Heading Back West to Max Meadows Virginia

June 03 - 08, 2015  

We have turned the corner and are headed back east toward Indiana where we will spend a month.  However, along the way we want to add a couple of states to our camping map on the RV.  We are adding Virginia and West Virginia traveling in this direction.  

Now we have Virginia and West Virginia added!  We will get Delaware, Maryland, and South Carolina added in the fall.  That will finish off the east coast from New York south.

Our first stop is in Max Meadows VA at the Fort Criswell RV Park.  This park is basically just a stopover type place just off of interstate 81. It's on the western edge of Virginia and just a few miles away from West Virginia and North Carolina.  Our intentions were to just stay 3 nights and then move on to western West Virginia.  That would satisfy our requirements of staying a night in a state to add the state stickers to our USA map.

Our site is second from left .

On Wednesday the 3rd we left North Carolina and headed to Virginia.  Patty was not feeling well so she dozed off and on for the 2 hour trip.  Once at the campsite, Patty headed to bed for the remainder of the day.  Thursday we got up and we both did our usual routines of internet plus I did my usual exercise work out.  By lunch Patty was tired and she was off to bed again.  Patty mostly slept until the next morning, Friday the 5th.  During this sleeping time, Patty was experiencing a lot of high blood sugars.  I was getting worried that she may be starting to have another bout of DKA.

Friday, Patty was feeling better and we decided to do a historic walking tour of Wytheville VA.  We made reservations to attend a dinner theatero after the tour at a local German restaurant.  Well, that was the plan anyway!  Patty was feeling good and she was actually hurrying me up to “get this day started!”  However, a telltale sign that something was wrong was when Patty took a shower before we were going to leave for the tour.  She came out of the shower completely out of breath, just from taking a shower.  After her shower we decided to take a nap and rest up before the tour.

After our 2 hour nap, I was in the bathroom getting ready to go and that is when things went south for Patty.  I left the bathroom and was on the stairs when I saw Patty piled into the corner of the kitchen on the floor.  Her mouth was open and eyes were closed.  OH SHIT!  Patty had passed out probably from low blood pressure.  She has not done this for over 4 months now.  

I tried to get her up out of the corner and lay her down so I could put her feet up and at the same time trying to get her awake.  I managed to get her partially up and talking a little and then down she goes again!  When she passes out like this she just goes completely limp.  It is just like she died, her bladder and bowels just let go.  Now she is jammed crossways into a space between the sink island and the stove and it is a mess to say the least!

After a lot of tugging and pulling I got her laid out on the kitchen floor with towels around her.  I then took the cushions off of the sofa and placed under her feet.  By this time she is talking but feels real dizzy.  It was 2 pm when she passed out and now it was about 3 pm.  I got a blood pressure cuff on her and left it there so I could check her pressure periodically.  At 3 pm she was 68/47.  Around 3:30 we got her on to the bed. Then by 4 pm her pressure was up to 87/55.  That is when I decided to take her to a hospital so they could get fluids in her if she was dehydrated from DKA.  I was just not convinced that her pressure would remain high enough to stay conscious.

The closest hospital was just 20 minutes away, Wytheville Community Hospital.  Long story short on the hospital stay, she was out in 2 hours.  She didn’t have DKA and was only slightly dehydrated.  All of her blood results came back good. Her pressure was still low at 89/55 but she was not having any symptoms so the doctor released her.  We believe this is just another symptom from her having autonomic neuropathy caused by diabetes.  Autonomic neuropathy is the loss of nerve control of the automatic bodily functions like sweating, bowel function and blood pressure.  There is not much that can be done for this which sucks!  

Since we cancelled the dinner theater for Friday night, we decided to stay another night and see the show on Saturday night.  We went to Walmart before the show and thought we would have enough time to do the tour.  We spent way too much time in Walmart so we just opted to go to a scenic overlook and then head to the show at 6 pm.  The show and dinner were pretty good making it a nice evening out. 

We can see 3 states from here; North Carolina, West Virginia, and of course Virginia.

We are at 3800 feet of elevation.

Something we didn't do, climb this tower!  It's something like 150 feet up
and it costs $6 for the adventure of climbing it.  Ah, no!

Before the interstates, this scenic view was a big tourist trap.  Now it just barely hangs on as a small tourist trap.  It did have a nice view so we enjoyed it!

German restaurant for the dinner theater.

Stage for the dinner theater.  The musical was called Under the Boardwalk.

By staying another night we will need to do a bump and run to get to Crawfordsville Indiana by Wednesday the 10th.  We decided to do the bump and run (stay just one night) on our last stay before getting to Crawfordsville.  Our last stay will be in Richmond Indiana.

On Sunday the 7th we packed up the site and headed to West Virginia.  We had 190 miles to travel to get to the city of Point Pleasant WV.  We are traveling completely across the mid-section of the state.  The interior of the state is just as I imagined, steep winding mountain roads and trees.  The trip didn't at all surprise me, it was exactly as I had imagined.

We arrived at the Krodel RV Park around 4 pm.  This is another less than exciting park, but we usually don't care about the parks we're just overnighting in.  The park has what we want, easy to get to and out of, close to what we want to see, and cheap.  We really would like to have internet but Krodel does not.  The problem with this area is that there just wasn't any place to park conveniently, let alone have internet.  

Our site in Point Pleasant WV.

The excitement started just after we started to set up our site. I was doing my thing with plugging in the power, turning on the water, and attaching the sewer hose.  About the time I am attaching the sewer hose Patty is putting out the slides, which is usual timing.  The slides got halfway out and then Patty comes out and asked if I heard the loud noise.  I didn't here anything.  She wanted me to come around the other side of the RV and listen while she tries to open the slide again.  It sounded terrible, like the slide was caught on something or binding up!  

I checked under and around the slide and didn't see a thing. I had Patty try again.  OK, not going to try that again, it made a bad popping noise that sounded like it came from inside the RV.  I went inside and found that the right fascia on the large slide was completely pulled away from the wall.  Actually, not only was the fascia pulled away, so was the 1x6 backing board behind it.  The backing board was broken about a foot up from the floor.

What the hell can cause that to happen!  Looking behind the edge of the slide I found the body of a wooden dragon we hang from the rear window when we are parked.  The dragon is placed on my recliner while we are moving.  It looks to us like the dragon dropped through the recliner cushions and fell out the back.  This put the dragon body against the pulled in slide side.  When we opened the slide the dragon wedged itself between the RV wall and the slide edge.  The rest is now history.

You can just see the wooden dragon below in the picture.

The fascia pulled away here.

I got out my tools and I fixed the slide back board and the fascia.  I also fixed the opposite slide fascia for the same condition from hitting Patty's recliner a few weeks ago.  Oh, and we broke another ceiling fan blade moving the slides back and forth during  the fixing operation.  We were just not watching and the fan blade caught the slide and snapped off. Now we have a broken blade and a repaired blade.  I am not fixing this one as we have new blades arriving on Wednesday in Indiana.  Anyway, it was not a fun time setting up this time!

Fixed!

We are only just getting our nights (2 actually) stay in here for the sticker and then moving on to Indiana on Tuesday the 9th.  The weather when we got here was great at 90 and sunny.  But on our only day for sightseeing the rain moved in.  We did get in a short 2 mile hike around the small lake here at the park.

Old fort inside the RV Park.  The fort is a representation of the one that was in town.  The original was commissioned by George Washington to help keep the British and Indians away. 

An across the lake picture of our campground.  Directly in the middle is our rig with our truck parked sideways in front of it.

Stay tuned!