Sweet Virginia

Thursday we left Marion, North Carolina and headed towards Virginia. We had a few days left on our vacation and could have gone other places but decided to start heading back home. Pulling a 29 foot travel trailer can be tiring and unfortunately I can't help with the driving. Sometimes I know I make things worse for Jim by how nervous I get while he is driving. I help navigate by using my phone's GPS and by using paper maps. But still sometimes we find ourselves on a narrow road where it is hard to turn around or back up. That can be stressful.

After leaving Marion we wanted to find a bakery or healthy grocery store where we could buy some pastries or snacks to go with our coffee. I found a store in an upcoming town and it didn't look too far out of our way. Well as it ended up we had to drive through the center of this tiny community and my GPS kept rerouting us. Finally we found the store and Jim was able to pull over in the far corner of the parking lot away from all the cars. It was hot out and he left the truck running while he went in first. We have to tag team because of Boo. I was getting out of the truck to retrieve something from the Airstream when I saw this little old lady that had been staring at us earlier when we drove by. Long story short I ended up talking with her for about 20 minutes while Jim was in the store.

Her name was Judy. She was probably in her late 70's. She and her husband, Bruce, used to travel in an RV hence her interest in stopping to talk with me. Judy lived in town and even waved at a car going pass as we were chatting. Her husband, Bruce, died 11 months ago. When I asked her if he had cancer she told me her story. Bruce had a form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He had a stem cell transplant, but it was an autologous one (when they use their own cells). Jim had that first before using Mike's cells. Judy said Bruce was doing well until his one year check up. They saw a spot on his lungs during the PET Scan. Apparently this spot was there before and they never seemed too concern about it but this time they wanted to go in and remove it. She told me "if you are feeling good with no symptoms to leave it alone." Removing the spot revealed that Bruce had lung cancer. The kind that non smokers get. She said he went down hill drastically after they removed the spot, as if they stirred all the cancer cells up. After 53 years of marriage she lost her Bruce. She told me she use to be the navigator on their road trips and Bruce would drive. Now she has to do both and it's not easy. I guess you could say I was meant to meet Judy. She had a story to tell and I could sympathize and relate to some of it. She is a neat little lady. Jim came out of the store without any purchases. He said the sidetrack was a waste of time and I told him it wasn't and I had a story to tell when we got back on the highway.



We drove to southern Virginia and set up camp at Staunton River State Park. There was barely anyone in the park. It's a beautiful state park with lots of trees situated between the Staunton River and the Dan River. We learned that it was also listed as an International Dark Sky Location. That means it is a land possessing an exceptional quality of starry nights. When the sun goes down and there is no moon out it is DARK.

We decided we should take our showers before evening turned dark. Here's a tip (for the women) if you don't have many products with you when camping and want to still exfoliate your skin. It sounds silly but it works. I took the mesh bag that my lemons came in and used it to hold my soap and face wash. In the shower I also used the bag to hold the soap and it works as an exfoliator. After your done soaping, the mesh bags rinses easily and the soap and face cleanser goes back in it. Multipurpose use for a mesh bag that used to hold lemons.

Later in the night Jimmy and I took Boo for a walk. We had a flashlight on hand because it really was hard to see where you were going. The stars in the sky were incredible. We saw the Milky Way and the Big Dipper. I'm just glad we didn't see a bear. Earlier in the day we met a woman who told us a woman at another state park three hours north of us was attacked by a bear a few days ago.

We are back home now and like the old saying "There's no place like home" rings true to me.  We are going to try to do another jaunt in a couple of weeks but this time closer to home and only for a long weekend.