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Eating our Way across America

November 13, 2006 By Leave a Comment

Seafood Gift Packages
Fabgrandpa and I have often told people in fun that we are “Eating our way across America”, but dang, I think we have outdone ourselves this week. Last Sunday night, we went out to dinner at Nick’s, a local spaghetti and steak place. There were about 12 of us there–it was supposed to be a “goodbye dinner” because Gary and Faye and Russ and Liz were leaving for the season the next day.

So, the very next night, because none of the above people actually left, we did it again at Virginia Street Cafe. Since my daughter was visiting from Norfolk, she went with us both times. Now, this group of people is loud, and sometimes rowdy, but we have a good time. Gary and Faye and Russ and Liz finally left on Tuesday morning. Gary and Faye went to Unicoi State Park in Georgia, where Fabgrandpa and I will be headed tomorrow. Russ and Liz went to Ft. Worth, Texas.

We let it rest for one night, then on Wednesday, 7 of us–me and Fabgrandpa, Charlie and Lynn, and the other Russ and Mary went to Cocomo’s in Deltaville. Cocomo’s is THE BEST SEAFOOD PLACE in the Northern Neck of Virginia. We had to drive 22 miles to get there, but we have trekked over there at least once a month since we found out about the place. We also took Jay, the new manager guy, with us. We raised a glass in toast to our friendship (ok, so we only raised the glass to our mouths and drank, there was no actual toasting). We were loud, rowdy, and had a very good time, again. Said our goodbye’s. Again. On the way home, I told Fabgrandpa, “We have to eat at home from here on out because I want to have room in the freezer for a dozen crab cakes from Something Different to take home with me.” And he said, “Yes Dear”.

So, I am standing there washing the dishes (you ask how could I possibly have dishes to wash with all this eating out?) and getting ready to cook some chicken and rice for dinner on Sunday afternoon, when there is a loud knock on the door, and there stands Lynn, IN THE RAIN, asking us if we want to go out to Nick’s tonight. OK, she twisted our arms, ever so slightly. And so, we were out to eat last night, AGAIN, saying goodbye, AGAIN. This time it was me and Fabgrandpa, Lynn and Charlie, and Mary and Russ. I really love this bunch of people. We will be back up here in March, and I as I told Lynn, be ready to go out to Virginia Street Cafe the first Monday night after we get here. Maybe before that…

The Best Crew Ever:
Faye and Gary
Liz and Russ
Charlie and Lynn
Mary and Russ
Me and Fabgrandpa.See ya all in the spring!


Filed Under: Friends, Virginia, Workamping Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Time to Go

November 10, 2006 By 1 Comment

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I had to go down to the dock to get my crab trap out of the water for the last time on Tuesday afternoon. The view from the dock was wonderful, all reds and oranges from the leaves changing. I had to go back home to get my camera. This first photo, in case you have never seen one, is of my crab trap sitting on the dock. It is so sad to think there will be no more crabs until next year!


This next photo is taken over by the employee parking lot down by Robinson’s Creek. The dock you see there is on the other side of the creek. My friend Lynn and I drove around for about an hour in the golf cart taking pictures of the entire place.


I didn’t expect it to be so busy here this time of year. We had two Halloween weekends, with tons of campers coming for the “Haunted Hayrides” on Saturday nights. On the last weekend before Halloween, there was a costume contest. All the kids and a lot of the adults were in cotume all day. One cute little boy about 5 years old had on a power ranger costume with padding in it to make him look like he had big muscles. And one pregnant woman was dressed as an oven, and her hubby had on a chef hat! How cute is that?



Last weekend the town of Urbanna had their 49th annual Oyster Festival. We had 705 arrivals in two days. We were hopping busy but it was not really that bad. All of the us who work here were really amazed at how smoothly it went for us. The festival lasts two days. They had about 90,000 people there for the event.

Rebecca came up to visit us on Sunday, and we went out to eat with our co-workers that night. There were about 12 of us in all, and we laughed all evening. Then, we did it again on Monday night before Rebecca went home. Two of the couples we worked with left on Tuesday morning. Gary and Faye went to Unicoi State Park in Georgia, and Liz and Russ went to Ft. Worth, Texas to work at Cowtown RV Park for the winter. Fabgrandpa and I will be leaving this coming Tuesday to join Gary and Faye at Unicoi. We worked there last winter and loved it there. It is about 10 miles from Fabgrandpa’s parents house. I’ll be there in time to cook Thanksgiving dinner for them. We’ll be back here on the river next season, though. Working here has been really fun.

Filed Under: Friends, Life on the road, Virginia, Workamping Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Autumn On The River

October 24, 2006 By Leave a Comment


The leaves are turning to autumn colors beautifully here at the Rivah! These are down by the dock behind the campstore. Across Robinson’s creek, they are gorgeous!
This is the view from the employee parking lot where I work. It is the first thing I see every morning right before I go to work. This is one of the reasons I love working here.

Filed Under: Life on the road, Virginia, Workamping Tagged With: , ,

Weather or Not

October 8, 2006 By Leave a Comment

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We had a another very busy weekend here at the campgound. It was the annual Down on the Rivah Rally,which included a dinner on Friday night, followed by a concert with a country music band; breakfast on Saturday; an all-you-can-eat steamed crab feast on Saturday night; and breakfast on Sunday morning. There was also an RV show in the park for the weekend, with several dealerships from the area displaying new travel trailers, 5th wheels, and park model trailers for sale. And there were supposed to be river cruises on the company boat.

However, there was that bit of weather know in this area as a “nor-easter”, that dumped several inches of rain and brought 30 mile per hour winds on Friday. The front stalled in Virginia and dumped even more rain on us on Saturday. So, with about 220 rv’s scheduled to arrive Thursday and Friday, and water standing in a lot of campsites, it made for a lot of work just to get the people parked when they arrived. We only had about 20 “no-shows”, which was pretty good, considering…

Most of the rain was about 30 miles west of us along the route of I-64 from Norfolk to Richmond. They were getting about 4″ of rain PER HOUR! Because it was to the west of us, we only got about 4″ of rain in two days, but the flooding in other areas caused a lot of our campers to have trouble getting here with roads flooded or washed out, and they had to make detours. The rain and high wind along with the October full moon caused a really high tide for this time of year and our dock where the boats come in was under water for about two days!!!

We all had to work long hours. I opened the office on Thurs, Fri and Sat at 7:45 am, and worked there until 5 pm. On Friday night, I went over to the Group Rally Center next door and worked on the serving line until 7pm. On Saturday, I worked until 2pm in the office, then went to the GRC and worked on the serving line from 5:45 til 9:oo pm. It was fun though, and even though I was tired, I had a good time doing it. After we finished serving the crab feast on Saturday night, the manager gave each of us a flat of crabs, which is about 18 or so steamed crabs. My friend Lynn gave hers to me because she doesn’t eat them. I took them home and cracked off the shells, and put the legs and and meaty little crab bodies in the fridge. It makes them take up less space in the fridge if the shells are taken off. So now I just have to eat them all!!! :) I just LOVE steamed crabs!!!

The boat rides up the Rappahanock River had to be cancelled on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, Fabgrandpa and a couple other guys were hard at work pulling the floating dock by hand out to the boat (with people on it) so they could board the boat for the cruises That was the only way they could get people on the boat. I have posted a pic so you can maybe see what I am talking about. It was like he was pulling a ferry from the boat ramp out to the boat. Anyway, he was having a good time doing it, bare feet and all.

Filed Under: Fabgrandpa, Virginia, Workamping Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Dock

September 25, 2006 By Leave a Comment

The main reason we came to Virginia to work this season is that my daughter the artist lives in Norfolk. She moved up here about eight years ago to go to graduate school and never left. She is pretty much a Virginian now, and probably won’t leave there. She has visited us where ever we have been, but we decided to make it easy on her to come to see us. The place where we are living and working is only about 85 miles from her home. Here she is on a recent day trip to Kilmarnock in an antique store, hamming it up with a fake cake.

Like I said a few posts ago, she was an art teacher at a private school for children with learning disabilities for several years, but has decided to pursue her dream and work on marketing her own artwork. She entered her first juried art show and won Best of Show! We were very proud of that.


The second reason (well, it came in pretty close to being the first reason but I couldn’t very well say to my daughter that eating crabs was more important than being close to her!!) we came to Virginia is the abundance of blue crabs, free for the taking, out of the river. All you have to do is put some chicken necks in your crab trap and go back the next morning and there they are. Steam them with some Old Bay seasoning, and you have the best dinner (or lunch or breakfast) you could ever want. And if for some reason you forgot to put the chicken necks in your trap, someone is always bringing you some already steamed. How could anyone NOT want to be near a place where they could have steamed crabs anytime they wanted them?


Finally, here is the real reason we came here:
FabGrandpa loves to fish. Here he is “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay”, fishing his heart out. This campground is on Robinson’s Creek, which goes into the Rapphannock River, which goes into the Chesapeake Bay. There are six or seven docks to fish from on the creek, canoes for rent for getting even closer to the fish, and a large freshwater lake on the property. He goes fishing on his lunch hour almost every day. Fishing is what keeps him happy. Oh, and I love fishing too!

Filed Under: Daughters, Fabgrandpa, Life on the road, Virginia Tagged With: , , , ,

What Did I Wish For?

September 13, 2006 By 1 Comment


While I was out riding around the campground looking for a pink rose I had seen earlier in the week, I found this lovely flower instead. It was supporting itself in the rosebush. If I had not been looking for the rose, I would have missed this little treasure.

The existence of this little flower reminds me of the lifestyle my husband and I have made for ourselves. We have chosen to support ourselves by working in the campgrounds we want to visit, having been drawn there by the beauty of the surrounding area. We get a chance to stay longer, as if putting down roots if just for a little while, and explore an area more closely than if we were only able to stay for a week or two.

While we are there, we have the time to search for the everyday, the places where the locals eat, the sights they go to see, and the things they do for fun. And if what we find while we are looking is not exactly what we were looking for, the we change what we are looking for. You never know what treasure you may find just because you look for something else.

Filed Under: Life on the road, Virginia Tagged With:
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