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Published: April 19th 2009
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Camping with Lodges
First camping of the season at Lake Anna St. Park. Dave and Bonnie's RV in background. So, the 2009 season is about to start! We've done our planning and preparations by attending three RV shows this winter: Chantilly (DC), Richmond, and Fredericksburg. We drooled over new RVs, met friends at several of the shows, and worked the Richmond show where John was in the Virginia Good Sam booth, explaining the benefits of local membership to visitors. (Yes, we joined a local chapter last fall--So-We-Go Sams out of Spotsylvania. Our camping buddies, Dave and Bonnie Lodge also joined.) At the Fredericksburg show, we heard Gary Bunzer, The RV Doctor, discuss how to winterize the RV (already done at that point) and how to prep the vehicle for spring and summer. We took his advice to heart and pulled the RV out of storage in mid-March and headed off to Lake Anna for a shake down trip with Lodges.
It was cool still in March, but the skies were clear and we had 2 beautiful nights with few other campers out yet. We hiked the park, relaxed, went to a winery for tasting and purchased a couple of bottles and then back to the campground for dinner and the traditional s'mores on Saturday night. We tested our new digital
Cleaning and waxing roof
After sitting all winter, the roof had grime and needed a good washing. TV converter and found it worked fine! What a relief after last year's fiasco.
Early April we sent the RV to a local RV repair facility and had new tile floor put in the entrance and bathroom, and a new omni-directional antenna put on the roof. The antenna is specially designed for the digital converter. When we got it home it looked great and the bill was very reasonable. We used that weekend to get the inside and outside cleaned for our first big trip--our annual pilgrimage to Florida. We washed and waxed the exterior, including roof, cleaned and dusted inside and re-arranged storage areas in the outside basement compartments.
This past weekend was our first local Good Sam outing with the So-We-Go Sams from Spotsylvania. Six rigs went to Shenandoah Crossing in Gordonsville, VA and what a great time! We received our membership "Bear" sign board for in front of the RV, ate way too much good food, sat and talked to old friends and made new ones. Weather was perfect, in the high 70s on Saturday, and the only down side was both cats insisted we should be up by 6am. Not to let them out; not to
Our new name board
All new members to So-We-Go Sams get a Virginia Black Bear cut-out for in front of their RV. Here Trish poses with ours at the Shenandoah Crossing campground. feed them; no, just to get up. We have since discussed it with them in clear terms; they didn't appear to listen. One of the major learning points of the weekend was getting the GPS system to work on the laptop computer. After several abortive attempts to get it to work, I took the time to read the directions slowly, practiced, created a cheat sheet, and then had the lap top on the dash and hooked up when we left. It worked perfectly!! In fact, we were tickled to see that when we ignored the directions it planned, it spoke to us "Correcting Route" and quickly gave us new directions to get to where we wanted to be. (Since we were only heading home, we knew where we were and how to get there. But it was reassuring to learn that the program really would help.) The weekend went all to fast and now we are home cleaning up and getting ready for the next trip...in only 3 days!
Yes, on Wednesday we head out for our Florida trip. We'll see Trish's brother in TN, spend time on the Gulf coast, camp with our son and daughter-in-law at Stephen Foster
Shenandoah Crossing
View of the lake just down from our campsite. Cultural Center State Park and visit with them in Jacksonville, and then head up to GA to see a couple from Japan. Darrell and Robbie Coleman worked in Iwakuni and they are now back in the states at Kings Bay. So we will spend a couple of days with them before heading home.
We'll bring you highlights and pictures of the trip as we go.
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Liz
non-member comment
SWEET
I love this web site! You two sound like you had so much fun! I wish I was there!! Have fun on your way to Florida. I know you will!!!! Liz