8/4/05 - 8/7/05 Leaving NC for Virginia and the Shennandoah area., and eventually to Vienna for Wolf Trap. Doing well with the traffic and interchanges and spent the first night in Fancy Gap, Va. The Fox Trail Family Campground. This campground was a little different than those I had stayed at in Tennessee & NC......it was hard to get through the main gate. The "innkeeper" was the grouchiest campground proprietor I have ever run into. I almost left as he wouldn't take my ATM/Credit card, and I didn't seem to have any cash. Where did all my cash go? I believe he made some nasty/snarky comment about people who travel without cash. Lordy, we finally settled on a check. Thank goodness I brought them, I probably haven't written a check in 6 months. After all that, it was a decent campground with nicely kept grounds and I saw the grouch down by the pond feeding the ducks, so I forgave him. Who knows what blows life has dealt him.

The next couple of nights I spent in Luray, Va in The Country Waye RV Resort. This is another "family" campground.....I do like these as they are always different (as opposed to KOA, for example). This one was run by a Swiss couple who were a lot of fun to talk to. She has lived all over the world and the one thing I got a giggle out of is that she said people all over the world are alike. They are either rude, or nice, or whatever is their inclination, but she couldn't state that people in any one country were "nicer" or more polite, or whatever.






This place gets an A+ for bathroom facilities. Sparkly clean, and even pretty shower curtains and flowers in the bathroom. Highly recommended if you are in the area for the Luray Caverns. They also have free internet access, which is a huge plus as most places that have internet go with Linksys or Hotspotzz (hate this one) I went shopping downtown Luray, which has a lot of antique stores. I had a booth in an antique co-op in California and I miss it. Maybe someday I will do it again.

Last night before Wolf Trap was spent in yet another family campground. This one on a real working farm in Haywarket, Va. You pass the main house and barns and silos - and a beautiful cornfield to get to the campground at the back of the property. I don't know how to describe this place, except perhaps "gothic". It started out fine, office, pool, ponds off to the left, a section of large RV's.......but then you enter the woods. She put me near the bath house at the beginning of the woods. There are only a few campers back this far, mostly tenters. I took a walk.....no one has camped in some of these sites in a very long time......there is no moss, so I guess gothic is not exactly the right word, but everything is damp and lush and overgrown.....and a little spooky. I hustled back to my van and drove down to the Manassas Battlefield to check it out. That evening I walked down by the ponds and saw a bird I couldn't identify (how did I not bring a bird book with me?) and had a pleasant evening and fell asleep to the cacophony of bullfrogs calling and tree beetles clacking away....tomorrow, Wolf Trap.