Oct. 5-10, 2016 Chesapeake Bay Area: Solomons & Chesapeake, VA

Crossing the Potomac River

We leave Shenandoah NP and head for the Kadey Krogen Annual Rendezvous.  We have never attended one of these before but we wanted to support our good friends Marty & Suzanne who are chairmen this year. Another reason, since we have become full time cruisers, we have met so many wonderful fellow Krogen cruisers; we were looking forward to seeing everyone.

To throw a curve into all of these plans, a Hurricane by the name of Matthew was working its way through the Bahamas and heading to the east coast.  Two worries arose: will they have to cancel the Rendezvous and will Day Dreams be ok in her covered slip @ Lamb's in Jacksonville, Fl. Time will tell.

Mr Chairman, Marty

A gaggle of Krogens

Garry & Jacque, so good to be
back together with them

First, good news as we draw closer to the Solomons: the hurricane track is forecast to take an eastern turn, totally missing the Solomons. The Rendezvous is ON!  We arrived by RV, our land yacht as did 2 other KK owners. A few boats didn't make it but the majority arrived without a problem. After a multitude of shuffling boats around-the party begins.  We reconnected with Waterford, Sea Dweller, Changing Course, Lauryl Ann, Alizann, Texas Ranger & more. It was great to see everyone-making it more like a reunion than a rendezvous. The classes we attended were very helpful, the food and drink were great and the company was superb. The lobster & prime rib dinner on the last night was delicious and we were able to dance off the calories. A great time was had by all and old friendships were renewed and new friendships were formed. What we love most is learning all the helpful tips from fellow experienced KK owners. We were not allowed to keep the RV's at the Marina at night so we stayed at a nearby private campground called Chesapeake Ranch Estates, along with Jeff & Susie Parker in their mini-winny.

Day Dreams survives!

Now we still had to worry about Day Dreams and Matthew. Matthew swiped the coast of Florida but swerved just a bit east as he got close to Jacksonville. They did get wind and surge but not any where near what was predicted.  Thank Goodness.  On the last day of the rendezvous, we heard from Roger, who we had hired to keep an eye on Day Dreams and he gave us the all clear and all good message! Whew, another reason to celebrate.

Our next stop was to visit our nephew John, meet his new girlfriend and see his new house.  His new home is located in Chesapeake, VA very near Atlantic Yacht Basin Marina where we were last year for Hurricane Joaquin, which didn't hit us either.  John & Christine have a very nice home in a great wooded neighborhood & they even have a Palm tree in their back yard.  It was a pleasure meeting Christine & her 2 sons Zach & Jake. We ended up needing to go out to dinner due to a power outage left over from the storms. We ran into a lot of flooding and more power outages as we searched for an open restaurant in the area. Once back to the house with the power restored, we all had fun playing monopoly.

Doug needed a pic of this-reminiscent of his days building
for Honda 

October 1-5, 2016 Shenandoah National Park, Virginia

Our last and 13th National Park for 2016 is Shenandoah NP in Virginia. The great Skyline Drive through this park boasts 75 scenic overlooks and winds through the Blue Ridge Mountains for 105 miles.  Though we did not drive all of the Skyline, we saw 70 miles of it and stayed at 2 of the NP campgrounds. The views were beautiful even on the misty mornings.

Appalachian Trail marker

The Appalachian Trail runs 101 miles through Shenandoah NP and we were lucky enough to hike a few miles on it and meet a few of the mighty brave hikers along the way. We met a young couple who had started hiking in Maine at the beginning of the trail about 4 months earlier and were hoping to complete the trail by November in Northern Georgia.  They told us that they average about 3 miles an hour.  The Appalachian Trail is 2100 miles long and is very rough in more ways than one.  Most of the trail is not maintained and is steep and narrow. The backpackers we met, were in great spirits and we shared some M&M's with them.  After our short hike on the trail, which by the way, is maintained nicely while running through the NP, we figured we averaged 2 miles an hour.  Calculating if we hiked five hours a day, totaling 10 miles/day it would take us 210 days (7 months) of hiking to finish-obviously not on our bucket list!

A lone hiker along the trail

We stayed in the Loft Campgrounds for 2 nights then moved 30 miles to Meadows Campground for 2 nights.  Each site was very nice with lots of trees, even apple trees and fire pits. Deer wandered through frequently.

Monument to the CCC

We hiked every day and found pretty waterfalls, babbling creeks, rocks, boulders and peaceful woods. The trails were steep, some with over a 7% grade.  We hiked to the Lodge and Visitor Center. We watched a great movie about the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp) boys in the 1930's.  We have always respected the work that was completed by the WPA and CCC. Much of the buildings, roads and trails in the NP's were constructed by these hardworking men.

With all of our hiking and visiting 12 other National Parks this year, we had not seen a bear. So, on our last day in our last NP, we were walking back from the Ranger station to our campsite and while passing the picnic area we see Yogi!

We are going to miss the sights & smells of camping and the parks: grass, trees: pine & cedar, flowers, leaves and campfires. I won't miss having dirty feet!


As we head for the Chesapeake Bay-there is a Hurricane warning just issued for the entire east coast named Matthew, a serious concern for us and Day Dreams.

Doug's so talented-he can play Solitaire with his eyes closed
I guess the hiking was exhausting!