July 23-25
Friday
We’re hanging out at Bull Run Regional Park (BRRP) this weekend. We drove a mere 16 miles [26 km] to get here from the storage lot. Even if you take into account the 22 miles [35 km] from the house to the storage lot, the distance is negligible for a camping trip.
I can see you all shaking your heads and wondering if it was even worth disturbing the Phaeton. We still have some housekeeping chores to do, so the answer is: “Yes.” I see no reason why we can’t have some fun while we take care of this and that around the coach.
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Filling up with freshwater before we leave the storage lot.
Had we driven from home, this would have been our route to the park.
(the storage lot is further west; we backtracked from there)
We’re in site 27, a 50-amp pull-through. They do have full hook-ups available, but we wanted to see how the tanks hold up and test the water pressure using just the water pump, so we opted to book an electric-only site. As we live in one of the regional counties, we get what’s called a “jurisdiction rate” — $31.50/night. (That’s a $2 discount over the regular rate for this site.)
Glimpse of the perimeter loop.
The Phaeton looks comfortable in Site 27.
The campground is laid out in an oval of sorts, with concentric rows of sites. It pays not to be part of the inner circle here; our location on the outer edge offers more privacy. We have a heavily-wooded area on the passenger side, with a picnic table, a fire pit, and a grill. A paved road separates us from the campsites on the driver’s side. Since the sites are off-set slightly, our view on that side is of a wooded area as well. The rest of the campground is hidden behind the tree line on that side.
Note location of #27 on the perimeter of the campground.
No bugs to pester us, but it’s much too hot to eat at the picnic table.
It was almost 5:00p by the time we were settled in our site. The temp was still reading a humid 103F [39C], so we put off grilling tonight. Instead, we fixed some rice and lentils for dinner; quick and easy. Then it was time to just kickback after a busy work week. The trees block satellite signals, but we’re getting good TV reception from the antenna. Between that and the DVDs we brought with us, we have plenty of entertainment for the two nights that we’ll be here. Speaking of which, time to watch one of those DVDs. More tomorrow …
SATURDAY
Can you say HOT, HOT, HOT? I know I sound like a broken record, but that’s what we have here — record-breaking hot temperatures.
I’m sure we exceeded the forecasted high of 100F [38C] very early in the day. Let’s not even think about the effect of the high humidity on that temperature. Thanks to the tree canopy shading our site, we never got above 97F [36C] here. I’ve never actually stepped inside an oven, but I’m sure it would feel similar to the way it feels outside the Phaeton at the moment.
Up early as usual, we went for a stroll around the campground first thing this morning. We didn’t get far. Though the temp was only 77F [25C], the high humidity made it feel oppressive and sticky. We checked out the Atlantis Waterpark ($4/adult for campground guests), figured out where the dump station is located (we’ll need it when we leave tomorrow), and headed back to the Phaeton in short order.
Breakfast was followed by chores left from last weekend — cleaning and organizing the cockpit cabinets, rinsing out the ceiling vent filters, etc. Mui managed to get the diamond shield on the front of the Phaeton cleaned and polished before the humid heat drove him inside. Organizing the basement will just have to wait until another time.
The house batteries could use a drink of distilled water.
Since it was way too hot to hike either of the nearby trails, we went to Plan B for the afternoon — learning the ins and outs of our MacBook Pro laptops. We’re new to the Apple Family and our first impressions so far are positive. With one exception: there is no equivalent of Windows Live Writer for Mac. I’ve tested several offline blog writing packages so far, and they’re all sorely lacking IMHO. (You hear me Mac app developers?) I just might have to partition a bit of the hard drive to run Windows just for this one software.
this is a posed photo, but it’s not far different from
the way you would have found us this afternoon.
A DVD or two; a bit of reading; a glass of wine … suddenly it was dinner time. It really was much too hot to be grilling, but the alternative of having to take already thawed steaks and shrimp back home wasn’t too thrilling either. So, Mui braved the elements and lit the grill.
Adding heat to a hot evening.
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Shrimp and steak on the barbie.
Yes, we grilled; but we enjoyed our meal in air conditioned comfort.
And so another day of “soft” camping comes to a close. Time to watch one of the 
DVDs we brought with us — a retrospective of our polar bear adventure in Churchill, Canada (read about it here). If nothing else, just seeing all that snow and remembering the daytime temperatures that dipped down to –31F [-35C] might mentally cool us down!
More tomorrow …
Sunday
Today’s forecast was for cooler temps in the 90F range. We were up early, hoping to hike one of the trails. Though the temp was a reasonable 79F [26C], the high humidity dashed hopes of any enjoyable trekking. Instead, we spent the morning relaxing — something we don’t do nearly enough when we’re at home.
Since I didn’t get to take any photos from the hiking trail today, I’ll share a few from our first visit to BRRP. It was April and the Bluebell Trail was a bit soggy from overnight showers. But the flowers for which the trail is named were in full bloom and spread out like a carpet everywhere we looked along the trail.
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Seeing these photos again reminds me of the fun we had that day. We’ll have to come back and camp here next April so we can enjoy the trail again.
We left the campground shortly before the 11:00a check-out time. After dumping our tanks, we found a spot clear of trees. Mui’s been wanting to do a real test of the satellite reception, and this was our opportunity to do so. The satellite locked onto a signal and we did get reception, but it was in B&W. We suspect we might need to swap out our box for an HD receiver; will check with DirecTV.
By the way … a short housekeeping note. The tanks held up just fine; and the pump-provided water pressure was more than sufficient for morning showers.
Dumping the tanks!
Once we arrived at the storage lot, it took us a bit longer than usual to put the Phaeton to bed as we will not have occasion to go out during the next six weeks or so — we need to direct our trip planning time to our long-awaited return visit to Alaska. Not a road trip this time, but that too is in the works for when we retire.
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