Camping at Bull Run

Thursday, 13 September — Monday, 17 September

Nothing like returning from a trip one night and going camping the next night.  Bad planning?  Not really; we had a raincheck for the campground at Bull Run Regional Park (BRRP) and wanted to use it before our next big non-Phaeton trip — a family visit in October.  So, we returned from our domiciling trip to Florida Wednesday night and headed over to BRRP after work the next day.

While we were busy the entire time we were camping, we didn’t do anything particularly exciting.  Nor did I take many photos.  So, I am going to do one combo-post to cover all four days.

Site 109 is a spacious 50A FHU site; it is one of the more level sites in the loop.

We left the house Thursday around 3:30p, picked up the motorhome, and drove to BRRP.  By 6:00p, we were settled in site 109 in the FHU loop ($41.50/night + tax) and off to dinner at Carrabba’s Italian Grill.

The company I work for gives each employee a $25 allowance at Christmas to purchase any gift card of our choice.  I had opted to get one for Carrabba’s, because there’s a restaurant on our way to and from Bull Run.  I figured we’d easily find occasion to use it.  Hah!  I never thought it would be nine months before the card finally saw the light of day.

We both wanted something light, so we ordered off the Cucina Casuale (casual kitchen) menu.  We were very pleased with our choices — a cup of sausage and lentil soup (spicy) and an Italian cobb salad with salmon instead of chicken for Mui; a caprese panini with chicken for me.  Delish!  We came home with a yummy tiramisu; portioned out, it took care of our dessert needs for a couple of nights ;-) … aren’t we being good!

The Cucina Casuale menu has some light fare that is quite tasty.
[photo snip courtesy of the carrabba’s website]

Friday was a work day for me; and a busy one at that with two proposals due in the afternoon.  Mui worked on projects around the motorhome; several of them blog worthy, so I will write about them separately as mods to our Phaeton.

He also took care of a section of the driver’s side window that has had a broken seal for a while.  Our plan was to get it replaced in Red Bay, but with several inches of water collected between the panes, and droplets of moisture obscuring his vision enough to create a hazard, he decided to take action now.  He managed to shatter the outer pane to bits and remove it without damaging the inner pane.  Don’t ask me how he did it; I was busy with a proposal at the time — which is probably why he did it when he did it … he knew what my reaction would be.  Anyway, the glass safely removed, he ran a bead of silicone around the rim, and used his glass scraper to eliminate the calcium buildup on the remaining pane.  Doesn’t look pretty perhaps, but at least he can see out the window now.  Sorry; no photos.

Saturday and Sunday found us doing things around the motorhome.  The weather was chilly enough to warrant sweatshirts and windbreaks when we went out to ride our trikes several times each day.  The mid-day temp both days warmed up nicely from the mid-50F (12-13C) range at 6:00a to about 71F (22C).  Although Saturday did eventually get up to 78F (26C) for a short while, Sunday’s high only reached around 73F (23C).  No complaints; we love these temps.

Mui set up the screen shelter and I spent most of both days out there, processing photos in order to publish the blog posts for our Florida trip.  I also found time to do a couple of loads of laundry and read a long-forgotten book that I had started when we went to the Smokies last April.

We each have our own workspaces; and they both allow us to enjoy being outside.

As for Mui … he continued his mod projects, and also installed front and rear lights on the trikes, and set up the bike stand he bought recently to be able to do maintenance on the trikes once we get on the road.

Mui just loves tinkering with the trikes!

It was a great weekend; our only complaint was the loud music filtering over to us from the KORUS (Korean-US) Festival at the Special Events Center Saturday night.  We ended up closing all the windows, but unfortunately that wasn’t sufficient to keep out the singing that often sounded like someone was strangling a cat!  Luckily, the performances ended by the time I went to bed at 10:00p.

Strapping on the trash and recycling bags, Mui goes for a combo trash run/trike ride.

At BRRP, check-out is at 11:00a, but $10 buys you time until 7:00p — what a deal!  This gave us another full day at the campground on Monday.  It was a work day for me, and though it wasn’t as busy as Friday, there was plenty to keep me at my computer inside the coach most of the day.  The temp was only 51F (11C) at the start of the day and barely got up to 65F (18C) by noon, so I didn’t mind being inside as much as I might have had the temps been conducive to sitting outside.

Mui bucket-washed both the toad and the coach before taking off to have lunch with his friend and former boss.  By the time he returned, it was quitting time for me.  Debating between just chilling or taking one last trike ride before packing up the coach, we opted for the latter.  It’s been nice not to have to unfold and set up the trikes every time we want to go for a ride.  Mui set them up on Saturday, and we’ve been leaving them out overnight, chained to the wheel of the Phaeton.  Each run we did this weekend was about 5 miles (8 km), so we put about 25-30 miles (40-48 km) on the trikes.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.

At just before 6:00p, we left the campground.  After putting the coach back in storage, we headed home.

The countdown to retirement is progressing at lightning speed.  There’s a lot to do between now and then, not to mention our upcoming trip to Turkey.  It’s doubtful that we will have an opportunity to take the Phaeton out camping again before we get on the road in December.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean no posts until then; I have all the mods Mui did this weekend to write about.  Stay tuned.