Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 20

Sunday, July 28
Breakfast at the KOA diner. Very nice, but my gravy was half sausage and my biscuits had margarine melted on them. Good tasting but nutritionally disastrous. I ate it anyway, because I love sausage gravy on biscuits. But why the extra grease?

Molly got to go to the dog park, but she didn't care about playing. After chasing the ball just once, she stood by the gate and asked to go walking. Poor little dog.  She's so ready for this trip to be over.

 A few KOA pics

 

Horrid drive traffic-wise, but we got an early start, just after 9, and made good time. Stopped for lunch at a brand-new and gorgeous rest area in Virginia. It was very vertically challenged--both Ed and I wondered how they could possibly to mow it. Even with a tractor it was going to be some steep ups and downs.  Going sideways would have been out of the question.

 

 

And on to the Fort Chiswell RV park.  Everything it advertised to be, and the only faults I could find are that the pool is too shallow and there's no dog park. But they've marked a couple of dog walking areas on the map, so Molly and I will check chose out later.

Ravens flying overhead, plus robins, chipping sparrows, and probably goldfinches.

 

 
Later remarks: Such a lovely place. They've mowed a few little "islands" in and around the creek to make delightful walking places. Plenty of rabbits. Tons and tons of goldfinches.  A ridiculous number of robins. A good number of hummingbirds--in our three walks I saw some every time. Many sparrows I couldn't identify but merlin found a field sparrow, a song sparrow, and--damn it!--a vesper sparrow that perched on the wire, serenaded me with a single song, and flew away. I didn't see it well enough to count.

And while watching all this, along with the likely ravens and turkey vultures and crows and mourning doves, I saw a very large bird that might have been a juvenile golden eagle. Or a juvenile bald eagle, but it didn't fly like a bald eagle. It soared slowly low to the ground on a distant cow pasture, then vanished into a dip out of sight. There were goats up the hill, maybe it was hunting? Not likely but there were certainly enough rabbits around to feed any number of eagles, hawks or other big things.

Not enough time for birdwatching, ever. Poor Molly really wanted to run and play, but she couldn't on a leash. It's possible I could have turned her loose in the smallest of the mowed areas, but I was afraid she'd smell a varmint and burrow into the surrounding bushes.

The cows were funny--they were just beyond a barbed wire fence from us, and I'd gotten used to having cows ignore me.  But there were easily spooked--when Molly and I walked down to a place where the wire crosses a creek with trees grown up all around, the cows took off like I was chasing them. Very odd.

Looking like rain at bedtime.