YES VIRGINIA - THE FINAL INSTALLMENT

Now that I've dragged this story out all week, I figured I'd better finish up. There are a couple randumbs for the week, but I'll save them for another time. Randumb knows no time constraints!

Part Three finds Obbie and I driving around trying to find a campground. He spoke with a nice lady on Friday, but can't remember the name of the place, the location, or the phone number. I'm guilty too, as I didn't bother to print out the information when he gave it to me.


"Whatdya mean you didn't write down the name of the campground?!"

After all the driving around, we stopped for gas outside Luray. The lady behind the counter says, "Oh yes, there are quite a few campgrounds around, just turn around to the crossroads, and go back the road on your left. You'll find a few back there."

So we did. More driving, driving, driving. And we see a little sign: Country Waye Campground HA! Thats the one!! So on we went.

The woman who runs the place is Swiss (I asked, "How did a couple from Switzerland end up running a campground in Luray, Virginia?" She shook her head, "Sometimes I ask myself zat question!" Which made us laugh, but didn't answer my question.

CountryWaye is cool. She put our tent in between a couple RV's. "So you don't haf to valk up ze big hill to use the bathrooms" Suddenly I felt very old. That was until we saw the hill. Country Waye has a large section for RV's, a couple sites on the top of the hill for tents, and a big 'holler' down below for more tents. That would have been where we would have preferred to camp, but this business of climbing the Matterhorn to get to the bathroom put the kibosh on that.

The campsites ring a big open field with a pavilion in the middle. While we were setting up, some campers had what appeared to be a potluck dinner in the pavilion. These were the RV folks, who all knew each other, had their names emblazoned on their camping chairs. Obbie said they all were from down the road, but since gas is so expensive, they can only go up to Country Waye and park for the weekend. Seemed about right to me. Swiss Mrs. told us when we checked in that there was to be music in the pavilion that night. (Hold me, I'm scared)

After much ado about finding the most level spot to pitch the tent, we had the whole camp set up in a half an hour. Tent, campstove, lantern. Wa lah. We're good like that. It woul have taken less time, but since the rainy beach exodus back in June, the camping stuff was in much disarray.

Obbie had mentioned he was hungry, and wanted pizza. So we went into Luray to seek and destroy pizza. There isn't a whole lot in Luray. A couple restaurants caught my eye, but they weren't pizza. Finally, on the edge of town, we found THE local pizza shop. (Pizza Hut was up the road, but we don't ever eat that, ever) We ordered a pie from the teenybopper behind the counter and waited. It took awhile, but at last we were presented with one of the worst pizzas ever made. It was like she didn't even take the cardboard off the frozen crust she used. BLECH.

Grumbling and still hungry, we went to the grocery store which (As I reminded Obbie several times) we should have done FIRST and spared ourselves the horror of subpar pizza. As I was crossing the street to go in the market, a car was driving toward me. He wasn't stopping or slowing down. I said to Obbie, "Guess Yield to Pedestrians isn't something they do around here." As the words left my mouth, the car stalled...Obbie almost fell over laughing, and we had to run into the grocery so we wouldn't laugh in the stalled car guy's face.

After hunting and gathering in the grocery, we headed back to camp. The music had started, and we grabbed our beers and peanuts and settled in to our chairs (no names on them, thank you) to listen. Two long haired guys playing guitars and harmonicas doing the old bar standards: Margaritaville, Let It Be, Folsom County Blues, that kind of thing. Which made us quite happy, for we had been a little concerned that it'd be a gospel sing or something.

As we sat in our nameless chairs, it occurred that not only did we have no lights on around us, but we had a totally unimpeded view of the sky. The Persides meteor shower was peaking that night, so we'd be able to catch LOTS of falling stars. The trick was to stay awake. We were doing really good until this huge, orange full moon started rising, and make all the stars go away. It was really cool how fast that moon came up that night. So about midnight, we called it a long, long day and sacked.

The next morning, I made coffee, and Obbie started breakfast:

Ham chips and scrambled eggs. The ham chips were really good, but really salty (Duh, Virginia ham!!) The coffee, excellent, as all camping coffee is.

We wasted no time getting the site torn down and packed up. We even reorganized the camping stuff and the back of Obbie's truck. We bid adieu to the Swiss Mrs at the campground and beat feet up 81 to get home. By 12:30, we were pulling in the driveway, safe and sound. (Thats our deal, we screw around getting somewhere, but when it's time to come home, we don't waste time. It's nice to go places and see things, but when it's time to be home, it's time to be home. We will be going back thataway. Probably closer to fall/winter. Not in the height of leaf changing season (oh the HORROR) but sooner or later. Since it's only a couple hours down the road (when we're not dicking around) and less than a half tank of gas away (when we're not dicking around)

And there you have it. I managed to milk it out all week, but it's done. I've uploaded all the VA pix to photobucket, but alas, Blogger is still being pricky with it's photo loading. I'll give you bunches next week. Too bad, they coordinated with the story.

In other news, Obbie is done with his warehouse experience, and is back doing the PR thing. Hopefully the new customers that have found his firm are the paying types, instead of the "Bust your ass, and maybe we'll pay you (someday)" types. (They laugh at contracts too) But he has left the temp agencies on a positive note, and in the future, he can always go back to them for other missions if things get slow. Thats kind of cool, I guess, an unemployment insurance policy.