Heading North to home. We’ll be back this winter for a longer visit.

Our first stop was to see the Grand Kugel in Richmond, VA. It’s so cool!! And not to be confused with your brunch casserole. This kind of kugel is a stone sphere sitting on a jet of water, allowing it to be turned with ease. This particular kugel, sitting in front of the Science Museum of Virginia, is the largest in the world at 29 tons. We were indeed able to spin it around and change the direction of the spin without much effort.

Breaking our trip north into 3 days, we stayed at the Oak Ridge Campground in Prince William Forest on our first night. This was another nice campground run by the National Park Service. There were a handful of campers there, but it was very quiet. Located just south of Washington, DC and right off I-95, it is a very secluded spot. Our Scamp is serving us well, giving us a good night’s sleep and a comfy place to call home on the road.

Our last long day of driving took us through Washington and Baltimore, into NJ and north of New York City. We encountered our first driving restriction as we approached Baltimore, where the tunnels do not allow propane tanks. We took a detour through Baltimore – maybe not the most efficient route, but we made it to the other side.

Our last Atlas Obscura spot for this trip was the World’s Largest Lightbulb, in Edison, NJ. This is located at the Thomas Edison Park in Menlo Park. The lightbulb, 13 feet tall and weighing 8 tons, sits atop a 12-story tower on the spot where Edison invented the light bulb. The bulb is illuminated at night – maybe we’ll stop by on another trip through NJ.

We made a quick stop at an RV dealership to pick up antifreeze for the upcoming winterization. Here’s a good size comparison of our Scamp to one of the many big rigs we saw on our trip.

Our last night in the Scamp was spent at Beaver Pond Campground in Harriman State Park in NY. Being a holiday weekend, the campground was fully booked (although it looked like quite a few spots decided not to camp). We were warned of wildlife activity in the area, and were visited by a few deer. The campground is adjacent to a lake with a huge beach. All was closed due to Covid-19 but we were able to have a nice walk along the lake.

After our morning tea, we drained all of the water and ran antifreeze through the plumbing, getting ready to pack her up for the winter. She’s tucked away safely for now, but can be ready to go on a moment’s notice. We’re thinking of a trip to the beach after the holidays, then another attempt at California. Our first trip was a huge success, and we look forward to more!

Back out through the cattle gates and on the road to North Carolina.

We took a quick spin through downtown Asheville to see what the town is like. It’s really cute, and we definitely need to go back for an official visit. A bit south of Ashville is Chimney Rock (not to be confused with the Chimney Rock that we saw a week earlier in Nebraska). It’s a very twisty, winding road from Ashville, but pulling the camper was fine. We entered the park to start an even more winding road, but saw a sign, “all RV’s pull off here”. There was an office there, but it was closed. What to do? We’re pretty small – do we need to leave the camper here? Do we want to leave the camper? But we wanted to check out Chimney Rock. We backed the camper into a corner of the parking lot, took it off the hitch, locked it up good, and drove away. It was probably best that we left the camper down at the base. We would have done ok – until we met a truck coming in the other direction.

I had read about Chimney Rock and remembered something about 187 or 257 steps up to the top. That’s a lot, but we usually climb lighthouses when given the chance, and that’s about a lighthouse. We had a short hike through a hickory forest before the stairs started. And they went on, and on, and on… Slow and steady and we made it to the top. It was pretty crowded, but the view was great and it was fun to have done it. Coming down, I decided to count the steps – 635! My calves finally stopped hurting 4 days later! The camper was patiently waiting for us at the bottom – Phew!

That night we had reserved a spot at a Harvest Hosts vineyard. Harvest Hosts is a program where vineyards, breweries, farms and museums offer free overnights to fully contained campers in exchange for a purchase. It’s a fun alternative to traditional camping and you can meet some great people. We stayed at Hanover Park Vineyard in Yadkinville, NC. Once we got the camper settled, we had a snack of smoked trout and crackers with the red wine flight. They have tables set up outside and we chatted with the owner and some of the guests, then took a stroll through the vineyard. It was a beautiful day and a nice, relaxing afternoon. Once you patronize the establishment, you may end up spending more than you would at a campground, but it’s good to support them, especially in these times.

One more day of driving and we’ll be at the beach! We were eager to get our driving done, and didn’t come across any easy sights, so nothing to report for this day – other than the wonderful Atlantic Ocean waiting for us.

And the Scamp fits nicely under the house!

We spent 3 days at our beach rental in Oak Island, NC. We hadn’t been down since last winter, so it was good to check in – especially after the hurricane hit in August. Since the house is on piers, we don’t get the damage from the storm surges, but we did have 3 feet of water under the house. We did some clean up and small repairs, visited with neighbors and friends, and walked the beach. Oh, and took long, hot showers! We would have stayed longer, but renters were coming in…

Onward toward to east coast – another day on the road, driving through Nashville and Knoxville, TN. In another time, we would have loved to stop in these cities, but settled for a glimpse from the highway.

Knoxville was the home of the World’s Fair in 1982 (who knew?). There are still some remnants of that in downtown Knoxville. One of these is the Sunsphere – a gold glass sphere 26 stories high. The glass is coated with 24-carat gold, making it a striking sight in the city. There is an elevator that you can take to the top observation platform, but we just admired it from the outside. The Simpson’s fans may remember Bart Simpson visiting the Sunshpere, only to find it had been converted to Wigshpere.

Camping options in this area were harder to come by. We were surprised to see that campgrounds had no open spots. We drove by a couple of these and they were packed! I jumped onto the Hipcamp site and found us a spot in a cow field south of Knoxville. The directions were to turn into the field, make sure you close the gates behind you, and camp anywhere. The cows weren’t in these fields that night, and we parked next to the barn. There was another group camping on the other side of the barn. No luxuries, but we don’t need any extras when travelling in our cozy Scamp. We chose to ignore the cell tower at the end of the field, and it was so foggy in the morning that we couldn’t even see it.

Even with a visit to the dump station on our way out of the campground, we can get on the road pretty fast in the morning. With just a car, we might have driven all the way to the coast with one or two more overnight, but pulling the camper adds time and days can get really long. That left us with 3 more overnights and 4 reasonable driving days. We finished off Kansas and flew through Missouri, heading for a camping spot south of St. Louis in the Shawnee National Forest.

But, we needed an Atlas Obscura visit! How about the World’s Largest Catsup Bottle? This 170-foot tall water tower (70-foot bottle on 100-foot legs, holding 100,000 gallons) from Brooks, once America’s #1 tangy catsup, was built in 1949 in Collinsville, IL. When the property was sold in the 1990’s, The Catsup Bottle Preservation Group was formed to keep the structure. We were able to pull into a nearby strip mall and grab a few pictures. You used to be able to smell the catsup when the factory was in operation – I guess there are worse smells to encounter when leaving the house (but I still miss the jello from the east side of Winchester).

On to our campsite at Johnson Creek Recreation Area, a National Forest Service campground in the Shawnee National Forest in Illinios. Tucked well off the main road, we saw only one other camper that night. This was an honor system check-in, where we filled out a form and dropped it in a locked box with our $10. The campsites were large and spread out, although that didn’t matter with no one else around. Another quiet, uneventful night – just what we wanted!