Fredericksburg KOA Trip, Fredericksburg, VA (Part 2)

Campground & Adventures Day 2 - March 2, 2013

We were planning to get up "whenever", but the geese had other ideas. Promptly at 7am, they decided to have a squawk-fest. We took our time getting up and moving. Jon reconnected the water and I started making breakfast.

Bacon & pancakes - Yum!

It was while I was making the bacon that I realized we really need a grease container. We used a coffee mug for this trip, but I'll be adding that to the list to bring to the trailer.

After getting breakfast put away, we decided to head to Costco. You see, we slept like crapola. The mattress was NOT comfortable at all. So, off to get a gel mattress pad. We also picked up a TV and case of water for the trailer. Ours didn't come with the TV installed, which was fine by us. The case of water was probably the smartest thing we did all weekend (to be explained later).

After we finished up at Costco, Jon decided we needed to go to Walmart... again. We got an extension cord to be able to inflate the tires using shore power when we're hooked up and a few other things.

We knew there was an RV show in town, so we decided to head over there and check it out. It was pretty small, but we were happy to find that there wasn't anything that we were like "oh I wish we had known about this before we bought our Lance". Also, we were waiting for the weather to warm up a bit.

Since we were out, we had lunch out (at TGIFriday's). Nothing really all that special, but it was good. It also gave us time to plan out our afternoon.

(This was probably the part of the trip I was most excited about) We went to the Fredericksburg National Battlefield Park and then to Chatham Manor. We really enjoy the National Parks and get the cancelation stamps from ones that we visit. I had forgotten our passport on my desk at the house. I used the back of my business cards to get the stamps, which turned out to be a bad idea. While at Fredericksburg NBP, we walked the Sunken Road.

Hanging out at the Visitor Center before walking around

Visitor Center

Sunken Road

Innis House

Goofing off before headed into the cemetery. Jon was half laughing, half like "REALLY?!"

Kirkpatrick Memorial

Cannon

A very small part of the cemetery

After freezing long enough at the battlefield, we headed to Chatham Manor. It's a really cool mansion that has a very interesting history.

The "new" entrance to the house

Statue added in the 1930s

Chandelier and pretty curtains in the house

Music notes on the stairwell railing

Hospitality pineapple

The "old" entrance to the house.

Where the white bricks are used to have a portico on it. One of the many owners removed them.

Interesting read

Corn House - who knew?!

After getting done at Chatham Manor, we decided to head back to the campgrounds. We got the mattress pad out of the box & started to let it gain it's form back. I set about making dinner and Jon got a shower. Humorous because Jon's not really a Navy shower type of person. After he got out, we had a tasty dinner of polish sausage and mac & cheese. Nothing fancy on this trip. Once we got done cleaning up, I got in the shower and Jon started washing dishes. I helped finish dishes after I got out of the shower, Jon filled the bucket for toilet flushing, and then Jon shut off the water for the night. We played a couple of games of Yahtzee and then turned in for the night.

*Side note: we were by FAR the smallest trailer in the campsite. It was kind of funny to us actually.

Camping & Return Home Day 3 - March 3, 2012

We were planning on being up around 7-7:30 and the geese didn't let us down. Right at 7, they started their squawking again. We got up and made breakfast (oatmeal this morning). While I had water heating in the keurig (we used the bottled water), Jon went out to hook up the water. The pipe had frozen overnight (it got down into the low 20s), so we were now really glad we had the bottled water! We proceeded to wash the couple of dishes and brush our teeth using the bottled water - third world style. (We joke about it because my first trip to the Dominican Republic included bottled water for brushing your teeth.)

After breakfast and cleaning up, we started to pack up the trailer. While we were packing up, we were also cleaning the condensation from the night before. We noticed that some had built up in the front window.

*Stupid note here* A couple of weeks ago, Jon opened the front window from the outside. I thought the window inside had a screen, so I went to open it up... and the inside pane of the window came out. We still haven't managed to get the window back in properly. *stupid note ends here*

Jon decided we'd deal with the front window later. Well, later turned out to be 2 minutes later. We spent about 30 minutes trying to get it back in. Still haven't quite managed to get it all of the way in there. After getting it in better than it was before, we finished packing up the inside & outside of the trailer.

Jon also had to re-winterize the trailer (especially given the snow storm that they're calling for this week!), so that took a little bit of time.

All-in-all, our packing up went well. We got on the road much earlier than we had expected. Before we knew it, we were headed back up 95. Jon did much better driving back than driving there.

When we got back to the trailer storage lot, we pulled into our row and Jon got out to look at where he needed to be to back into our spot. He got back in the truck and I got out to help him back in. At first, as I was walking around the front of the truck, I said "you need to pull forward a good bit". Then, I looked at our spot and said "Hey! Question! Why don't you just pull straight through since the people behind us aren't here right now?!" I think his answer was "really?" Sigh. So, he pulled the trailer through and we got away without having to back it in!

I got in it and opened up the freezer & fridge. We got it all locked up and put away pretty quickly. It was a bit sad to leave it after such a short trip. Can't wait to take it out again!

Bye bye lil Lance!