Virginia - Days 10 & 11

Newport News Park Campground
Sunday, 10 and Monday, 11 March 2019

Daylight Savings Time kicked in overnight, and count me as someone who doesn't like it.  I've been a morning person my whole life and really don't like having the mornings get lighter and lighter - and then all of a sudden are thrown back into darkness.  Instead of sunrise at 6:20, it's now at 7:20 and it might as well still be winter, as far as I'm concerned.

I don't play golf so see no need for sunsets later than they have been.  And I'll bet Benjamin Franklin would have disapproved ("early to bed, early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy and wise").  Unlike people who have jobs and schedules the time switch doesn't really discommode me, but I don't like it.  The people who want to make it permanent must be people who like staying up late at night.  (grumble, grumble, gripe, gripe)

Both Saturday night and Sunday night, Dexter woke up at about 1:00 and started growling, and then giving little woofs, and then actually barking, and ignored me when I told him not to and when Gracie got upset and started walking around.  I don't know what on earth Dext would have been responding to.  The campground people say there are deer and rabbits here, which I'm sure is true given the way the dogs react during our early morning walk.  But those wouldn't cause him to bark.  I'd think someone was walking around outside, except this part of the campground is almost deserted.  Whatever it was, it sure disrupted my sleep 2 nights in a row.

And then there's the sudden change in Gracie's behavior, where she now suddenly jumps up and runs - runs - from one end of the RV to the other, and then shakes her head really hard, and then lies down and acts like nothing's wrong.  Until a little later when she suddenly jumps up and ... ditto.  That wakes me up too. 

Sunday morning started with pouring rain - the dogs got completely soaked on our first walk.  Dexter shakes off a lot of it but Gracie's like a sponge and apparently is afraid to shake - anyway, she doesn't.  So the towels got soaked too.

Then Sunday afternoon it was clear and t-shirt weather.  Nice change.

I finally checked my email today and learned that an old family friend had died.  I've known Mrs. Blackwood since I was about 7 years old and can still hear her voice.  She laughed a lot and made things seem happier.  Momma and I would drive down to Houston now and then to visit, and what was hard about those visits for me was the contrast between Momma, who was gradually losing her memory, and Mrs. Blackwood, who clearly had all her original brain cells.  But she was so patient with Momma and it was always good to see her again.  I'm so very sorry she's no longer part of our current world - just our past one.

I extended our stay here in the campground until Wednesday - I'm having trouble getting going, for some reason, and there are still places in this area I want to visit.

On Monday I noticed the morning weather reported a 20° difference in temperature between Washington, DC, and Norfolk.  And there's only about a 3-hour drive between them.

A couple of the other campers here told me the Corps of Engineers operates campgrounds at some of the lakes they're in charge of, and that there's one in the middle of southern Virginia.  I'd just been spending several hours trying to find open campgrounds near places I wanted to go, and this one hadn't popped up anywhere.  But the couple assured me they'd stayed there only a few weeks ago and were the only people there because most of it's not officially open this time of year.

So I looked it up, and sure enough they were right.  Philpott Lake in Bassett, VA (and no, I'd never heard of it either).  It looked like the campground areas are built on the side of a pretty steep hill, so I'm going to have to think this thing through, but the couple had an RV the same size as mine, so apparently it's doable.