Last stop - the beach - then home

 Gamble Rogers State park is our favorite, and it's hard to get a reservation for the beachside sites. We always check, and if we can snag one, we'll make the stop. I need to remember for next time though that many beachside sites still don't have beach views because of all the shrubbery. Try to get sites 11-23 odd numbers for a clear view out your back window.

Theses old farts even went and played in the surf. The water was so nice and warm.

Next stop ... home.

All is well, even the plants did OK - except the hibiscus out front, it was dead as a doornail. Oh well, I want to do something else with that front entryway anyway.

It took a week or so, but we finally had the perfect day for kayak diving!

At home in 21 feet

It's a rainy morning in the Doughton park campground. We're so glad that we dumped and took on water and got gas yesterday. That means that we're good for anything we need to do. This was our 5th night with no hookups. We've cooked every meal except one in the camper. These campground didn't even have showers, so we had the rare joy of using the shower head in our tiny bathroom. It's called a wet bath, because the whole bathroom gets wet when you use the shower. In the five years that we've  had the road trek, we've only used it once or twice.

We ran the generator to make coffee and we decided to have oatmeal for breakfast. We usually cook on an electric, induction, cook top, but I didn't want the noise of the generator any more than we had to so we used the gas stove. Hey! It worked! I'm not sure we've ever used it before.

With the rain keeping us inside, cooking and cleaning giving us something to do and, oh yeah, we had pretty good cellular signal so we could catch up on news, and some YouTube channels we like to follow. We felt so at home that we easily spent the entire morning in our cozy little camper, only leaving when we had to for checkout time of noon.

The perfect morning

We go to bed early when we're camping, so I was awake at 6:30am. I stared out the windows at the pristine woods that surrounded our rv and watched as darkness turned to speckled light from the rising sun. I'm looking, futilely, for bear. We had no cell signal or wifi, so I couldn't check email or Facebook. I was tempted to pick up my phone to read my kindle book that was downloaded, but I chose the path less taken and just laid quietly with my thoughts, comparing the dappled sunlight to the ideas and topics that flitted through my brain. One of those thoughts was how grateful I am to have Jim. He does double duty. First, he enables me too do these things. He is good at things I'm not, like vehicle maintenance and driving long distances. Second, and miss important he is my partner in sharing these wondrous experiences with me. We enjoy so many of the same things, liked living in a small vehicle! So, as he stopped, I rolled over to give him a morning hug and kiss and mostly a great big smile. I'm a happy girl.

We get up, stow our sleeping bags, and get dressed. The campground we're in, Peaks of otter, has a companion Lodge with a restaurant where we planned to get breakfast. It's a little over a mile walk, a lovely walk, thru the woods and around a lake. The lodge served a delicious breakfast, had a picture perfect view, and good wifi! We were able to check out email and download offline maps for the rest of the trip.

Walking the mile back to our camper, my apple watch and Jim's oura ring proudly informed us that we'd reached out exercise goals for the day.

Fully rested and relaxed, good exercise and filled with beauty. 

Relax, take it easy, don’t stress

We got back to LBI on the Jersey shore on Labor Day weekend, so we decided to sit tight until that was over before hitting the road to go back home. I can never get enough of the beautiful sunsets from our driveway parking spot at Jimmy's house.

For the trip back, we decided to do the Blue Ridge Parkway. We've been there before, but it's been a long time. We know it's beautiful and we're up for it. We started with the Skyline drive that turns into the Blue Ridge Parkway. So here's our whole route ...

Skyline Drive - thru Shenandoah National Park

I can feel it in my muscles and my bones. Traveling on the skyline Drive with solid green scenery, no traffic, no cell service, and no electricity at the campgrounds. Your one choice is to just be. The driving is sometimes steep, always curvy, but it's still relaxing because it is so beautiful and so little traffic. This is not just a scenic road, it is The Scenic Road. It was built for the stated purpose of providing access to scenic beauty and it runs the length of the Shenandoah National park. Trucks are not allowed and, if you know what's good for you, you don't drive a big rv here either. No commercial traffic at all, no trucks on the road, no businesses beside the road, no billboards or any signs other than directions. There is a scenic overlook it seems like every mile or even more.  Our little camper van is so perfect. 

The campgrounds are beautiful, and empty. We stayed at Mathew's arm , the northernmost campground on the skyline and at Loft Mountain, the southernmost. I even found a perfect spot for some of moms ashes at loft mountain. Right in our campsite, a beautiful old oak tree with a cubby hole in it and I could just heart her say, "I wish I could just curl up and go to sleep in there", so she did.

Our comfy bedroom is so nice when we can leave the back curtains open and see forest

Train travel - better in Europe

 I'm sure I've mentioned several times that we so enjoy train travel. That's how we got around Italy for the month of May and it's how we got around the UK. Certainly there are some places you can't get to by train - there was a hot springs between Rome and Tuscany where we wanted to stop, but the train was not nearby - but anywhere major was a piece of cake.

Our train travel in the UK was great

When we flew in to Gatwick, we immediately saw a sign for "All train tickets -> this way" We bought our ticket ($22 each) and walked just a hundred yards or so to the platform where our train arrived in just a few minutes and took us straight to Bexhill, our destination. Then it was just a 10 minute walk to the sea and our room.

Train travel in Europe is easy

And it is so comfortable

The USA needs more trains

When we needed to get to JFK from the Jersey shore, we ended up paying $300 for a private driver. We didn't want to take any chances! When we returned we decided to figure out public transit. Seems to me there should be a train from some central NYC location that goes down the Jersey shore to Atlantic city, making stops along the way. That would be perfect, but no such thing exists. Using Google Maps public transit directions, we took an airport people mover train to the subway station, subway to Port Authority bus station. At the ticket counter, we asked for a bus ticket to Barnegat NJ and she directed us to the gate. When we showed our tickets to the bus driver and said we're going to Barnegat, he said these tickets won't get us there. His last stop was Lakewood, then we'd need to change buses, buy a new ticket and continue on. Well, OK, what can we do. Realize that it's about 10pm now (3am UK time) and we just want to sit down. 

When we reached Lakewood bus terminal, I noticed a bus to Atlantic City was just pulling out. Yep, that was the bus we wanted and the next one wouldn't be there for 2 hours or more. Now, it's past midnight. At this point we called an Uber! $60 was worth it to have no more worries and be dropped off right at our door. The driver was delightfully chatty and that last hour sped right on by. 

All totaled we paid a little less than $100 for the trip from JFK to LBI.

Let's try Canada's trains

We're thinking of a trip in 2023 to Vancouver and are looking in to driving to Toronto, then taking the CN train across. Whaddaya think? I've never slept overnight on a train before, sounds like fun.

A non-planned and perfectly executed tour. Stonehenge, Titanic, Isle of Wight and more

When all the festivities for Phil were over, we hopped on a train and traveled a few hours to Southampton. Jim had booked us a room on Booking.com and we knew there was lots to do there - we had 3 days.

First, we had to see Stonehenge. And we did it all with trains and buses. We thought we had to spend $300 each to take a tour, and all the tours were booked. The train round-trip from southampton was $52 and the bus tour to Stonehenge was$80. That's for both of us. So, no problem spending $$ on dinner!

What a great idea to give people something to do in taking their photos here. It wasn't easy!

Next day, we were in our <$100/night room, near the harbor in southampton.  This morning was the first of September and there are some computer projects I like to get done on the first. We woke up about 7:30 and made some coffee, then turned on our computers. I was thinking, anyone else in this situation would be saying, hurry up, time to get going. There's so much to see and do today. And it has to be today because we leave tomorrow. But no, we had some things to do, and we like to relax in the morning. We'll see and do whatever works out.

We had two things on our want-to-do list today: the Titanic museum and a get ride to Isle of Wight . We left the room and started walking to the museum-about a mile away - when Jim notices a building that says Solent Sky - an air museum that he read about and would like to see. He said, maybe we'll stop here in our way back because it's so close to our room. I said, no. If it's something you want to do, we go now. Never pass up an opportunity when it's offered, you don't know if it will work out later. It was wonderful. Great old planes, wonderful history lots of photo opportunities. And the cell signal was even good enough that we could do a live stream.

Yes, we spent some time there, and it might mean we wouldn't make it to Isle of Wight. So be it.

We continued our walk to the Titanic/Southampton museum. The online ticket site said "not available" for today. I figured that was just the online ticketing, but want sure. We walked in the museum and had no problem getting 2 tickets. There weren't many people there. We watched all the little videos, read about how devastating the loss was to southampton: every street in southampton had at least one person who died on the Titanic. Jim played with the simulation of captaining the Titanic out the Solent, and we had a nice lunch in the museum cafe. 

We ate lunch in the museum cafe. This is a "Jacket" potato with Brie - yum!

By the time we were done, it was a little after 3. 

Perfect

We walked to the harbor and found the ticket office for the jet boat to Isle of Wight. The next one was leaving in 10 minutes! We tapped our credit card to their terminal and paid 22 pounds for 2 tickets.

What a day, quiet, and luxurious ride! A beautiful day with the harbor full of ships and sailboats, we arrived at West Cowes about 4:30-5, and we were hungry. How perfect ! Unfortunately, most of the restaurants didn't open till 6-7. But, after a walk thru town and strolling the waterfront, we found one where the bar was open now and they started serving food at 5:30. It was especially good food. Black Rock - they put a hot Rock on front of you with raw scallops and a steak. You cool your own! It was scrumptious. 

We finished in perfect time to catch the 7:05 ferry back to Southampton, walk 15 minutes to our room, unwind, and crash. We ready to wake up, pack and get to the train station for a9:30 ride to Gatwick.