We left DC at the crack of dawn and arrived in Shenandoah National Park before it opened. We stopped by Mom’s Restaurant for breakfast and then headed into the Park. All three of us hiked the Compton Trail. Because No Dogs Were Allowed, I hiked Stony Man Summit myself. The day was beautiful and the views spectacular; not many people at the Park.

That night we stayed at the Spacious Skies Campground in Luray, Virginia. The location was perfect and we sat out watching the sun set over the mountains. Unfortunately as the temperatures dropped we discovered we had no heat. When we woke in the morning the temperature was 24 and Otto was begging to get under the covers.

We lined up a Mobile RV guy but he could not fix the problem. So we travelled to Asheville to stay with our friends Tori and Chris Masaki and set up an appointment with Tina and Liam, RV specialists. We met Liam at 8 am the next day and within minutes the problem was fixed – we had not turned on the propane that ignites the heating pilot light. No cost and wonderful southern hospitality.

While driving to Asheville we participated in the TH!RD ACT (www.thirdact.org) action of closing down and cutting up our Bank of America credit cards. The action was a demonstration against the four Big Banks – Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank, that invest in short term Big Oil profits instead of long-term earth-friendly sustainable energy solutions.

Driving Stargazer requires gas and this trip diesel gas was is up to $3 less than what we we were paying last year at this time. Imagine how much cheaper it would be if the Big Oil Companies had used even some of their record smashing 2022 $219 billion profits to reduce consumer gas costs.