The Intentional Tourist

I need to apologize for the long delay since my last post. Blogging has not fallen out of favor with me(as it has with most). I still look at my extensive list daily, hoping someone has made a post for me to read. In all honesty, there has just not been anything to write to you about. 

For the past 20 years Beth and I have stated that we wish we had run away for the Christmas break. This year I was truly in the Christmas spirit, but come the 26th I had crashed and regret the whole experience did last the entire year instead of a few debrief weeks. This year we did take full advantage of the Christmas break by heading to Floor e Dah.  It was a sort of spur of the moment trips. This will take a few posts to tell you about so here is the first one. 

We escaped the cold and headed South down 95. It was 27 when we left Baltimore mid day, our first day on the road. Usually we stop before the sun sets, but I had somewhere I wanted to be the first night out. Getting there meant getting through Virginia and North Carolina. BTW, do not expect to negotiate Northern Virginia in a timely manor. They keep building places for folks to live and people keep moving in. They all drive cars and those cars clog the roads where ever you go. Northern Virginia has become a dreadful place to tow a trailer through. It took us 2 1/2 hours to go from Dale City to Fredricksburg. From there on out it was 75mphs via the cruise control.

Around 8pm we pulled into my intentional destination. I am a complete sucker for a tourist trap. Now this campground rates among the top three I have ever been to in all my camping. It was off season, but for $24 with full hook ups. It could not have been better. The bath houses were absolutely spotless. The water was super hot and the heater was going on 11. The temperature outside, 27. 

A good tourist trap has copious amounts of neon lights. Neon lights draw the true sucker in like a moth to a flame.

When I was really young my parents stopped here. They probably just needed some gas. For me, I never forgot the magic of the best tourist trap in America.

Once the trailer was set up, I went and wandered around. How people on the high way were able to not get off I could not understand. A good reason, "the truck stop"had diesel for cheap. Of all the tanks of diesel I pumped into my truck, South of the Border sold it to me by 10 cents cheaper a gallon.  

Pedro was happy to see me come back after all these years...

I wanted to take this photo in the dark. Unfortunately I had already unhooked when I saw the opportunity. Maybe next time.

Another aspect of an excellent tourist trap is their ability to offer you items that you do not need, but absolutely cannot resist buying. 

Every guys needs a peter meter and a switch blade comb.

An excellent tourist trap will make you put things on to see what you look like even though you would never be caught dead in it. Well, in all fairness, Halle would ware this hat a great deal.

Beth would wear this one if she got the part go the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland.

Yeah she would wear it once even though she wanted it.

I wore mine in.

An excellent tourist trap needs lots of bright colors to over stimulate your eye. When your eyes get over stimulated you lose your ability to focus on the main picture.

You end up hyper focusing on things you just do not need.

I almost could not resist the Sirens song. In the Airstream community, an SOB is "some other brand"or "same white box"

We walked out with a deck of cards(that make 6 sets in the games cabinet. At least this one is complete), A key chain(Halle has about 40 of them adding 20 pounds to her school backpack), A bumper sticker(I wish it were available as a water slide decal), and a snow globe bottle opener(it opened about 15 beers before it broke)

An excellent tourist trap makes you want to come back. We did come back on our way home to fuel up at the "truck stop." When we left. 37 degrees.

The next day we drove to Skidaway Island State Park near Savanna Georgia. South Carolina is 181 miles long via 95. This is how the entire State was. We averages 32 mph. You do the math. Now once we arrived at Skidaway Island it began raining. As I unhooked and set up the trailer, it continued to rain. The temperature was 37 degrees. When we woke up the next day, it was raining even harder and the temperature was 37 degrees. Thus the lack of photos of Savanna. I hear it is great city. Maybe next time we will see it.