Our trip to the Peaks of Otter National Campground was delayed. The roads were slick from more than four inches of rain and there was a thick fog that we hoped would burn off so that we could enjoy the next leg of our journey.
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| An Airstream trailer ahead of us as we traveled to Peaks of Otter National Campground |
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| Rosie is still there! |
It didn’t. Sure, there were a few pockets of light fog along the way, but the majority of our time was spent inching along in a “pea soup” fog. The Blue Ridge Parkway looked very different in that foggy atmosphere. Drivers had to be very cautious as they drove through the twists and turns of the Blue Ridge. It was a white-knuckle day from tightly gripping the steering wheel.
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| The fog made it difficult to see the sights along the Blue Ridge Parkway |
The Peaks of Otter Campground was operated by the National Park Service. Similar to most NPS campgrounds, your camping fees gets you a site without hookups for your RV.
Someone could use the word “rough” to describe this campground. It appeared that maintenance was deferred for a long time at this park. It also appeared that individual sites were carved out of the hilly terrain without any thought of how level or, more appropriately, unlevel a trailer in that site might end up. Needless to say, we had to use more leveling tools than normal to correct a pronounced side-to-side lean.
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| Rosie in the campground |
The front to rear level issue was another problem. Our site included a space for Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, and space for our truck on the side of Rosie. The RV space had an incline that was probably more than 15 degrees. We knew that we couldn’t raise the front end enough to make Rosie level, so we ended up putting the trailer in the truck parking space, which didn’t have as steep of an incline.
The National D-Day Memorial was close to this campground. It was very sobering to hear our guide's description of that momentous day.
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| The National D-Day Memorial |
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| General Eisenhower |
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| The D-Day Landing |
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| The D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia |
Here are some specifics about this campground:
- Our site was paved with asphalt and was very unlevel
- Our site did not have any electrical, water or sewer connections
- There wasn’t a WiFi signal over our site
- AT&T did not place any level of service over our site
- There were several restrooms with running water in this campground. The one closest to Rosie was a long hike and it didn’t have lights to help at night
There was a huge deer population around this campground. We had to be very careful when driving in the area.
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| Mother and child crossing the road |
We knew that hooking up and leaving the campground was going to be a problem and it was. We had to wait until the trailer across from us left before we could start our process. Once that trailer left, we had to block the road to hitch Rosie to our truck. No other campers could leave until we actually pulled out from our site.
Rosie's hitch also added pressure to the hitch-up process. Our ProPride hitch uses a stinger instead of a ball and is less forgiving when the angles of the truck and trailer are off. Fortunately, one of the members of our WBCCI Taste of the Blue Ridge Caravan saw our problem and offered to help. That was just what we needed.
Whew!
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| At a restaurant in Bedford, VA |
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| The lodge at the Peaks of Otter |
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