I am catching up on travel reports. The end of June / beginning of July was busy. First up was a concert/camping road trip.




So, June 23 (Thursday), Jeff and I packed up and drove north. Our first stop was Charlottesville. The trip up was uneventful. We got checked into the Charlottesville KOA¹ for the night.

Jeff headed off to a Marian Call house concert for the night. I stayed at the campground, went swimming in the pool, and read books for the evening, and it was glorious.²

The next morning, we got up and moving and pointed towards the DC area. We met up with gorski and ambermae for lunch at Cracker Barrel, and then went grocery shopping for the weekend.

The rest of the weekend was camping with yesthatjill, flummox, and a friend of theirs. We stayed at Bull Run Regional Park.³

Friday night, we fixed Thai soup for dinner, and then Jeff and I ran off to the second Marian Call show of the night, at Thinkgeek headquarters. That was a good show - Marian really knows how to play to an audience, it was a gorgeous night, gorski and ambermae were good company, and overall, it was just charmed.⁴



Saturday was a typical camping day: eat nap read knit walk suduku Angry Birds roast marshmallows talk about food for the next camping trip. We did french toast and sausage for breakfast, the canonical meat/cheese/fruit lunch, and chicken satay, cucumber salad, and sticky rice for desert (it was a Thai themed weekend). The satay was amazing, the cucumber salad was amazing, and the rice was good but didn't quite turn out right.

Sunday, we had to be checked out by 10, so we packed up and headed out. The northern end of the group headed home, and we headed for the Udvar Hazy Center, where we had a good visit with everything that can fly, and a few things that can't, including the space shuttle Enterprise. I continue to be amazed and flummoxed at the variety of craft that humankind is willing to send itself up into the air in.

Then we pointed the car south and headed home. Very very good weekend.

1. Very clean, very nice staff, flaky wifi (satellite connection, it was really out in the middle of nowhere). Grade A, would stay there again.

2. I like Marion Call just fine, but wasn't up for 2 concerts in 2 nights. The alone time was the best decision ever.

3. Very nice, very clean, not too crowded. Lots of kids, because the campground has a water park. Sites that we thought would be water/electric were just electric. Nice and close to the bathhouse. Big sites. The combination of the screaming children and the on-site shooting range was disconcerting. Half our party had to drive through DC, one during commute hour. Would stay there again, but only if we wanted to stay near DC cheaply.

4. The insanely cute young teens who chimed in "Brains!" at just the right point when Marion started talking about the zombie cheer leading song did not hurt.