This year, we were shaking down a new camper on our yearly trip to Martinsville, Virginia.  We typically leave for a week, and take both weekends before and after.  We do take the kids out of school, but are comfortable with this as we have school during the trip.  We let their teachers know about a month in advance, and then take everything they give us and work on it while we were away.

We stopped at Camp Creek, as usual, with Cindy’s parents.  It was cold and windy in the mornings, but very comfortable for hiking.  We did a four mile hike up and over the mountain, which doesn’t seem like too much, until you think that the three year old did this too.  We don’t use strollers or carry the kids anymore, which has freed us up to do more activities.

We then moved down to Martinsville, and took the spot we usually take, leveled the camper, and settled in for the week.  We had cold temperatures in the mornings, up to 70s in the afternoons until Friday.  Friday, it was windy and rainy, a very nasty day.  The weekend was cool, windy, and clear.  The racing was better than it has been in the past, and three of the kids went to the races.

This year, we stayed after the race until Monday, and left the track about 5 AM and drove home all in one day.  Usually we don’t do this, but in this case it was nice to have no traffic and just cruise on home.

This is a brief overview of our trip.  The next posts will have pictures and more specifics about what we did.  We had a lot of fun, and the kids enjoyed it as well

As for the new camper, it fared well, but the power center has an annoying high pitched squeal at certain amperage loads.  One call to the dealer, and a new power center is on its way.  The power center did not fail; just had that headache inducing squeal.