We knew there would be days like this . . .

We recently had “one of those days” when nothing seems to go right. So in the interest of full disclosure of this full-time RVing lifestyle, we thought we would share our recent travel day in Virginia. 

You might be wondering why there would be pictures of mushrooms dispersed throughout this blog. Well, there was nothing to take pictures of during our day of mishaps. The next day we took a hike filled with lots of unusual fungus, but no story. So today we will put the non-picturesque story with the non-story hiking pictures to make one very confusingly illustrated blog.

It all started when we decided to leave our lovely spot at Cumberland Gap National Park. We had been wonderfully spoiled with new friends and great hikes, and it would have been easy to stay several more days. But we are trying to push north towards cooler weather, and to position ourselves to be in an area that will have nice fall foliage. We usually drive 1-2 hours when we relocate to a new campground, but this day we were planning to drive 3.5 hours. We left earlier than usual, because there were storms approaching from the east.

It was a lovely drive through the Appalachian Mountains. We climbed up over Powell Mountain, and then back down. We enjoyed the fact that the highway was situated in a valley that had been cleared of trees, so we could actually see the farms and homes in front of the mountains. (Look at that--we actually included a picture that makes some sense with the story!)

We usually travel with our big-rig GPS on the dash, with Denisa holding a smart phone programmed to go to the same destination. Denisa also keeps a paper map on her lap, just to make sure the technology sources don’t lead us astray. But we haven’t been to a Virginia Welcome Center to pick up a map, so we only had two navigational tools. Perhaps that was the problem.

We are used to the two different GPS’s disagreeing. Sometimes the big-rig GPS is just too careful with its routes, and takes us many miles out of our way. So we blindly turned when the phone GPS lead us to a side road that would save us mileage as it angled to our next turn.

That was a mistake! We should have taken pictures of the narrow, winding residential area that we had turned onto. But we didn’t have time to think about pictures, we were too worried about getting off this road. It wasn’t even wide enough for striping. But the worst part were the electrical lines that were haphazardly strung across the road at very low heights. Denisa was ducking her head inside the motor home, somehow hoping that would make us low enough to pass under them. When we tweaked one with our CB antenna, we wondered if the electrical line was trailing behind us. We ducked and meandered at 15 mph down this little alley, hoping it would come to a larger road soon.

Several miles later we did get to a larger road, and felt better about our journey. We had programmed a stop at the Virginia Welcome Center so we could get a map and some information. But for some reason the GPS took us to the street directly behind the welcome center. We should have learned our lesson, but again we were following the GPS down a steep and winding road with no markings. It was so steep that we drug the tow car's hitch as we went down. Our mood was sinking right along with the road.

We made it to the GPS pin—the backside of the welcome center with no parking and no entry. We had to take another 6-mile detour, driving through business and residential traffic, to get us back to the interstate and the correct parking lot. By this time Mark needed a break from the stress of driving! But we did get that Virginia map that we needed. We also took a picture of Denisa loaded down with travel brochures at their “Virginia is for Lovers” sign out front.

We are only half-way to our destination, and the rain storm is chasing us. Mark is running the windshield wipers, as we get to a construction area with slow downs.

After over four hours on the road, we finally arrive at the National Forest Service campground. We are a little leery of the signs at the entrance proclaiming this a flood-prone area. This is especially worrisome since we are forecast to get rain for the next four days. The "flash flood" sign is right in front of one of the four low-water bridges we must cross in the camp ground.

As we travel into the campground, the tree limbs are hitting the top of the motor home. It looks like we are the tallest vehicle that has passed this way in a while. We pick a nice site, but find that is it more unlevel than it looked. Even after we back onto four jack pads, we are still down in the back and one side. The jacks are stretched to their maximum to bring us to level, and this makes Denisa uneasy. Do we need to mention that it is also starting to rain by this time?

This is where Denisa and Mark have different philosophies. Mark would say that we should get the motor home as level as possible and put out all four slides to make it nice and comfortable inside. But Denisa would say that we’re probably just staying for two or three nights, so we don’t need to stress the jacks and the frame by putting out those heavy slides on a site that's not level. Besides, when the creek floods, perhaps we can drive away quick enough to avoid being swept away to our deaths if we don’t have to take the time to put all the slides back in. That scenario might be a little dramatic, but Mark reluctantly agreed to give up comfort for his wife’s peace of mind.

We knew our site would only have electricity, but we were told that we could load up water from spigots scattered throughout the campground. But they didn’t tell us that none of the spigots were threaded for a hose. So we now are faced with strict water conservation, as we are limited to the amount of water we have in our tank. It’s been one of those days.

As Denisa went inside the motor home to set up housekeeping, she found that the rug in front of the refrigerator was wet for some unknown reason. She also found that the vegetable oil had tilted in the cabinet, and had been trickling out onto the shelves below it. She found a little piece of broken black plastic of unknown origin on the floor. That means something somewhere is broke. Then the carbon monoxide alarm went off for no apparent reason.

In the meantime, Mark is doing his technology checks. We have absolutely no over-the-air television stations, so there will be no Olympics for us during this stay. We have a little telephone signal he can boost. But we have no data service for our computers. We can do without television and computers, but we really don’t like it.

By this time we are grumpy with each other, tired from a long and treacherous trip, and concerned about the source of the water on the floor. We can’t spread out inside because the slides are in, and by this time the rain storm is raging outside.

We knew there would be days like this! Even though most days are fun and most moves are uneventful, this one was neither.

But the good news is that we survived this evening’s storms, just like the other storms that life brings our way. Now we are happy to be here at Stony Fork Campground, but the stay will probably be short. In the meantime, between rain storms, we took the one-mile nature trail hike. The pictures in the blog today are of the glorious array of unusual mushrooms and other things growing throughout the forest. They were thriving from all the rain showers that were complicating our life. So there is probably a lesson to be learned this day. We knew there would be days like this!