North Creek Camp Turns Into Colon Hollow Rd Camp

When we got to North Creek however, the campground was closed to vehicle travel so we took a detour and stayed on Colon Hollow Road nearby.

This is where we tried to stay.

This is where we ended up staying, option 2 from the second picture above.

Peek a boo campervan.

View from the top.

The roads were very narrow and at times I thought we might fall off the mountain as we tried to find the correct camping location.  Eventually we made it to where we thought we were supposed to be.


We weren't quite sure if where we stayed was technically an allowable dispersed camping location, but we went with it anyway.  Our heat and fridge stayed on all night!

Camp at Braley Pond

We tried to start a fire in the fire pit but the wood was too wet and we couldn't find enough dry twigs to collect to really get our fire going.  The ground was covered in snow and ice so that didn't help our search very much.  After about an hour we gave up and went back into the van to make some dinner and settle in for the night.  This is what our failed fire pit looked like the next morning.

We turned on the furnace to get it nice and warm inside.  We had some soup my mom had packed for us and George cooked some chicken he had bought at Aldi.

Then we got the bed out, climbed into the bunk and went to bed.  Around 2am George got up to check on the furnace because it was not blowing warm air anymore.  When he got down he also noticed that the refrigerator was no longer on, which was also running on propane.  It was very odd.  He turned the furnace off then on and relit the fridge.  The furnace came on again and started to blow warm air, but then the fridge would go out and then the furnace wouldn't blow heat anymore.  What a mess!

By 3am George decided to turn the generator on and run our small space heaters.  He would run the space heater for about 30 minutes and then give them a break and turn the generator off.  It went like this all night.  We discovered that we lose about 10 degrees an hour.  When it's 21 degrees outside it can get very cold very quickly!  Needless to say we did not get a very good nights rest.

This was our camp  at Braley Pond in the daylight.

We walked over to the pond then headed back to the van to get on our way.

We drove towards Staunton, VA to find an RV service center for our propane issues and a Ford dealer for our windshield wiper issues.  These were the roads out of Braley Pond.

We stopped at Fisher Auto Parts and they directed us to O'Baughs RV Service Center.

O'Baugh's was able to get our propane issues fixed and directed us to O'Baughs Ford for our windshield wiper.

Ford wasn't able to help us with the issue so we decided to set aside our wiper issues and get on the road.

We headed towards Reid's Gap and got on the Blue Ridge Parkway around milepost 14.

We drove until we came to barricades around milepost 61.  The Parkway was closed due to snow and ice.  We decided to camp at North Creek in the Jefferson National Forest.

Skyline Drive Here We Come...Maybe Not...

We left Annandale, VA on December 11th.  As usual things did not go smoothly.

We packed up the van the night before and the morning of our departure my mom loaded us up with lots of fresh fruits and veggies, spices, snacks, and goodies.  We also stopped by Aldi and picked up a few other items and headed for the Skyline Drive entrance in Front Royal, VA.

We knew it would be a possibility that Skyline Drive would be closed due to the recent weather and icy road conditions and sure enough it was closed.  We asked the Ranger if there was a possibility of it reopening within the next day or two and were told that our chances we not good especially since another system of winter weather was headed that way bringing with it more ice and snow.  The Ranger thought that possibly sometime the following week it may open.

We didn't have that kind of time so we decided to make our own Skyline Drive.  We headed west towards the George Washington & Jefferson National Forests and decided to take Fort Valley Road south through the National Forest.  The road conditions were clear and the views were spectacular.  I remember driving through the National Forest during the summers as a child and visiting the natural springs, but I had never been there in the winter.

We made our way to the summit of one of the mountains and met a pair of gentlemen who had been out bear hunting.  They had stopped at the summit to make a phone call.  The higher elevation allowed for better cell phone service.  We chatted for a bit then went on our way.

We reached the end of Fort Valley Road and decided to head for Luray ,VA, then changed our minds and headed for Waynesboro, VA in hopes of hopping on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

On the way George tried to clean the windshield and the wipers would not wipe.  So we had windshield washer fluid all over the windshield with no way to get it off.

We finally pulled over and cleaned the windshield and played around with the wipers.  They would not work, but at least we had a clean windshield again!

We continued toward Waynesboro but it was quickly becoming dark so I started to look for a place for us to spend the night.  We found Braley Pond in George Washington National Forest and changed direction and headed west.  We made it to Braley Pond and after a little searching found where we thought we were allowed to camp.  It was about 6pm by then and very dark out.  We found a campsite we were happy with and settled in.

Thanksgiving Break Van Modifications

Here are some recent modifications we made to the van.

We installed an 1100 watt inverter to power our AC appliances using our golf cart batteries and solar panel.


It will push our entire entertainment center.


And we wired the microwave circuit with a transfer switch to allow it to work off batteries without starting the generator.

We installed a new Ginwood head unit so we can finally listen to CDs, have an auxiliary input, and actually hear music over our engine and road noise. It is wired with a master switch to run off our battery bank and eliminate the need to have the vehicle on accessory and the possibility of draining the chassis battery.



Four new speakers complete the SYSTEM.


Next, hydraulics...(well, sort of.)

Marine Corps Museum in Quantico

Washington DC has many wonderful museums to visit and for the most part they are all free.  Having grown up in the area or nearby we had already been to many of them.  The National Museum of the Marine Corps however is fairly new and neither one of us had visited it yet so we decided to drive down to Quantico and check it out.  It was very interesting.

The museum opened on November 10, 2006

The US Marine Corps was created on November 10,1775