Van Life
Sitting by Lake Moomaw, in western Virginia, one hour west of Lexington VA, south of the Monongahela National Forest, east of the New River Gorge, about 1:30 northeast of Roanoke VA. Took the traveling Van - a 2022 Ram Winebago Travato - out for the first trip. It’s camper van, portable office with a full bathroom, kitchen, sleeps 2 or 3, solar panels, gas stove, microwave, running water, refrigerator, heat, AC and a lot of other bells and whistles. I spent a month plus getting to know the vehicle and learning to the best of my ability how to use the Van. I don’t run much equipment, and this thing has a lot of equipment, completely new to me. I guess once you get the hang of it, it’s pretty leveragable across all RVs and Vans to some extent.
It’s got 110 power, 220 power, it’s got ‘chassis power’ and ‘van power’, its got ‘generator power’ and you got ‘boon docking’ travel (not being hooked up to water and electric) and that’s a lot different then when in a campground with facilities and hooked up directly to power and water.
It’s gone well, and I’m experimenting a lot with all the systems and measuring and monitoring them closely with the modern gauges and electronic dashboards that show the levels of propane, fresh water, solar power, and how full your waste tanks are.
Currently, I’m 40 hours ‘off-grid’ and still have plenty of water and electric.
The real destination is Asheville NC, and the Biltmore mansion and hotel, after riding the Blue Ridge Parkway for awhile - like a couple of days. I tend to travel this way - pick a completely random spot on the map, go there, rough it a bit and then work towards luxury, which I’m sure the Biltmore will have no trouble providing, in between our clay shoots, horse-riding, mansion-touring excursions.
I have Lulu with me and my Friend Anne. Our first stop, after leaving Milford PA was Lexington VA, for the Virginia Barrel Racing Classic, where 2000 girls and women competed for the crown of who can navigate a triangular set up of barrels for the quickest time. 16-17 seconds was the most common, in the 15’s rare, but the winner would have to beat 14.92 seconds, which is darn quick. It was a big event of horse people, horse trailers, dogs, etc…. I’m sure the people on the circuit see each other all the time. Big arena. 4 day event. We had our boots shined.
Out here by Lake Moomaw, this is serious Cracker territory. Strong, almost comical Southern accents among the red-necks - where Appalachia meets who knows what. I’m not judging since I'm a stone's throw from being white trash myself. Basically, guess what I'm saying is there is not a lot of airs being put on out here.
Trying to decide if camping, or more accurately, campgrounds are for me. I like to control my environment, especially of sounds, and campgrounds are a bit of a free for all. You can be stacked right on top of each other, people make a lot of noise with their kids and firewood chopping and TV’s and carrying-ons. We pulled into Lake Moomaw, which is REALLY out there, and right beside us was a family of 4, 2 young kids with 2-3 year old who would not stop crying, screaming, laughing, repeat - but mostly crying and screaming, which is a lot louder in a completely quiet environment - it felt like an SNL skit, and luckily the National Forest campground was not full and we could move our lakefront camp spot to an off lake but quiet space.
Until literally (8) 20-somethings, their baby, and 4 dogs including 2 large German Shepards, poured out of two tiny cars at 8pm as the sun was going down. They had 1 tent, and were as country as country gets but worked as Unit, like a hive of ants, to set up the camp, gather firewood, drinking their soda pop (not a bottle of water to be found), and hang 2 hammocks. The next day there were out at the break of dawn with their fishing rods and women and dogs, and disappeared for the day, only to come back around 5, swim, pack up camp just as efficiently and off they went. Interestingly, to a team manager like myself, I watched, or rather listened to them, and nary an instruction was heard. Everyone knew their tasks, the men worked together hunting and gathering, and I’m sure the women-folk did their part at the campsite. They kept their voices low. And poof, they arrived, they did their thing, and poof, there they went.
The lake is pretty big, so when the only boat on the lake, anchored 150’ off our site (which we returned to after the screaming toddler family left) and had a boat load of joy-loving, screaming kids jumping off the boat in a circular jump, scream, splash, routine that went on for hours, the adults played loud music and swore as casually as a dog licks her ass.
So, yes, it did feel a bit unexpected to arrive at a wilderness campsite and be impacted by humans to such a level and maybe a camera was going to pop out of the bushes and say ‘haha, got you’ for some viral punk stunt, but here we are on day 3, and not a sound to be heard but lakeside birds singing to each other, the soft hum of conversations a few sites over, and the soft smell of someone’s campfire.
I take that back - we seemed to be inadvertently parked under a squirrel playground of tree-scrambling, nut-dropping, squirrel-screeching orgy of activity.
Visiting our neighbor who keeps getting older on us after a health scare.