Back to Virginia! 😁

Longwood Park in Clarksville, VA & North Bend Park in Boydton, VA

July 2-4, 2021 & July 4-10, 2021

Virginia kept calling me back! 😁

While planning our next stop, I wanted to be somewhere as quiet as possible for July 4th. Considering Maddie’s previous FEAR of thunderstorms & fireworks, I didn’t want to subject her to anything scary unnecessarily. She’s done incredibly well with the thunderstorms we’ve experienced, but fireworks still really upset her. 🥺 The place I knew we’d be safest was back at North Bend Park in Boydton, VA. I was able to get reservations again for July 4-10! We left SC & after traveling for 8 hours, we arrived back in VA!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get reservations at North Bend until July 4th. Despite Longwood Park being on the same lake as North Bend Park, they couldn’t be any more different from each other. This lake is so massive that it’s a 30 minute drive from Longwood Park to North Bend Park!

John H. Kerr Dam & Reservoir, also known as Buggs Island Lake, is a 50,000-acre lake extending 39 miles up the Roanoke River along 800 miles of wooded, cove-studded shoreline in Virginia and North Carolina. Visitors enjoy fishing, camping, swimming, boating or just relaxing and enjoying the scenic beauty. There are 30 recreation areas around Kerr Reservoir: campsites, swim beaches, picnic areas, hiking, nature trails, marinas all available for public use. There are 26 wildlife management areas on Kerr, totaling over 10,000 acres. In addition to flood control and hydroelectric power, other benefits include fish and wildlife conservation, recreation, forest management, and water supply.

Sadly, Longwood Park ranks very low on my scale. 🥴 The campsites are very close together & we were squeezed in between 2 large RVs. Each of my neighbors had lots of VERY LOUD people with even louder, VERY YAPPY dogs. There didn’t appear to be much supervision from park staff, so the 10pm quiet hour wasn’t observed, either. I know it was the 4th of July weekend & people were celebrating, but it felt more like a frat party environment well into the early morning. I started counting down the hours until I could move over to North Bend. 🤷‍♀️

Back to My Happy Place!

When I checked in at the gate, the same gentleman who had checked me in 3 weeks earlier remembered me & welcomed me back! We were home… 💕

Everything was going great until Thursday afternoon, July 8th! I’d been monitoring the weather, as always, so I knew a storm was approaching. All of a sudden, my phone was squawking with weather alerts! ANOTHER tropical storm was headed our way! 😳 I decided to hunker down…again, so I packed everything in the car & waited.

After a few hours, the rain stopped & the sun tried to make a comeback. While I was figuring out something for supper, I was startled by a young man standing beside my car. He asked if I’d like him to try draining my campsite! Looking at the water level, I didn’t think it would work, but yes, please!!! After a few minutes, he’d dug out a small drainage ditch & the water was rushing away! 😁 His name is Stephen & he lives in South Boston, VA. I knew he was with the large group of Mennonite that were camping close by. I thanked him & he just smiled & walked away. 😇 Later, I Googled Mennonite in South Boston, VA & there’s a large community there.

A few minutes later, an older woman from the Mennonite community appeared by my car & asked if I’d had supper! 🤗 She gave me 3 ears of corn & some cole slaw & apologized that she didn’t have anything else to share. She said that she’d forgotten to bring butter, so I walked over to their campsite with her to get some freshly made butter! I had briefly told Stephen about our adventures & he’d shared it with his community members! They were all wishing me well & blessing my journey. At that moment, I felt like I was in the company of old friends. It was a truly heartwarming experience. 💝 My Guardian Angels weren’t finished yet! When I returned to my campsite, a fellow camper was continuing the drainage process in my area! He’d stayed in this exact site for 15 years, until he & his wife bought an RV that require electrical & water hook-ups. Having experienced multiple floodings in the past, he knew exactly how to drain the water. It worked!

Goodbye, Virginia…for now! 💝

Thanks for some absolutely awesome memories!

Next stop: Asheville, North Carolina