Normally we don’t travel on holiday weekends, but our fifteen day stay at Gettysburg Farm RV Resort was over and it was time to move on down the road. We pulled out of the campground yesterday morning at 10 and traveled a few miles west to U.S. Highway 15 and turned the nose of the Winnebago south. As it turned out, even on the holiday traffic wasn’t bad, and we rolled right along with no problems. Okay, maybe one little problem, but that was it!
As we were coming into Frederick, Maryland I was in the wrong lane and had to take an unplanned detour for half a mile or so until I could find a parking lot big enough to turn around in and get us pointed in the right direction. Before we knew it, we had crossed into Virginia and the road had narrowed down from divided four-lane highway to two lanes with some small towns and a few traffic lights to slow us up.
At Warrenton, we got onto U.S. Highway 17 and took it 36 miles southeast to Interstate 95 south. A couple of miles later we exited onto State Route 3 in Fredericksburg and in another 36 miles we were at Harbor View RV Resort just outside of Colonial Beach, Virginia.
Much of the route was on good two-lane roads, and it added an extra ten or fifteen miles to the trip, but was well worth it to avoid the Washington D.C, metro area. Thanks to Steve Fischer and Allen Flanagan for suggesting the alternate route.
How can 185 miles add fifteen degrees to the temperature? When we left Gettysburg Farm the temperature was supposed to be 82o for the day. When we arrived here a little over four hours later, it was 97o and so humid that as soon as I stepped outside of the motorhome I started dripping with sweat.
We parked the motorhome in the parking area in front of the office, and before I could get to the door a nice lady named Linda came out and introduced herself, put me on a golf cart, and took me around to show me the available sites. We have a 40′ diesel pusher and I told her I was hoping for a site where my rooftop satellite TV dish would work. She said no problem, showed me several that would work, and told me to take my pick. Linda was very friendly, recommended a couple of restaurants when I asked, and gave me directions. What more could you ask for? I was impressed. It was one of the nicest welcomes we have had anywhere in 15 years of fulltiming.
We have been craving good seafood, and on our last visit to Colonial Beach we ate at Dockside Restaurant, which was very good, so once we were parked and hooked up and had time to cool off a bit, we drove into town for dinner. But as it turned out, Dockside was closed.
Someone had suggested we try Wilkerson’s Seafood Restaurant, a couple of miles north of town, and since we really wanted good seafood, we decided to give it a try. As it turns out, we’re still looking forward to good seafood. Instead we got very overpriced seafood that was mediocre at best. Our first clue this was a poor choice was the brown, slimy lettuce Terry found in the lower section of the salad bar. Yuck. I ordered a broiled seafood platter and Terry chose the crab and flounder combo. When our meals finally came, nothing tasted bad, but nothing tasted good enough to finish either. The flounder was dry and overcooked, the shrimp and scallops were overdone. Terry said her crab cake was okay, but nothing memorable. The only saving graces were that our waitress was pleasant and the view across the water was very nice. But that was not enough to make us want not go back.
We will be here for two weeks and hopefully it will cool down enough that we can get out and play tourist. There are so many historic sites and interesting places to see around here that it could keep us busy for an entire summer. We have a full hookup 50 amp site, good TV reception, and our Verizon internet started off good but then became slow and flakey, which mean’s it’s typical Verizon service. Life is good.
Thought For The Day – A closed mouth gathers no foot.
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Nick Russell
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Enjoy your stay. We are in the Richmond area and it’s supposed to cool down on Sunday. It’s funny but this is some of the hottest weather we’ve had all summer. It’s been pretty mild and we’ve been counting ourselves lucky enjoying the outdoors!
Enjoy the heat Nick, I’m thinking your a bit to early to go that far south. Yea…Virginia to far south! Anyway, I feel your grief on the Verizon thing. Pay top dollar for far from the top quality service.
You won’t run out of places to visit in that area. I can’t believe the traffic wasn’t bad, you lucked out again.
Nick, which Winnebago and what year do y’all have? We also have a 40′ diesel pusher – 1999 Winnebago Ultimate Freedom?
Welcome to 90+ degree temps and high humidity! Hopefully, we will get a break soon.
Judy, ours is a 2002 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage and we love it.
Nick, what does your thought for the day mean? I have some friends that always travel from RI back to Florida on Labor Day weekend. They’ve been doing it for over 10 years and say that its the best time to travel, because of the lesser amount of traffic. Some times our assumption are not supported by facts. As you know its always great to ask what other peoples’ experiences are because you can learn a lot checking out a group than doing it all yourself. Safe travels. By the way we left Yellowstone NP last week with high’s in the sixties and lows in the 30’s and two days later we have 104 in Las Vegas. For the last few years we seem to have either too hot or too cold. What ever happened to just right.
In the ’70s while in the Navy, I spent eight weeks of mid summer at an Air Force school in Biloxi, MS. I was amazed that I generated copious amounts of perspiration when I walked out the front door of the barracks toward the mess hall first thing in the morning. My starched uniform was quite wilted by the time I got the the street sidewalk… It took me a couple days to figure out that it really wasn’t perspiration. It was the humidity condensing on my white uniform from the VERY well air conditioned barracks.
Doesn’t mean anything special Jim, except that more than once I’ve said something and ended up with my foot in my mouth.