8/31/2012, Friday: Wow, it's the last day of August already. Guess it's been a while since I've been on here. Since Front Royal we stopped in Winchester, VA for a couple of days. We had 4 new tires put on the Jeep (ouch). Then we kept track of the weather north of us by Gettysburg; they were getting storms that direction so we waited that out.

We went to Artillery Ridge Campground in Gettysburg for 2 nights. It's a Passport America campground; was $52.00 for w/e/s for 2 nights. We spent the first afternoon cleaning and washing/drying clothes. The 2nd day we spent walking/driving around Gettysburg National Military Park. Between our 2 cameras, over 1800 pictures, 3 batteries used, 1 camera card filled up. Talk about tired feet and sunburn, even some mosquitos towards dark. All-in-all though, a fun day. Did some geocaching challenges and earth caches and got some smashed pennies.  The next day we moved the RV to a National Park parking lot and did some more in the battle field. There also was a ? cache at a covered bridge. That was awesome, as we've never seen one. You can't drive on it, it's blocked off, but it was still neat. It's a historic landmark, so it's being taken care of, except for the graffiti, of course.

We moved on to Hanover, PA Lowe's for the night and internet. I think we'll spend some time around this area/Lancaster/Amish area. We want to go to Hershey for the Largest RV Show which starts the 12th, I believe, of September.

Today we spent the day on our computers working on our finances on Mint.com (on our own network). It's a good program; you just have to enter in the cash transactions. They sure do add up.

8/22/2012, Wednesday: Left Mathews Arm Campground  in the Shenandoah National Park this morning after we dumped and filled water. We stayed one more night than planned, but had our mail sent to Luray so picked that up yesterday and went through it. In the past week we've driven on Skyline Drive, driven around Luray and some of the mountain roads and went to the Civil War re-enactment with Dean and Valerie. They came up for the day on Saturday. It was a fun day and we got a cache for National Geocaching Day and 4 smashed pennies. The weather has been beautiful all week, other than raining every afternoon/evening. It gets cool at night. We did have a campfire the last two nights; the wood was still wet, but we were able to cook the hamburgers and potato packs. Yum.

When we checked into the campground, there's a sign there stating it is "Bear Country" and to make sure your food is put away. Well, needless to say, we didn't see any bears.. We did see deer and squirrels, lots of butterflies; but no bears in any of our travels yet.

We're in Front Royal, Virginia tonight at Lowe's (thanks for the guest wifi!). We can't stop at a Lowe's or Walmart without going in...(I'm writing this blog as Curt is in Lowe's). We're going to head toward Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. There's a town on the way Curt wants to get front tires for the Jeep. We have a nail in one and they're getting pretty smooth. We talked about this when we left; guess it's time now.  There's a couple Passport America campgrounds in the general area that we'll try to get in to.

It's kind of strange now...no schedule at all. Before we were working our way to Virginia to Dean's. Now we've got nothing to schedule other than to go south before it snows! So if we want to sit and do nothing for a day, or if we want to go sight-seeing, or if we want to travel, we can. I still feel like I'm on vacation, a nice, long one. :)

Monday, 08/13/2012: We got reservations at Mathews Arm Campground in the Shenandoah National Park for 6 nights, 8/15 through the 21st. We plan on going to Luray for the Civil War re-enactment on the 18th and 19th. There are no hookups there, but they do have water we can fill and a dump station. We can use the generator a couple of hours during the day. Hopefully it will be nice outside. There are strict warnings to keep your food put away as there are bear and other animals around.

We're still in Harrisonburg right now, will head to Luray tomorrow probably. We were at Walmart but went to Lowe's this morning to get better internet. Thank you Lowe's for guest internet! There is very little in the way of campgrounds for RVs in this area of the country. We went to the visitor's center and did some waymarking and geocaching yesterday. Luckily one of the caches was at the botanical gardens, because we tried to find the garden with our vehicle GPS and it couldn't find it.

We had to stick around over the weekend because Curt had a dentist appt this morning. He got a wisdom tooth pulled out Friday morning. That's the basic reason we came to Harrisonburg; we couldn't find a dentist in Luray to pull the tooth and was referred here. The tooth should have been pulled a long time ago, but the pain always went away, so it didn't get done. Well, last week it just kept getting worse and wouldn't go away. Living on acetaminophen/ibuprofen really isn't good. He's really lucky that it has turned out good and no pain or swelling afterwards.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012:  Wow, it's been a long time since I've blogged. It's been a busy 2 months of remodeling, considering we thought we'd only be there a couple of weeks! It did help that we were able to park on the street at Dean's and use his electricity. If not, we would not have been able to stay long. It's been a hot and humid 2 months. Curt worked every day except one afternoon basically, which we went shooting at their indoor shooting range. Valerie and I got to go to DC and Burke Lake and do some geocaching and waymarking. Also they took me to Wolf Trap National Park and we saw the Wizard of Oz on the big screen with the National Symphony Orchestra playing in the background. Otherwise I spent the time scanning papers, pictures, baking, cooking and spending time with 2 Bengal cats and a greyhound dog. They just got the greyhound in July, a retired racer. He had never been around cats, or in a house, let alone a split level house with steps to climb. The climbing up wasn't so bad, it's the going down he doesn't really like. But he's come a long way, and he and the cats get along fine now. They basically ignore each other. We were kind of leery in the beginning. And, of course, spending time with Dean, Valerie and Keith. Dean helped us put in our stereo and boosters for the wifi and cell.

We went south to Fredericksburg and then west towards Luray, VA. We stopped at the Chancellorsville Battlefield information center and watched a movie and decided to drive part of the battlefield route with stops for pictures. We thought maybe we'd stop at Sperryville before crossing over the Blue Ridge mountains to Luray, but couldn't find a place to stop, so we kept on going. Up and down, twists and turns. We stopped at Luray's Walmart and decided to eat supper and see if we can get the internet going. Of course, things never work the way they're suppose to, but I am on and able to blog, so that's good.

So, tomorrow, back to traveling the U.S. and seeing what's out there.