Day 60 - Harrisville, West Virginia to Mineral Springs Lake, Ohio

Serendipity is a marvelous thing. It's what makes traveling these United States so much fun. Last night, quite unexpectedly, we stumbled over one of the nicest camps we've yet found on this vacation. This morning, when we left that pretty little camp, we turned the wrong way and moments later we stumbled over a meet for antique engine enthusiasts. This afternoon, while basically off course and lost in southern Ohio, we stumbled over Ohio's famous serpentine mound park just eight miles off the highway. And just a few minutes ago, after searching in vain amongst our guidebooks for a suitable camp for tonight near the southern Ohio border, we stumbled over a fabulous camp with full hook-ups just a couple of miles off the highway. It's not just good fortune, it's serendipity.

The only problem with the nice camp last night was you had to use a "dump station" on your way out in the morning. There were no sewer connections at your site. "No problem," I told Concetta. "Ten minute job."

Well, you know what they say about saying famous last words. The first thing I discovered when we pulled up to the dump station this morning was that the fresh water input hose for flushing the sewer tank after the dump procedure had a female end, unlike every other flush hose I'd ever seen in our travels. That meant I couldn't attach my hose, which meant I couldn't do a proper job of flushing the tank. So, I dragged out all my water-related gear and studied the lot. I had a female-to-female adapter, which was no help. I hadn't used the FF adapter during the course of our three trips and could never understand what you might do with such an item. But try as I might, I could find no male-to-male adapter.

So, it was time to improvise. Noting that my "Y" connector had two male ends, I connected one to the flush station female water supply, and one to my own hose that was connected to our rig. This left me with an open female end. Digging in the pile of water gear again, I came up with a male plug used to force air into the water line to evacuate the lines for winter. This I screwed into the open female end of the "Y" connector. But this fitting had a small orifice where you normally inserted the air gun. When I turned the water on, as you might expect, the pressure on the small orifice shot water twenty feet in the air. Then, on inspiration, I dug a nickle out of my pocket, removed the male fitting from the "Y", and put the nickle against the rubber washer. Then I re-tightened the male fitting and turned on the water. Presto! I was in business.

The next thing that went wrong resulted in one of the best mornings of the trip. It happened because I turned right when I should have turned left when we exited the campground. You may remember this problem from the day before. I don't know, maybe the sun has been missing for so many days in the southeast, my sense of direction is bollixed up. Anyway, after traveling a couple of miles from camp and encountering nothing that looked remotely familiar, we chanced upon a place to turn the rig around, not an easy task when you have thirty feet of rig to maneuver on some two-lane road. Coincidentally, the convenient place to turn the rig was a big open field just full of antique gasoline engine enthusiasts. I pulled in, turned around, and parked next to some other vehicles. "I'll just go over and ask those fellows for directions," I said to Concetta.

Well, long story short, it took me an hour to get the directions and return to the rig. I had such a good time talking with all the guys about their hobby and shooting photos of everything, I just couldn't tear myself away. By the time I left, I'd given my business card to one guy, and received a business card from another. I'd spent at least twenty minutes chatting with an old man who brought two tables of obscure tools that he challenged passersby to identify. Although I'm good with antique tools, more than three quarters of his tools completely baffled me. On the way out, I met a lady who had re-restored her father's antique Ford truck and it was a peach. Brashly, I asked her why she had the wrong horn on the rig. She told me that original Model A horns were just too expensive. I didn't tell her at the time, but I intend to surprise her when I get home and send her the dusty old Model A horn that's been inhabiting my garage attic for the last couple of decades.

So the day got off to a good start after all. Sewer tank dumped. Lots of new friends made. And a few photos taken for the benefit of you readers.

Using the directions that I so laboriously obtained at the antique engine meet, we soon found our way back down the twisty road, and through the dense forest, to Route 50. Nothing to it. Before long we were cruising the nearly empty Interstate and listening to our latest book, "The Lost World," by Michael Crichton. Yes, I know there's a movie, but the book is always so much better. The sun was shining -- a rare occasion lately -- and everything was right with the world.

Our next route change came when we exited Interstate 50 and headed south on Ohio Route 124. Route 124 hugs the western bank of the Ohio River all the way down to the bottom of the State of Ohio. I thought it would be a grand ride and we'd get some terrific photos since the sun was finally out. At that point the skies clouded over and the sun went away. Oh, well, I tried.

Still, we got to see some really charming communities and lots of vintage houses on our route. We did stop at a couple of points to photograph the river, but the resultant photos are not too impressive. For lunch we stopped at a local park in Reedsville, right next to the Belleville Lock and Dam. Here the sun came out for a time and I snapped a photo.

During our lunch spot, it would have been a good idea to consult the map just to make sure we were on track, but we didn't. So naturally we didn't notice that in order to keep running south along the west bank of the Ohio you had to transition from Route 124 to Route 7. When the turnoff came, we just kept driving on Route 124, which headed out into central Ohio. Naturally, when it had been an hour or more since we'd caught sight of the River, I began to get an uneasy feeling. Then, as we passed towns and crossroads, I told Concetta to find those places on the map and let me know where we were. But the towns and crossroads eluded her since she was looking along the Ohio River.

Finally, as we were rolling through the super tiny town of Idaho, Ohio, I'd had enough. At the next crossroads I pulled into a service station and together we began to carefully study the maps. That's when I noticed that we should have turned on Route 7 if we wanted to hug the Ohio going south. As it was, we were now within 75 miles of Cincinatti and, to paraphrase Michael Douglas in "Romancing the Stone," we were way the Hell and gone from the Ohio River. In fact, our own private Idaho, a few miles behind us, probably saved us from what would have been miles and miles of backtracking. As it was, we only had to backtrack a couple of miles, waving to Idaho as we passed, and were soon on Route 32 which promised to take us further to the south and west than we had been going.

You'll remember that serendipity is the theme of this blog post. Well, we were, at first, much happier on Route 32 as it was a divided highway and, in our minds, it held the promise of more camping opportunities. But as we rolled along, many minutes passed and we had not seen any references to camping. Then, as we came within a couple of miles of the town of Peebles, Ohio, a roadside brown sign leaped out at us. The unexpected sign announced that we were within eight miles of the famous Ohio Serpentine Mound that was constructed by Native Americans over a thousand years ago.

Concetta has wanted for years to visit this singular archaeological and cultural site, but we'd never quite gotten this far south in Ohio. We thought first about cruising over there to see if they had any camping available, but decided against it when it was not mentioned on the web. While mulling over the serpentine mound, we took the opportunity to pour over our camp books looking for likely camps nearby, but found none.

So we once again headed west on Route 32. The only campgrounds we had found were at least fifty miles away. I had just resigned myself to another hour of driving, when we rounded a bend and there was a sign for camping. All we had to do was hang a left, drive about a mile, and presto! We were set for the night (see photo left). The only problem with this camp, called Mineral Springs Lake, is that there are over 300 rigs here, many of them permanent. And I think that each and every campsite has its attendant ATV. These ATVs race back and fourth, accomplishing some unknown secret missions, and the rumble of their motors just never stops. The noise is annoying, but another hour of driving would have been worse, I think, so I'm not going to complain, well, too much.

And that's about it. Tomorrow we're head back to the serpentine mound to learn what we can learn. After that, we're headed southwest from here to visit the city of Louisville, Kentucky. My mother's father's ancestors, the Jones family, were living in Louisville at the time of the revolution. I'd really like to visit a library or someplace that might help me trace them back further. But whether or not we get to do that, it will be our first visit to Kentucky and we're sure it will be exciting.

More adventures to come. Keep on traveling!