Another camping and travel experience!

We left Hallowell on Monday morning at 05:10 and headed south to Virginia.  There was snow on the ground from the storm that had arrived late on Saturday and gone into the morning on Sunday.  There was just a little black ice here and there and the temperature was only 22F, our coldest morning of the fall I think.

As we headed south and west through Massachusetts and then Connecticut we saw the full extent of the storm damage. The service area on the Mass Pike near Worcester had limited electricity and other then flushing the toilets, had no water in the women's restroom!  It was actually warmer outdoors than inside or so it seemed.

We took a different route down through NJ as campers are not allowed on the Garden State Parkway.  This probably was a mistake in our routing decisions as when we decided to get fuel we took an exit that took us into a swanky residential area in northern NJ.  This wasn't where we wanted to be, however, we did get to see just how much damage there was to trees down there.  It was amazing and sad.

We were really low on fuel and finally found an old station that sold diesel.  The pump was super-slow (it took about ten minutes to pump ten gallons.  We stopped it there, just  getting enough to get us back onto the highway.  The station where we got diesel wanted to charge us 24 cents more per gallon if we used the credit card vs the cash price.  Since we didn't have lots of cash, we used the card and got a minimum amount of fuel.

We managed for a variety of other reasons added to this to take 14.5 hours to get to Ashburn.  This is an all-time longest time.

We arrived in Ashburn in time to see lots of little goblins, ghosts, and witches doing their Hallowell trick-or-treating.  Among those out were our very own grandchildren!  Tonia had joined Kira and Sandro earlier, but had to leave before we finally pulled in.

See, my hat is on my broom!

Future fireman.

At a neighbor's door.

Too beautiful to be scary!

Tuesday morning we got on the road shortly after 10:00 and made tracks for Shenandoah National Park.  The weather was clear, sunny and very mild (low 50's).  There are still quite a few trees with their bright colors blanketing the hills.  Lovely!  Once in the mountains we had our snow on the ground.  This may complicate hiking over the next few days, but we shall see.  Once again the park is loaded with deer; now, however, they are grazing on the small patches of grass that are visible through the snow.  

We have observed that tourists to the park are deer crazy.  They drive all the loops of the campground looking for deer.  They get out of their cars and walk with telephoto lens, stalking as though they were carrying a rifle.  They are obsessed.  It makes for interesting people-watching from the dinette in our camper.

There was a large buck, maybe 6-8 points roaming around the camper, made a full circle.  These beautiful creatures are so tame here; it is good that there is no hunting as they would all be gone in one day!

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This morning the temperature inside the camper was 43 degrees. The cats were snuggled inside the sleeping bag with us.  As soon as the sun came up, we were able to maintain mid 60's inside without the furnace.

This is really too civilized here.  The campground has heated bathrooms and hot water!  There is also lodge just up the mountain, right on the top with an amazing view from their "Great Room" where we also have full access to the Internet.  Guess I cannot say we are roughing it too much.  The trails are still snow/ice covered and we don't have anything extra for gripping when we walk so hiking might wait yet another day as we are getting warmer and warmer weather.