Pigeon Forge KOA

It took us about 4 and a half hours to get to Pigeon Forge, this a very interesting KOA because it like literally in the middle of a town.

Sunday Paul and I did homework in the morning while the kids played outside skipped breakfast and went to the pool most of the day. They just installed a lazy river right of off the pool area and even though the water was pretty warm it was nice to jump in a cool off for a little while. They didn’t have any tables or umbrellas and very minimal chairs so I was baking in the sun for 4 hours and I was drinking but I did manage to remember to apply sunblock like 8 times so I didn’t get any sun. That night after dinner we drove around town and ended up in Gatlinburg just to check out the sights. I was pretty much chaos and that was right around 930. I can’t believe there were that many people out just walking around. 

Monday was a day packed full of fun in the hot hot sun! it was well over 90 degrees and man it felt over 100. Paul and JP went to The Old Mill restaurant for lunch while Mckenzie slept and I finished up some last minute homework. They both raved over it and said it was very good and the portion sizes were huge. JP got a BBQ sandwich that was about as big as his head. After that came back they picked up the two slow girls and we headed out on the town. Paul said we had a day of fun ahead of us but didn’t tell up where we would be going. To my surprise we ended up at the Outlets to shop I was very underwhelmed because shopping is one of my least favorite activities of all times. Between spending an absurd amount of money on things that most of the time I don’t think you need, and trying to get my fat ass into clothes that I ended up looking fatter in then I think I am, it just ends up making me feel like shit about myself so I refrain from doing it. Surprise, surprise everyone bought something for themselves except me… actually I bought myself a small coffee at Starbucks which I will end up wearing some place on my body so I guess I got something to… All three of them got new adidas slides. JP got a pair of converse shoes and a pair of under armor tennis shoes. Paul also got a pair of tennis shoes, and Mckenzie got a pair of converse and some socks. FUN FUN. After that we made our way down to Gatlinburg for some actual fun, paid ten dollars to park all day and started our walk to the Hollywood car museum per JPs request. We saw all kinds of cool cars from a bunch of different movies, including the Batmobile, Herbie, Elvis’s car, and a bunch of cars from Fast and the Furious. We left there and made about a ten minute walk to a fun center where we played glow in the dark golf, it was all neon colors and blacklights. JP won then Paul then Kenzie and I was lest, as usual, but it was air conditioned thank the lord, the laser tag that we placed next however was barely. I felt very bad for the kind gentleman that I had to give my laser vest to because it was practically dripping with sweat. We all had a really good time though JP won mini golf and Paul won laser tag. I have never played laser tag but I had more fun than I thought I would. After that we stood in a small breezy spot because it was hot as hell outside and we were all sweating from playing tag. We made our way back up to where we parked and tried to have dinner at Dicks Last Resort but they had an hour wait and me and the children were starving. So, we went to choice number two which was luckily right across the street, Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. I have never been to a Bubba Gump shrimp but the movie Forrest Gump is one of my all time favorite movies and my family knows just about every line in the movie, to the point that the waitress was asking us trivia and we pretty much got every question right, she was very impressed. She even told us that we were a very cool family, like there was any doubt, and told us she was “going to give us half off double of our bill” :P. After getting our bellies full we decided it was time to go back to the camper. Paul wanted to do some ski lift thing up the mountain but it was still pretty hot out and we were all exhausted from walking around in the heat all day. We delivered on one last request form Kenzie, all she wanted to do was go see the Dolly Parton statue that was about 30 minute away…. So we set out on one last adventure and found it in the middle of town right in the middle of a construction zone lol they were updating the roads around the town but we managed to find it. After a quick stop at the grocery store we were back at the camper to enjoy a fire.

Tuesday was a stay at the trailer and let the kids play at the pool with their friends. I had classes from 8am until 3pm and while I was doing it I spent some time doing laundry while Paul stayed with the kids at the pool. Later that night we had a bit of an argument because Paul was bored and he thought it was a waste of time to jut stay in the park when we could be doing Tennessee things. I really don’t care I enjoy a nice quiet day in the campground, I am very aware that would could have stayed home to do the same thing but its nice to have a relax day considering we were out and about pretty  much all day yesterday. So we just decided to go home a day early because we were both mad at this point so after I made dinner (kabobs with steak, shrimp, squash, onion, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes) we ate, yelled a little, packed everything up so we wouldn’t have to do anything in the morning and prepared for the 8 hour drive home in the morning. It also didn’t help that JP came back to the camper with a fever, cough, and runny nose. All really great symptoms when you’re in the middle of a pandemic where everyone is suppose to be wearing masks and staying 6 feet away from each other and cringe at the first sign of a cough. luckly, that never happened, we cooled off the next day.

Wednesday we woke up in better moods and instead of going home we desided to look around for other openings and stay camping until Sunday somewhere. We looked at Cherrystone, Luray KOA and Harrisonburg KOA, the only place that had room for us was the Luray KOA so we booked Thursday to Sunday. Around 1 we ventured out for another day on the town. We went to the Smoky mountain national park, where we did a lovely scenic drive up a mountain. We stopped a couple of times to get some picture of the forest that had burned down in 2016. On the way down the mountain we saw the most amazing thing a brown bear walking casually down the road. We was close enough to the truck that Kenzie and I could have reached out and touched him. Considering how vast the forest is and how little area the road takes up it was pretty slim that we would see a bear in the wild. This is now the second bear we have seen just roaming in the wild, the first was at Skyline drive in Virginia. We stopped again near a stream and got out and walked on the rocks, the water was soo cold and looked amazing, I actually wished that we had bathing suits and water shoes to get in. Once we were done our scenic drive we stopped in Gatlinburg and got on the chair lift up a mountain called the SkyLift. At the top we walked across a 700 feet long suspension bridge across a cannon that was 150ft in the air. Half was over there was a glass bottom that you could stop at and look down (I did not). The view from up there was amazing, I’m not big on high places but this was well worth the money and the ride just to see the view. The ride down was scarier than the ride up but I made it Before we took the ride back down though we decided to get some snacks at the snack stand where I waited behind a family who must have bought one of everything and spent 60 bucks on junk. We got 4 slushies and shared nachos and cheese. While we sat at the table we did a facetime call with my family because my sentimental boy was home sick and missed his grandparents. We was so excite to show them all the views that we have seen so far and answer any questions in the process.. We purchased game tickets the last time we were in town so we stopped back and finished them up. The kids did some kind of laser maze and then Paul and the kids played another round of laser tag, thank god I didn’t have to play. We purchased the souvenir shirts for both the kids. That’s all Mckenzie was talking about “ I have to get my Tennessee shirt”! then we went ot a place called slice for on of the biggest slices of pizza I have seen, 2 slices fed all of us. It was inside of an arcade and considering that it was actually really good pizza. We took a walk up the street so Kenzie could find a hand held lacie fan and as it was getting dark we went back on the Skylift for another ride to look at the town in the dark. Paul and the kids went back over the bridge but I had been there done that and opted out. Stopped to get fuel before heading back to the campground and since we had a hissy fit the day before everything was already packed so we just got showers and went to bed. The next morning we were on the road by 930 with very minimal effort on our part.

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 8^th and staying away until July 23^rd 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 17^th. 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 5^th 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.

Rocky Gap 2020

 

Rocky Gap is my absolute favorite place to go, I know I have said it a million times, it’s quiet, the sites are big, it’s in the woods so the temperature is always pretty cool, and its just a lot of good old fashion family fun. We got there Monday we left Harpers Ferry around 12 and stopped about 15 minute away and got us all a coffee, once again because of COVID we had to order on line and stand in the pick up spot in the parking lot in order to get our coffee. After that about a half hour later we stopped to get lunch in Martinsburg right off of 81. We wanted to go to the Cracker Barrel but when we got there they were only doing carry out, even though the website said they had dine in services available, I can only assume that it had something to do with COVID 19 so we sat in the parking lot for like trying to figure out A, where we wanted to go and B, somewhere we could fit the trailer. We opted for Buffalo Wild wings which was just across the way. Masks on face we entered the building after Paul had to figure out how to keep the truck running for the A/C for the animals. After a nice lunch we got back on the road and ended up getting to Rocky Gap at 330. We had the same amazing site that we had the last time we were here and had plenty of room to set up the EZ up, both hammocks, and the bunny pen with plenty of room to spare. I don’t ever think we stay here long enough, I could live here it’s probably the best place in Maryland. We took it easy Monday had a cam fire while the kids rested in the hammocks.

Mrs Ann and Mr Lee were supposed to come up Monday but they didn’t feel up to it so they ended coming up Tuesday I had school until 2pm they were supposed to be there early afternoon and still were close so we decided to go to the lake and just gave them directions. They got here but stayed at the camper while we were at the lake till probably 5 or 6. My inlaws have never been to rocky gap, We had a beautiful site with plenty of room for everyones chairs and Paul set it up with lights over both hammocks. We had subpar hamburgers for dinner and just chilled by the fire the rest of the night. The next morning we all went to the lake for pretty much the entire day. I really like the lake, the beach is a little rocky but it’s always clean and not packed with people. The sand is a little rocky but not horrible on your feet. We put up 2 umbrellas and chairs for all of us and it was perfect. The shade made it cool enough that we weren’t dying and if we got to hot we just got in the water. We had a couple of drinks with us, no alcohol allowed, didn’t stop us though we just put our beer in cups. For the first time ever the snack shack was open so Mr Lee bought all of us some nachos to share and the kids got freeze pops. It was a very nice day on the water in my favorite little spot. We left the beach around 6 I think ate dinner and then took everyone to the peir that night to go fishing. Mr Ann got the kids fishing rods a couple of years ago but all they had was line, no hooks, so we never used them. Paul bought a little tackle box at Walmart in Harpers Ferry and I strung the kids rods up. Before I mentioned the next part, I would like to point out that I have never in my life tied a lure to a fishing rod. However, JP was insistent on using a lure on his fishing rod so that's that. I tied the lure onto the line on the fishing rod, JP cast the lure into the lake, then he reeled the lure back, and looked down at his line and the poor thing lost the lure that fast. The knot that I tide came undone and the lure was gone forever. Needless to say, we didn’t fish very long after that. Kenzie caught a little fish but other then that nothing, Mrs Ann wasn’t having it anyway, se looked bored out of her mind. The next morning we woke up and went out to have brunch at a place that looked like someone just converted the garage into a restaurant. It was called The Girls are Cooking and it had maybe 5 tables in it and was behind someones house. The food looked home made and it was pretty good, probably wouldn’t go back but the server was very nice and we got our food in a timely manner. We went into downtown Cumberland after that to go to the grocery store and then Paul got gas and stopped at the Ace hardware store on the way back. We did our normal pack up the night before after it rained for a little while and were on the road the next day after we said goodbye to the in-laws.