I left Matt, Jaime, Chasen and Kaylin about 9:00 AM. It was tough to do. All of a sudden, I no longer will have the comfort of family surrounding me. Soon, the mountains of West Virginia gave way to the rolling hills of Eastern Ohio which gave way to the wide corn and soybean fields of Western Ohio and Indiana. It was a beautiful day. Unlike my friends at home who were suffering the effects of Hurricane Irene, I had a sun filled sky and temps in the low 80's.
One of my goals on this trip was to stay off the Interstate Highways as much as possible. I figured I would enjoy the slower pace of driving and maybe see more. Well, I tried it as I left Matt's. Note to self: many of the two lane roads in West Virginia, while extremely beautiful, are narrow, hilly, windy, and have no places to pass or be passed, especially when you have a jacked-up pickup truck breathing down your tail. In other words, driving them did not reduce the stress. :-) So I headed for the nearest Interstate to cross Ohio. I'll try to two lanes another time in more open country.
I arrived at Summit Lake State Park about 4:00. The park attendant indicated that there were only 5 or 6 open sites. However, when I drove to my site, the park was nearly empty!! This park, as are many in NY, is controlled by the Reserve America Reservation system. So what appears to be happening is that campers are reserving sits online to hold sites for the upcoming Labor Day Weekend. However they are not showing up until Thursday or Friday. Thus the park it technically (and financially) full, but appears empty. You would think there is a better way. Perhaps you could reserve a site and indicate that you are not going to occupy it until Thursday. Then if a drive in camper, such as myself, shows up and wants a site for one night I could occupy it and have the fee deducted from the original reservation. Kinda of like subletting apartments. But hey, who am I? I'm sure there must be smart people running the system.
However, an unexpected bonus did occur. The park attendant assigned me site 61. As I pulled in, there were two bicyclists unloading their equipment on the same site. Oh no. As it turned out, they willingly agreed to take another nearby site that was available. Anyway, we struck up a conversation. They were traveling light and had no food. They were planning to bike six miles away for pizza. They offered to buy my dinner if I would drive them to get the pizza. We ended up eating pizza, having a beer, and sitting around the campfire together. They were interesting men who several times a year take a long distance camping trip. They had biked 80 miles today. One of the guys was an engineer who used to work in the RV industry until he was laid off two years ago when the recession clobbered the RV business. Now he has a couple of part time jobs and does a lot of biking. He is happier that ever. He said he had forgotten how to enjoy himself when he was in the fast lane. It was a real interesting discussion.
Monday I head for Eldridge, Iowa. Eldridge is located just outside Davenport. Former high school classmates and friends Steve and Elizabeth Randall live there. I'll spend the evening with them and camp in their driveway.
Stay tuned..........
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