May 19 -  Today was a more typical travelling day for the Chambers family.  We did manage to get on the road at just after 8 but it was not the perfect day.  Leaving the campground we did spot our first wildlife, a bunny and we saw several dead deer along the highway.  I actually spotted a live one that ALMOST became MY dead deer.  Scared the be-jesus out of me.  I was in the right lane and there was a pretty wide grassy median and I spotted the deer running diagonally across in my direction.  I was trying to time whether to speed up or slow down and could see that poor deer being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Luckily she (it was a doe) stopped short of the pavement.  My legs went to jelly and I started breathing again.  That was close to a mishap!

The next near mishap was as we were on the interstate going through downtown Charleston.  There was a lot of construction and we were to stay on I-77 but there were cones and signs and it went down to one lane for 77 and I thought that was the correct lane.  Then as we rounded it, it appeared that the cones were getting closer to the wall and there would be no way out, especially to back up the RV.  So I came to a dead stop and there was an opening on the left that I thought would cut thru to I-64 and maybe fine another way to get back to I-77.  When I pulled to the edge of 64 I looked left and there was a long string of vehicles stopped behind me, so I realized I could have gone on but now I was committed to get on 64 so I did.  Then Bill said he thought too that the road was ending and that we missed something.  We ended up on 64 and exited at the first exit and turned around and got back on and “ta-da”  there was 77 and we could see right where we would have been and it would have been fine, but at least it all came out OK.

I-77 through WV was up and down and around, just as a mountain road would be, but at least today there was no fog or rain and the road itself was not bad at all.  We timed our breaks better so knew we’d get to Punderson State Park outside of Cleveland by around 3:30 – 4:00.  Bill tried calling several numbers and left messages 3-4 times to get directions and to see if we could change sites.  I had been told that the site available when I booked was really unlevel and it most definitely was.  Well, no one called back and we managed to make it there without assistance.  Luckily I had our reservation with the site number and wouldn’t you know it was narrower than the site last night.  No wider than 10 feet and was paved but the grade was so steep that we would have had to use a foot of boards to begin to get the nose high enough to be level.  After another bout of wiggling and jiggling I got in it and we put boards under one side and it was fairly level side to side but we don’t carry enough lumber to get the front up that far.  So we figured we’d live with it for 2 nights.

After dinner we went for a bike ride and lots of the sites are

Punderson Lake

just as bad.  We can’t believe they bothered to grade and pave all these sites and not make them level.  What a waste.  Bill was really concerned as we were literally walking up and down hill inside the RV so we decided to pack up and move 3 spaces down where someone left today.  I hooked back up and circled back around and was able to pull almost far enough into the space across to back in relatively easily.  Yee ha!  We had to use 3 inches of board on one side to get close to level but end to end was so much better.  Now we just hope we get to stay in this spot for both nights.  Since there was no one to say not to, we kinda figure we’ve homesteaded it now.

Since we’re so close to Cleveland the antenna is getting great signals and we have all the major networks even though there was nothing on that we were interested in seeing.  My hotspot is working so I was able to post 2 blogs.