May 5, 2008 – Drive About

One of the things we decided to do this trip was to spend more time camped at an area rather than moving every couple days. Then we would use the Tracker to sightsee. (Plus it will save on gas!!) So today was our day to check out the area.

The campground is located midway between Strasburg and Front Royal. Our first stop was Strasburg – very quaint and hopefully we will get a chance to walk through while we are here. I did stop in the local library to ask if they had “WiFi” and the answer was “What is that?”, so I knew it was on to find another place. One young fellow told me to try the McDonald’s near the interstate – they may have it. For those of you who know me, sitting at a McDonald’s is not one of the top things on my list. For WiFi, I really LOVE the local libraries. The second place would be a small café. So we will keep looking.

From there we stopped at the Wal-Mart in Winchester and then went to look for the local district office of the George Washington National Forest which we found in Edinburg (another great little town). The ranger helped us with forest road maps and trail maps so we are all set to do more hiking. We did talk with her about the water/sewage issue in Elizabeth Furnace. Apparently there have been problems for over two years and so far they have not been able to put the fix in their budget. If you have seen any of the news about the National Parks/Forests/Recreation Areas, their budgets continue to be cut each year and the futures of some of them and some services in others are concerning. It is sad!

We traveled up over Massanutten Mountain to Camp Roosevelt, another campground in the National Forest that we were considering. The campground will open later this week but we were able to walk through – only 10 sites but still not sure if they will have water or sewage. The road to the Camp and then down to Luray is very steep and windy (with beautiful overlooks) – great for the Tracker but not too good for the motorhome so we decided we will stay longer where we are.

From there we took a short tour of Luray and found out they are having a spring festival this Saturday (might be a place to go), then completed the circle thru Front Royal and back to camp. In Front Royal we did check out a campground where we will go for a reset after boondocking for this length of time.

And another great campfire evening!!