After crossing the border we continued south to Saratoga Springs, NY for an overnight stay at Adirondak Adventure, a Boondockers Welcome site.  Boondockers Welcome is a branch of Harvest Hosts, an online service that offers free stays at private locations.  Typically it is RV’ers who have extra space available and open it up for fellow RV’ers to rest and overnight for a night or two.  Their counterpart, Harvest Hosts are private businesses, such as vineyards or golf courses, that offer the same but suggest a small monetary contribution by purchasing something offered onsite.  The Adirondak Adventure was described as a quiet, private open field, which is exactly what it was.  It was very serene and a good way to break ourselves into our US adventure. 

After our first night we continued south, into Pennsylvania and our first US Hipcamp experience.  Hipcamp is another online service to connect campers with private campsites offered by individuals.  Unlike Boondockers Welcome, Hipcamp is not free and generally offers more established facilities for camping, such as hookups, etc.  We had experienced a couple of Hipcamps on our trip across Canada and were quite impressed with the sites that we visited.  When we arrived at our destination in Pine Grove, Pennsylvania we turned onto a very narrow, overgrown laneway.  Right off the main road we came to a small concrete bridge.  It reminded me of the bridge in the nursery rhyme “The Three Billy Goats Gruff” in which there was a troll living under a small bridge and the billy goats had to outwit it to get across without meeting their demise.  I was pretty certain there had to be a troll living under this bridge.  Julie called the hosts and asked them about the integrity of the bridge and whether we should cross.  They assured us that there had been many large trucks that had crossed it and it is still intact so we soldiered on.  Fortunately the bridge did hold us and we crept our way along the narrow laneway and into our site.  The host met us and was quite impressed that we made it in, given our size.  When we booked, I had warned him that we were not a small rig and he said “well, you are definitely the largest rig to have come in here.  Do you mind if I take a picture?”

We spent a night in Pennsylvania and then carried on south to Virginia.  Here we stayed at another Hipcamp quite aptly called “The Mane Gait”.  It is a beautiful equestrian center situated on 140 acres in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Natural Bridge, Virginia.  There were walking paths where Reba could run off leash and our morning coffee time was spent watching the horses being schooled under various different disciplines.  As well, there are many caverns in the area and we went and explored one of them.  We took a guided tour down into the depths of the cavern and then went on to hike to Natural Bridge and Lace Falls. 

Our time spent at The Mane Gait and the area was peaceful and relaxing.  We decided that we quite liked Virginia.