Day 37

Hungry Mother State Park, Virginia to Hollywood, Maryland

374 miles, 7 hours

Today was the last day of our trip. We were very sad to go home-it has been a great trip and we were just really sad to see it come to a close.

We did not wake up too early this morning, but Dennis and I got to work quickly breaking camp and getting things packed away while the kids slept in. Dennis took care of the outside stuff and I took care of the inside stuff. We really had made quite a mess-we had lots of stuff out-our tacky lights, all the camping chairs, the grill….and since we got it pretty late last night, we hadn’t put anything away like we normally do the night before leaving. I took the opportunity to put away a bunch of stuff that had been accumulating inside the RV-the shower was full of jackets and towels, and there were clothes all over the floor of our room, as well as the kids’ stuff was pretty much scattered all over the place. After cleaning up and everyone was awake, we made a nice breakfast of egg, sausage and hashbrown tacos with fresh avocado and Aunt Colleen’s habanero salsa. Once that was cleaned up, we were ready to pull out and it was about 10:00. We pulled up to the camp office, dumped the water tanks and got on the road.

 Last message board entry - 5 weeks and 2 days of messages on the board

 Sarah and Heather at Gypsy Hill Park

 Leah enjoying some time at the playground

 Sarah's kids (and some extras) climbing the rock wall

The RV, parked at home again

Our big stop today was  a surprise to us-an unscheduled but very happy coincidence. My good friend, Sarah, who lives in North Carolina happened to be in Staunton, Virginia visiting family. Our trip home took us up Rt. 81 to its junction with 64 east, which is right in Staunton. We arranged to meet at a park to just spend about an hour together catching up. We haven’t seen each other in about 5 years, though we keep in touch very regularly long distance. We parked the RV at a Lowes store at the edge of town because Staunton is a little tight to drive an RV through. This made it easier to hop in the car and head down to Gypsy Hill Park where we hung out while the kids played at the playground. It was not nearly enough time to really catch up, but it was nice to get some “face time” and see the kids and how they all have been growing. After our visit we headed back to the RV, hooked up and were on the road. It was about a 4 hour drive home from that point. I drove for a little bit while Dennis took a little nap, and when we stopped for gas at our exit off 95, we had a quick dinner of reheated bbq, grilled chicken  and some green beans. 

We got home about 8:00pm and Granni came over with Elsa to greet us. Elsa was super happy to see everyone-she had pretty much given up on us as gone forever! The kids immediately spread out-Bay and Leah to their rooms to remember their own spaces and missed toys and stuffed animals-Eric to the piano to try his fingers out after a long absence.

We will spend tomorrow unloading everything and doing lots of laundry, and then it will be back to the normal routines. On the way home tonight we commented about how thankful we were for everything on our trip, how thankful we were for God’s provision of our safety and ease of travel without any major issues. And then we joked how we had to convince the RV to continue going home-how it kept trying to turn around and go back out west. We told the kids that we were just going home to refuel and then head back out J  It has been quite the trip!