RV ALASKA - 2024 Outdoors RV Owners East Coast Rally

In planning to spend the summer of 2024 in Alaska, Alan and I were working within certain parameters.  We had secured a highly coveted waterfront site at Northampton Beach Campground on Great Sacandaga Lake in central New York for the opening weekend of the 2024 camping season.  Plus, Ryan and Anya (our son and daughter-in-law) and friends Bernie, Carol, Cliff and Diane (fellow Outdoors RV owners) were joining us there.  So, the departure date for our Alaska adventure was actually the day after Memorial Day when we broke camp at Northampton Beach.  At the other end of the trip was the 2024 Outdoors RV (ORV) Owners East Coast Rally scheduled for mid-September at Pocahontas State Park in Virginia.  Because we had missed the last three annual rallies, Alan and I were determined to attend this one.

When we left Dam West on Carlyle Lake in Illinois, we were pushing hard to arrive at the rally on September 19^th.  That would mean two days of driving through Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia and most of Virginia.  After a quick one night layover at Kentucky Horse Park State Park near Lexington, we pushed on to Pocahontas State Park in Chesterfield, Virginia.  By this time, Alan and I were a bit road weary, but the thought of reconnecting with ORV friends, old and new, made the final push worthwhile.  Following the rally, we had planned to spend four nights at North Bend, an Army Corps of Engineers (COE) campground on the John Kerr Reservoir – a large body of water on the Virginia/North Carolina border.  North Bend had been on my bucket list for years, but we never made it there because it was kinda sorta in the middle of nowhere.  As it turns out, “the middle of nowhere” was just an hour and a half from the ORV rally, and Alan and I decided that a few days of down time at a bucket list campground would be an excellent way to end our Alaska expedition.  Little did we know we were in for a surprise ending.

RV ALASKA - Cinnamon Rolls Across America!

I published my first blog post seven years ago in December of 2017.  I started blogging after I escaped from the work force, mainly to document our travels - especially our extended cross-country National Parks trips with our kids.  Plus, I enjoyed creative writing and wanted to do more of it than just produce our annual Christmas newsletter.  And, I was hoping to connect with like-minded adventurers who enjoyed travel and the camping lifestyle as much as Alan and I did.

What has truly amazed me is the number of friendships that have developed during these past seven years.  Connections I expected; ongoing friendships, I did not, but it is with a whole lot of gratitude that I view these relationships.  Many of my connections and friendships are with fellow bloggers; a few are with wonderful people Alan and I have met in our travels.  Today’s post is a story of a friendship that came about strictly due to happenstance and coincidence.  And it’s a “dam” fine story.