so that’s what we did.
Here’s Winnona among the big boys.

 

I got a real kick out of the signs on the sides
of these two trucks.  I didn’t realize when
taking this picture that the sun made it nearly impossible to read.
I should have taken a second and better one.

The slogan on the rear reads
”Our job SUCKS & We GUARANTEE it”!!

I suppose we’ve all had one job or another
like that but this is the first time I’ve seen it
guaranteed with emphasized pleasure.
J

Soon we were headed back South and returned to West Virginia.
You have to be careful when traveling in West Virginia.
A lot of their roads, ok MOST of their roads are
”country roads” and may not take you home or
back where you belong.   This I know from many years
of living right next door.

So having taken a carefully planned route,
173 miles later we landed at Cooper’s Rock State Forest
McCollum Campground.

This is a lovely small campground with only 25 sites
I’d say there are 10 that can handle Winnona
and two or three that can take things larger.

There was one other camper here when we came
and only 2 or 3 more showed up later on.

I’m sure it is more full in the summer and they do
have a reservation system but not all sites can be reserved
so there appear to always be walk-ins

We took pull through site #15
with electric for $20.70.  During the summer
West Virginia kindly gives a senior discount
whether you are a West Virginian or not. 
During the summer rates are higher
and the $20.70 is the senior rate.
But off season everyone’s rate is $20.70
and West Virginians pay half that.

This site is terrific!
Take a look.

Here is Duckie’s view

Next time I might try Sites 22 or 16 which
are pull throughs on the other side of the road and thus
have only forest out the entry door side. 
But as the campground is sparsely populated
at this time of year, it doesn’t matter.
The sites around us are unoccupied.

We had thought we might stay two or three days
here and try out some more and a little longer
hiking but on the way in we saw several signs
telling us the hunting season here in this State Forest
runs from October through February.

The hiking trails map cautions you to wear blaze orange
when hiking during hunting season.

Well then,
I think not.

Having lived in the foot hills in Virginia
for 30 years I know better than to go out
hiking during hunting season.
Any place blaze orange is called for,
I’m not there.

 
So we are only staying this one night
and will move on to Virginia tomorrow.
I’m sorry about that and definitely would like to
return to this sweet spot.

This will be faster moving than we are used to
driving two days in a row.
And you’ve probably already noticed that
173 miles is WAY over my usual quota
but in this life you go with the flow.

Just a tad bit windy for golf

Sunday October 16, 2011
Dillon State Park  Site 121
Nashport, Ohio

 

We’ve seen multiple disc golf courses lately.
And had some serious encouragement to give it
a try from Jeannie.
So when the rain stopped, 
and then the wind stopped, or we thought it did,
we decided  to take the park up on their
offer to loan us a fairway driver,
a midrange flier and a putter for $3 an hour.

We walked over to the camp store.

 

Yesterday’s high winds had rearranged
some of the Halloween decorations.

 

But not all.

 

We signed up,
took the bag with discs and score card,
and started off.

 

Interesting Tee Poles.
They show you a sketch of each “hole”
or basket or whatever is the correct term.

And you tee of from here.

 

 

We started out on the first of nine holes.
I think David’s trying to add some
hocus pocus to his throw.

 

 

Now he has been a Frisbee player in the past.
Ok the long past.
I have thrown one once or twice.

 

Here I am giving it the old college try.

 

But it wasn’t long until I got myself into
an “out of bounds” spot.
Talk about a thorny situation.

I ended up here.
Check out those THORNS!

 

I threw it right under this honey locust tree.
Some spiky thorns here.
Wicked looking isn’t it??

 

David on the other hand improved as
he went along and made several
of the 9 holes
at par and one under par.

 

 

The winds came back and made this
first ever disc golf game a real challenge.
As if it wasn’t already for at least one of us.

 

 

 

My goal soon became to try to keep my
score at 2X par. J
My turn became known as “5 yards and a cloud of dust”.
Any old Ohio State Woody Hayes fans will recognize
that altered phrase.

 

 

Not sure why this man looks so dejected
as he walks through the hundreds of
black walnuts on the pathway.
He’s skunking his opponent.

 

 

It was a beautiful afternoon for this second
in my series of afternoon “walks”.
My ankle seems to approve.

Disc golf is a good game for someone recovering
from a leg injury.
It’s all in the arms.
J

 

On the way back, I got this shot of Winnona
sitting alone in the empty campground
on this Sunday afternoon.

 

 

Maybe there will be no one at all here tomorrow afternoon.
We’re heading out for West Virginia.