Chores and R&R at Bull Run (Again)

I declare the camping season open! Sure, the weather hasn’t been great today; but it could have been worse. Sure, we spent more time working than playing today; but we could have been at home doing the same thing. This is our first outing of the season and a necessary one since we don’t have the luxury of keeping our coach at home. This is the weekend we get things set up so we can enjoy future outings with the sole purpose of having fun.

Bull Run Regional Park (BRRP) is about 16 miles (25.5 km) from where we live. Since we keep early hours at work, we were able to leave the house shortly after 3:00p yesterday and miss most of the west-bound traffic that tends to clog the freeway during rush hour. An hour later, we were checked in at the campground and trying to figure out if our assigned site (104) was going to work for us.

It’s an easy drive from our house to the campground.

When we stayed at BRRP last year, we had an electric-only site on the outer loop, with plenty of privacy. This time, we reserved a less-private, full hook-up (jurisdiction rate $43.58 with tax) so we wouldn’t have to worry about water usage while we worked to make the Phaeton spic-and-span clean.

Best laid plans and all that. When we pulled into the site, it immediately became obvious that we’d have a heck of a time getting the rig level. We were willing to give it a shot, but then Mui noticed that the water hook-up was broken. A phone call to the camp store fixed that problem within minutes. By then, however, we were sure the site wasn’t going to work for us. So, while Mui filled the fresh water tank, I returned to the camp store and arranged to relocate to a 50-Amp, electric-only site (jurisdiction rate $34.12 with tax) on the outer loop.

So far so good, right? Wrong! We got to the site, leveled the rig, deployed the slides, and went to hook up the power. No Power!!!! Nada!!!! Zilch!!!! A phone call to the camp store quickly brought someone by to take a look. A flurry of switches flipped — still no juice. More switches flipped — power on … no wait, it’s off again. Long story short, the power was finally restored to the pole, but there was no power in the coach! What to do? With overnight temps projected to dip below freezing, can’t not have power. Then, like magic, there was power. Mui’s theory — all that switch-flipping must have confused the surge protector and it took a while for it to reset itself and allow juice to flow into the rig.

We're in #29, next door to the site we stayed in last time.

It was 7:00p by the time we were finally settled down for the day. After a quick dinner of leftovers we’d brought from home, we relaxed for a bit, watching an old episode of Without a Trace on TV. By 10:00p, we were under the down comforter snoozing away. Well, Mui was; I had a bit of difficulty falling asleep at first because my body just refused to get warm — happens to me sometimes if I let my body temperature drop too much. After a while, I too must have dozed off as the next thing I remember is Mui getting up shortly before 6:00a.

The outside temp was 33F (1C … actually less). As you can imagine, that made it awfully difficult to leave the warm cocoon of the bed. But we roused ourselves, cranked up the thermostat to warm up the coach, and were soon having breakfast. Later, while I cleaned cabinets and put things away, Mui took a quick trip back to the house to meet up with a buyer for one of our “Craigslisted” furniture items. (Yes, the downsizing has begun.) It was worth the trip; the buyer decided to also buy one of our wool rugs! And not to worry; Mui was put to work with his share of chores once he returned to the rig.

Since we didn't need to tow for this short trip, we brought the hybrid instead
of the toad; more carrying capacity.

By lunch time, most of the work was done and we were ready for the R&R portion of our weekend. What to do was the question since it had been raining on and off all day. Just then, the sun peeked through the clouds. Before it could go back into hiding, we took a walk around the campground, checking out sites for future visits. The consensus — the electric-only sites on the outer loop are the best for privacy. We also glimpsed the cabins that are available for rent (staying in one of them would have been an option had the power situation not resolved itself last night).

The passenger-side is heavily-forested; nice when the foliage greens up.

We returned to the coach just as it started to rain again. While Mui read for a while, and then snoozed for a bit, I played with the post-processing of the photos I took around the campground. (I shoot Raw, so I have to process them before I can upload them for the blog.) I have a free-copy of Picasa on my laptop, and I have to say that I am impressed enough with what it does to consider paying for the upgraded version of the application. That said, I don’t like processing images on a laptop when the angle of the screen changes the way the colors look. I’ll have to look at this post on my Mac at home before I make a decision.

Scenes from around the BRRP campground.

By the way, BRRP does not have wi-fi. Last week, we decided to test Millenicom for our internet connectivity. The fact that there is no long-term contract was the deciding factor for us. We’re starting with the 20GB data package, which uses the Verizon 3G network. So far, we’re very happy with the speed. For this short weekend trip, we’re taking turns using the thing-a-ma-jig (aircard, if you want to get technical) that gives us the connectivity. We plan to take our router when we go on our 10-day trip coming up later in April. Plugging the aircard into the router should give us simultaneous connectivity. That, and figuring out how to monitor our usage, is TBD.

Anyway, dinner time is at hand. The rain has stopped, and the sun is out again. The temp has risen to 50F (10C), but it will start going down again soon. I think we’ll skip al fresco dining tonight.