If you’ve been watching closely, you’ll note that I’ve been a good bit out of my home range, not unlike what I did last year. I did decide to be a bit less epic this year, and omitted Arlington National Cemetery (while I love and miss my parents, big cities are anathema to me) and Massachusetts (I saw what became of it in the 40 years after I left, I’ll check back in another 40 years 😉).

The primary purpose of this trip, like last year’s, was to visit family in Pennsylvania. But that’s just way too long of a drive for one day (for me anyway), so I located a couple of State Parks in Virginia that happened to be almost exactly half-way there. Like before, I scheduled a break from the driving to spend a day hiking in the woods at those State Parks, this time at James River on the way north, and at Douthat on the way back. See those links for details of my stays there.

I kept to what worked last time, early starts, easy schedules, vague ETAs (“I’ll be there late afternoon”), regular breaks (target: every 1.5 hours), and take my time. If someone else on the road is in a much bigger hurry than I am, I let them go ahead. Heck, it’s not like it’s going to do them any good to get there before I do, the campsite reservations are in my name, so they’ll have to wait for me anyway.

Once again, I got to visit the World’s Largest Shop-Rite Supermarket.

The store is said to be 105,000 square feet, and you could spend a day there if you weren’t careful. The store is mostly powered by a 10-acre solar farm adjacent to the store.

While there, we paid a visit to Beltzville State Park, but it was a really windy day and no one in our little group (myself excluded, of course) weren’t too interested in being out there.

Actually, it was pretty windy the whole time I was there, but I’m not claiming responsibility.

But back to the focus of the trip. It seems some of my Sister’s neighbors are following the Sally Forth school of Halloween decorations. If you follow that comic, you’ll know what I’m talking about.


And closer to “home”, my Sister is a Supertastical gardener, and everywhere you look, there are spring flowers blooming.





She’s also a great cook. To earn (or at least return the favor of) my meals, I helped with some of the spring garden prep and planting. I’m looking forward to getting my share of the blueberries 😏.

I’m already thinking about my next trip up north next spring (PTO willing). I think I’ll return to Douthat State Park, VA and hike the other side of it. There’s also Natural Bridge State Park, VA that’s also in a geographically-advantageous location I might check out.

The trip by the numbers:
Statute miles driven: 1413.0
Fuel used: 35.309 gallons
Elapsed trip time: 27 hours, 33 minutes
Most expensive gas: $3.359/gal in Hamburg, PA
Cheapest gas: $2.519/gal in Laurens, SC
States traversed: 6: SC NC VA WV MD PA
Statute miles hiked or walked: 46.4 (that I recorded)
Unread work Emails upon return: (check back Monday, I haven’t looked yet)