Day of… (7/29/2020)

Original plan for lift off was at around 1pm, middle of my work day. This would put us to our first stop – Shenandoah – in the early evening. Easy breezy break into travel with enough of daylight to set up at a first camp site. Little monkey wrench in the plans: today was my 2^nd day of training with west coast based company. Consequently, my schedule was west coast with middle of the day falling on 3-4pm and, also, we were not done house prepping by 1.

So, we said good bye to our 2 grandparents, 2 cats, 2 reptiles, 2 fish, 2 house plants, and 1 house cactus and lifted off around 3 pm with my parents playing Russian going away marches on their Ipads. Dog jumped in excitedly (silly guy), and in one suave move I transitioned my work station from my home office into my car office and was back online by the time we pulled out of the driveway. 

Soon after, we merged onto PA turnpike west and watched Wawa’s slowly transition to Sheetz’. 

About 10 miles into the journey we realized that the dog was not attached in the back as he tried to climb over and sit in girls’ laps. With some treats and Tamara’s heroic moves we were able to attach the dog en route (all the while I was in the work meeting).  Later that evening we realized why the dog was trying to relocate …. It was very hot in the back as in his strive to reduce load weight Sol removed all extra padding from the back. Looks like it will be our first engineering problem to solve. 

We rolled into West Virginia around 7 pm and into beginning of Shenandoah’s Sky View drive at dusk. Breath taking views of pink sunset greeted us.

We stopped for the night at Matthews arm camping grounds where we rolled in little after 9 pm. Tamara was all gang ho about going ‘herping’ (hunting for reptiles) in the dark until she saw the bear beware sign at the entrance to the campground. She wasn’t too kin on going anywhere in the dark after that.  

Our first stop was at a dry site. No water/sewer or electric hookup. Since it was too late we used up the water we brought in with us, ate quick dinner of Uzbek dish ‘plov’ that my mom packed for us and settled in for the night. Next day is a true beginning.