Saturday, August 15, 2020

Harper Ferry 2020







We have a glorious long trip scheduled for this summer. A whole lot of really great places and I’m excited to say that we are starting July 8th and staying away until July 23rd and we have 4 places that we are staying and 2 of them are completely new to us. We are starting out at the Harpers Ferry KOA for 5 nights, then headed to My favorite spot of all time Rocky gap for 4 night, not long enough in my opinion, we’re staying at the Natural Bridge KOA over night on the way to Tennessee, and once we get to there we are staying at the Pigeon Forge KOA for 5 nights.

We arrived at the Harpers Ferry KOA right around 3 with Pauls parents, they’ll be staying with us for the first 2 stops of our trip, so the to the 17th. We had a fairly nice site with a cement patio, a bench rocker and table and chairs. The site was big enough for everything we set up and had room for our Bunny cage for Cal. This year we added 4 more extensions so he has more room to run around. Another new edition to the Perry camping experience is a brand new, custom made bike rack for the kids bikes that goes on the front of our 5th wheel hitch. Now when we go down the road we don’t have to worry about the bumper falling off of the camper, considering it isn’t rated for any extra weight. We have gotten quite a few looks and questions about it,most people usually just walk up and take a picture of it without even talking to us about it. Another new addition this year is a new grill for the camper, we decided to go with a propane Blackstone griddle, this way we can use it for breakfast as well as for dinner. It was getting to be a pain getting the griddle out every time we wanted to cook bacon and scrapple and stuff like that, now all we have to do is fire up the griddle grill and that’s it nothing extra. So now we have a really sweet outdoor kitchen set up, 2 tables, one for prep and one to put the outdoor stove top, and the a grill table that fits the grill perfectly on it. So, like I said we were able to get into the site after Paul went down the wrong way and had to back up about 50 yards down a street before realizing that the site was a pull through… With COVID still going on, complete pain in the butt, we had to wear masks in the store and you had to take your own chairs to the pool and maintain social distancing at all times. Not really sure if anyone did it but we all did have our masks to go in and out of the store. I stayed at the camper most of the time because I’m still in school and I have classes on Tuesday and Fridays. We mostly just relaxed Thursday the kids went to the pool with Paul and Mrs Ann and Mr Lee. Thursday Paul got wasted on Crown Royal and coke. I went to bed early because I had to get up early for class, Paul stopped adding the Coke to his Crown and Coke while he  was sitting by the fire with his mother and came to bed thinking he was dying… he kept me up until 2am and threw up in a trash can in bed hahaha!!! I can’t believe that he actually got up at 930 the next day because  Friday Paul and Mr Lee took the kids to river riders and went floating done the river while I was in class from 8 am to 3pm By 2pm on Friday my parents joined us for the weekend. So we had Paul, me, Mckenzie, JP, Mrs Ann, Mr Lee, my mother, my father, Elle, and Cal all in our camper…… wow My parents slept on the jack knife couch in the back room with the kids and we took Cals cage and put him in our shower at night, because he bite that cage at night for attention. Mr Lee and Mrs Ann sleep on the jack knife in the living room, JP sleep in the big bunk and Kenzie gets the twin bunk both in the back. Funny story this trip my inlaws brought a huge pillow top to put on their bed, we keep and foam pad in the camper that they purchased for when they stay with us. So they had the foam mattress and the pillow top on their bed, pretty sure they were about 5 feet off the ground lol they let  my parents use the foam pad while they were with us but man I’m telling you moving that big ass pillow top on and off of that bed every night and day was a huge pain in the ass and it wouldn’t fail I would take out a fan in the process lol. Like I said Paul, Mr Lee, JP, and Kenzie all went on a river ride Friday. Kenzie of course was freaking about it before she even got there. I couldn’t go because I had class and Mrs Ann wasn’t interested. When they got back Kenzie  told me that Mr Lee and her stayed together most of the time but at one point he couldn’t get back into his float in which  point Paul had to take him to the side of the river so that he could hop back on his float. Mckenzie gave us a visual and made it look like he was a fish out of water flopping around, pretty hilarious, I wish I would have gotten video of her doing it. I think they all had a really good time considering Kenzie didn’t even want to go. My parents arrived while I was still in class and right after they got there Paul came back from the river. We enjoyed a lovely weekend with them. It was really hot outside and my dad stayed outside with us for most of the weekend. Saturday we all woke up and had breakfast we all stayed in the campground and talked and played games.. Saturday early afternoon my parents and Pauls parents took our trip to the Walmart, This was the only time we went to a Walmart, if you have read any one of my posts you will know that we can’t go a trip without going to a Walmart of some kind. As a matter of fact I am pretty sure that I know where all the Walmart’s are from Boston to the Outer Banks. I really like it when we have family with us on our camping trips. It’s does get a little cramped at times but we spend a lot of time outside, the only time we are really all in the camper at once is around bedtime and when it’s really hot or raining. This trip I just brought on of the outside chairs in for someone to sit in. We really have plenty of space, especially with the couch in the back.  We played SKIP-BO that night, it was Paul, Mrs Ann, Me Lee, my mom, my dad, and myself. I have no idea how we did it though because at one point we ran out of cards lol. Sunday My parents and Paul’s parents left around lunch time. Mr Lee and Mrs Ann were supposed to follow us to Rocky Gap but Mr Lee was having some issues with his knee hurting him so he made an appointment for Monday to get it checked out. One of the kids friends told them about caverns that were close by that their family took them to  and Mckenzie told us she would like to go see them, so we decided that would be a new fun thing to do and we make the 30 some minute drive to a place called, Crystal Grottoes cavern. It was obviously a private family owned place. We paid 20 dollars for Paul and I and 10 for the kids. It was a complete rip off lol but it was something new. The guide looked like she was maybe 17 or 18 and made a lot of quirky add-ons about the different formations. There were only 8 of us in the group, we must have been the last group because as we went through the cavern the girl was turning off the lights. At one point she was like “now I’m going to show you what cave darkness looks like” let me tell you I don’t think I have ever experienced darkness like that before in my life. When I tell you I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face I am not exaggerating. Someone could have walked up to me and punched me right in the face and I wouldn’t have seen it coming. This cavern was much smaller them Luray, we seen the whole thing in less than a half hour and it dripped freezing cold water out of the ceiling. When we finally emerged, it started pouring down rain, so we didn’t even get a wrap up we all just ran to our cars. The kids were out with friends the rest of the day and that night Paul and I packed up everything outside to move on in the morning. Mckenzie brought a very eccentric friend over that night who was very insistent that they exchange numbers and keep in touch because they were both into anemia. All I can say is thank goodness she didn’t meet her the day we got there because she was a ball of energy, even more then Kenzie is I think.  The next morning we got on the road got gas and headed to the Walmart to grab a couple of cleaning supplies and a tackle box and then we headed to my all-time favorite place. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get coffee and planned on getting lunch.


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