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Date:         Mon, 23 Oct 2017 01:13:32 +0000
Reply-To:     Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Stephen Grisanti <bike2vcu@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      This has not been a camping year for us.
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I went out once in the spring for two nights on the C&O Canal Towpath but numerous distractions have kept us from using the Westy; hospitalizations, deaths in the family, an endless remodeling project, etc. However, friends suggested a while back that we pick a weekend and go camping together and this was it. We reserved at a spot about an hour from town and headed out Friday on only the third fillup of 2017.  Yep, that kind of year. Of course, we'd lost our camping chops in that amount of time.  Stuff had migrated from the van to the house and garage, stuff in the van was depleted or non-functional (gas gauge suddenly stopped registering and the sink drain tube was torn), and stuff we thought we knew or remembered we did not.  Anyway, as we approached Bear Creek Lake State Park on county road 666 (no kidding; what could possibly go wrong?) we were prepared for the worst.  Turns out the only available spots were on the tiniest, most crowded loop, in what Brother Squirrel used to call "cheek by jowl" camping.  This was it in spades.  Some slots were empty the first night but our friends arrived Saturday and the rest of the slots also filled up. https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bear+Creek+Lake+State+Park/@37.5275547,-78.2723186,15.29z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xc736f0dfac6a3748!8m2!3d37.526924!4d-78.2757391 So it was semi-local family camping.  We did a little hiking, some reading, some napping, some overeating, some storytelling around the campfire, and stopped for Mexican food on the way home. The gas gauge fixed itself, the sink drain did not, and the only casualty was a driver's door rubbed repeatedly by a Mopar minivan's open front door with a resulting silver spot about the size of a bookmark.  I even got to be a hero when someone on the loop left his parking lights on overnight and needed to borrow jumper cables. We'll do better next year, and we still have a couple of months left in this one. Stephen


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