Our 2024 camping campaign was a wonderful success. We met a lot of folks and stayed with wonderful people who proved to us that the land of the free and home of the brave still exists and resides in the hearts of good people across this great country America. Everybody likes to rate things these days, so this is my attempt to give you our top five camping trips for 2024.
Number 5. Our February trip to Florida. Along the way we stopped at my cousin Denise and her husband Mark’s place near Charlotte, NC. Cousins John and Donna (Denise’s brother and sister) live nearby on their horse farm. It was great feeling her horses sniffing our faces. A visit with my brother in Spartanburg, then friends in Greenville, down to Augusta with dear friends from a former church, then on to one of my wife’s close friends from Ohio in Englewood, Fl. Weather was a little chilly, but a great pre-hurricane trip anyway. Some of the places we visited no longer exist after hurricane Hilda.
Number 4. Family campout in Akron, Oh. Chris, has four siblings—Cindy, Randy, Cathy and Joe—and they are all gourmet cooks. Each take a day to cook for the growing family, now 35-plus ranging from 2 years old to 92 (matriarch Loretta, mom of the sibs). Each night, we all gathered around the campfire to enjoy the mesmerizing flames and visit with one another. This is not really an official family reunion as yet, but it seems like it is headed in that direction.
Number 3. Low Water Bridge Campground, Bentonville, Va. Low Water Bridge Campground is for real campers who want to enjoy the beauty of the Shenandoah River and its surrounding hiking trails and wondrous mountains along the famous Skyline Drive. Not far from where we live, this has become our “go to” getaway because it is close to the Shenandoah state and national parks, skyline drive and Front Royal, which has a down-home, home town vibe of the America we love. Chris has captured a few scenes on canvass and we go touring on our scooter.
Number 2. Cape Charles, Va. We stayed at the Cape Charles KOA resort. Beautiful private beach on the Chesapeake Bay. This was our 12th annual beach trip with our friends Chris and Ed. Our tradition is to have coffee on the beach each morning. It’s something we do rain or shine and it has and it did, especially this trip. It was one of the first beach trips that it rained most of the time, but we made the best of it. Nothing could match what we found at an old Sunoco station turned antique store. Now this old beachcomber, maybe related to Freddy Krueger from Nightmare on Elm Street, was quite a character. He wanted so much for us to buy some of his overpriced junk—he even emerged from the dark shadows of a back room and offered us to join him in a Bud Light and a plum. What? The ladies couldn’t leave fast enough!
Drum roll…this year’s Number 1…Chincoteague, Va., beach trip. Chris, our son Christian, his fiancé Claire, Service Dog Charlie, and myself camped at the Chincoteague, Va Jellystone campgrounds on the island noted for the wild pony roundups each year. Our first morning started off with a gourmet breakfast cooked by Chris and Christian—well as gourmet as possible on a camp stove and a Blackstone grill. It was pretty a pretty hearty breakfast sandwich. Then we geared up for the several mile bike ride from the campground through the wilderness trail across the bridge to Assateague Island. Bike rides, time on the beach, cigars around the campfire (well for Christian and me) and great company. It was a great year!
