Weekend at Endless Caverns

Friday, July 16

The Phaeton was cleaned inside and out prior to finalizing the purchase in May.  It certainly looked great when we picked it up in Oregon.  But a cross-country trip takes a toll on any vehicle, and the coach was not immune.  Wanting to give our “condo on wheels” a once over before we start settling into it, we’re hanging out at Endless Caverns RV Resort this weekend to take care of chores and have a bit of camping fun too.

It was capital letters HOT, HOT, HOT when we left the house around 2:15p.  The temperature gauge was reading 105F [41C] by the time we arrived at the storage lot.  There was no way we were going to be able to pull right out and get on the road.  Poor Phaeton had been baking in the sun for days.  So, we cranked up the generator, turned on the A/C to cool it down some, and used the time to offload stuff from the CR-V into the basement of the coach.  By 3:15p, we were on I-66, heading west to the junction with I-81S.  It was still hot inside the coach, but it was bearable.

The 88-mile [141 km] drive to our destination near New Market, Virginia was an easy one.  We made just one stop along the way and that was to top-off the diesel that we’d used on the last leg of our cross-country trip.  (Love’s Travel Stop — $2.80/gallon with a $.05 cash discount.)

Mount Jackson’s “Basket of Apples” Water Tower is a well-known landmark on I-81.

By 5:30p,  we were checked in at the resort office.  A few minutes later, our golf-cart escort was guiding Mui as he backed into site A24.

The Endless Caverns Gift Shop is also the check-in office for the RV resort.

There’s no map; we follow an escort to our assigned site.

Bathed in the glow of the setting sun, the Phaeton is settled in for the weekend.

This is a new RV resort (144 sites; $51.99/night for a full hook-up), located in a heavily wooded area.  It is still growing, with both new amenities and additional sites in the works.  If there’s any construction going on at present, it certainly isn’t evident to us.

We’d chosen a back-in site so Mui could practice maneuvering.  As it turns out, this decision worked in our favor in regards to privacy as well.  All of the pull-through sites down the hill from us are occupied.  The perimeter back-in sites, on the other hand, are mostly unoccupied this weekend.  Our nearest neighbors are four campsites away to the left; five campsites away to the right.  That’s a lot of privacy when you consider that the sites are not only wide, but they are terraced and well-spaced out as well (Mui’s guesstimate is about 20 feet [6 m] separation on either side).  In essence, it’s like we’re all alone in the middle of the forest, except that we have electricity, water, and sewer.  Life’s good!

View of the campground from the bedroom window.
(Straight down from us are empty sites with our closest neighbor
in the distance; the pull-through sites are on the left)

You can’t see the pull-through sites when you look out the windshield,
unless you go to the very front and look right.

After settling in, we went for a slow stroll around the campsites; with the temp reading a humid 97F [36C] anything more strenuous was out of the question.  We like what we saw and wouldn’t mind coming back in the fall or spring.  The weather then should be more conducive to outdoor activities.  And perhaps the teeny-tiny, gnat-like flies won’t be in evidence then either.  The flies don’t bite, but they are a pain nonetheless, because they swarm as soon as you sit down or otherwise come to a standstill.

We didn’t want our lentil and rice dinner garnished with gnats, so we had dinner inside the coach.  Afterwards, Mui tested the satellite without success.  The antenna did get reception from local channels, and though it was grainy, it was sufficient for Mui to get his evening news fix.

With our evening chores taken care of, we popped in a DVD to watch a movie, but it failed to hold our interest.  We could have gone down to the Rec Center for a NASCAR “tailgate experience away from the track,” but we’re not fans.  Instead, I switched to blogging, which is always fun for me; Mui opted to read for a bit.  A quiet way to bring our day to a close.

All we can see of the sunset is just a glimpse of orange skies through the canopy.

Tomorrow we have chores to do, so perhaps it’s just as well that the forecast is for high temps and thunderstorms.  We won’t be tempted to go play outside.

Next Up … Housekeeping at Endless Caverns