We had a quiet 2 day stop at Claytor Lake State Park in Virginia as we followed our path north. It was an enjoyable, quiet stope right up until Mike was airing up the front tires before our departure. When I went to replace the tire pressure cap (my contribution to the process), air was rushing out and just kept coming.
Of course, I yelled for Mike to come over and see what was wrong. We just had new front tires put on before we left on this trip. Mike was able to slightly tighten the stem and stop the air rushing out, but unsure what was wrong with the valve or stem, he thought we should have it checked. We scrambled to contact a local semi-truck repair place in the small town of Dublin, VA. They said they would look at it first thing if we would come on over. They looked it over and verified that nothing was wrong with the stem. Mike had corrected the problem when he tightened it. Oh well, we hooked up the Jeep and continued on down the road.
Our next stop was at Caledonia State Park in Fayetteville, PA. I chose this stop as it was close enough to tour Gettysburg nearby. The state park was very woodsy and had a very steep incline to get up to our loop. Our site had a significant slope and a cement barrier at the back. This was going to be interesting.
We have driven up on wood to get level before, but this slope was beyond challenging. After several attempts and frayed nerves, we manually leveled as best we could. We considered looking for another campground, but between it being a weekend in the summer and how much further we would have to drive, we tried to make this work.
The next morning, Mike said to me through the open door of the RV. "I don't want to alarm you, but you need to put up the jacks and we need to go get some more wood." Our best from last night would need to be improved. We drove about 45 minutes to an 84 Lumber so Mike could get the type of wood needed to use as leveling supports under the tires and jacks. He hand cut (with a $10 Walmart handsaw) these thick boards to size and we set about re-leveling the coach. We were still at a pretty wicked front to back angle but we would be secure for the remainder of our stay.
Once we felt comfortable that we would not roll down the hill while we slept, we visited Gettysburg three times while there.
We visited Spangler Farm, a restored field hospital that was used in the civil war battles that raged in the area. The volunteer docents were spread throughout the dressed in civil war era clothing and spoke to the various medical needs and procedures used here. Sobering.
We spent a full day with an audio car tour of the Gettysburg Battlefields and Cemetery. The information was thorough and educational. We also spent about a half of a day at the Gettysburg Museum. There were so many artifacts and informational signs to read we were both exhausted at the end of the tour or maybe it was just the weight of the history of that place.
The Caledonia State Park also had trees that were raining sap down on Ruth, the Jeep and everything else along with some very unpleasant large black ants. I won't go into the details, but they were plentiful and rather nasty.
We had thoroughly toured Gettysburg, had some kick-a** brisket for lunch at 65 South BBQ it didn't look like much on the outside but the brisket was top 5. Mike solo hiked a little more of the Appalachian Trail and we decided to move on a day early and head to Corning, NY.
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