Oh Shenandoah

We named our trailer Vixen

LoGear, Ginger and I headed to Shenandoah National Park the very day it re-opened on June 11th. We had made the reservations in January and for a while there, it was touch and go as to whether we would be able to fulfill the reservation. It was a week long stay in Loft Mountain Campground and we would have a great time, seeing what it was like living in a trailer powered by the sun. We would be joined later in the week by friends Dilly and Blue Tail. The same duo we hiked with the month before. This is my daily journal of the trip.

Day 1- June 11
I was awake around 1 am checklists going through my head and things I needed to do kept me tossing and turning until about 0430, when I got started. I did the things I had to do and continued my checklists until LoGear got up.

We had everything ready and were on the road at 1026. A little behind schedule,but we really didn't have a strict timetable.

We drove through some rain, heavy at times,making it around the beltway in light traffic. After a rest stop at Cracker Barrel and a gas and food stop at Sheetz, we were climbing the mountain and entering the park. We arrived at the Ranger Station a little after 1500 after filling our water tank at the overflow parking area.

We checked in and found out our reserved sight was one of the closed sites. They had moved us across the road to G199, the wrong side of the road. We checked it out and rejected it. Leveling would have been an issue and we didn't want our door facing the road.

We started to look for a better site and saw a potential one very quickly. Continuing on we drove around the A loop and didn't see anything better. We went back to A81 and pulled in. The trailer was already fairly level. We unhitched then went back to the Ranger to change our site.

We went through our checklist and finished setting up camp.
.

All set up and ready for some vaca

The day had become beautiful and we hung out on the rug drinking some beers. We took a walk to explore and brought some wood back for the fire. We hadn't realized that the store closed at 1700, but there is plenty of down wood nearby.

LoGear hanging her DIY Vixen sign

Burgers and salad for dinner than a nice fire. As night came to the mountain, the temperature dropped some.

Ginger napping near the fire

Xander is always with us out here

We retired inside and headed for bed not too long after.  

Day 2 - June 12

After a night of mostly good sleep (my back has to get used to the old mattress we have in there), I was up with first light.

I tried to figured out how to go through our morning routine without making too much noise. It needs work.

Ginger and I went up to the restroom as we are still reluctant to put too much into our black tank, and it makes for a nice morning walk.

We came back and I made some coffee, and then we took our real morning walk. We went down almost every road, checking out the sites and then circled back to camp.

After piddling around camp doing various chores, it was time for another walk. We took the trail to the camp store. It is a short walk and we found a lot more wood sources along the trail. We stopped at the amphitheater along the way. It has a really nice view.

Checking out the amphitheater

We checked out the still closed store and talked to the woman who would be opening up in a few minutes before heading back to camp.

After LoGear got up and we had a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, we walked back down to the store and bought a few things. I bought a book about Shenandoah, a 24 oz Yuengling for later, and an ice cream sandwich. Walking back we picked up wood for the night's fire.

After a quick lunch we drove to the Doyles River trail parking lot and headed down the trail. It was pretty much down hill the whole time. Over 1000 feet of elevation loss. I kept worrying that Ginger would have a hard time coming back up. We passed a very nice spring and the trail to one of the PATC cabins and eventually came to what we though were the upper falls. We stopped to rest and soak our feet and Ginger did her usual and laid down in the pool to cool off.

Cooling off at the small falls

As we headed up, the climb was as expected. Strenuous, but not too bad. As usual, LoGear pulled ahead as I always go up slow. I figured Ginger would stay with me, but she had no problem matching LoGear's pace. She would actually stop and look back at me to make sure I was still coming. So, it turns out I was the weak link.

We stopped at the spring and enjoyed the cool, fresh, mountain water coming out of a pipe. There was a nice stone wall built around it. Maybe it was someone's spring house at some point in the past.

We trudged the last 450 meters and were back at the truck. We drove back, stopping at the store to grab a pack of wood, just to have it and a jar of spaghetti sauce that I had forgotten to pack. I also got a PATC map of the area.

Back at camp, we enjoyed the beautiful day. It was mostly sunny with some fair weather clouds floating by. Once the batteries were fully charged, with the sun still strong, I had switched the fridge to AC to save gas. I kept it that way until the sun started westering and more clouds rolled in.

I had put up my hammock and we took turns relaxing on air as the day slowly progressed. We decided on quesadillas for dinner and I made a quick fire to cook them. They came out good, but should be flipped a little earlier next time. That griddle works well.

As sunset approached, we walked back to the amphitheater to watch it. There were about 15 other people hanging out. One guy, a ranger I think, was playing his banjo. Plucking out recognizable songs as the sun put on its show for us humans. The sun fell behind the mountains and we headed back.

A beautiful Shenandoah sunset

We built the fire back up and sat around it as we cleaned up the camp and stowed our day gear.

We came inside and realized that Ginger had spent the whole day outside in the "yard". She only came into the trailer when we made her go in for the night. She's a real OD.

I flipped on the TV and did a channel scan and was surprised at how many channels it could pick up. I flipped through for a while and then we all headed to bed.

Day 3 - June 13
The wind shook the trailer a few times during the night and it was a cool morning. I slept pretty good this night and got up when the vent cover in the roof started glowing blue, indicating the morning was arriving.

As Ginger and I headed to the rest room, today's animal was rabbits. We saw at least four or five as we walked around.

That area only had a few campers. It still seems to not be too crowded, but we will check that later.

I was able to check Facebook and mail on the Chromebook by turning on my phone hotspot. It was roaming and things loaded slow, but it worked.

I set up a swamp cooler to see it that will cool off the beers. Something I saw on a YouTube video. Wet a towel, place it over the top where the lid would go and use a fan to blow air over the towel. The process should cool the beers some.

Swamp cooler experiment

Ginger and I went out to check out a new trail that led to the AT. We followed it to the AT, walked the trail for a tenth, then headed back to the camp road and finished our walk in the campground.

Breakfast was sausage, egg and cheese on a bagel. LoGear got up and it was another beautiful day. After hanging out a bit, it was time for another hike. This one started out the same as the morning walk, but continued along the AT for a little over a mile where we came to the trail to the store. We went up there for more ice cream and we saw they now had ice, so I got a bag. I also got a premade sandwich for lunch.

We went back to camp and enjoyed the early afternoon. Since the sun was strong again today we put the fridge on AC for several hours to save gas.

LoGear tried to take Ginger on a little walk, but she kept looking back waiting for me, so she just came back.

Later in the afternoon, clouds started rolling in, so we took our last walk of the day before dinner. On this one, we walked on every camp road, checking the sites and seeing how full it is. It seemed that it wasn't very full at all.

We came back and started on dinner. Boneless pork chops, rice and a salad. When we were just getting ready to eat, one of the girls from the tent sites nearby, Anna, invited us over for a visit. After dinner, we walked over and hung out until about sunset.

They were an interesting group. All friends of each other in some way. Anna's husband, Brandon, I think, looked like Jason Momora aka Khal Drogo, Aquaman, etc. Everyone was super nice and they gave us beers and LoGear got some delicious bundt cake. Tomorrow is Brandon's birthday. That was the reason for the camp trip. They had a contest going where they taped their beer cans together to make a wizard staff. The winner becoming a White Wizard.

The evening had cooled off and we had a few sprinkles off and on over at the camp and that continued as we hung out in the trailer and got ready for bed.

Day 4 - June 14
I slept decent enough, but needed a good stretch this morning. There are a lot of clouds still and the coolness is lingering, but no rain is falling so far. Breakfast was oatmeal today.

The battery was around 69% when I got up and is down to 63% after coffee and stuff. I'm not sure if we will be able to switch to AC on the fridge today.

Today's hike took us north on the AT, retracing some of our day's hike back in 2017, but we took a different trail down to the Wayside. At first I thought it was the one, but nothing was right. It was just a semi steep trail down the mountain. When we got down to the still closed Wayside, I checked my AWOL guide and Guthooks to see the road we took back in 17 was another .9 north on the trail. We were glad we didn't go the whole way as Ginger was flagging a bit.

A view from our hike

We walked back the paved trail next to the road and stopped at the store for some ice cream. I saw that they now had ice and grabbed a bag. We walked back to the trailer, had some lunch and waited for Dilly and Blue Tail to show up.

They did shortly after and started doing the loops to find a spot. After a couple circuits they found a spot at the end of D Road. Not too far from our camp.

After dinner which was a good chicken, cream of mushroom soup, veggies and stuffing casserole, we headed to their camp to hang out and drink around the fire.

Walking home in the dark, we saw a bedded down deer watching us from the forest's edge.

I didn't record the night's battery level, but it was probably in the mid 80s.

Day 5 - June 15
The night's drinking didn't hurt too much the next morning and Ginger and I were going through our morning routine as usual.

We did a smaller loop this morning which circled around to the boys. Both were up and moving about. We made plans to do the falls trail later. I made some egg bites in the Instant Pot for breakfast, which were quite good.

Once we got our shit together, he headed back down to the Doyle's River parking and once again headed down the mountain to the falls. We got to the first one, which is how far we went last time, thinking it was Upper Falls. We continued on and this time came to the real Upper Falls, which were much more impressive. There was a paranoid hiking group there hogging up all the sitting rocks, so we moved on after Ginger cooled off in the pool.

We walked to the lower falls, which had a longer fall, but was harder to approach the bottom, because of a very steep, rocky path. We headed back to the Upper Falls, which had another group now, then started the long climb back to the parking lot.

LoGear at the upper falls

This time it seemed to go faster since I now knew waypoints to help measure the progress. We got back to the truck and Dilly and Blue Tail opted to walk back to the camp on the AT.

We stopped at the store on the way back for some ice and, you guessed it, ice cream. Back at camp we ate the leftovers from yesterday's dinner for today's lunch then took a nice nap.

When we woke up, we walked over to the other camp to see what was up. We decided to hang out there again tonight, so we went back to our camp, made dinner, then went back over until darkness fell.

Ginger tracking a deer, only a few feet into the brush

Sausages on the barbie

Once again walking home on the dark campground road, we shivered a little as the night had grown brisk.

We hung out in the living area for awhile then off to bed.

Day 6 - June 16
The morning dawned overcast again with a rising wind. The batteries are at 62% so I heated my water on the stove to not draw it down further with the boiler. I'm not sure how strong the sun will be today. It will be a good test.

I'm not trusting these tank level indicators (TLI). The fresh water one stayed at full for three days, went to 2/3 yesterday and today is already showing 1/3 full. We may have been using water freely, but I don't think we bumped it up that much. I think I'm just going to have to learn how long each tank lasts. The black tank still sits at 1/3 full and both gray tanks say empty, which we know isn't true. They are the largest tank, but I question the TLI readout there too.

Today we are driving to Big Meadows to check that out and get some gas. It's a thirty mile drive on Skyline, but we need a break from the hikes today.

The drive wasn't too bad, but the visitor center was closed. The boys bought some stuff in the store and we checked out the campground. The gas there was $2.59. We decided to go into Elkton for some lunch and cheaper gas and we headed down the mountain at Rt 33.

We did the McD drive through and sat outside at a picnic table that was next to the restaurant and then got some gas on the way back up the mountain for $1.89.

We went back to camp for some afternoon naps and recreation. Later, I made dinner of spaghetti and meat sauce using the instant pot for the pasta.

The day had been overcast and the solar wasn't producing much, but it had charge the batteries back up to the low 80s. We conserved the rest of the day and by bed time it was still hovering around 80%.

I got a good fire going even though it was raining off and on. The boys came over and cooked their dinner on the grill. Eventually the rain moved us inside and we hung out for awhile. Blue Tail had left a little earlier.

We headed to bed with the rain still falling as Dilly went back to his wet camp.

Day 7 - June 17
The rain was falling pretty hard in the morning when I rolled out of bed. The Batteries sat at 75% and the fresh tank was showing empty. The water is still flowing though, so we are waiting for it to sputter. The gray tanks finally moved to 1/3 full and black is still holding steady at 1/3.

The rain let off enough for Ginger and I to head up to the rest room for our morning evolution. As we headed back, we were walking in rain again.

I had some coffee and found I had some pretty good signal, so I checked my email and Facebook and did some research on volunteer.gov and Lake Mead camping.

I heard a call at the door. It was Dilly and Blue Tail. They were headed home. Dilly's tent had failed in the rainy night and was now in the dumpster.

I cooked a nice breakfast skillet using left over sausage and stuff and it was delicious.

I took a quick shower and the pump kept running, signifying the tank was truly empty. I filled up two, six gallon jugs and dumped them into the tank and we were good to go for a little while again. If we conserve, we will be fine until tomorrow.

Today will be just hanging out in the trailer getting ready to head back home in the morning.

And that is exactly what we did all day. After a nice nap, we took care of a lot of the outside pack up along with some inside preparations. We put the appliances away and started putting things where they wouldn't shift too much when we moved tomorrow.

I got some more signal and did some more internet stuff and then we turned the TV on for a while. The heavy fog and rain made the solar panels fairly useless, but every once and a while it would get brighter and the panels would suck it in and charge the battery a little. We stayed in the 70% area all day long. We conserved, but still did things like watch a little TV, charged our phones and used the microwave for a short time.

Dinner was sloppy joes made from the left over spaghetti sauce. It did the trick. After some more TV, I was ready for bed. Tomorrow would be a travel day.

Day 8 - June 18
The rain continued off and on throughout the night and was still falling when the windows started to glow a gray morning. I was up and continuing with the check lists to get ready to go. LoGear got up and we went through our routine to get everything ready. We are still learning the process, but the check lists help. We were ready to go a little after eight and our first stop was about a half mile away at the dump station.

That went as planned and we now had all empty tanks. We drove out of the campground and started north on a wet, foggy, Skyline Drive.

We followed the turns along the drive until we came to the exit gate at Swift Run Gap and then headed down off the mountain. This time towards the East and home.

Not too long after getting off the mountain, the rain stopped and the sky grew lighter, eventually breaking out the sun every once and awhile. We got some gas at the same Sheetz that we stopped at on the way up the mountain. We didn't need much, but I wanted to make sure we didn't get low before getting home.

Traffic was manageable and after a few hours, we were figuring out once again the best way to back the trailer into its driveway slot. We were successful after a single false start and we started the process of unloading what we wanted out of the trailer. This took a rather long time, but we took our time. Drying out a lot of our wet, outside gear and getting everything back to home mode.

The afternoon sun had charged the batteries up into the 90% area. I shifted back to AC power and turned the fridge back on.
Vixen performed well. It was fun living in her for a week and seeing what this new life will be like when we head out full time. The solar was excellent and made possible a lot of comfortable things that you can't do without power.