Christmas in Florida

 This is a pretty late post, but at least I'm getting something posted. We have been busy so now is the time to catch up.

We left Chattanooga on Sunday, the 21st in the very very cold weather headed for Tifton, GA. The traffic in Atlanta on a Sunday morning was pretty calm, so we were able to go straight through downtown Atlanta with no problems, The KOA CG in Tifton is our favorite CG to stop at on the way to Florida. It was still pretty cold in Tifton, but not as bad as Chattanooga. This KOA CG has very nice staff and grounds. It's on an old pecan grove and the office offers made to order pizza and other items you might need. Instead of cooking, we decided to order their pizza for dinner.When checking in we noticed they also had fresh eggs from Henrietta and Gertrude and we were almost out of eggs so we picked up some fresh eggs for breakfast.

Not sure if this is Henrietta or Gertrude, but they were out and about on a cold morning.

Thank you girls for the nice breakfast.

After breakfast we were on our way to St Augustine. We had delayed our trip by a day because we found out that Trevor's teacher had been diagnosed with covid. We were waiting thru the quarantine period to make sure he and the Meyers were OK before seeing them. 

We were scheduled to stay at the SA KOA for a few days and then would have to move to Compass RV Park later since we couldn't get all the reservations in one place.

All 3 kitties enjoyed the dashboard in the MH so they could look out & see what is going on.

We love SA, but this trip was going to be be much quieter due to ovid. No unnecessary  trips out and about. And masks when we do go out.

More later.

Enjoying Pennsylvania and Eating Too Much Food

 After we arrived we did a quick trip to our favorite grocery in East Earl, Shady Maple. This store has everything including whoopie pies and Chicken Pot Pies. It's like an Amish Whole Foods, but with better prices. We knew we had to get there as soon as possible because they are closed on Sundays and Monday is Labor Day.

Yep, we bought too many whoopies and some chicken pot pies for dinner. We also had to go to Goody's next door which is like an Amish Walmart, but with so much more. They just have everything, clothes, hardware, kitchen stuff, garden stuff and lots of fabrics, embroidery stuff, yarn, buttons, curtain, you name it and they have it. We really went there because during our drive to Intercourse David had to slam on the brakes and our coffee pot went flying and the reservoir broke, so we needed a new coffee pot. We couldn't go without that for the next of the trip.

For dinner on Saturday I made country fried steak, mashed potatoes and gravy. I haven't made it in a long time, but it's usually a favorite of the kids, but probably not grandkids. But it is awfully filling.

I'm stuffed just thinkg about it.  Too much food, but that didn't keep us from eating plenty.

On Saturday we went over to the little village and walked around, had a foaming caramel cold coffee. You have to wear a mask in public, but everything was open.  I checked out 2 quilt shops and a yarn shop. The Old Country Store Quilt Shop is always fabulous, but I have so much fabric to quilt up already. The Lancaster Yarn Shop was right across the street and I had to check them out too The last time I was there I bought some sock yarn and they didn't seem to have much inventory then. This time they had more and everything was gorgeous. I saw these 2 sweaters and took pictures so that I coud get the patterns, and yes I did buy some yarn in a butter color.

This one is a bit close up because I wanted to capture the pattern name on the tag which is Early Bloomer.

I really liked this one also

One morning we woke up and there was a duck sitting on the edge of neighbors awning taking a bath. I don't think the neighbors knew it was there, but 2 of our cats were enjoying the view.

And a big breakfast for Sunday which meant we wern't very hungry the rest of the day. Ham and eggs, hashbrowns and biscuits. It's a lazy day in Intercourse on Sundays.

We didn't do a lot of things that we normally do when we are here, but it was just nice to relax and hang out with the kitties. On Labor Day we had a nice meal of chicken fried rice on the Blackstone griddle. Yep, there  we are, eating again.

On Monday, we needed to go get gas in David's car, so we rode over to the Ronks area and back. The farms are just so pretty here and we went down a road with a one lane covered brige.

On Wenesday we had to head for home because I had customers to meet me on Friday morning. We decided to go across the way to the store that had a big parking lot to hook up the car. When we got there I noticed familes of Amish walking their children to school. When I turned around the school house was right behind me. School must start at 8:30 and since it was only 8:00 the kids were all out in the field playing ball until school started. The kids were all ages playing together.

We always love coming to this area and hate to leave no matter how long we are there. The visit is never long enough.

THE MOST RELAXING PLACE ANYWHERE

 We left Virginia headed for Intercourse, PA. It's one of our favorite places to go and when going north from Chattanooga we always try to stop here for a few days. This time we are staying for 5 nights. The campground is Beacon Hill and as campgrounds go it is far from the best, but the location makes up for it. We are within walking distance of the Country Kettle Village a lttle shopping area and a bunch of quilt shops, although we never walk there. The campground is very tight and you are crammed in there like sardines. It's also not level and there is no cable TV, so we have to use our DISH. We are on the corner of  2 roads that come together in a V shape. On one road (Highway 772) is a main road to Intercourse and the other is Beacon Hill which goes up hill to a very small housing development.Right across the street is Sam's Farm. He is Amish and has a very large family and all of them even the young children help him with the corn crop and tobacco crop and all the other farm chores. The back of our MH faces his farm and we love sitting outside and watching the goings on at the farm.The negative part is there is a ton of cow manure and you can really smell it.

Sam has a lot of corn, This is only one side of the farm. The other side is much, much bigger.

He must have had a great tobacco crop this year as he has  added another storage area to dry it

The building on the left is full of tobacco and the one on the right is his regular barn.

And even Sam. the Amish farmer is a Trump supporter. As a matter of fact as we traveled through Virginia and Pennsylvania we saw mostly Trump signs. There were only a few Biden signs. In this area we have only seen 2 Biden's and many Trump signs. That's a good sign.

We love staying in this campground. All day and a good portion of the night we here the clipity clop of the horses and Amish buggies going past our MH. The kitties are a little freaked out due to the smell of the manure. I'm sure they are thinking, "what has a litter box that smells THAT STRONG"?

When we arrived yesterday afternoon a little family of turkeys came walking through the CG making all kinds of noise. Finnegan saw them out the door and was backing up as far as he could go. It's the biggest bird he's ever seen.

They also brought along their chicken friend.

Bentley and Nicholas were amazed at the big birds. They are probably Sam's Thanksgiving dinner.

It's been really cool at night here. about 63 degree and great weather for sleeping with the windows open.

On Friday and Saturday a local Amish  family come through the CG selling backed goods, breads, whoopie pies, baked oatmeal, shoofly pie and other items. Usually it's the little kids that come by with a horse and wagon, but this time it was the mom, pulling a wagon full of goodies.She knocked on our door and asked if we wanted anything, so of course we had to buy something for breakfast. Once the other campers saw her they cam running over to buy something too.

We just love this little crowded campground.

                                                                      Beautiful views.

ENJOYING VIRGINIA

 I always love driving up I-81 into Virginia.The mountains are so beautiful.We headed to I-64 exit which would take you to Charlottesville. We would have like to have stayed there for part of our trip, but they had no openings at the better campgrounds, so we made reservations at the Devil's Backbone Base Camp. The views driving to the CG were spectacular.

The directions to the CG said to not follow the GPS since it would take you up, around steep hills. The route we did take was much better, but we still encountered some of those hills and curves. We exit right where the Blue Ridge Parkway meet the Skyline Parkway, but this route was no where nearly as bad as the other route. . We arrived in mid afternoon and were told we had to check in upon arrival, but their was no one around and no paperwork left for us, so we just drove to our site. We called the main number and still no one came. We noticed the camp host was 2 spaces down from us and still never acknowledged our presence.

The CG was basic, but it had what we needed, electric, water, sewer and a recently installed excellent wifi. We had to hook up our DISH for satellite TV, but that was OK. There was plenty of parking space and we weren't right on top of each other.

Since we were staying at Devils Backbone Brewery we made reservations there for dinner. 

                                                  https://www.dbbrewingcompany.com/location/basecamp/

                                     

Due to covid all dinning was outside and reservation only. We had to wear masks until be were seated and we had a waitress wearing masks and gloves. Our menu was online and they did no contact paying so it was pretty safe. We both had the fish and chips which was excellent. Of course David had to try one of their beers that he said was very good. 

Our kitties enjoyed this CG too. We took them out at night in the stroller and Finnegan in his bag. They even shared the upper cabinet over our bed.

The next day we drove around the area. The mountain views are just so nice here. We couldn't believe how many breweries, wineries and hard cider places there are here. Eric Trump has a Trump winery near Charlottesville. It's so peaceful here. I would love to come back here again.

We need a few things from the store and we found a very small IGA grocery down the road, I do mean small. It was like the old IGA in Rangeley where you couldn't have 2 buggies pass each other on the aisle because it was so narrow.. However, one entire aisle was nothing but beer, mostly local craft beer.

On our last night here we decided to go to Wild Wolf Brewery for dinner. https://www.wildwolfbeer.com/

 It was about 2 miles down the road and was a very nice setting. Evidently it was an old schoolhouse at one time and they had a nice courtyard with a gazebo, pond, water fountain and tables scattered among the trees. We both had the baked salmon with lemon rice which was excellent.

We then went back to the CG and sat out with Bentley. A very nice stop. We would definitely come back here again.

FANCY GAP, VA---OR IN OTHER WORDS, THE MIDDLE OF NO WHERE

 We drove to Fancy Gap, Va which wasn't too far away. We were there in a few hours, I booked us at this KOA because I thought it would be nice and quiet and give us  a chance to sit outside and relax with the kitties. It was also right off the Blue Ridge Parkway, When we arrived on Saturday the weather was great and the campground was really full. The CG is super hilly with multiple levels and we got a great site, very private and woodsy. 

The boys actually laid together on their binky on the couch on the way over. No hissing or anything.

Bentley enjoyed sitting out in his stroller.

Nickie enjoyed the play pen, but kept his eyes on the MH door, just in case there was a booger.

Finnegan, as usual didn't enjoy anything.

We sat outside for quite a while enjoying nature and the night sounds.

However, that night it poured down rain. It rained all night, the next day and some the next night. Even in the rain we decided to take a little trip to a couple of shops . One was Poppy's, a little yarn and gift shop in Meadows of Dan, Virginia. Yes, that's the name of the town and to get to it you drove right up the Blue Ridge Parkway. What we could see of it in the rain and fog were beautiful. We passed a lot of old cabins, a mill and other old structures along the way. Had it not been raining so hard with so much fog we would have stopped and taken pictures. 

Here's a link to Mabry Mill. https://mabrymillrestaurant.com/history 

Poppy's little shop was so cute and they had a lot of gift items, alpaca yarn and various things made with alpaca yarn. I bought a couple of skeins of yarn and David bought me a yarn bowl. Across the street was Concord Country Store.

This was Poppy's.

And here's a video on Concord Country Store

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKB-eesOX4w

Then we went farther down the Parkway to Floyd, Va to visit a 3 story fabric shop  (Schoolhouse Fabrics) in an old schoolhouse. The fabrics were awful, but the building reminded me of a school I went to in Montgomery, AL, only this one was probably nicer and it's still standing.

We took a different route home and as we drove into Fancy Gap we passed the Sidna Allen House. It is a huge Victorian House up on a hill.

 

https://www.airbnb.com/things-to-do/places/3014211?location=Fancy%20Gap%2C%20VA

The house was in the Floyd family and here is the famous story of Floyd Allen and the Carroll County courthouse shooting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Allen#Trial_and_shooting

Wish we could have toured that house. It looked very interesting from the outside.

Then on Tuesday we took a ride to Mt. Airy, NC which was only about 14 miles south from our campground. Mt. Airy is the home of Andy Griffith and the town that Mayberry and the Andy Griffith Show was based on. The old down town had lots of Mayberry items and they also give tours of the town in old police cars. We have been here before and knew there was a nice quilt shop downtown to visit. There's Floyd's Barber Shop, Walker's Soda Fountain, Snappy Lunch, the movie theater and tons of souvenir stores.

One thing we noticed was all of the Trump signs in the area. Not a single Biden sign. At least there were no Democrats tearing down everything and burning cities to the ground. It's good to be in Trump country where people believe in America and American values. Tomorrow we are headed to Roseland, Va.