Days 7 & 8: We Like to Move It, Move It!

Normally, the travel back home from vacation can be a let down. You start making a mental list of the things you will need to do to get ready to go back to work: grocery shopping, laundry, sorting through the mail. For this reason, we always try to pepper in some fun pit stops to make our ride home palatable. The drive from Tennessee to Connecticut is around 13 hours, but 13 hours in an RV with five people and two dogs can easily turn into 18 hours, so we happily split the trip into two parts.

Our final destination for Thursday’s trip was Middletown, VA, in the northern Shenandoah Valley. – around 383 miles or six hours. Apart from a few stops to stretch our legs and let the dogs out, we drove pretty much straight through. While Lemmy was happy to be on the road again, Finn was less than thrilled and resumed shaking and hiding his head for the duration of the trip.

Nearing the end of our driving day, we all needed to stretch out legs for a few and we found just the spot – Luray Caverns, just a few miles from Middletown, VA. We’ve had some good finds on our road trips, but this was a gem of a park, tucked into Shenandoah National Park.

Luray Caverns is the largest cavern system in the eastern United States. These caverns boast 10-story high chambers full of rock formations of every imaginable texture. Some look like coral, while others look like folded cloth or glacial ice. There is even a dream”lake” (really only 12-18 inches deep) where the ceiling is reflected into the pool of water and appears like an aquatic abyss. We agreed it looked scarily like the Upside Down from Stranger Things! Luray Caverns are estimated to be over 450 million years old and are formed from a mild carbonic acid from the soil mixed with water that seeps through the ground, coming into contact with the limestone layers which hollows out the bedrock to form the hollow chambers. Erosion slowly wears away the weaker minerals, leaving the harder minerals behind to form the walls and ceilings. The stalagmites (coming up from the ground) and stalagmites (hanging form the ceiling) are formed as water drips into the chambers, releasing carbon dioxide, and crystalizing. It’s incredible to believe that these formations grow only one cubic inch every 120 years! The natural colors are formed from different minerals collected by the water – calcium carbonate (white), iron oxide (reddish-brown), and manganese oxide (grayish-black). We met some characters working in the caverns who pointed out some of the more interesting structures and regaled us with historical tidbits and cavern lore. I think these folks have spent a lot of time in the caverns.

The ride to the Wayside Inn, our Harvest Host campsite for the night was less than an hour from the caverns and is normally a beautifully scenic ride. Unfortunately, this area was hit with wildfires in late March and we saw the devastation firsthand. Miles of blackened forest, foliage completely eradicated. Rain moving into the area helped contain the fires which impacted both national forest land and private lands across 3,400 acres. Fire is frightening and difficult to control and this one began on private property with a downed electrical. Although it may take 100 years to completely recover, amazingly some regrowth is already evident on the ground. Nature is amazing that way.

The Wayside Inn 1797 did not disappoint. This gem of a Harvest Host was originally a stagecoach stop and way station as far back as the 1740s. It has 22-guest rooms decorated in 19th century-style and boast a quaint tavern with live entertainment. We set up shop in the parking lot and sat down for a delicious dinner (and some beers for the grown ups) before retiring to the camper for the night. I really think we could do an entire cross-country trip just staying at Harvest Host locations across the U.S.

Day 2 of the journey home felt a little more rushed. With just a third of a tank of water, we had the shortest showers ever before gearing up for the final leg of the trip. Rob and I were both a little groggy from waking up frequently throughout the night to the camper violently shaking from 50-60 mile per hour winds. We just could not catch a break from wild weather! In fact, that wind whipped us along our drive home – so much, in fact, that we had to slow down our speed. You would think a rig like Kevin wouldn’t be so easily shaken, but today was a two-hands-on-the-wheel kind of driving day. In fact, the number of tractor trailers pulled over in the rest areas was astonishing. No one likes driving in the wind.

While we had no grand stops planned for the day, it is customary for us to stop at one novelty roadside attraction. Behold, the World’s Largest Paint Can! Located in Shippensburg, PA, this former water tower was purchased by the Benjamin Moore store in Shippensburg and repainted (complete with handle) to resemble a giant paint can. A couple of quick snaps and it was onto the home stretch!

Pulling into our neighborhood is always both exhilarating and bittersweet. Exhilarating, knowing you will be able to stand up straight and shower without having to contort yourself to shave your legs or turn the water on and off as not to run out of hot water. Exhilarating also describes how I feel to sleep in my own bed…we are so incredibly fortunate to have a huge, comfy RV, but you know that feeling when you sleep in your bed for the first time after vacation… there’s nothing like it. Bittersweet is knowing you had an incredible vacation, but that it is now over and you have to return to work and school and millions of kid activities in just a few days. It is also knowing that you have a mountain of laundry to wash, fold, and put away. The worst.

No one was happier than this guy as we pulled into the driveway… home sweet home!

Kevin is parked, unpacked, and plugged in. We’ll be heading out to the Charlestown Breachway in just a few weeks, but for now, it’s “See you later!”