West Virginia Excursion

We departed Renfro Valley Sunday morning around 10:00 AM in beautiful sunshine and clear blue skies above; a perfect day for travel and a continuation of the weather we had experienced since arriving in the Valley. The drive was uneventful. Chuck led, Larry was tail-gunner, and we were in the middle. Our destination was Beckley, WV.

A Flying J stop for fuel was not smooth. The pumps were partly disabled and that made it difficult to fill, since some coaches only fill on one side. The pump credit card mechanisms were not working properly. We ended up almost going through in single file. This was not a big problem, but it did take us a long time to fuel up.

We arrived in the Beckley area mid afternoon. Chuck had found a "campground" that looked good on the Internet, but we had not seen it. Chuck is our "lead dawg" for a lot of reasons: he researches and prepares for every trip; he has several GPS devices to guide him and us along the way; he sets a comfortable pace and always waits for "Red Light" Larry when he gets caught at an intersection; and, he catches his share of bugs on his windshield, although he lets too many pass through to the coaches behind. With all his great qualifications, Chuck made a boo-boo Sunday.

Without going into too much detail, let me say it is an event when three motor homes around 40 feet in length, each towing an automobile, make a U-turn in the middle of a four-lane highway. It was Sunday and traffic was light. It was still a sight to see.

We eventually located our destination, and it is unique. Raleigh County has an armory that has RV parking. This is a paved parking lot on a hill overlooking the armory with full hookups. Some electrical outlets are 30-amps and others are 20-amps. We found three together with 30-amps.

Happy hour Sunday night was a relaxed time when we celebrated our successful trip and looked forward to starting our WV adventure Monday morning.