camping – Soul-Journer

July 31, 2018July 31, 2018

On to New Adventures

Have you ever wondered why I called this blog “Soul-Journer”? That’s what we named our sweet little Scamp early in its renovation process! Adapting the word “sojourn,” we believed (and still believe) that traveling and getting out in nature is seriously good for one’s soul. Even when our trailer was still an empty shell, we knew it would someday provide a fun way for us to “soulfully sojourn” and enjoy the natural wonders of our state parks and other scenic places. 🙂

After more thought, discussions, and “reality checks,” however, we made the decision–for sure this time–to sell our trailer. Once again I placed ads in a few places, and–as before–there was immediate interest from people both near and far. The first couple who came to see it drove over from the Shenandoah Valley.

It had been raining all day, and when they arrived that evening, hordes of mosquitoes seemed determined to suck all the blood out of any human who dared to venture outside. Certainly not the best conditions for showing or looking at a travel trailer! While these folks ultimately decided not to buy it due to the needed repairs, the woman and I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know each other. Chance encounter or something else? Either way, the Scamp was the catalyst for a new friendship. 🙂

On Thursday morning, July 26th, I posted an ad for the trailer on our local Craigslist–a classified ad venue I hadn’t used. Right away I received an inquiry from a guy asking if I’d be willing to trade (sorry, no–didn’t even ask for what), and from a woman asking if it had a bathroom (um, no, there’s a pic of the porta-potty in the ad…).

The next email that popped in was from a woman who said that she and her husband would love to come look at it. She asked if I would please, please hold it until they could get here, since it would take them 3 or 4+ hours, depending on traffic. When I responded that I would be happy to hold it–and gave her my address–she emailed a quick reply saying they were in their car and on their way! Wow!

I could feel her excitement in these email exchanges, and I understood it. Four, five years ago I was the one checking Craigslist for reasonably-priced Scamps anywhere within a day’s drive–and it took us about a year to find and buy this one! And when, in another email, she mentioned it was their anniversary (which is why they’d taken the day off and could drop everything to do an unexpected road trip), I smiled, thinking of how we’d gotten the Scamp on my birthday weekend in November 2014. I had a strong feeling that our baby would be going home with them….

When they arrived at 4 p.m., the woman hopped out of the car, looked at the trailer and exclaimed, “There she is!! What’s her name?” (Yep. I liked this lady! 🙂 )

As before, there was a full disclosure as we showed it. We showed them EVERY issue we were aware of; talked about possible places to look for the leak that had caused the damage to the floor; talked about all of the wonderful and fun things about the trailer; and just talked (non-stop!), in general! We discovered a lot of common ground and common interests, and I was awed by the fact that the Scamp had just arranged for me to meet another new friend!

As I’d expected, they wanted to buy it. And while we were still sad at the thought of her leaving us, knowing that this Scamp would be going to a wonderful home with people who were excited to make her into their perfect camper made it so much easier!

Over the last few days, I’ve reflected on all of the experiences we’ve had since this little trailer followed us home, and I’ve realized that the overriding emotion now is not sadness, but gratitude.

We feel blessed and incredibly thankful for our years as Scamp owners. As Wayne and I worked together towards the common goal of renovating an empty shell into a comfortable and functional mobile shelter, it solidified our relationship. Simply put, we’re good partners.

Working on the trailer gave us the opportunity to use our creativity in new ways, and it also challenged both of us to learn new skills. Because of the Scamp, I was motivated to learn to sew, and now, in addition to teaching beginning sewing and starting a sewing-related service program at our school to benefit SewPowerful.org, it’s led to an official business (as of July 2018), as well as to the creation of some unique products that I’m making and selling on Etsy.

As Scamp owners, we’ve met genuinely nice people and kindred spirits (in person and on the internet–there are several groups on Facebook related to these trailers), and just as importantly, we discovered how rewarding it is to sit back, relax, and simply enjoy the end result of hard work:

We will always treasure our time with this trailer, and we are thankful for all of the soul-gifts and memories she gave us over the last several years. As we watched her new owners drive up the road and out of sight on their long trek home, I whispered a prayer for safe travels. I hope they will fix it up to suit them, and love her as much as we have.

Goodbye, sweet Soul-Journer, we will miss you! Be a good girl and enjoy your next big adventure!

~ The End ~

July 13, 2018July 14, 2018

Camping Trip – July 11-13, 2018

What do you do when you want to go camping, but still have things you need to do in the real world? Keep it local! One more time, we headed up to Misty Mountain Camp Resort. Yay! Our Scamp was all dressed up with somewhere to go. 🙂

We stayed in site #59 again, and after we had everything set up and got the A/C in the trailer turned on (it was in the 90s), we went to the pool. Yes, there are perks to mid-week camping–we had the pool to ourselves!

After we got back to the trailer, Wayne needed to go check on something at the house, and I decided to stay and take a nap in the trailer. I fell right to sleep, but after 20 minutes I startled awake when I felt the trailer move! It literally felt like someone had pushed on the tongue of the trailer and quickly moved it side to side. WTH?! As I jumped up and peeked out the windows, an app on my phone alerted me to a severe thunderstorm warning. Had the shaking been caused by thunder?!

I didn’t hear any thunder–and there was no more shaking–but when Wayne got back about 10-15 minutes later, he said he’d run into a crazy-strong storm just east of the campground by a couple of miles!

While this storm didn’t make a direct hit at Misty Mountain, radar showed that another one was coming right towards us from the west. We scurried around hoping we’d be able to quickly get our soup heated up on the camp stove, but we weren’t quick enough…

As a result, “first dinner” wound up being yogurt and popcorn in the trailer.

It literally poured for a while, but at least we were comfortable and dry in the trailer….

When the rain tapered off to light sprinkles, we decided to try cooking again.

Better, even though we did have to eat inside!

The next morning was clear, beautiful, and much cooler than the previous day. We left the campground around 7 (yes, 7 a.m.!) and came home to feed and cuddle with Kian, our old Siamese guy. Next on our to-do list was feeding the feral kitties that we care for.

After stopping by the post office to mail one of my spare tire covers to a buyer in Canada, we ate a late breakfast/early lunch. When we finally got back to the campground, it was time for some serious relaxing. 🙂

And then it was pool time again!

I’m not sure why the water made me look 8 feet tall, but I was totally blissed out!

Love this picture of Wayne:

We stayed in the pool for over an hour–floating, swimming, and totally enjoying ourselves–before going back up the hill to our campsite. A tiny dragonfly stopped by to visit.

We had soup again for dinner, but this time we were able to eat outside on the picnic table.

As it started to get dark, Wayne got a campfire going.

And since we had the fixin’s this time out, S’mores happened!

We sat outside by the fire until there was nothing left but embers, thankful that we’d been able to take a 2-day mini-vacation and still keep up with everything else in our busy lives. We hope to do this again before the summer is over!

July 28, 2017July 30, 2017

Camping Trip – July 26-27, 2017

With summer winding down, we’re scrambling to finish various projects AND to get in more camping trips! With a little window of opportunity on Wednesday and Thursday, we decided to do another quick trip, this time to Sherando Lake Recreation Area.

Even though it’s called Sherando “Lake,” this recreation area and campground in the Blue Ridge Mountains actually has two lakes. The larger, lower lake has a beach area for swimming, and the upper lake is for fishing. There are hiking trails around both.

Since we were too close to the date to be able to reserve a site online, we decided to try the “first come, first served” option. We drove over (without the trailer) on Wednesday morning, and the young park ranger who greeted us at the gate told us that a site in “B” loop (River Bend) had just opened up. We paid for one night, and when he suggested that we put something on the site as a visual notice to mark that it was reserved, we asked if our camp chairs would be enough. When he said yes, we drove into the campground to claim site “B1.”

In the previous post, I mentioned that our car (a Kia Sorento) did great as a tow vehicle. This trek–though only 25 miles–offered the new challenge of crossing Afton Mountain, westbound on I-64. While it’s not especially steep (about a 1200 ft climb over 5 miles), and we know we have more than enough towing power with the Kia given the weight of our trailer, it seemed like the car struggled a bit trying to find the right gear. We were in “sport mode,” as before, but according to some feedback on a Kia forum, I probably should have also used the “manual” gear options. I’ll try that next time…

In case you’re not familiar with “The Mountain,” this video show eastbound and then westbound travel over Afton Mountain on I-64. It’s definitely a pretty drive. 🙂

Once we were over the mountain, the car pulled the trailer with absolutely no problem, and soon we were backing into our site. It didn’t take us long to get set up; I think we’re getting better at this….

You meet the nicest people at campgrounds! In fact, sometimes you meet your cousin! My cousin, Mary, was camping at Sherando, too. 🙂

After a short visit with her, Wayne and I went back to the trailer, changed into swim suits, and went to the lake.

We spent an hour or so enjoying the water and scenery, then drove back to River Bend Loop. We both still smile when we see our trailer sitting at a campsite; given what we started with, it’s awesome that we’re now able to use it. 🙂

Time for dinner! We brought homemade Chicken, Cannalinni Bean & Mushroom soup from home and heated it up on the camp stove. Another delicious, quick meal….

Just before dark we started a campfire, and Mary and her husband, David, came over to our campsite. I tried to take a picture with “natural” light (which didn’t work), so I blinded us all for a moment with the flash. 😉

After Mary and David went back to their campsite, we continued to sit out by the fire. SO nice and relaxing!

Later, when we walked up to the bathhouse, we paused for a while to enjoy the night sky in an area with fewer trees. Just in the 5 minutes or so that we were standing there, we saw a couple of meteorites and a large, bright satellite. (The “shooting stars” were probably part of the Perseid meteor shower which will peak around August 12th.) Last August when we were camping at Sherando, I took this picture of the stars:

It was starting to get cool (which was actually very nice in late July after all the heat and humidity we’ve had!), and the sweatshirts we’d brought with us felt good when we put them on. Ah, a campfire and katydids; yep, we were happy campers. 🙂

By the time we came inside, it was close to midnight and the fire had burned down to embers. With the windows open in the trailer, it was definitely “good sleeping weather,” as the old folks say, but at some point during the night, I realized I was cold! No worries–I shut the large back window behind the bed, pulled an afghan over me, and drifted back to sleep.

The next morning was clear and beautiful, and we talked (some more) about the feasibility of staying another night. But with cats to feed and with other “outside world” obligations (there’s no cell service or wif-fi at the campground), we knew we needed to come home.

Before starting to pack up, we walked over to Mary’s campsite (David had left for work earlier in the morning), and enjoyed another chance to visit. Their trailer is just a bit bigger than our trailer, wouldn’t you say? But it still wasn’t anywhere close to the size of some of the absolutely enormous trailers and motor homes in the campground!

Mary and I agreed that we’d have to plan a multi-day camping trip together next year at Sherando, but we were glad that we’d wound up there at the same time this year! With goodbyes said, we walked back to our site to get ready to leave.

We’re getting better and faster about getting everything travel ready, too, and we left the campground with a minute or two to spare before the 11:00 a.m. checkout time.

Homeward bound once more, with our little house on wheels following behind. 🙂

April 9, 2017April 9, 2017

Impromptu Camping Trip – April 8-9, 2017

Saturday, April 8th was gorgeous–really the quintessential Springtime-in-Virginia type of day. We had a slow, lazy start to the morning, and then thought about working in the trailer. We also thought about “driveway camping” that night since the weather was so nice, but then Wayne said we should actually go somewhere with the trailer. Hmmmm…. I knew that a couple of relatively close campgrounds were already full (I’d checked earlier in the week, just in case), but then he suggested Misty Mountain, which is literally right up the road from us. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and I wasn’t too optimistic since it’s a very popular campground. When I called, however, they said they had a few open sites, so I quickly made a reservation for that evening, and said we’d be there within an hour. Things didn’t quite work out that way!

Once we took the tarp off, we could see that the trailer was really dirty, plus I noticed that the tires looked low. Wayne tried to inflate the first one with a manual pump, but it actually let air out of the tire. Not good…. Ultimately, he had to go buy an electric pump, and while he was gone, I cleaned off the outside of the trailer as best I could to make it a bit more presentable. The next challenge involved getting a car close enough TO the trailer to be able to connect the pump to the cigarette lighter in the car and still reach the passenger side tire. Anyhow, a couple of hours later, we were hitched up and pulling out of the driveway. 🙂

Our site was #49, and since there was a little pop-up trailer in #50 (and no vehicle at the site when we got there), we were able to pull through instead of backing in. This is always a good thing!

By not planning ahead for this trip–and knowing we were close to home–we brought very little “stuff.” The advantage to this is that we were set up–and relaxing–in no time. 🙂 With few leaves on the trees, we could see the Blue Ridge Mountains from our site.

The trailer looked so pretty inside with the late afternoon sun shining in. Yes, we’ve still got a lot more we want/need to do with the trailer, but we’re so glad that we can use it! After a lot of hard work, it’s become a comfortable little home on wheels.

The disadvantage of bringing “very little ‘stuff’,” however, meant that we didn’t have our camp stove or cooler with us, and we didn’t have anything for dinner. No worries–Wayne went out foraging (to a place a couple of miles away), and came back with fried chicken, macaroni salad, potato wedges, and some drinks, which we ate while sitting at the picnic table.

Misty Mountain has lot of scheduled activities (and LOTS of things for kids), so we decided to go down the hill to the community building at 7:00 pm to check out the live music. We were in the upper camping area, and there are two lower camping areas (past the little pond). There were two other fiberglass “eggs” in the lower campground Saturday night–a Casita and a 13-ft. Scamp.

Before going in to listen to the music, we decided to make a quick trip to the house to get our cell phone chargers (which we’d forgotten), and some yogurt for breakfast (that we put in an insulated backpack). After giving the kitties a little more food, we drove back to the campground community building.

Yay! Live music! Pool tables!

We played four games of pool while listening to a couple of sets of music by the groups, and drove back up the hill to our campsite a little after 9:00 pm. We’d left our Scamp’s “porch” light on, and an almost-full moon was rising above it.

The crystal clear skies brought falling temperatures, so Wayne started a fire and got out his guitar. When I took this picture, I didn’t expect the flash to go off; I thought I would get his silhouette. As a result, the picture is too bright, and the video clip is too dark. Reality was somewhere in the middle. 🙂

We turned on our little ceramic heater to let the trailer warm up, and we continued to sit outside by the fire, moving closer and closer to it as the night got colder.

When I started getting shivery–and the fire had burned down to embers–we went inside, where it was quite cozy. I always sleep incredibly well in the trailer (we have a full size memory foam mattress that we cut to fit the curves of the trailer), and this night was no exception. Even though the temperature dropped to the low/mid 30s outside, we were warm and comfortable in the Scamp.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, we fixed coffee (always a priority) and ate breakfast in the trailer (yogurt, plus peanut butter on bread). The dinette was a huge project last summer, and this was the first time that we’d had a chance to use it. 🙂