Day 12 – Hagerstown, Maryland

Our gang got off to sort of a slow start this morning, but that was OK, ‘cause we didn’t need to go as far today as we have been recently.  I have to admit that I was kind of lazy, even a little reluctant to charge down the stairs and retrieve the phony paper.  That is, until Don told me that he would eat my cookies himself if I didn’t get the paper.  That convinced me, and I scrambled down.  After my breakfast, he took me for a nice walk over to the outdoor stadium and left me outside while he went to the rest room.  While he was gone, a little brown short-haired dog came up to me and introduced himself.  He wanted to know all about me, where I was from, how long I was going to be here, did I like to play, a whole lot of personal stuff.  I got a little uptight about all the questioning, and was glad to see Don come out of the building to rescue me.  We continued our walk, with the brown dog tagging along with us, still peppering me with questions.  I tried to ignore him, but finally resorted to bounding up a hill where I thought he was too little to go.  I thought wrong, he was right behind me.  I went running back to Don, who understood that I was feeling bedeviled by the little guy, and headed us back toward the stadium.  We walked up the steps of the seating area, with the LBD in close company, and stopped to rest at the top.  At this point, the LBD went absolutely bonkers, and started a display that was beyond Crazy Dog proportions; running at very high speed through the seating area, up and down the steps, running by me and barking at me, even taking a little nip at me.  I asked Don to get me out of there.  I knew I couldn’t run, ‘cause the guy would catch me and think I was playing with him.  So we walked back to the rig, with the little one running in circles around us.  I guess I should have felt sorry for him, as he obviously had no folks, and no identification on him.  We stopped on our way out of the park and Geri gave him some of my treats, which was OK.

We headed on up Highway 79 toward the northern border of West Virginia; as we passed the off ramp for Highway 33, Don told Geri that, if we were to turn onto that road and go about fifty or sixty miles, we’d be at a place called Yokum’s VacationLand, which has a RV Park.  Geri said that she had checked our agenda, and she was sure that Yokum’s VacationLand wasn’t on it.  Oh, well, maybe next time.  We were rolling through some lovely, hilly country, covered with trees; West Virginia is a really pretty place, we all agreed.  Don continued to be amazed not to see the name of Senator Robert C. Byrd anywhere!  We finally entered Maryland, and grabbed a stop at a rest area, where Geri and I went for a walk and Don washed bugs off the windshield.  A bit later, as we crested a hilltop, there was a sign identifying the “Eastern Continental Divide”.  Geri and Don were both perplexed by this, but finally figured out that this was where the waters going into the Atlantic and into the Gulf of Mexico were separated.  Sounds OK to me!

It turned out that the route to the RV Park we had reservations at (another KOA!) was very tricky, going over some roads that were just wide enough for our rig.  But we made it OK, and got assigned the last big rig spot they had.  Don spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the front end of the coach, and getting our poor old Ranger unhitched and running.  He’s been towed for nearly 2000 miles straight!  Geri took me around the Park to get me properly introduced, and Don fixed some bratwurst on the grill, with some red cabbage and Bush’s Beans.  Don has discovered a problem with our microwave oven, so he’s using the stove top more till we get some repair work done.  Geri and I took another little walk, resulting in some nice treats for me at the Park Office, then back to the coach to work on the blog and watch a little TV.  I understand that tomorrow, we’re off to visit friends in Alexandria, Virginia, and I’ll get to meet a lovely lady Goldie by name of Abby!  I’m really excited!  Catch you tomorrow night!