Our fourth stop on the GOAT Tour 2021 was Davis Lakes & Campground in Suffolk, Virginia for two nights. Suffolk is nineteen miles Southwest of Norfolk and is about an hour from both Williamsburg and Virginia Beach. We didn’t stop here for any of those reasons but rather because it was as far as we wanted to drive in a single day. When we laid out this trip there were three stops that were longer than we wanted to drive in one day and this was one of them. It took seven hours and twenty minutes to drive the two hundred and ninety eight miles from Longs, and that was on I-95! But the day got worse and longer from there.
About five miles from the exit, a lady pulled up along side us honking her horn and waving her arms. It couldn’t be because I was driving too slow as this was a four lane highway. She passed me without issue. I checked the rear view camera, looked in the mirrors, and there was no beeping from the tire pressure monitor. I don’t know what she was trying to tell us. After we arrived and I was checking in at the office, a man came in and said, “You know you don’t have a tire, right?” One of the rear tires on the Fit was completely gone. Nothing. No rubber. Just a rim rolling down the road. When we bought the RV we purchased and had installed the tire pressure monitor system for both the coach and the car to prevent just such an issue.
We dragged the car the small distance from check in to our site to disconnect it and deal with it there. Fortunately for us, two angels named Andy and Paul were working this afternoon and came to our rescue. They showed up in a golf cart with a floor jack, blocks, and an air tank to inflate the space saver tire to full strength, and then they sent me in the direction of Colonial Tire a few miles away. To finish the story, Colonial ordered the tire we needed and I went back early the next morning for installation. We now are ready to roll again. I took the tire pressure monitors off the car since they were not doing what they were supposed to anyway. This will be an interesting conversation with the Tire Minder Company!
The appeal of Davis Lakes & Campground are the two lakes for fishing and swimming. Lake Neal is twenty five acres and Lake Helen is eighteen acres. They even spell out what fish you can expect to catch in each lake. Really? The sites are gravel but do include a concrete patio with picnic table and a fire ring. The sites are small and very close together depending on in which area you are parked. One section is just a field along the entry road with no shade. Another is under the trees on a high bluff above the lake, great for shade but not satellite reception. (that’s where we were with a great view of the lake) The campground provides cable hook up but I could not get ours to work, and with the trees no Dish. So it is back to the antenna and very limited choices of rerun channels for TV viewing. The last section is along the lake slightly elevated. Where ever you are parked, you have to climb steep stairs to get to and from the lake and the snack bar. The bath house is old but kept very clean. Internet is intermittent at best. Our ratings: Kathryn 7; Paul 6.
We took a day trip into Norfolk to enjoy a two hour boat tour aboard The Victory Rover. The tour boards in Downtown Norfolk and takes you up the Elizabeth River to where it joins the James River, turning around at the end of the Naval Ship Yard Piers. The narrator describes each of the US Navy ships currently in port with great detail, spelling out their classification, what armaments they carry, how many men they board, etc., and what service each ship provides to protect our country. The hospital ship the USNS Comfort was in port. This is the one that went to New York City to assist with the COVID pendemic. Also in port is the newest nuclear powered super aircraft carrier The USS Gerald R. Ford. She is the lead ship of her class. Did you they don’t launch jets with a catapult system any more, like on Top Gun? Now it’s done with an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System. Talk about impressive!
The photos are posted on the Post Cards 2021 page above. You get to that page and all the other pages thru menu. On to Newark, Maryland.
RVTourUSA 