First full day (7/30/2020).

Dog was too excited to sleep beyond 4 am. , so he woke up Sol. I fought to stay in bed till about 6:30. Kids managed to sleep in till 7:30 or so. In need of water and coffee Sol took the trailer to the water station to fill it to the brim for the days’ showers, dishes, cooking. Only…when he brought it back and tried to run a sink nothing happened. Couple of hours were spent by Sol climbing under the rig to see where the water line was broken only to realize that he did not fill the water tank enough for the water pump to pick it up.  With that, we go on our hike. The hike is to the Overall Run waterfall …. About a 2 miles down the mountain to see it and, consequently, 2 miles up the mountain on the way back.  Trail starts about 100 yards from our site.

On a hike dog is happily pulling Sol down the mountain…. Silly boy did not know that he would have to hike it back up. The waterfall is pretty dry (no rains) but the views of the valley are breathtaking. Even the pup is impressed. We hang on the cliffs having snacks and taking in the view. Tamara: “Wow……. I never want to leave here…”

The way back is arduous. It is up the hill and we are tired. Pup is no longer pulling Sol along the trail and girls are asking for piggy back rides. It does not stop them from being their usual ‘nice’ to each other: Tamara finds a rock in a shape of a Harry Potters’s scar. Sasha chimes in: “You should take it to your forehead for Halloween….”  We power on on the promise of nice cold capri suns back at the campsite. 

At the campsite Sol takes a trailer for another attempt at water fill. The well, however, is broken and he only gets half the tank. Girls quickly learn how to take 2 minutes cold showers outside, we have lunch, pack up the camp and are on our way.  8 hour drive is ahead of us with Smokey’s as a destination.

We power through Virginia for the rest of the day as I am trying to figure out WordPress. We quickly stop at Lowe’s for some plywood and aluminum heat wrap to install a sub flooring in the back of the Jeep to solve the dog’s hot bottom problem.  Lowe’s saw is broken to cut the pieces to size, so Sol cuts in the parking lot.

The pup’s bottom is happy now and we continue on our way. Only we are met with some torrential downpour somewhere around Roanoke and are still 5 hours away from our next destination. We pull over and make some black bean burritos in our trailer’s kitchen in the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant.  After dinner we quickly realize that the weather is not planning on letting up any time soon. It is dark and stormy and we are driving down the road that has ‘runaway trick’ turn offs in it. Not a great mix. We quickly find the rest area and hunker down for the night. We did not make our planned destination but the first rule of our trip is to be flexible.