Back to Reston

We said good-bye to our friends in Maine on Tuesday morning and then headed for Reston, where we were stopping for about a week to visit Tafanie, Cory and Isabella.  Reston is about a 10 hour drive from Wells, Maine.  Since we didn’t want to drive it all in one day, we had to decide whether we wanted to break it up into 3 days of driving and 2 overnight stops or 2 days of driving and 1 overnight stop.  We opted for the 2 days of driving and 1 overnight stop.  Because New York City was basically half-way and we wanted to stay as far away from New York City and any other big cities, our first day was going to be the longest day of driving.

We traveled around Boston via I-495 and then headed west and then southwest through Connecticut.  One of the difficulties we encountered was the lack of rest areas where we could stop and eat lunch and Chuck could stretch his legs.  We pulled off at a truck stop in Connecticut, but there was no place to pull park except for commercial trucks.  So I fixed lunch on the road and we just kept driving.

The GPS kept heading us toward the Tappan Zee bridge to go around New York City.  We crossed that bridge on the way up and it cost about $25 to cross that bridge.  With it getting closer to rush hour, I wanted to stay as far away from New York City as we could plus avoid the Tappan Zee bridge.  I told the GPS that we wanted to go to Newburg, NY, and it finally got us away from the city. 

The terrain north of New York City was rather hilly, almost mountainous, which was surprising.

Once we got to Newburg, we headed south through New Jersey and then on west to Kutztown, Pennyslvania, where we planned to stay at Pine Hill RV Park.  We had stayed there back in June and it was a nice park with pull-thru sites and full hookups.  We would not have to disconnect the car and we could run both air conditioners because we had 50 AMP service.

Unfortunately, we still got stuck with a $16 toll as we crossed into Pennsylvania.  It doesn’t seem to matter where you travel in the northeast.  You are going to pay a toll or spend just as much in fuel and frustration trying to avoid the toll.

On our way, we saw these unusual rock walls along the interstate where the rock is held in by wire.  We had seen them on the way up but forgot to mention them.  It looks like landscape rock that is held in wire bins at a landscape nursery but instead these are walls of rock.

We pulled into Pine Hill RV Park around 6:30 and pulled into the site next to where we had stayed when we were here in June.  We got set up quickly, did a little laundry and called it a night.

We left Wednesday morning around 10:00 am and I thought the GPS would guide us down through Gettysburg and away from Baltimore – bringing us in from the northwest towards Reston.  Wrong!  It had us going towards and around Baltimore via I-495.  Baltimore and the D.C. area is where we ran into some of our worst traffic on the way up to the northeast. 

I couldn’t get us re-routed fast enough so I hoped for the best.  Since it would be the middle of the day when we were passing through, I hoped the traffic would not be too bad and it wasn’t except for about a mile stretch where we encountered some construction along the beltway.

I had made reservations for Lake Fairfax Park about a week ago but we could only stay through Sunday because they are closing the entire campground down August 5th because they are rebuilding the bathhouse.  That doesn’t make any sense to us to close a campground down in the middle of the summer, the busiest time of the year.  Fortunately, we were able to get reservations starting August 5^th at Bull Run for a few days.  Bull Run is further out but we will have full hookups.

We got all set up and then went over to see how much Isabella had grown since May.  Isabella was so happy to see her Pa.  She gave him a great big hug when we first walked in.

She had grown so much that not only was she walking now….

…she was driving too!  :)

While we were here visiting them, we were also helping them pack because they are moving to Atlanta!  We are SOOO GLAD!!!!  Now Tafanie and Crystal and their families will both be in the same town!  We started right in to helping pack on Thursday.  Isabella helped too!

We just had to make sure we didn’t pack her too!  :)

On Thursday and Friday mornings, Chuck and I went for walks at Lake Fairfax Park.  On Friday, we found this trail going out of the campground.  There was a sign with a brush to wipe the bottom of your shoes so that seeds would not grow along the path.  That was the first time we had ever seen anything like that.

So we wiped the bottom of our shoes on the brushes and headed down the path.  The shade of the hiking trail was much nicer than walking on the hot asphalt road in the sun.

The trail veered off in several places.

It was a multi-use trail and we crossed paths with a mountain biker at one point.  The trail followed a creek in places and there were a lot of ferns in the woods.

And you had to cross through the creek (not over a bridge) in one place.

When we came to this newly constructed bridge, we knew we were getting close to the campground.

The trail we followed exited at a campsite.  There was a tent there but no car.  Hopefully, we didn’t disturb anyone.  Then we walked back through the campground to the motorhome.

As you can tell, the campground is about empty.  The campground was scheduled to close around the first of July.  We figured that a lot of people who would normally stay here probably camped elsewhere thinking it was already closed.

On Friday evening, we went to dinner at On the Border for the first Mexican dinner Chuck and I had enjoyed in a long time.  We didn’t see many Mexican restaurants in Canada. :)

Isabella enjoyed her dinner too!  She loves black beans.  Can’t you tell?

On Saturday morning, we helped Tafanie and Cory finish packing just about all they could pack for now.  That afternoon and evening we got to babysit Isabella so they could go out for date night.  :)