Thursday April 14th 2016

I got underway from my location just north of Richmond at about 10:30 this morning. My destination was the Cherry Hill Park RV Resort in College Park Maryland. It was a good travel day, low wind and sunshine.

The trip was a little over a hundred miles, but it was in heavy traffic all the way. If my destination wasn’t right on the DC beltway I would have avoided the DC area all together. US route 17 northeast from Fredericksburg VA gets one out to Interstate 81 to go up through Pennsylvania. This avoids all of the toll roads and congestion of the Northeast corridor that starts between Richmond and Washington DC. I didn’t have any issues with the journey, but will have to deal with the congestion again on Monday when I leave.

Checking in to the campground was a long process. I was third in line for one of four clerks checking people in. In addition to paying and getting a site assigned, you receive an overview of all of the amenities available and the DC touring options. I’ve been here before so I expected some of this, but things have changed a bit since I was last here ten or more years ago. I departed the office with more brochures than I’d normally pickup at an information booth.

Site 32 at Cherry Hill Park RV Resort. The flowering tree shows that spring has arrived in Maryland

Later in the afternoon I attended a full briefing on using the DC area bus and metro system. The campground has a bus stop right in the park and has got mass transit down to a science. The transit system has switched to an RFID based Smartcard for paying fares since I last road the Metro. I had the time so I went to the presentation to see what I could learn. Most of the information I already knew, but I was able to buy a SmarTrip card to use on the Metro.

Also, this afternoon, I got the oil in the car changed. There was a Valvoline Instant Oil change up the road a couple of miles. This is the same chain I’ve been using in New Hampshire so there computers knew my vehicle. The car’s idiot display indicated the car wanted an oil change soon, so I bit the bullet and got the oil changed rather than waiting until I got back to New Hampshire. Even though it was the same chain, I think I paid a lot more than I’ve paid before. Just one more thing to get used to on the road.

Tomorrow I’ll take the bus and Metro into DC. I’ll get off the Metro at the National Archives stop, come up out of the ground and start sight seeing. What I’ll see and in which order is all up to whim and chance. Saturday and Sunday I’ll repeat the process except I’ll probably drive to the Metro since parking will be more readily available and buses less frequent.