Ed and Jeanne's Travels: Baltimore, MD to Visit Kids and Grandbabies

8/18/2012 We departed for Baltimore, stopped at East Glen to see Mother, only to discover that she had lost her glasses and had a wound above her left eye. With the help of the staff we searched everywhere. (The glasses never turned up.) We left the nursing home about 2:00 pm and arrived at Ripplin' Water CG in Sevierville, TN at 6:30 pm. 294 miles today.

8/19/2012 We left the campground at 10:00 am ET and bought gas at the nearby Shell station for $3.429/gal. We drove on to Virginia. I-81 was very congested. We didn't think Sunday would be bad, but it was horrible. We drove 344.7 miles at an average speed of 45 mph. Awful! We arrived in Harrisonburg about 6:30 pm and the manager at Costco allowed us to stay overnight. He told us to pull around back where it would be quiet. We will now look at other Costcos for a free overnight.

8/20/2012 We left Costco and drove to Bull Run Campground, very close to the Manassas Battlefield. We set up camp and drove to our daughter, Beth and John’s house in Nokesville, about a 35 mile/45 minute drive. Beth had serious allergy problems, but managed to cook a great dinner. We departed immediately after dinner at 7:30. She told us later that she was asleep before we got to the end of her driveway.

8/21/2012 We were up at 6:30 am to get to Cummins/Onan in Manassas to get our generator serviced because it wouldn't start. We know we want to do some dry camping along the way to ND. They determined it needed a new carburetor, which needed to be overnighted from Harrisburg, PA. We decided to return the next day to have the service done, so we hooked up the car. The Brake Buddy fell apart, but we figured out how to put back together. Ed took a wrong turn out of the Cummins parking lot and ended up in a steel company’s yard. He couldn’t turn around without them moving a small dumpster with a forklift. We were finally on the road toward Megan’s at 12:30 pm. Whew! We arrived at the Little Bennett CG around 2:30 pm, a City of Clarksburg, MD campground. Very secluded with just electric at the site, but very wooded and very nice. When we tried to detach the car, the shift on the transfer box would not go down. The transmission would not go into gear so we hooked the car back up and returned to the gate. The attendant directed us to Buettner’s garage in Hyattstown, MD about 6 miles north of the CG where they determined we needed a transfer case "chain" and ordered the part. We left the car and drove to Megan’s in the RV. We parked it on the street. We visited with Megan and Ivan and held our new grandson, Asher Benjamin, for the first time/ He is so sweet. So alert for only 11 days old. We decided to go out to dinner. It was Asher's first outing. We then returned to CG in the RV totally exhausted.

Ivan, Megan and baby Asher.

The first time granddad held baby Asher.

He is so alert for less than 2 weeks old!

Asher's first outing. He slept through the whole thing!

8/22/2012 We were up around 8:00 am. We left the campground and arrived back at Cummins in Manassas around 1:50 pm to get the generator fixed. They repaired it to the tune of $450 and Jeanne drove us back to Megan's in Washington rush hour traffic. We decided to stay near Megan's that night in a church parking lot (with permission). Ed grilled chicken breasts and peppers. Then we headed over to the church lot to spend the night.

Granddad with Campbell and Kiley, and baby Asher.

Sometimes it's a zoo!!

8/23/2012 We picked up the car (this is totally exhausting just telling the story) and returned to Megan's where Ann came to visit with her three children. She brought lunch stuff and stayed about 3 hours. After she left we went over to Butch's for the evening. We had Chinese and had a great evening with Butch, Colleen and Brody. Brody is now 11 weeks old and looks so Irish. We left Butch's about 10:30 pm for our campground. We used the new toll road which saved a lot of time.