Camping that night

Ken and I left the motherhouse at 2:30 with great reluctance.  The experience of visiting with Libby, family, and the Sisters was so profound it was difficult to even speak in the car for a long time.  Our hearts were overflowing with gratitude for all that we had seen and experienced.

But we were on our way to a reserved campsite somewhere in Grayson Highlands State Park, and that was a full 5 hours driving away with several periods of heavy rain and very slow traffic, plus losing an hour going into eastern standard time.  So as dusk was falling quickly we found ourselves driving nearly vertically up the side of a mountain, and hoping there would be a less hazardous way back.

When we reached the top of the mountain, the switchbacks began.  Hairpin turn after hairpin turn challenged us for the last 40 minutes of the trip.  We thought of naming those turns: "whose bright idea was this?" "Not another one" "abandon hope, all who enter here"  on and on.   We took a wrong turn at one point, never fun under any circumstances, but somewhat desperate in dark twilight with a camper in tow.  Ken managed to turn around in a field (the front yard of a church that was no longer in use) saving us the prospect of a 10 point turn around somewhere on a curvy mountain road.

I have to laugh now but we did (finally) make it (just before the park closed). The ranger said, there are a few spots left, it's pretty full, make sure you get a campsite with a brown sign, the campground is the second turn to the right.  (The brown sites were non-electric.  When I made our reservation weeks earlier, all the electric sites had been reserved already).

We felt like we were driving into a tunnel as the tree branches met above the road, and tentatively made our approach to the unknown....which turned out to be a very FULL campsite, with the campsites closely packed IN THE TREES.  

I'm sure you are wondering if we ended up back in the field, when---what to our wondering eyes should appear

But the most beautiful sight in the world...

A pull through camping spot! Nothing but nothing could have been more welcome! It was even level! We wouldn't even have to unhitch the camper! Using cell phone flash lights, on the blackest of all nights, Ken and I managed to open the camper, make the bed, rejoice with relief and get the cereal out, when Ken noticed that we were in a red camping spot, not a brown one.  Horrors!  Ken, that honest man said "we have to find another campsite, the person who reserved this site might arrive later tonight."

Naturally, in spite of days spent with the Sisters, my first thought was "Too bad for them!"

But we quickly, and grimly, folded down the camper and resumed the seemingly futile quest of a campsite we could get into in the pitch black (backing in would likely be hazardous to any neighboring tents).

Oh, relief! That one ahead! But how to back down a hill and turn at the same time? Ken checked it out with the van in the road, lights on, and engine running.  It was awkward since it was well after 10 and everyone was in bed...but then Ken realized that he could possibly make this a pull through himself and drive over the tent pad, hopefully without bottoming out enroute.  

So under the cover of darkness, that former Boy Scout broke all campground rules and went cross country so to speak to get the trailer into that spot.

Yay! For the second time that night, we set up the camper (as best we could on that unlevel spot), skipped dinner, gazed in amazement at the brilliant stars for a few moments and were in bed finally by 11:30pm. Before our rattled nerves settled into place, a solitary nut pinged the roof of the camper, and Ken said, "the exclamation point that ends today."

The next morning we enjoyed our first look at the park.

Frazier firs

Wild ponies

Blackberries, blueberries and beautiful vistas.

(And, to our great relief, the camp host told us about road with a gradual descent to take down the mountain with only a few hair pin turns)