SV Orion - Annapolis, MD
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Late April - Finishing Up at Janes Island

4/30/2021

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PictureKayaks on the shore of Janes Island
The wind. Janes Island is all about the wind. When it blows, it often blows hard. Not great for kayaking, but it does keep the bugs at bay. We arrived on a blustery day and, as it happened, we left on a blustery day. The difference was that we planned to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel the same day we left, so we wanted those winds to die down. Luckily they did, and we pulled into the Newport News Park Campground just after noon on Friday, April 30th . With a plan to stay the weekend, we looked forward to reconnecting with some friends in the area before heading to Pocahontas for the month of May.

PictureDave turning over the soil in the office flower bed
Host Work​

While the park’s campground was mostly full on weekends, the rest of the week the traffic was pretty light. That gave us time to take on a few other tasks. On Earth Day, the plan was to revitalize a flower bed in front of the office with some native plants. However, when a storm rolled through around the scheduled time (yes, more wind), the plan was delayed a couple of days. When the weather cooperated, we helped turn over the soil and plant black-eyed susans, goldenrod, blue-flag iris, and a few other perennials that would bloom throughout the summer and fall – hopefully for several years to come. 

PictureCathy routs out letters on a park sign
“Would you be interested in making some signs for us?” Assistant Park Manager Brent asked us as we were entering our last week at the park. Sure. The state park standard was to have wooden signs with letters routed out. There were standard sizes, stencils for each size, a router and the necessary bits to make the signs. Using some simple software to plan the sign, we created printouts for each sign as requested and got to work. However, we wanted to start with a sign the need for which had come to our attention while watching some campers enter our loop.
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PictureOur RV sandwiched into the host spot
With our RV’s location at the entrance to Campround C, we routinely observed campers stop longer than necessary, confused as to which way to turn. The sign post gave no indication which campsites were accessible in each direction. This was driven home when a first time RV’er drove her small camper the wrong way into a pull-through site. She was now “stuck” since she couldn’t maneuver her RV around the sharp left turn exiting her site via the entrance turning the correct way onto the one-way road. (A ranger ended us stopping traffic on this road to allow her to turn around.) We knew that a couple of signs with the site numbers and arrows would solve this problem. So, we used this as a test case. We, of course made an unrecoverable mistake on the first one, but learned quickly and managed to get the rest of them done in a couple days. We had a few challenges. Any letter that has an interior “hole” (eg. A, B, D, etc.) must be done in 2 steps. For unfathomable reasons, this included the G. However, the 2nd stencil piece of the G was missing. We managed to improvise this and the missing “-”. The park was pleased with our results, but we ran out of time to round the corners and stain the signs. Hopefully, a future host will find time to do this.  

PictureThe magic number
We finished up the light inventory that would be part of the park’s International Dark Sky certification. However, there was one critical step that needed to be done to determine if it was even worth proceeding with all the work to get certified. There is a measure of how dark the sky is that can be quantified with a device that you simply point at the night sky. (For those who care, it is the visual-band zenith luminance, measured in magnitudes per arc-second.) For the park certification, the number must be 21.2 or greater, measured over several months. If you’re not close, nothing the park does would make a significant difference in increasing the number.

Using a device loaned from another park, we took on the task to take an initial measurement. Unfortunately, the device arrived only a few days before a full moon. When we went out after astronomical twilight (i.e., when the effect of the sun is no longer felt), we kicked ourselves because a nearly full moon was up. We retreated to the RV to look up when we could get a sky that was not lit by the sun or the moon. That would occur between about 20 minutes after moonset and about 2 hours before sunrise. When would that be? Between 4:39am and 4:41am the next morning. After that it wouldn’t happen until after the full moon and our departure. So, we set our alarm for 4:15 the next morning, and then dragged ourselves out of bed.
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The moonset, which we had never seen before, was beautiful. An orange globe susupended on the horizon in a dark sky. When we reached the magic time, we succeeded in getting the magic number. After passing on the good news, we crawled back into bed. We are not early risers.

PictureSlice of Smith Island cake - Maryland's state dessert
Cakes and Kayaks

Did you know that Maryland has a state dessert? It is the Smith Island cake. Smith Island is located just off shore of the Janes Island State Park. The last time we came to the area (15 years ago on Orion), we had first sampled this 7-layer cake, and were looking forward to refreshing our memory with a new sampling. After exploring the commercial establishments in Crisfield, we spoke to some of the park staff who put us in touch with a Smith Islander who worked at the park as a seasonal employee. She was working her other job, but we connected and had her make a delicious original Smith Island cake. To avoid consuming the whole thing in one sitting, we shared it with the park employees and hosts at the season opening potluck.  
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PictureMark paddling a kayak next to ours at Janes Island
​Over the course of the month, Mark had offered to take us kayaking over to Janes Island, but inevitably the wind kicked up and we had to postpone. Finally, just a few days before we were to head out, Mother Nature cooperated. We paddled to the beach on Janes Island, visited a primitive camp site, and watched as the sun began to set. The beach was deserted, and the bay was calm and peaceful. We can see why this is such a big reason why visitors return to the park.   

PictureShip crossing over the tunnel as we prepare to enter
Parting Shot
The night before we headed out for Hampton Roads, Cathy woke to the RV shaking from the high winds in the park. Checking the Windy app forecast, to ensure we still had a window to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, it appeared the winds would die down around 10 and pick up again around 3. Leaving around 8:30, we started across the bridge-tunnel around 11. The bay had waves (not just white caps) breaking on its northwest side. But the winds were down to 17mph, so we once again had an uneventful crossing.

​After wading through the 5-mile back up on the HRBT, we made our way to Newport News Park Campground. Luckily we arrived ahead of the crowd, since our site was pretty narrow. We had to park so far forward in the site so that our slide could fully deploy, that we had no room on the site for the truck. However, the ranger was very helpful, allowing us to park the truck on a nearby site that was not being rented due to Covid. We then had time for a bike ride to explore the park, and a fish and chips dinner from a nearby restaurant. Tomorrow we planned to join Steve and Linda for the Blessing of the Fleet, that is if the wind died down.

It’s all about the wind.

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Early April - Janes Island State Park

4/15/2021

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PictureView from the our campground at sunset
We arrived at Janes Island State Park on a blustery April 1st, the day before the park campground officially opened for the season on Easter weekend. We’ve spent the time since then getting to know this beautiful park as camp hosts for the month of April.  

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Hosting on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

Janes Island State Park sits on the southern tip of Maryland’s Eastern shore next to the small town of Crisfield. While most of the park resides on the large Janes Island, the campgrounds and cabins sit on the mainland side of the canal overlooking the island to the west. The island is only accessible by boat, so kayaking and canoeing are popular past-times, with several water trails mapped out that are rated to accommodate the beginner to experienced paddler. Sunsets at the park are amazing.  

PictureA snug fit
There are 102 campsites divided into 3 campground loops, along with 4 mini-cabins and 4 full-service cabins and a lodge. We clean campsites and greet campers in the campground that caters mostly to tenters, loop C. We also tend the exteriors of the 8 cabins and the lodge. We managed to just get into our pull-through site next to the bathhouse, which is one of the 5 sites in our loop with electric. Since none of the campsites have water, we have to string several hoses together to fill our tanks from a spigot at the bathhouse. We’re not hauling water, so it’s all good. And, of course, we have access to the park’s portable waste tank to empty our tanks.  

PictureView of the campground from our site
When not hauling ash out of firepits or talking to campers, we have been helping out ranger Mark Herring (whom we met at Pocahontas Cabin Work Week) with a light inventory. You may ask what is that and why would it be needed? Well, it is one of the early steps in a process to certify the park as an International Dark Sky Association park, i.e. it is a great place to view the night sky. The park’s remoteness makes it a likely candidate to qualify for the certification. Even without the certification, visitors are already making the park a destination to enjoy the night sky.  

PictureThe fearsome "copperhead" that turned out to be a harmless northern water snake.
While weekends are busy, the weekdays are pretty quiet. There is only the occasional drama. We had a snake scare when some campers trapped a baby “copperhead”, that turned out to be a Northern Water Snake. And on our 2nd day here, we exited the camper to see snow falling. That was the first snow we’ve seen all winter. Certainly didn’t expect it to be in April. ​


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Snow!
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RV Stuff

Shortly after arriving at Janes Island, and just after disconnecting the truck from the RV, our attention was focused on getting set up when one of our tire alarms sounded. The driver’s side rear tire on the RV was low on air. Since we had topped it off before heading out that morning, that was odd. Since this tire sits under the slide, it made sense to check it before setting up any further. Sure enough, the tire had a slow leak (later determined to be a screw) that we had picked up shortly before our arrival.
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We waited a few days to let the winds die down and the temperatures to rise before tending to the flat tire. A call to the Good Sam support line confirmed that, on level ground, we could use the RV’s landing gear to raise the RV to remove the tire and replace it with the spare. A local shop was able to plug the leak, and we had our full complement of tires once again.  

PictureBikes in the new rack. This one doesn't move.
 “Did you know that your bikes almost hit your trailer?”

This comment came to us from an observer who watched us transit a speed bump while at Kiptopeke State Park. This remark caused us to more seriously evaluate the way our bikes were mounted on the Cougar.

While we have always had the bikes on the back of our RV, the Puma had a bumper-mounted bike rack, specifically designed for an RV. However, the Cougar had no bumper, but instead had a receiver for a hitch. Since we had a hitch-mounted bike rack that we used on the truck, the solution was simple. Using this hitch-mounted rack, we drove north from Florida without any apparent incident. But what we didn’t understand was that the back of an RV is not the same as the back of a pickup. There is more movement in the chassis, which combined with any movement in the bike rack allows the bikes to have a range of motion that could easily cause them to hit the RV if we hit a big bump. ​​

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Dave’s research revealed that there are RV-approved bike racks that have a more solid structure. Given the Covid-driven surge in biking and RV’s, many models were not available. While we didn’t mind driving from Kiptopeke to Janes Island, we wanted to have a better solution before we headed out at the end of April. Despite the shortages, we found one that had good ratings for a reasonable price. It arrived at the park shortly after we did and was pretty easy to install. And it had significantly less movement than its predecessor. However, there was a small amount of movement still.

Dave discovered there was a “rattle-reducer” attachment that would stiffen the bike rack even more. Once this was installed, the bikes were even more solid. They’re not going to swing into the RV now.

While the park's remoteness makes it an attractive place to view the night sky, it also makes TV watching iffy at best.  So, we've been putting the combination of our Visible phone's mobile hot spot and our Roku device to the test.  It's allowed us to stream shows pretty successfully, and we're very pleased that it works so well. (If you want to learn more about how Visible works, we have more info on our discounts page.)  

Parting Shot
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We just can’t get enough of the sunsets here at Janes Island.
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