Greenbrier State Park, Boonsboro, MD Pt 2

Lexa will be staying with us overnight on Thursday so we extended our stay here at Greenbrier SP for another two days.  I just hope our holding tanks can last that long before we have to go to the dump station.  

We decided to drive up to the cabin to get a fix on what needs to be done on Friday when we move the motorhome there for the summer.  The cabin has been vacant for 10 months and there are always some issues to deal with when re-opening it.  Jack had gone up last weekend and repaired the water pump so I didn't have to deal with that.  The cabin came through the winter in great shape and only needs a good cleaning and airing out.  

On the way back to the campsite we drove down by the lake and took some pictures.  Greenbrier SP is heavily used on the weekends by swimmers, fishermen and picnic users.  When I say heavily used, it is not an exaggeration by any means.  The park fills up early on weekends and they have to turn away users by early morning and actually have staff stationed outside the park keeping others from sneaking into the park.  Since they have many trails here, it must be a difficult job limiting the number of users.  Sounds like it would be a good training ground for the US Border Patrol agents who are on the US/Mexican border.  Plus, they would have the advantage of trying their language skills out on the ones sneaking into the park.

There is a church youth group camping in tents below us in the Birch camping loop.  They are mostly from the Southern Maryland area near the Chesapeake Bay area.  They have signs made out of bed sheets on each campsite with some kind of identification painted on them.  It looks like they have occupied all of the campsites there and when we drove through they were sitting in the amphitheater and filled every seat.  They looked to be mostly younger children in the 8-14 yr old range.  

We went back to our motorhome and watched an old movie that we had seen before, but didn't realize it until the movie was half over.  It was a good movie the 2nd time also.

Lexa's Birthday Party

We took it easy this morning and had a hard time jump starting the old bodies to get into motion, but we finally had to get going.  We had some errands to run before heading over to Lexa's 14th birthday celebration today.  It sounds like she had a very full day of celebrating the birthday with minature golf in the morning, swimming in the afternoon and party time in the evening.

Cassie ordered a huge pizza that had 58 slices and was the largest pizza I have seen since the Zebra room pizza on Wisconsin Ave in Washington, DC.  Huge is the key word.  It was larger than 4 large pizzas and the box to carry it in would not fit into the passenger side door on their Ford Explorer.  We had to put it in the back of the Explorer for the trip home.

Lexa opened her presents after the pizza and other goodies and then we had huge pieces of cake for dessert.  We waddled out of there stuffed to the gills.  I can't take many more of these celebrations or I will weigh 400 lbs.


The camping group of young kids who set up their tents in the park yesterday broke camp this morning and were out of the park before we even had breakfast.  It took them an hour or so to put up the tents and then they took bike rides up the side of these hills.  Oh, to be young again and full of energy.

Greenbrier State Park, Boonsboro, MD

                             Happy Father's Day

We made one of the shortest drives from one campsite to another today.  20 miles total.  We wanted to stay here on Saturday night but the Maryland State parks seem to be reserved every weekend during the summer so it is impossible to get a site on Friday or Saturday night.  Sunday through Thursday nights the campgrounds are almost empty.  This camping section has 40 sites and there are 12 campers here including the camp hosts.

The swimming and picnic areas are absolutely packed during the weekend, especially on Sunday.  All of the parking lots were full and they had signs in English and Spanish to that effect.  At $5 per person they must make enough on the weekend to keep the park going for the year.  Monday-Friday the areas aren't used hardly at all.  

It is a nice park and we always enjoy our stay here, so if you are in the area from Sunday to Thursday, come on out and camp.

All our children called to wish me a happy Father's day and I enjoyed talking to them.  My Tucson daughter even sent me a text message from her phone to my computer.  Nice to be remembered.

We went over to Cassie & Jack's house and joined them for dessert this evening since we couldn't get there in time for dinner due to waiting for the weekend people to leave the campground.  We had a nice visit with them, Lexa and Jack's parents.    

They lock the gate at 10pm and we didn't want to fool around with the combination lock to get back in so we left in time to avoid that.

Now to get a good nights sleep.  See ya!

Falling Waters, West Virginia

We had a great time visiting with Carolyn & Mann these past few days and hated to tell them goodby this morning.  We talked nonstop with them catching up on the past 8 months since we last saw them and tried to make some plans for the next few months.  They will be in our area in August and we will meet up with them then.  Also, we are trying to arrange a camp out with them and the Erringtons, except the Erringtons don't know about it yet.

We drove up to Falling Waters, WV today and pulled into a campground right on the WV/MD state line and just a few miles from our cabin.  Since we don't have a sewer outlet for the MH at the cabin, we stop here and flush the tanks and catch our breath before digging into all the chores at the cabin.  It makes it easier to deal with the jobs ahead.

We had an easy drive up except for the always busy I-95 stretch of the road.  It is hard to imagine how much traffic there is on the road and how fast it moves.  We see more traffic here in a mile than we see in  miles out west.  A little red truck even passed us on the way back along with a few of his friends.



Now to open up a can of Yuengling and relax.   See ya!

Back in ole Virginny

We took it easy on Tuesday and went over to Larry & Jane's house for a pizza dinner that we picked up at Costco.  We ordered two large ones and both almost disappeared.  Sat around and talked for a while and then headed back to the motor home.  It was great visiting with Larry and family and we enjoyed the visit very much.  Now to get them to come up to the cabin and visit with us. 

 North Carolina has some beautiful flower patches on I-85 and they make the drive on the interstate more enjoyable.  They have more displays than any of the states we drove through on the way back from Arizona.

We traveled up to Midlothian, VA to visit with friends Carolyn & Mann.  They have a beautiful home here and are fellow RVers who we met in 2000 at Long Key State Park.  We've been close friends since then and have a lot of common interests.

We had a nice dinner with them and sat around and talked into the evening when we all were worn out.  More chatting and visiting is on tap for tomorrow.