Spring Fling 2026 - Day 16&17: FOB Marshall

Thursday, May 14

We left the Philpott Dam camping ground a day early and drove 5 hours to Marshall Virginia to FOB Marshall.

FOB: Forward Operations Base.

We are moochdocking with friends of mine from college ROTC who live in Marshall, VA.  We will be visiting other people that are in the area as well while we stay here. Hence, the use of the term FOB.  The RV will remain on my friend's property and we will use the CRV to do all the visiting in the immediate area. 

Google Maps once again had us going down the wrong road to my friend's place. It was a bit hair raising as a matter of fact, winding and narrow country lanes.

Anyways, we got here without any problems except for one incident of a line jumping Schweinehündin at the Sam's club gas station in Roanoke.  We are now closer to the overcrowded mess that is the NoVA metro area so I expect the people factor will become much more pronounced and annoying. 

Friday, May 15

Easy relaxing day today for the most part.

Did take the TW200 off the front cargo rack after annoyingly not realizing I hadn't switched to fuel reserve before draining the battery down trying to start it.

Sigh, jump started it using the RV chassis battery, got it off the rack, geared up and rode off.

Rode to a nearby nature preserve, perhaps 10 miles round trip.  I turned off the engine at a construction zone perhaps 1.5 miles from my friends' home.  Yagi chose to not start.  First she behaved like the battery was drained.  It should have charged up somewhat during the ride I thought.

I briefly tried starting it by popping the clutch, no go.

I called Martha to bring me the jumper cables with the CRV....luckily I decided to try bypassing the starter relay with a battery cable I'd started carrying since the events at Prewitt Reservoir.  

Yagi started right up and I called Martha back and told her to disregard.  Rode Yagi back to the FOB with no further issues.  Annoyingly, I tried stopping/starting her a few times the normal way and it was fine!

I rechecked all the connections and they were clean.  I did take apart the starter switch and cleaned the connections within as well.  We'll see how she does in the days to come.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 15: A drive to Martinsville and Philpott Dam

We drove the 22 miles or so to the town of Martinsville to run errands and just do some light shopping.  We passed through town of Bassett and Martha realized it's the Bassett name associated with a furniture company that's on par with the likes of Lazyboy.

After lunch in town, we drove back to camp with a slight detour to view the Philpott Dam which was built to control flooding for the area.  Apparently, a big flood in 1947 was a big motivator.

The dam has a small but nice visitor center.

There's a couple of overlooks near the visitor center for not very close views of the dam itself.

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 14: Philpott Lake COE Camping

A relatively short drive today, and except for an annoying detour by Google Maps who routed us through a narrow road neighborhood, it went without incident.  Sometimes,  Google Maps sucks.

I am rethinking the concept of using COE camping almost exclusively while on the eastern half of the country. Some of the ones we have ended up at were pretty out of the way and whatever savings there was to be had through my veterans discount were negated by the extra gas used to get there.  

Also, so far they have been accessed via narrow country roads which though paved have no shoulders and significant drop offs at times which makes for some nerve-racking driving. 

Having electric power is really nice on cold nights but not sure the trade off is worth it in the long run. 

Anyhoo, we got there safely and after some careful maneuvering got the RV and the CRV inserted into the camping spot I had selected.  Let's just say the site looked a lot bigger in the pictures when I made the reservation online. 

We will be here till Friday morning and from there head to the home of friends of mine from college in Marshall, VA.

The afternoon was sunny but the plethora of trees kept things rather cool.

Altitude: 1165 Feet

High temp: 73F

Spring Fling 2026 - Day 13: Lot docking in Virginia

We crossed into Virginia from Kentucky today, only drove 274 miles, about halfway to a COE at Philpott Lake.  From there, after 3 nights at the COE, we'll be staying with friends near Marshall, VA.

This is a one night stay (basically breaking up 500+ mile drive).

We're lot docking at a Harvest Host location, the 3 sites have electriciry and water.  We're the only rig here this Monday night.

We sampled their craft Bourbon, pretty good stuff.  One is supposed to patronize a Harvest Host's wares so we had some samples and a cocktail.  We also procured a bottle of their Smoothbore Bourbon.

The name of the place is Axe Handle Distilling in Pennington Gap, VA.

Being a former artillery guy, I'll admit the picture of a cannon was a factor in my choosing the bourbon above.

It's been years since we've stayed at a Harvest Host, this one was a nice one.