Friends on the Road

A common question or concern for people contemplating the full-time RV lifestyle is one of loneliness. After a long career working with people everyday, what would it be like to leave everyone and hit the road full-time. For us, we had the rare opportunity to work with the same group of people for many years, some for over 20 years. They were, and still are, family. Yes, for those that don’t know, we worked together for the last 20 years or so of our careers at Kodak / Kodak Alaris.

We had heard an anecdote that your first couple of years on the road were all about traveling to see new things and checking items off the old bucket list. Later, as you meet other full time travelers and make new friends along the way, your travels become tweaked in order to include hooking up with these new RVing friends. You couple this practice with the desire to route your travels such that you can visit friends or family at their fixed sticks and bricks home, and life on the road is no longer as lonely as one might think. Such is the first 3 weeks of our third year of retirement.

After spending three weeks in the Rochester area to catch up with our long time work companions and a lot of quality time with our grandson and his parents, we started south once again. After a brief three night stay at Ives Run COE campground in northern Pennsylvania, we set up camp at Merry Meadows Recreation Farm in Freeland, MD. This is the closest campground to our dear friends (and former co-worker) Brian and Cindy. Hooking up with Brian and Cindy has become an annual fall event since we’ve been on the road. This is the third year in a row that we spent a couple fun filled days with them and we would love nothing more than to have it continue in years to come.

Our first day together was spent in Bel Air, MD, where Brian and Cindy now live. We finally got to check out their lovely condo and the surrounding area. A long walk along the beautiful walking trail that passes by their place, followed by lunch at a local establishment was just the beginning. After a brief rest on the deck of their home, we were taken to the local dairy farm for an ice cream (like we said, they know us well). After the afternoon delight, we returned to their home for a lovely meal grilled out on the deck before heading back to our campground to rest up for our morning bike ride.

Just a couple miles from our campground was a parking lot and trail head for one of Brian and Cindy’s favorite biking trails. We met them at the parking lot and had a wonderful 20 mile ride. When we returned to the parking lot, we took our bikes back to secure them at the campground and returned to the parking lot where we temporarily stowed their bikes in our truck so we could carpool for the afternoon’s activities. Brian had scoped out a couple breweries in the area and offered to be a designated driver as we checked them out (did we mention that they know us well?). The weather for our two days with Brian and Cindy could not have been better and we can’t thank them enough for their hospitality and the opportunity to spend time with them. We are already thinking our return trip north in the spring will include a stop in Maryland to see our friends once again.

We left Maryland on Monday, the 5th of October (our 2 year retirement anniversary) and spent a couple nights at Shenandoah Valley Campground. We took advantage or our proximity to the Shenandoah National Park to squeeze a hike in and grab a magnet for our fridge. This makes 9 national park visits in 2020. The year hasn’t been all bad. On Wednesday, we returned to one of the first campgrounds we stayed in when we hit the road only this time we were meeting up with friends that we’ve met since we started this lifestyle. Back in early August, we made arrangements with fellow travelers and good friends, Rob and Laura, to spend a couple weeks together in Virginia and North Carolina. We suggested Chantilly Farms for the first week and they found Bandits Roost COE in NC for the second week.

During our week in Floyd, VA, we hiked part of the Appalachian Trail to McAfee Knob, hiked a grueling 12+mile hike along the Blue Ridge Parkway and visited several craft breweries. Almost 3 days of rain did not dampen our spirits as we enjoyed each other’s company, watching football and playing games. The setting at Chantilly Farms is gorgeous, especially when autumn brings colors to the trees. This annual transition was occurring before our very eyes as the colors were rich and more abundant at the end of our stay than they were when we arrived.

The move from Virginia to North Carolina was an uneventful, sunny drive and we arrived at Bandit’s Roost Campground (a COE campground) in the early afternoon. Our site was long and narrow for the rig but came with a very large gathering area down a short flight of stairs from our doorstep. Rob and Laura’s site was just beyond ours but did not have as big of a yard so we spent all our outdoor time at our site.

On the morning of our first full day in North Carolina, we took a hike around the winding mountain bike trail that borders the campground. In the afternoon, we were blessed with a visit from a former co-worker, Gary Randolph and his wife, Cheryl. They live a little over an hour away and were happy to drive up and see us to hear about our adventures and to catch up. It was nice to introduce Rob and Laura to friends from our past. We all had a great time.

The weather remained gorgeous for our stay in Bandit’s Roost. We hiked almost every day and spent most afternoons and early evenings outside enjoying the campsite we had. We smoked a couple of chickens one evening and Rob cooked breakfast for everyone on Monday morning.

The two weeks passed by quickly and it was soon time to part ways. We will head towards Smokey Mountain National Park and Rob and Laura will head to South Carolina and onto Florida. We will meet up again soon, however. Like we said, travel plans often morph to enable friendships to grow and a future blog will feature Rob and Laura among others. Stay tuned and we’ll try not to be too lonely.