As you might have noted in the most recent post (Part 1 of this section, sharing April 7-10) I was slightly hurried to be done, without time to double-check. You see, I was in a library that closed 15 minutes before I was done, and I rushed to finish the post by 5PM.
In my description of April 9 of that section, I neglected to include two important photos: That of the library where we visited for cell and wifi several times (a very nice library, indeed—much nicer than the one I was working from when I had to rush the finish of the prior post), and the laundromat in Crisfield, which also was quite clean, roomy, and well-equipped. So these two pix are from our April 9 excursion into Crisfield for some “obligatories.” (By the way, I dearly love libraries!)
April 11 in Jane’s Island was laid back as we listened to music, Jack washed Roomba’s windows, and we tidied the living spaces a bit. Our morning began at 46 degrees but didn’t take long to warm a little.
Jack headed to our fave seafood retail/wholesaler, and got enough shrimp for an excellent grilled (skewer) shrimp meal, with go-withs to satisfy the tummies.
Another thing I forgot to mention was the situation at these campgrounds surrounding a dishwashing station. Surprisingly, many campgrounds don’t offer this amenity, which I think is an unforgivable oversight. They’re always going on about not dumping gray water or food scraps around your site, but they force those of us in small rigs (and tenters) to wash dishes on site and dump the used water afterward.
Anyway, we always look for dishwashing stations, and (to backtrack a little) Chippokes had one at the “secondary” bathhouse in our loop, but it did not offer hot water. Pretty sure this was the normal situation (not just a seasonal thing) as it appeared to have no hot water feed at all.
Janes Island, however, had a very nice hot-and-cold-running-water, very clean and accommodating dishwashing station (“counter” space on both sides of the sink). That said, there was an enormous hole where, in a “normal” kitchen, there would be a garbage disposal, so you had to be careful not to lose your spoons down there. Also, they’d evidently had some trouble with campers walking off with their drain plugs, so they wired them to the sink with twisted-strand wire and lock nuts. At the plug ends of the tie, when you reached under the sudsy water for a dish, you had to be careful not to stab yourself with the wire tips beyond the fasteners that had come untwisted with use.
On Friday, April 12, Jack and I took a long ride to a little place called Westover, following the “Crustacean Causeway” north of Crisfield. (Only getting a little lost along the way, and coming back along a different path).
During the ride we passed a broken-down, sad old church, belching vines and weeds from its once-sculpted windows. I could imagine pretty stained glass in them during its heyday.
We also saw a cute tiny house, unfortunately, right next to the big highway, but I had to stop and get a picture of it anyway.
We got back from our ride just as John and Mary returned from another long kayaking trip. After we’d all showered up, we gathered for a Dutch oven jambalaya fixed by John and Mary (with additional shrimps from Jack’s purchase the day before). It was delicious, and J n M wanted to “host” us inside their trailer for dinner, so we arranged ourselves into “Little Debbie” for our meal comfortable, satisfying meal.
Bike Stats
- Ride time=2:20
- Stopped time=57 min
- Distance=30 mi
- Average speed=13 mph
- Fastest speed=22.5
- (There was a truly lovely stretch, straight and slightly downhill, with the wind at our backs just outside of Westover, where we really cadillacked along with little effort and got that “fastest speed” number pretty high)
Our final day at Janes Island State Park (April 13) was rainy. First thing in the damp morning, we discovered a tiny toad, ensconced in the folds of Jack’s camp chair, that had been collapsed the night before and was leaning against the trailer. He was a cutie.
Since it was raining, we spent all day finishing the first of the three jigsaw puzzles Jack gave me for my birthday.
On April 14, we were sad to leave Janes Island, except for the fact that the mosquitoes, which had not made an appearance at all during our week, showed up with some vengeance a couple of the days before we left. All of us were somewhat surprised, as it was pretty cold and breezy. But who knows? Maybe there was a nearby hatch or something. Anyway, we got away by about 9:45 AM with heavy hearts and a promise to return. Next stop: Kiptopeke State Park near Cape Charles, Virginia.
peregrinations 