Not every camping trip lasts for months and includes stops at National Parks with spectacular views. Some trips are visits to local attractions and stays at family campgrounds. We are on one of those now to get ready for longer trips this summer.

This is a quick 14-day trip that includes stops in Virginia Beach, the Oregon Inlet along the Hatteras National Seashore, Williamsburg, VA, Midlothian, VA to visit Joe’s mom, and finally the National Museum of the Marine Corps which is on our path home. Our goal is to ensure that we didn’t forget to pack anything important before we leave for a longer trip to Canada. We have already found that we are missing a few important items: The electric toothbrush charger is one of the more important missing items.

On our first day, we had a seven-hour drive to the Virginia Beach area which is a longer travel day than we like to do. One thing we’ve noticed is that the most direct route to the Outer Banks does not have any Harvest Hosts or even many Campgrounds until we get to the Bay-Bridge Tunnel, just before Virginia Beach.

After six hours of travel we stopped by Young Veterans Brewing, a Harvest Host in Virginia Beach, before heading to our destination, the North Landing Beach Campground. Young Veterans Brewing is a small brewery located in a commercial park. There were about a dozen people in the brewery- most appeared to be veterans- with many sitting outside the tap room sitting in a circle talking, smoking cigars and, of course, enjoying a beer, or two!

All the beers were good. Sue’s favorite was the El General Mexican style lager. Joe enjoyed also enjoyed the El General but is partial to IPAs so his favorite was the Night Vision IPA. We were hungry and since Young Veterans Brewing does not serve food, we were anxious to get to our campsite for dinner. Our repast, which we started cooking in the sink of our motorhome at 9:30 AM, was almost ready. Yes, I said cooking in the sink.

Over the years, we’ve noticed many RV’ers traveling with slow cookers, which perk away during the long hours of driving. We don’t have a lot of cookware storage space so, this year, we purchased a small, 2-quart Crock Pot, which we took for a test run at home to make scalloped potatoes at Easter. For this trip, Sue made Sloppy Joe’s with pork loin that cooked beautifully while we traveled, and shredded easily upon our arrival in camp – the sweet aroma wafting through our rig! The Pot was nestled in the sink and plugged into an adjacent electrical outlet. With minimal prep ahead of time, we had a delicious dinner with enough leftovers for a second meal.

The North Landing Beach RV Resort is a wonderful family campground. It has a beach (on the bay side), boat launch, swimming pool, tennis and pickle ball courts, mini golf and many other activities to keep children and adults entertained. We enjoyed watching people walk their dogs and children around the park. Being Mother’s Day weekend, we observed a special North Landing Beach Resort event for mothers: The annual Mother’s Day “Wine and Ride”.

Campsites were generously sized and campers have a choice of sunny sites (like ours) or well-shaded sites. There were also colorful cottages for people who visit without RVs. The “feature image” at the start of this post captured a few of the cottages reflected in a canal.

We are off to the Oregon Inlet Campground (a favorite of ours) for five nights of camping just 30 yards off the beach. The question is, will we make it to Duck Donuts in Kitty Hawk in time to pick up donuts for the week? Stay tuned!

Thanks for checking in.