Thursday, 5-4-06. Much better day today. We enjoyed a great night’s sleep at the KOA. It was very quiet, and we slept with the windows open under a heavy blanket. The temperature in the daytime has been in the low 80’s, but at night it feels quite cool (maybe 50’s). Great sleeping weather.

There were free Belgian waffles and coffee at the camp store, so after we hooked up and got ready for the day, we had a nice breakfast. We hit the road about 8:30 (on I-95). There was very little traffic. We’ve noticed that once we left FL, the drivers have been very polite. They don’t tailgate, they actually let you merge onto the highway in front of you, they use their signals, and they get back in the right lane as soon as they’ve passed you, and I haven’t heard a horn since we left FL!

My cousin Art gave us excellent directions, and we had no trouble finding the mall where we were able to park the rig easily near the restaurant. It was great fun catching up with Art and Ginny and showing off our new home. They camped for many years, starting in a tent and moving up to larger trailers. They haven’t been camping in some time now, but I think Ginny has the bug again! Thanks for such a nice treat, Art and Ginny!

We went a little further on I-95, then took off on 301 toward Westmoreland State Park. It was a pretty ride through lots of Revolutionary War history. We saw Patrick Henry’s birthplace in Studley, the Garrett farm where John Wilkes Booth was captured after he assassinated Lincoln, and several historic towns. Westmoreland State Park is in the Northern Neck of Virginia, right where the Potomac River flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The park sits on top of high, sandy cliffs, which are loaded with Miocene era marine fossils.

As soon as we got set up, we hiked a lovely trail through a hardwood forest, which angled steeply down to a swamp, ending at a beach at the base of Horsehead Cliffs. We saw an eagle sitting in a tree on top of the cliffs at the beginning of the trail, and a nuthatch creeping down one of the trees. We didn’t have time to do much hunting, but each of us found a shark’s tooth. In a little creek that flowed out of the swamp and into the river, we saw two animals in the water. One was definitely an otter, but I think the other might have been a small beaver or a muskrat (I have to look up muskrats—I’m not sure what they look like). We hiked back admiring the sunset over the river.

We enjoyed leftovers for dinner, and plan to turn in early. Tomorrow we’re going to have a quiet day with no driving. We’ll probably hike back to the beach. While we’re camped here, we’re going to go to Baltimore for the day one day and do the tourist bit. Another day we’ll tour the historic sites in this area. We leave on Monday, probably heading toward Hershey, PA