Belle Isle State Park -Part II We Have Company

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Later in the day we decided to give a call to Guy's childhood friend Brian W. who owns a house about 1/2 hour from the campsite to see if they were down for the weekend.  They were and we invited them to head over for dinner and to see the new camper.  It was so fun to get together with Brian, his GF Kim and their "baby" Tater.  We shared stories, laughed, had a great dinner cooked over the fire of course and just visited.  It was low key and so fun they came back on Sunday and we did it all over again :) Having friends at the site was an added bonus and made the weekend even more fun.

Belle Isle State Park - Part I - Setting up

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Guy decided he wanted to do a break-in weekend with the new RV over Labor Day weekend and tasked me with finding a place to take it that was about 2 hours from the house.  With only two weeks out, this wasn't that easy but we did find Belle Isle State Park had availability and was in the Northern Neck which we both loved so a reservation was made.As I always try to turn 3 day weekends into 5 day weekends I took Thursday and Friday off work and we headed out Thursday mid-day. We wanted to leave by 12:00 but had a small delay in getting the 5th wheel hooked up to the truck. Okay not a small delay it was actually a hour long delay but after some wiggling and waggling it connected and we were off.Arriving before the official check-in time proved to not be an issue and actually gave us almost the entire campground to chose from. Since we didn't have the golf cart we decided to stay close to the bath house and chose site 10 which had a long pull through and had tall trees on both sides. It proved to be perfect with lots of shade, although next time we will take 15 if it is available as it proved to be the most private with woods on three sides.Set up posed its own set of issues as it took us 45 minutes to get the camper off the truck. Something about a slide lock and neither of us noticing it LOL. It won't happen again.Once we were able to get this issue resolved everything came together in no time and we were able to head off to the local Wal-mart (30 minutes away local) and grab some food and drink supplies for the weekend. We spent the rest of the day and evening just hanging out at the site and a bit of driving around the park.  Here are some of the photos I took:The truck and camper combo... The welcoming bike barn at the entrance to the camp grounds (this is where they store the bikes that are available for rent).  More about that later.CampgroundsOur Campsite Up next - We have visitors 

Our New Visitor

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So a few days ago Guy calls me to tell me we have a new visitor who looks like he is going to stay for a while and he sends me this picture.  Yes this young man/lady has learned to leap from the porch to the finch feeder, turn upside down so as to hold on and enjoy a tasty meal. He is so comfortable that I was able to walk all the way up to the window and video him.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMR-hjJOrGsThe feeder, it gets moved ASAP says Guy.

Reflections

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I took this while riding over a bridge in the Northern Neck a few weeks ago. I just thought the clouds looked cool over the bridge.   It was just an ordinary shot though so I was wanting to try something new with it so I opened up the Lightroom 5 develop module, dropped the exposure and then activated the all new radial filter.  From there I brushed over the circular mirror to highlight the bridge and clouds and reset the expose in the circle to its original setting, then I set the feather to 65% to ensure a smooth transition and that was it.  It literally took less than one minute to make the adjustment.  I think it's such a cool effect.  Not something you can use all the time, but with the right shot it can be lots of fun.  Have a great day.

The Cougar

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Went with Guy Saturday to shop for a new camper. He was ready to upgrade and knew he wanted a Fifth Wheel but other than that was open to lots of ideas and options.  I will be the first to admit I don't know much abour camping or RV's but I am learning and always have ideas (lol) so I was more than happy to shop and help spend his money :)Wow there are so many options, I had no idea how plush and home-like some of these campers can be.  We must have looked at 10-15 and after the first few I was getting totally confused as to which was which but after a hour or two I really had my favorite three in mind (based on asking him lots of questions on what he wanted and liked and how he planned to use it). He also had his top three choices so we compared notes and we both had the same camper as our #1 so he bought it.Here is the new Keystone Cougar High Country.  He brings it home in a few weeks and already we have plans to take it camping over Labor Day weekend for the test trial.
Not bad is it? Definitely more Glamping than camping in this unit.The only thing that would have made this a more perfect unit would have been if it had a fireplace inside.