Saturday September 19th

We were heading to another campground in West Virginia but much of our route was in Maryland (so bizarre, need to show the kids exactly where we were on the map, so hard for them to picture it, particularly when I’m shouting, ‘oh, now we’re in…. but soon we’ll be back in……!’). We reached almost 3,000ft at one point and Dave was dealing with some steep grades. The drive was far from boring and, for us, relatively short. As we neared our destination, we crossed over a bridge, leaving Maryland and entered Virgina, just a mile or so further on, we crossed the state line back into West Virginia!

See Harpers Ferry in the distance over the River.


We arrived at the KOA just in time for lunch (apparently Becca in particular was ‘starving’…). This is an amazing campground: smaller, much closer together sites, very much packed in and quite different from what we’ve been experiencing recently, however what we lack in space (I’m sure that will change after tomorrow and people leave for weekday school/work), is more than made up for in activities.

There is a heated pool – not yet closed, much excitement at jumping in there (not from me you understand), a jumping pillow (tried that out after dinner, so much fun!), miniature golf (Jake and Caitlin headed off to play a couple of rounds), Disney movies playing in the large theater (Nate and Becca spent some time watching Ice Age), an extremely well-stocked store (plenty for me to be tempted by), a fun, different playground, not to mention the ice-cream social, pancake breakfast, beach volley and basketball courts, games room, café….definitely a busy campground, but full of entertainment.

.....see the 2 little heads watching Ice Age?


Dave bouncing the kids off the pillows was the best game ever!


However, before the kids got chance to really explore all of the on-site stuff, we whisked them off to Harpers Ferry National Historical Park (literally a minute’s drive up the road) to complete the Junior Ranger program. The NP actually spans the 3 states we’d driven through as we’re really sitting on the corner of them all. Harper’s Ferry was such a key town in history, so much happened there. From the brochure: It is more than one event, one date, or one individual. It is multi-layered, involving a diverse number of people and events, decisions and actions that influenced the course of our nation’s history. Harpers Ferry witnessed the first successful application of interchangeable parts, the arrival of the first successful American railroad, John Brown’s attack on slavery, the largest surrender of Federal troops during the Civil War, and the education of former slaves in one of the earliest integrated schools in the United States.

Jake loves learning about all the wars and is full of interesting questions for the rangers, so this was a perfect program for him. Thankfully some of the requirements held Becca’s interest as well, so that helped the afternoon run smoothly. We were able to walk on a tiny part of the Appalachian Trail, across a railway/pedestrian bridge. While we were walking along the dried up canal towpath, a train rumbled past directly above us, Nathan was enthralled. We made it back to the cobble-stoned streets of the town, totally taking us back to the 1800’s (the kids had dressed up earlier in 19th century clothing), their shops, facades etc were all true to the era, it was very cool. They were sworn in as JR’s and added to the log book.