Tom and I had a wonderful Christmas. On Christmas eve we attended candle light church services at our church. Christmas day we went down to Virginia to spend the day with Todd, Beth and our 4 grandchildren. Todd and Beth prepared a wonderful meal of prime rib, baked potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower medley. I added to the meal with cream of crab soup. Rhubarb/strawberry pie, made by Beth, was dessert but no one was able to eat dessert after the meal so we were given pie to take home.
On Monday the 26th Tom and I finished packing things into the motorhome and then on Tuesday we left Taneytown about 9:30am heading south for warmer weather. The morning was very gray and chilly and just as we finished hooking the Jeep to the motorhome it began to sprinkle rain. Rain continued most of the day and we found the motorhome to be harder to heat with the front heaters then our old motorhome. We eventually started the generator to get heat in the motorhome. Traveling down I-81 through Virginia we stopped at a rest area to eat a bite of lunch. As I was preparing egg salad a Phaeton motorhome pulled in ahead of us. Tom said look what just pulled in and then we both said is that Bill and Rita (Fordham), friends from our Traveling Americans camping club. Sure enough that was exactly who was in the motorhome. Bill and Rita came back to our motorhome and we visited a short time and then discussed where we might stop for the night. Rita called Fort Chiswell RV park, a park that Tom and I had stayed at a couple of times, and found out they were open and had sites so we agreed to camp there for the night. Bill and Rita headed on down the road before us as they had already eaten their lunch. When we pulled in at the campground the Fordham’s were not there and we were a little surprised. We did know that they were having a problem with an awning but we didn’t see them in our travels. But shortly afterwards, they did finally arrive and, yes, they had to stop shortly after our meeting at the rest stop to secure an awning that was unfurling. After we ate our evening meals we went over to the Fordham’s and visited. We had traveled 311 miles. Even though it was a chilly evening we felt comfortable de-winterizing the motorhome and taking some water on board- some years it has been much too cold to do that until we were further south.
This morning Tom and I slept a little later than usual. Just as I was raising the front night shade I saw Bill and Rita pulling out about 8 am. Our travels today were taking us in a little different direction from the Fordham’s- they were headed for Casa Grande, Arizona and we are headed for Red Bay, Alabama before going to Arizona. About 9 am we got underway from the campground but then we stopped for gas and propane at a Flying J’s a few miles down I-81. We then continued on through Virginia to Tennessee where we picked up I-40 to I-75 to Chattanooga. We are staying at the Holiday Trav-L park in Chattanooga tonight. Chalked up 297 miles today. Starting out this morning it was still cloudy and through Virginia there was a skiff of snow on the hillsides that had fallen during the night. The wind had blown most of the night and continued this morning. As we continued south the skies became clearer and the wind calmed. It is a little warmer in Tennessee tonight, temperatures near 50 degrees.
