Day 34

Knoxville, Tennessee to Marion, Virginia (with a long repair stop at Camping World)

183 miles, 4 hours

Weather: high 71, low 60, partly sunny

This morning we slept in until the trash trucks came by and woke us up-at least it woke Dennis and me up! The kids slept in considerably later-which was fine because both Bay and Eric are fighting the cold that I had a couple of weeks ago. We meandered into the house and had some coffee, Bay and Sammy played outside in the treehouse for awhile, and by then everyone was awake. Julie made pancakes for the kids and we visited for a little bit with Mark and Julie before getting packed up and ready to go.

We got on the road and just north of Knoxville saw a Camping World just off the highway. We had wanted to get a cover for our RV before we got home if we got the opportunity, and so pulled off to go in. While in the store, we noticed that their service department was not very busy, so Dennis checked with them to see if they had time to take a look at our tires. One of the valve extenders for one of the inside tires has not worked the whole trip, so we could not check the tire pressure or put air in that tire. They were able to take a look at it and fix it, which was a huge blessing, because we did not want to have to schedule a time for the RV to go in to a service center just for such a little thing! It did take a considerable amount of time, but it is now fixed.

Once that was done, we were quickly on our way to Hungry Mother State Park, our last destination of our trip. This is a location that we have wanted to visit for quite some time-we have been interested in bicycling the Virginia Creeper Trail. It is very similar to the Allegheny Passage Trail in Pennsylvania that we have ridden parts of for many years. It runs from Damascus to Abingdon-37 miles. You can do the whole thing or just part of it. Our plan is to bike 17 miles of it. Since we did not bring bikes for Bay or myself, we will rent bikes for half a day.

We showed up at Hungry Mother State Park, without much knowledge of the campgrounds or park map-this really is just a show up and see what’s available kind of stay! Since it is mid-week, we were not worried about crowds. The road into the park was quite adventurous-at one point we approached a very tight turn and a van was coming toward us. We were not sure if we were going to make it around the turn with the car trailing behind, but we did, and the campground was the very next turn-off! We found a beautiful site, nestled in between some tall deciduous trees and immediately next to us runs a laughing little brook. There is a constant sound of lightly running water over the rocks, but it is very shallow. As soon as we pulled in and got positioned, the kids got out, put on their water shoes and spent the rest of the afternoon in the water! Dennis commented that “it wasn’t quite the Narrows, but it was still fun!” 

We heated up the BBQ that we had bought and frozen back in Oklahoma from Rudy’s and had that for dinner-boy it was fabulous. Then we took a little drive to check out the rest of the park and let the kids play on a playground for a little bit. Back at the campsite, we took showers and then got a campfire started for the first time on our whole trip! Amazingly, this is the first time we have camped and there hasn’t been a fire restriction. Of course, we had no firewood, or newspaper or even a fire-stick! We bought some nice green, wet wood from the campground host, gathered some leaves and sticks, Dennis split some of the wood into kindling, and we nursed a fire along enough to get some hot coals so the kids could roast marshmallows over an actual fire. It was a nice quiet and still evening to sit out by the fire in our chairs. It felt like a normal, east coast camping experience! As much as we have enjoyed so many parts of our trip, camping at a place like this really is our favorite type of camping. Lots of tall trees, shade, mountains, cool air and no bugs. The running brook is a huge bonus. 

 Heather and Julie before we left

 Bay, Sammy and Leah had a great time playing. Sammy was easily able to say Bay's name, and Leah's nickname was "LeeLee"

At the Camping World that was so nice to fix the valve extender on our rear tire. Dennis was paying attention to how they fixed it so he could fix it in the future if necessary 

We LOVE our campsite at Hungry Mother State Park. The brook running next to our site and the quiet seclusion is perfect!