August 9 - August 12: Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield, VA

After leaving Chilhowee on Tuesday August 9th, we desperately needed to go to the grocery store and stock up. We didn't think we would be able to stay at Chilhowee for two weeks so we hadn't filled our shelves accordingly. So in Chilhowee we made do with what we had. Fortunately we had some reserves like a case of salsa Jane was given as compensation for helping her sister work at the farm store in TN. For several lunches towards the end of our stay in Chilhowee, my lunch consisted of a jar of salsa and some chips. There was plenty of salsa but my stomach could only take so much plus our chip supply didn't match that of the salsa.

Besides food, we didn't have much propane in Chilhowee either. That was also a factor in our decision to go for a site with electricity in Chilhowee. With electricity, other than cooking, we didn't need to burn any propane. I was planning on looking up an Ace Hardware or similar to get the propane tanks filled after taking care of the lack of food issue but we ended up passing one on our way to the interstate. I pulled into the Ace Hardware parking lot and started getting the tanks out of the camper while Jane went inside to find out the propane refilling procedure. We also wanted to pick up a machine screw to fix our shower door and an o-ring for my cyclecomputer mount. The mount uses the o-rings like bungee cords to keep it attached to the handlebars. Two propane tanks were empty and the third was still around 80% full. Since this Ace charged by the tank instead of the gallon, Jane paid for getting the two empty tanks filled. The Ace employee filled the first tank and I went to reinstall it in the camper. Jane was in the store getting the other items we desired. When I returned to the propane refill station, the employee told me the second tank was almost one year past its usable certification date range of 12 years and he could not fill it legally. I was surprised to find this out since we had that tank filled a couple of times recently. Regardless, the Ace employee read my mind and suggested I just swap out the tank at one of the self service locations. We got the items we desired and the refund for the tank fill that was disallowed and went on our way to a Walmart in Knoxville TN. I had a prescription sent to that Walmart so we could stock up on food while picking up the prescription.

Fortunate for us the Walmart had a self service propane tank swap station but unfortunately was only able to partially fill my prescription due to low inventory. We could come back the next day for the remainder of the prescription refill or go to another Walmart at some point in the future. We opted for the second approach but have yet to need to get the remainder. While we were in the Walmart parking lot, a truck camper pulled up a few spaces over. The owner came over and made some small talk with me since I usually stay in the truck while Jane does the shopping. He only had a F-150 truck for his camper so he was extolling the virtues of air bags for his suspension and some drive train modifications that he had made. I politely listened and thought to myself I was glad I selected an F-550 so I didn't need to make modifications to my truck. However, my truck selection didn't dissuade the owner from highly recommending air bags. It appeared as though the truck camper and owner was staying the night in the parking lot and as Jane returned to the camper she commented that are goal should be to have the look of the camper a few spaces over when we get close to ending our full time RV episode in life. Here is a picture of that truck and camper.

As I've mentioned previously, shopping takes a lot longer when you are constantly going to new stores you have never been in before because they all have different layouts. I would guess it takes more than twice as long. As such, Jane spent about 3 plus hours shopping and at that point it was close to dinner time. We decided to get in the camper and eat dinner and then leave. By that time, any rush hour traffic present would have the time we took to eat to clear up. After eating and getting back on the road, we were able to reach the I-81 northbound VA visitor center. The visitor center was a little unique in that trucks weren't allowed but trailers and RVs were. Anyway, we stayed the night at the visitor center. It wasn't overly hot but at some point during the night I opted to put the AC on to facilitate a good night's rest. The batteries had a good charge since we had shore power at Chilhowee.

The next day, we were planning to get to Pocahontas State Park for a two night stay: Wednesday and Thursday nights. The plan was to wing it for Friday night (the campground was full that night) and then go to our grandson's birthday party on Saturday in the Richmond VA area. You can't officially check into the campground until 4 PM so we weren't in any hurry. We got up and left from the rest area and planned to stop at another one down the way for breakfast and stretching. But, as things turned out, Jane came down with a bad headache overnight and vomited after trying to take something for it that morning. Since she wasn't in the mood/state to have breakfast, I was happy to keep on driving. Our routine includes a snack bag so that tided me over until we wanted to take the time for a meal. We ended up taking a more direct non-interstate route the truck's on board navigation system suggested for the last few hours of the trip to the state park. In this case, I'm glad I followed the truck navigation system (reference the Prentice Cooper State Forest for the opposite experience). There were few traffic lights and the roads were mostly easy to travel. It was a nice change from interstate highway travel.

We got to the park before 4 PM and I assume since the campground wasn't busy, we were checked right in. Apparently, I forgot to take a picture of the rig at Pocahontas. By this point, Jane was ready for something to eat. We had our usual breakfast smoothies for a mid-afternoon lunch and then headed to the campground laundromat to wash a load of clothes. During this stint of our say at the campground we discovered the cell service was poor even though Chesterfield is fairly close to the city of Richmond.

On Thursday, the next day Jane was back to health. We went to the campground showers and I went for a bike ride in the park. Pocahontas has many trails, some multiuse and some dedicated. The multiuse trails were nice gravel/dirt one lane roads which I welcomed after the challenges I experienced at Chilhowee. The dedicated bike trails at Pocahontas were rated beginner/easy, intermediate and advanced. For some reason, I couldn't resist the temptation to try one of the easy single track dedicated bike trails. How hard could it be? Well when I first started on the trail, I thought I made the right decision as it wasn't very challenging; there were few roots or rocks. That wasn't the case the further I traveled on the trail. The trails were advertised to have berms on the turns so I figured I could take turns fairly aggressively. It turns out not all the turns had berms and the night before it had rained. The ground on one of the turns was like hard clay which can get slick when wet. When I took that turn and it didn't have a berm, I ended up falling down as my rear wheel slid out from under me. After that I was ready to get off the trail but didn't do so until I had reached the end. I was in unfamiliar territory and didn't know of any other way to exit. I decided to stick to the gravel/dirt roads after that.

The next day was Friday, the day before the birthday party. We received a call from our daughter the night before that our grandson had a fever and she was cancelling the party. Friday morning, my grandson was feeling better so the party might be back on. While things were in limbo, I went on a bike ride and stayed on the gravel/dirt roads. Here is a picture of dam and pond I encountered along the ride.

The CCC had a camp on what became the park so they had built the dam and a CCC museum was housed in the CCC's former craft building. For some reason, I have a fascination with the CCC so with that and things being in limbo, Jane and I visited the museum. It was mostly informational placards but there were a couple of displays. One interesting display was handwritten work logs/diaries the CCC foremen wrote. They had the weather of the day and what work was done. There were two such logs, as best as we could figure, each foreman was in charge of a different project and that was why there were two logs. One log said SP20 and the other SP25 or similar. Here are a few other museum pictures. One shows information about the craft building that is now the museum.

Our grandson's fever returned later in the day so the party remained cancelled. After leaving the CCC museum, we headed to a grocery store, ate dinner in the parking lot and then left hoping to reach Loft Mountain Campground in Shenandoah NP before it got dark. I plan on updating the blog next after our stay at Loft Mountain. Yes, we had just recently stayed there but it seemed to be a good place to camp while the arrival of our next grandson came closer.

Minor Chilhowee flashback: Many of the campgrounds we visit are very bear aware. A common "bear proof" trash can features a shroud on the lid that covers a slider that moves the bolt from the strike. So to open the lid your push your hand under the shroud and against the slider and then while keeping contact with the slider you lift by pushing or pulling upward on the shroud. I can see how the design relies on the multiple coordinated actions to prevent bears from opening the lid. However, one bear at Chilhowee approached the trash can from the rear so that the action of pulling up on the shroud and his claws pushing on the slider were one continuous motion and he was able to open the lid. A camper caught the bear on video doing this. One of the results was that the ranger posted laminated signs on all the bathroom doors warning of bear activity in the area. In this case, the bear problem wasn't a result of careless food storage practices by campers but by imperfect trash lid design and an unusual bear approach.