Nic and I considered our time with Lisa and Flash to be a vacation.  We spent more than we usually do on dining, drinks, and gas.  It was time to get back to just living life as simply and as cheaply as possible.

Some of the best places to do that are National Forests.  In this case we went to the George Washington National Forest and a place called Wolf Gap.  This was directly west of Washington, DC and on the border between Virginia and West Virginia.  And I mean on the border.  It was literally a 5 minute walk for me to get from my campsite on the Virginia side to the West Virginia border.

Dispersed camping often times means you get nothing except a spot to park in the woods.  Wolf Gap had a bunch of nice-to-haves.  Marked and maintained campsites, a pit toilet, picnic tables, fallen dead wood (for campfires), and fire rings were all available.  They even had level tent pads for the tent campers (which was everyone except us).

Here are some close by things that you want when living off the grid and on the road.  It had a public trash facility only 5 minutes away.  Less than 5 minutes was an artisan well that was maintained by the local 4-H with safe drinking water to fill our tanks.  It also had a nearby recreation area (Trout Pond Rec Area) that had cheap showers or if you wanted something nicer there were 2 truck stops just 20 minutes away.  Finally, it was close to a city that had all the shopping you could need.  

Also it had some kick ass views if you were willing to hike a couple miles to see them.

Wolf Gap was about as good as it gets except it was too cold for Nic.  Days were 50-60 degrees with nights getting down to the 30’s.  I put a Webasto heater in the van this year, so it stayed at what ever temperature we wanted day or night.  This made it possible for us to stay a week at Wolf Gap, but it didn’t give Nic a lot of outside time.  She mostly stayed in the van and read.  I was sitting outside enjoying an all day fire either listening to music or reading as well.  The cold doesn’t bother me the same as it does Nic.

The wife wanted something warmer, so we hit I-95 and started heading south into North Carolina and the Croatan National Forest.  We just got here today, 10/23/18, and set up camp.  It is about 20 degrees warmer here.

My blogging station for the night.