Tag: national park

podcast

Relax RV Podcast – episode 47 – The last full week on the road and the Coronavirus abounds

Paul Sebastian, RN

We visited Bays Mountain Park & Planetarium. 

The next stop was in Hardy Va. We stayed at a BDW and visited the Booker T Washington National Monument. 

We then stayed at Devault Vineyard a part of Harvest Hosts. We then took a ride over to Lynchburg Virginia. We stopped in at a restaurant called Bootleggers. The next morning and drove to Gordonsville Virginia and stayed at Honah Lee Winery. We hooked up to 30 amp and had a water hookup which is totally atypical of a harvest host.     The next day we drove to Messicks Farm in Bealeton Va. Which is another HH. Tuesday 3/17 we packed up and drove to a BDW in Keymar Md.

We were pleasantly surprised when we met out host that we had met them at boondockers welcome site in Defuniak Springs Florida. We drove over to the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emetsburg Md which is beautiful and peaceful. The next day we went hiking in Catactin Mountain Park we visited a rock formation called the chimney rock then we headed over to Cunningham Falls and took a hike there.   We went over to Harpers Ferry. The National Park office was closed so there was no admission charge. All the shops in town were also closed.

Then on our way to our next boondocking welcome site in Bloomsburg Pennsylvania, we stop the Camping World in Harrisburg Pennsylvania to pick up the dipstick oil cap for the generator. Which didn’t solve the problem.

We then pulled into our last bdw place in bloomingburg PA. And that’s where I’ll leave you for this week…     

 

Here’s a link to the pictures of National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Emmitsburg Md.

And The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton 

And pics from our hikes in Catactin Park

And finally a few from Harpers Ferry

podcast

Relax RV Podcast – episode 46 – We visit the Smoky Mountains and our generator DIED

Paul Sebastian, RN

On 3/10/20 this podcast celebrated it’s 2 year anniversary.

Our Boondockers Welcome hosts in Brooks Georgia invited us in for ice cream. We sat with them for over an hour having a really nice conversation about a lot of different things. Then I met my buddy Rob at Nic & Norman’s in Senoia. This is the town where Walking Dead was filmed.

The next day we drove to The Cottage Vineyard and Winery which are Harvest Hosts. After setting up we drove over to Helen Georgia. We were pleasantly surprised by it. We liked it better than Frankenmuth Michigan.  You can park for free at the Unicoi Hill Park or in the City of Helen parking lot on the other end of town. Otherwise it’s $5 to park (March 2020). We ate at the Heidelberg restaurant which had really good heavy German food. We had nice conversations with some of the shop owners.

That evening we got back to the rig Trish suggested starting up the generator you hadn’t started it in a while. It started right up and ran for about 10 minutes and then it died. It’s not sending an error code. We have flashbacks from 2018 (check out episode 5 to hear about that mess).

We hope its the dipstick/oil fill plug, and have one on order.

That day we drove a whopping 7 miles to Timber Ridge Campground that we reserved through Passport of America. 

We then went back to Helen Ga and hiked the Unicoi / Helen Trail. 

Then we drove to Smokemont Campground in the Smoky Mountains National Park (no entry fee). We picked a sunny campsite for our solar (here is a link to our solar system in our rig). We then did a 5 1/2 mile hike. It was 62 degrees and beautiful. That night it was 30 degrees fahrenheit out, it’s nice having our inverter so we can use our electric blankets to warm up our bed. And its nice having heated tanks.

The next day we went for a hike on the Appalachian Trail.

The next day we woke up to total cloud cover and rain. We packed up and drove north out of the Smoky Mountains and by the time we left the campsite our batteries were fully charged, we love our 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter. We drove through Gatlinburg and will return to it someday.

We drove to Fall Branch, Tennessee. We met our Boondocking Welcome hosts. They invited us in for a glass of wine and nice conversation.

The next day March 11th 2020 I recorded this episode of the podcast while Trish did laundry. Then off to find a small park and go for a walk.

 

Pics of Helen Georgia

And pics of the Smoky Mountain National Park

podcast

Relax RV Podcast – episode 7 – Traveling west and saved Trish’s life

Paul Sebastian, RN

We visited the Mall of America (the largest mall in the US) then stayed in Wisconsin, nice.  We visited the Badlands National Park in South Dakota where Trish developed Heat Exhaustion !!!! It was over 100 degrees when we did an easy (for us) 4 mile hike. Here’s a link to the signs of heat emergencies.     Then off to Montana (big sky country) and the Purple Mountains Majesty.