In Search of Dolphins, Beauty and the Beast - STR-2021-2

Tuesday, 1 June

While Sprinty relaxed at Deep Creek Lake for a few days, his humans attended to some final preparations for closing out their "summering in Maryland" chapter which began in 2005, 16 years ago. Despite some chilly, rainy weather, Sprinty got some loving in the form of a bath, another coat of wax, and a new electrical do-dad that Darrell managed to convince Kris was a good idea. While Kris may have had her doubts, she knew it would keep Darrell occupied for hours which sometimes is reason enough for a project.

About 6 weeks ago, Darrell mused that it might be fun to meet the authors of the amazing blog "Living in Beauty" (LivinginBeauty.net) which chronicles the travels and adventures of Jim and Carmen Beaubeaux. They have lived full-time in an Airstream travel trailer, named Beauty, since July of 2016. So we reached out to them to see if their summer travel plans might intersect with Sprinty's. The closest points of our respective travel plans, time and distance, was their planned stay at Shenandoah National Park in early June. While their travels have them going to Ohiopyle (less than an hour from Deep Creek Lake and start point of one of our favorite bike trails) later in June, the dates did not line up for Sprinty as he was going to be headed West by then.

Google Maps says the campground the Beaubeauxs are staying in at Shenandoah NP is 166 miles from Deep Creek Lake, with a driving time of 3 hours and 17 minutes. Naturally, Sprinty suggested taking three days to get there, departing Deep Creek Lake on Tuesday morning for a planned Thursday afternoon rendezvous with the Beaubeauxs.

The first activity of this adventure was golf at Fore Sisters Golf Course in Rawlings, Maryland. It is a course we have played several times, but not often as a few of the holes are rather quirky.

With a modest (for Sprinty) travel distance planned after golf, we made a tee time for noon, later than usual. In part because previous times we played Fore Sisters there have been large mens' leagues playing in the morning and partly to allow a leisurely morning. As is often the case, we were ready to commence this adventure well before the appointed time, so we departed early. We even made time to pick up a couple of grocery items on the way.

When we arrived at the golf course, we heard a noisy sound that resembled a whining fan belt. As Darrell had made an electric modification over the weekend and Sprinty had his belts replaced by the Mercedes medic just before the trip, we were somewhat concerned. Upon stopping and figuring out the source of the high pitched noise, we found out was was the cicadas in the nearby woods.

Periodical Cicadas spend 17 years underground feeding on tree sap. Now, billions of cicada nymphs are once again preparing to emerge from the earth and take to the treetops of 15 states across the East Coast and Midwest.

The last time this brood made their appearance, we lived in Arlington, VA, and we had some recollection that they were loud. They also don't fly well - more like drunken bumble bees, and they run into things easily. We were very relieved that the noise was not coming from Sprinty's engine compartment.

We also arrived to a fairly empty parking lot as compared to past visits. Kris got us checked in and we were able to start right away, over an hour before our tee time. Darrell's opening drive was a draw/hook that barely managed to stay out of the woods. Kris placed her drive nearly perfectly on the middle of the fairway. While Darrell managed a par on the first hole, his lead was short lived as Kris tied it up on the 3rd hole. We stayed close, with Darrell making the turn up by two strokes. Kris made up those two strokes in the first two holes on the back nine, and Darrell worried that Kris was going to carefully and methodically better him by a stroke a hole until the end. While Kris kept it close for the rest of the round, she had one bad hole in the 14th which wound up being the difference on the day. We both played the final hole very well, both making par, finishing on a high note. Although Darrell had honors on the day by two strokes, we both played better than the score showed, each making a number of "boo yah" shots which mitigated the scorecard a bit.

We completed the round in less than 3 hours, despite having to wait on a couple of groups on a couple of holes until they let us through. When the foursome of men let us through on the Par 3 seventh hole, a small green downhill with water on two sides, we both nailed our tee shots with Kris almost making a hole-in-one. So often we get uptight when being let through and wind up hitting a poor shot as the group watches. Not today. A great feeling as we both almost birdied the hole, and both finished with a tap in par.

After golf, we headed for Rocky Gap State Park in Flintstone, MD for our campsite for the night. Along the way, a cicada bumped into the door frame and fell into Sprinty through the open window. It lay stunned on the floor until we pulled over and reunited it with nature with a quick toss out the window.

Sprinty had selected a nice, mostly level, pull-through non-electric site near the lake.

With our Maryland Golden Age Pass bought for Sprinty's first Maryland State Park stay in 2017, the cost was only $17.50/night. Sweet.

The campground tonight was nearly empty when we arrived. On Sprinty's loop, there are only three other campers - one RV and two tent campers. Later in the evening, a few more arrived, but the spaces are so spaced you had to look hard to see the neighbors.

Something else we observed upon arriving in the campground was the absence of cicadas. Unlike the loud noisy roar that we had at the golf course, we didn't hear any cicadas in the campground. We did see evidence of a few lying dead in the road so they were around just perhaps not enough to make a racket.

Wednesday, 2 June

A pleasant night at Rocky Gap SP. After we got Sprinty settled, we heard trucks going by the park riding their jack brakes. Kris expressed concern for noise, but Darrell could see through the trees that the trucks were logging trucks and confidently said the trucks would stop once it got dark. It did, and we enjoyed a peaceful night in nature. The light rain that was forecast did not arrive - maybe putting on the bike cover kept the rain away?

Ask Kris what one of her favorite things about RVing is, and she will tell you "waking up in nature". It was so peaceful, we both slept later than the last few days in the room at the lake. We enjoyed listening to the chipmunks chirping and the birds.

Our planned activity for today was bike riding on the Western Maryland Rail Trail (https://www.traillink.com/trail/western-maryland-rail-trail/). Blog readers may recall this was the trail where Darrell managed 18 miles per oops back in September, with one of his oops almost landing him in the emergency room. (https://2015sprinty.blogspot.com/2020/09/37-mile-bike-ride-in-western-maryland.html)

Trail description: "From the trailhead in Hancock, you can head east or west along the trail, about 10 miles in either direction. Whichever direction you choose, expect to pass fields and wooded groves. The rail-trail parallels the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, a 185-mile, unpaved towpath that was used to transport coal from Cumberland, Maryland, to the port of Georgetown in Washington, D.C., from 1828 until 1924. The route's historical sites include the canal's locks and lock houses. Along the 22 miles of the WMRT, you'll find nine connections between it and the C&O Canal Towpath."

For today's ride, we decided to ride the eastern end of the trail (last time we rode west). After getting Sprinty settled in one of the few sites he could back into

we rode east. The trail parallels the unpaved Chesapeake and Ohio Canal trail and the Potomac River. And Interstate 68 on the other side. The Western Maryland Rail Trail was paved asphalt, making for nice riding, even if some of the tree roots were trying to add some character to the ride.

Just as we neared the eastern end of the trip at Big Pool Trail Head, Kris' odometer turned 3,000 miles.

You may recall we bought her bike second hand with 31 miles on it in April 2020. Darrell's bike is about 150 miles behind Kris, partly because we shared the first bike for about 10 days until Darrell got his own.

The ride was nearly flat, somewhat expected as it follows a wide section of the Potomac River. Our Apple Watches recorded only 22 feet of elevation gain for the 20.4 miles of riding, which we think was all on the way back as we were going upstream along the Potomac River.

After the bike ride, we headed south on US 522 to Winchester for a couple of items at the store. Along the way, Sprinty's odometer turned over 80,000 miles - we adopted Sprinty in February 2017 with 9,165 miles on the odometer.

We continued southeast to Amissville, where Sprinty was boondocking at Narrow Gate Farm, a Boondockers Welcome host. When we arrived, Cindy met us by the arena. It was a hoot to watch her drive up the driveway in a golf cart with their large Great Dane running in front of the golf cart trying to take bites out of the front tires on the golf cart. Even Cindy wonders how the dog manages to avoid getting run over.

Narrow Gate Farm has sites for five RVs in a cleared out area they called the arena, and area where the former owner of the farm did equine training. When we arrived, there was a Class A motorhome in the arena. Cindy said they did not expect any other arrivals tonight, so we could set up anywhere we wanted. Sprinty chose to set up with the view of the farm out the sliding door.

The Class A sharing the arena was a Tiffin Allegro Bus like Sprinty's friend Harvey (be,ongoing to Jan and Doug) in Lake Placid, FL. The Tiffin owners, Gary and Diane, came over to chat for a few minutes. We learned that this Tiffin was 10 years old and that they had just gotten it. They have been full-timing for a long time - years ago they had a Tiffin, and more recently a sailboat that was destroyed in Hurricane Irma in September 2017. They apologized for their early start the next morning as they were taking their motorhome to the Cummins repair place in Manassas, VA. We assured them it was of no concern to us.

After dinner, they repositioned their Tiffin and hitched up their Toad for their early morning departure. After their Cummings visit to get some engine maintenance/work done, they are headed for Red Bay, AL for some work on their coach by the Tiffin technicians. 

Thursday, 3 June

Another very quiet night. As forecast, rain moved in during the night. To be honest, Darrell never heard it. Gary and Diane started up their motorhome just before 6am, but it was almost unnoticeable over the Fantastic fan we run at night.

As Jim, our host, was leaving for work, he stopped by to say hi. We used it as an opportunity to express our appreciation for their being a Boondockers Welcome host, and share our positive impressions about their farm. Jim shared he was a custom harvester, which means he manages harvesting for others. Today, he is harvesting peanuts. His wife, Cindy, whom we met last evening, works for NASA as a remote worker. The farmhouse they live in is 201 years old.

The farm has been a diary farm and a Bed and Breakfast. We enjoyed learning about some of the history of the area. For example, the farm is situated in Culpepper County, but the next door house is in Rappahannock County. Rappahannock County Virginia, is one of two counties in the state of Virginia that has no traffic lights and no grocery stores. The minimum size lot for building a house in Rappahannock County is 25 acres. He said there is not much home building going on in Rappahannock County, which is likely to the just fine with most of the county residents.

Today's adventure was to travel to Shenandoah National Park to spend the night at Big Meadows Campground on Skyline Drive. Long time Sprinty followers will recall that Sprinty traveled on Skyline Drive last September and stayed at Big Meadows Campground the night of the 18 miles per Oops incident.

We departed our Boondockers Welcome host about 8am and headed for Sperryville, VA via a short side trip to get diesel. We wanted to play the Schoolhouse Nine Golf Course, a Par 3 executive course built in 2015. The web site listed the rates as $15 for all day golf, complementary pull carts included. No tee times required or taken. It also said they did not open until 9am, so we were surprised to see people out on the course when we arrived just before 9am.

A few practice putts verified that the greens were almost twice as slow as we have been playing. Bad news for Darrell as Kris likes slow greens. Kris started by putting her tee shot on the green, while Darrell started with the lefties - overdrawing the ball too far left. Sometimes referred to as a "hook". Darrell managed to make par and briefly held a one stroke lead. That did not last as Kris took the lead on the third hole, and held it for the first time around the nine holes. Darrell picked up a a couple of strokes the second time around, making 6 pars. After 18 holes, Kris had honors by two strokes. And so far, both of us were birdie-less.

We decided to go around another time, only to play it as a scramble. We both played well and leveraged each others strengths to make three birdies and finish two under par.

After we finished, we both agreed that this golf outing was the fun-est $15 golf we had ever played. And as fun as the golf was, as we just got to the third hole tee box on our third time around (the scramble format), Darrell's phone rang. He usually does not take any calls on the golf course, but the caller was Darrell Hess, one of our friends from Riverside RV Resort in Florida. Darrell and Brenda are from North Carolina and have wintered at Riverside for many years. They are a delightful couple, full of energy, and enjoy biking and kayaking. Darrell was calling us to ask if we were still going on the Rockies caravan this summer. We said yes, and he said they were too. On the same caravan. Both of us were beyond excited to share the caravan adventure with them. It was like getting the whipped cream and cherry (great news) added to the ice cream (fun golf).

Afterwards, we went inside to see what the rest of the Schoolhouse was and found a small cafe, six pool tables and a couple dozen pinball machines.

Darrell saw the potential for this to be a Harvest Host location, and shared his thoughts with the manager. Maybe on a future trip, Sprinty can stay-and-play.

We then headed for Shenandoah National Park and Big Meadows Campground. A very pleasant drive at the park-wide speed limit of 35mph. When we arrived, we decided to head straight for Big Meadows Lodge to check out the restaurant where we hoped to treat our friends to dinner for the evening. As we wandered into the lodge to check out the restaurant, Darrell saw Jim and Carmen Beaubeaux of "Living in Beauty" working on their laptops using the lodge WiFi as cell service in the campground is non-existent (except for T-Mobile).

We immediately started chatting it up like old friends who planned this meeting, even though we had never met in person. We knew more about them from following their blog (livinginbeauty.net) than they knew about us. Jim and Carmen have been full-timing in an Airstream travel trailer (named "Beauty"since July 2016. "The Beast" is their name for the pickup truck they use to pull the Airstream.

While just getting to meet such kindred spirits was reason enough for Sprinty to make this trip, Darrell had a second motivation. Jim and Carmen purchased eBikes about 1-1/2 years ago and wrote about it in their blog post "Playing with Dolphins" (https://livinginbeauty.net/2021/01/19/playing-with-dolphins/). From that blog post, Darrell learned of the features and started researching some more online. He quietly sought a dealer in Florida to check them out, but none of the five Qualisports dealers in Florida had any to check out. And no Qualisports (https://www.qualisports.us) dealers in Georgia or along our travels since returning from Florida (Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland). But Darrell was upfront about wanting to test their eBikes when he first contacted them and they were quite willing.

After quite a long "getting to know you" conversation in the lodge, Jim suggested we check out the eBikes before the rain moved in - forecast to arrive around 4pm.

We got Sprinty checked into the campground and settled in the exact same site he had back in September, site A100. Darrell picked it again as he knew it was level, and the site had T-Mobile cell coverage. We broke our our eBikes (to be able to do a side-by-side comparison (and for the Beaubeauxs to test ride ours) and rode over to their site two rows over.

The Qualisports Dolphin eBikes (https://www.qualisports.us/products/dolphin ) that Jim and Carman have fold up smaller than our RAD eBikes due to thinner frame and narrower tires and wheels. Jim and Carman carry their red eBikes in the backseat of their pick up truck.

There are several similarities between the Qualisports Dolphin EBike and the Rad Mini ebike.

Both bikes have folding frames, 20-inch tires, five levels of pedal assist, and a throttle (Class 2 ebike). The Dolphin tires are narrower (2.35" vs 3.3"), the motor is smaller (350 watt vs 750 watt) and lighter (50 pounds vs 70 pounds). The Dolphin lithium battery is integrated in the seatpost. The Dolphin does not have a suspension front fork and no way to add a suspension seatpost like we did with our Rads. Darrell did the first test ride and found the handling was a little different, just a little more twitchy (in part due to the shorter wheelbase), but acceptable. With the narrower tires and lack of suspension, the ride was less cushy than the Rads. Kris also test rode the Dolphin. Kris said it felt like you were floating, and attributed it to being 20 pounds lighter. The controller for the pedal assist (PAS) was nice. Our Rads use 350 watts on PAS level 3, which is PAS level 5 on the Dolphins. For riding, the pedal assist levels seemed adequate in the hilly campground, but might be inadequate on the hills at home in Soleil. The lesser power of the Dolphins was most noticeable using the throttle as it topped out at 350 watts whereas full throttle on the Rads is 750 watts (over twice as much).

Carmen took Kris' bike for a test ride and as she returned, she said "your bikes are like Cadillacs, ours are like Subarus. That is probably the best summarization of the differences. Oh, did I mention that Carmen has a gift of writing, selecting just the right words to convey meaning and feeling? Check out their blog - livinginbeauty.net.

For over 95% of our riding, the Dolphins would be quite adequate. Especially where we ride in Florida which is mostly flat, paved trails. The narrower tires and lack of suspension would likely takes its toll on longer rides. Darrell would certainly be less inclined to head off onto unknown trails (the rooted trails of Reed Bingham State Park, the mountain bike trail at Cloudland Canyon State Park, and the trail at the Indian Mounds state park in Georgia). For riding paved and prepared gravel trails (South Mon River Trail, Great Allegheny Passage trail, etc), the Dolphin would be fine. Kris likes the idea of putting Darrell on a less capable bike (offroad) to temper his enthusiasm for venturing down unpaved trails.

As we were test riding the bikes, Darrell noticed their brakes needed adjustment, and Carmen's derailleur needed adjustment. Jim said the bikes had not seen a bike shop for a tune up since they got them 18 months ago. Darrell broke out his tool kit and made the necessary adjustments.

With the forecast rain imminent, we put the bikes away and made plans to meet at the Big Meadows Lodge restaurant for dinner at 5pm. As luck would have it, the rain was a fairly fast moving line of thunderstorms so the rain was short lived and we could walk to the Lodge instead of driving Sprinty. We enjoyed a delightful dinner at the Lodge, swapping RV stories, tips and tricks.

If you want to learn a bit about the Beaubeauxs, here is a link to a short video, "Passion Lives Here" (2 minutes) that Best Buy did about them in 2017:

https://youtu.be/5H_ybl209Z8

If you want to get to know their story even more, here is a link to a presentation (38 minutes) they prepared for an Airstream Rally in 2020 that had to be done virtually due to the pandemic:

https://youtu.be/X0IeOeEoweE

After dinner, we used our T-Mobile jet pack to check emails, respond to some texts, and watch some YouTube videos.

Friday, 4 June

With 3+ hour travel back to Deep Creek Lake and wanting to play golf enroute, we set an alarm for an early start. Golf today was at Cacapon State Park near Berkeley Springs, WV. The state park has a nice Robert Trent Jones designed golf course. The course is one we played several times enroute to or from Northern Virginia from Deep Creek Lake when Darrell was working part-time.

Sprinty retraced his path to Big Meadows Campground, achieving over 24mpg for a brief period as he coasted downhill from the campground at 3,600 feet elevation to Sperryville at around 800 feet elevation.

Getting up before the alarm, having an abbreviated morning routine due to lack of internet, and finding no one in line at the dump station at 7:00am, we arrived at Cacapon State Park golf course about an hour and a half before our tee time. With no one waiting, we got to go out early. Darrell hit a nice drive, but it wandered just off the fairway. Kris hit a near perfect drive to the middle of the fairway. Darrell managed to get on in two, but three putted for a bogey. Kris took three to get on, and also made bogey. That was the story of the day. We either tied a hole or picked up a stroke only to give it back on the next hole or two. We were tied at the turn, and finished tied. Kris' score of 90 is her best for this course which at 5,600 yards for the ladies tees is a long course for her. Darrell thinks Kris should be allowed 5 more strokes for the added length. Neither of us had balls go play hide-and-seek, although Darrell's ball tried a couple of times. Darrell's ball seemed to have an affinity for the beach (sand traps) today - he says that was his excuse for the day.

Starting early meant we finished early. Sprinty continued up US 522 towards Berkeley Springs where Kris was craving her post-round frappe at the McDonalds in Berkeley Springs. Some oncoming cars were flashing their headlights, so Sprinty backed off. He came upon a 1/2 mile long line of cars completely stopped on the two-lane US 522. Google Maps showed red in both directions. After seeing the locals in front of us make a U-turn, we checked for an alternate way around the backup. Finding a parallel road about 3/4 mile behind us, Sprinty executed a three-point U-turn like a sports car on the two lane road. As he headed back in the direction from whence he had just come, cars in line who observed his maneuver waved a big thumbs up.

Sprinty navigated the winding, hilly two lane road at the base of the mountain like a sports car - maybe his getting to spend time with Beauty unleashed his sports car gene? After all, his maker does produce some awesome sports cars like the AMG GT.

Having successfully detoured around the closure, Sprinty made his way back to Deep Creek Lake where he gets a couple of days to relax before heading West on the rest of the summer's adventures.