Ramblin’ Pines Campground in Woodbine, Maryland, has become one of our favorite places to camp. It is located close to our son and his family and we used to live in Maryland for 15 years while Mark was in the Air Force stationed at Andrews Air Force Base. We decided to return to Ramblin’ Pines and visit some favorite places and see a few of our favorite people.
This time around we stayed at Ramblin’ Pines as “monthly” campers. The rate is cheaper, we just had to place a deposit to cover our electricity use. When we checked out, our electric bill was $11, maybe because we spent most of our time with our son, daughter and grandpuppies. Very little time was actually spent at the campground even though we were given a great secluded site with a cute little picnic/fire pit area. We noted that their laundry facilities are nice and are only $2 per washer and $2 per dryer in case we need to use those next time. It really is a beautiful campground and we look forward to visiting again in the future.
Tim and Dear were in the midst of painting and updating their basement. We were glad to help and glad to spend time with them and our grandpuppies, Sam and Oakley. Oakley loves Mark and makes it a point to give him lots of puppy kisses when we visit. Tim, Dear and the pups came out to the camper for smoked pork butt one evening and the pups enjoyed the dog park.
Back at their house, Dear cooked some amazing Thai food for us as usual. I’m going to brag on Dear a bit and mention that she is now an official American Citizen. She passed her test in September and we are so proud of her! Not only is she an amazing cook, she basically excels at anything she sets her mind to do.
We were so happy to see our friends, Mike and Lisa while we were in Maryland! They are already grandparents so we got to hear first-hand about the joys of that season of life. They are considering the full-time RV life-style so we shared some of our experiences with them. It was good to spend time with them and catch up and I’m sure our paths will cross again soon.
Another old favorite we visited was the Ocean City area of Maryland. We took a quick little trip over to Assateague island and spent a couple of days at the beach there.
Our America the Beautiful National Park Pass was accepted and saved us the $20 daily entry fee. If you or someone you know is a disabled American Veteran, you can click here to find out how to apply for a lifetime national park pass for just a $10 processing fee. It is a great way to save some money and see some beautiful national parks.
We loved the Assateague Beach, the wild horses were out and about and the weather was ideal. The beach was not crowded at all so it was just a perfect little side-trip.
While we were in Maryland we had scheduled a visit to Schaeffers RV Superstore in Pennsylvania. This is where we originally purchased our RV and Old Glory had a recall on some wiring. Since it was only 150 miles from our current location, we towed O.G. over and while they were doing the work, we asked if they would look at a couple of other minor things. We needed a propane regulator replaced and a new spare tire and spare tire holder (yes, somewhere in the past few weeks we had lost our spare tire, we don’t even know where or how that happened.) The brakes on the trailer needed to be bled so we asked them to look at those too. Somehow in the process of doing the recall, they disconnected the wire that powers all the outlets in our Kitchen slide. At the time we thought maybe they had blown a fuse or tripped a breaker. We left there and headed back to Ramblin’ Pines with no electric power in the slide. Fortunately, the fridge and stove/oven operate on propane.
To top it all off, when we arrived back at our campsite, we realized we had lost a bolt that had secured one of our leaf springs. Somewhere between Pennsylvania and Maryland we lost that bolt and by God’s grace we made it back safely. Mark was able to troubleshoot the electric problem and fix it after asking advice from Schaeffers RV and in one of the Grand Design Facebook groups. He also located the correct bolt at a local trailer repair shop and was able to remove the old bushing, insert the new one and reattach our leaf spring. Lately Old Glory is starting to feel more OLD and less GLORIOUS. She is also requiring a LOT from our budget and physical stamina. This has been a rough year for Old Glory and hopefully all of her kinks have been worked out.
While in Maryland we saw family, friends, favorite campgrounds and beaches. We even snuck in a visit to Wegmans in Crofton where we saw some old friends that we used to work with. Mark also got in a couple of visits with his favorite Chiropractor, Dr. Matt. Overall it was a good visit to Maryland and those pesky RV mechanical problems couldn’t spoil our adventure! Truly God was watching over us in every aspect of this trip.
Check back for the next blog post when we will be headed back to our favorite state, North Carolina, to visit family, friends and the Asheville VA for a couple of Drs. Appointments. We always feel drawn back to those beautiful North Carolina Mountains…
Love hearing about your adventures and sorry we missed your visit to Moonshine. Looking forward to hearing your news at the end of October too. Take Care and stay safe. Peggy and Robert
Thanks Peggy and Robert! Sorry we missed seeing you too! Hope you are having a great season at Moonshine Creek ????