Day Nineteen...

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...but we're not actually in Baltimore as the location says. Freeland, MD is not on their list...yet. Anyway, today was a drive day. We did actually try to go out to Virginia Beach and do what we did in Myrtle Beach, but we couldn't find a big enough parking lot so we bailed and came straight(ish) here to the campground/resort. This place has just about everything including an RC track! It's a huge park with lots of full-time and seasonal residents, same as all the others.

We drove across another long bridge that led to an even longer tunnel that took us under Entrance Reach and Hampton Bar. Trailer’s first tunnel.

I forgot to mention one thing in yesterday's post...somewhere between the Outer Banks and the campground, we were driving on highway 168 and drove by Grave Digger's Dungeon. We now know where Grave Digger lives. If you don't know what that is, ask just about any 7-12 year old boy. Not far down the road we saw a venue for another popular motor sport—mud racing. Sounds like it would be fun to watch as long as it’s not just a competition to see who can go the farthest across a pit of mud.

To keep ourselves occupied on the long stretches of freeway driving we look at the license plates of other cars. We almost always win the “distance from home” game. One time we did see a car from BC, so we lost that one. We’ve seen a couple from Ontario and even a few from Washington (we beat our fellow Washingtonians because we’re sure we live farther northwest in the state than they do). One car that passed us had a personalized plate that read “NAPAGRL.” Mike wondered if she really liked the wine country or auto parts. That’s a good question, because in Virginia it could go either way.

We finally ran into something we’ve managed to avoid thus far…rush hour. We got to experience the Washington, D.C./Baltimore rush hour. What a thrill ride that was. Not because it was significantly worse than any other major city’s congestion, but having to rely on someone to let you move into their lane so you can exit or avoid getting pulled off in an exit only lane is made that much worse when you require 35 extra feet of clearance and the roads are packed with people just wanting to get home after a long day at work. There’s always one driver who understands our plight and hangs back to let us in and for that we are always thankful.

We arrived at the park, set up camp and rested a bit. We knew we’d need to refuel before heading to D.C. tomorrow so after dinner we headed back out to where we saw a gas station. Shortly after leaving it began to rain…and rain…AND RAIN…accompanied by flashes of lightning and wind…lots of wind. The rain was coming down so hard as we were driving, even the wipers set to high couldn’t keep up. I now understand the flash flood warnings we skirted earlier in our travels. At the pump Mike resisted getting out of the truck; the rain was coming down sideways. There was no escaping it. We have two perfectly good rain jackets…back at the trailer. He put on his big-boy pants and got out, swiped the card to pay for the fuel, but the machine wouldn’t read his card. He tried again, he tried a different card, nothing worked. He went inside to pay and it wouldn’t work there either. The lightning had messed up the satellite system for the card readers. Okay, we’ll try again in the morning.

This post (and Day Twenty’s) are late because the park restricts how much time you can be connected to their wifi. I understand that. With a park this big you have to manage bandwidth. It bogs down enough when there are a lot of people on at the same time. After 2 hours you’re forced to take a one-hour break. I was in the middle of writing my post, researching public transportation from here to Washington, D.C. and figuring out how to get to the park and ride to catch the train when my time ran out. By that time it was late and I didn’t want to stay up another hour waiting to get back on. So here it is two days later.

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Photos

Fire Ring at Day Eighteen Campground
Yes, it's still just a metal ring, but they made is look nicer.

WP_20150709_08_35_47_Pro
They even had kayaks and such for paddling out on the lake.

Comments

[Deborah]

Day 18 - Playground on the Lake
Where are all the kids? It seems so wrong not to have a single kid/big kid on all that cool equipment. I do pity your rush hour drive in D.C. - ick.

[MikeandAileen]

Playground
I know! I guess that's what it looks like in the middle of the week. Hopefully it gets lots of use on the weekends. It looks like tons of fun though, doesn't it? I can see a certain group of boys (young and old) having a blast out there.