Misty Mountain Camp Resort near Charlottesville, VA

Since my stepson began his new job at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, we have wanted to visit him.  Our trip to Nappanee, then Washington, DC and on to North Carolina provided a great opportunity to stop by.

Although there's a KOA close to Charlottesville, reviews we read weren't good.  The nearest place with the best reviews was 13 miles away in a small place named Crozet, VA.

Misty Mountain Camp Resort is just a couple of miles south of Interstate 64 and about a 20 minutes away (in various directions) from the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Skyline, Waynesboro, Charlottesville and Monticello, the well-known home of Thomas Jefferson.

When we first pulled into Misty Mountain, it looked like a small campground with not much going on.  But looks are deceiving.  It may have a small store and no fancy restaurant or tour busses, but it has a lot of things that make it a nice place to visit - although you may have a hard time doing so on the weekends.

Campground Layout

When you first pull in, you should pull up directly in front of the office/store to unhitch.  There are a few rows of pull-through sites to your left.  Our 43' rig fit would fit comfortably in almost all of them, but we had to park our toad sideways in front of the coach.  A 40'-er might be able to do it without disconnecting.  All of these sites have FHU, 50 amp service.

The road in front of the office continues past an open field on your left and a large recreation area on your right - with more sites on the other side of the rec area.  The road continues up into the woods, where there are quite a few other sites.  In my opinion, large rigs should stick to the sites nearest the office and forget climbing the somewhat steep hills to the sites "at the top".  The higher sites are definitely quieter, but space is tight maneuvering might be tricky.

Amenities

There's a game room that has quite a few arcade-style games.  It's in a separate building directly across from the office (on the left as you enter).

Next to the office/store is a large community room, with two TV's on the wall, two pay-to-play pool tables, a stage, DJ booth, bar, and sizeable kitchen.  I was told that they often have live music and karoke on the weekends.  Groups are encouraged to use (and reserve) the room.

Just past the community room is a large field.  It has a very large bounce pad for the kids, a place to play corn hole, a fire pit area with benches, and a whole lotta' room.  There's also an elevated, covered stage area.  When I asked about the stage, I was told that they occasionally host music events and festivals, and most recently had on in September 2016.

During October, they have quite a few Halloween events for the whole family, including trick or treating and hay rides up the hill to a pumpkin patch.

From the people we spoke with, staff and campers alike, Misty Mountain is packed on the weekends.  Between its own events and tourists (many come for weekend fall football games), weekend reservations can be difficult to make.

Sites

The sites were generally close together.  It was about 12 feet from our door to the coach next to us.  Some sites had larger areas.  All of the ones we saw had a fire ring and an improved surface (like concrete) for the picnic table.  The roads are about as narrow as you can get and still get a larger rig parked.

Nearby Conveniences

Turning right out of the campground, there's a "gourmet" grocery store that also serves sandwiches and some desserts.  It was a bit pricey; a serving of their very good macaroni and cheese was $5.  The food choices were a bit odd for me.  For example, the drinks were all bottled (or canned) and there wasn't much that I recognized.  There was canned diet and regular coke, water, and a large selection of other organic everything.  I wanted regular tea, but they only had various fruit flavors of green tea.

Further down the road after you go back under Interstate 64 is a large grocery store.  I'd guess it's about 4 miles or so from the campground.  They have everything you would ever need and are similar to a large Ingles or Publix.  There were other stores nearby, but not many.  There's also a post office.

Summary

If and when we return to the area, we'll likely stay at Misty Mountain again.  But we know that we'll take the time to ensure two things:  1) we get a site on the lower level and 2) we make reservations well in advance - especially if we plan to stay over a weekend.

Washington DC and Cherry Hill Park

We originally planned to visit the Washington DC area for two or three days.  Within an hour or so of getting settled into our site at Cherry Hill Park, we went back to the office and extended our time there so that we could stay for a full week.

My wife has a childhood friend who lives about five miles from Cherry Hill, and between her visits, campground time and some siteseeing, we thought the extra time would be worth it.  We weren't disappointed.

Sorry for the lack of photos in this post.  I thought that the ones I took were too typical, meaning they were just pictures of "typical" RV sites, a camp store, etc.  Nothing unusual or worth showing.  Visit Cherry Hill Park's web site if you want to see photos.

Cherry Hill Park Campground

I have read many Facebook and IRV2 posts asking where to stay when in Washington DC and, by far, most of the responders recommended Cherry Hill Park.  We entered CHP as our destination in the CoPilot app on my phone and tablet and it took us there without any issues.  The park is very close to I-495 (the beltway) and is easily accessible to big rigs.  It's important to note that it's best to arrive or depart on a weekday between commuting hours, on Saturday mid-day or on Sunday mornings.  Anything else means that you'll likely be mixing it up with billions of other cars.

When you arrive at the campground, you'll check in and be shown on a map the route to take to get to your camp site.  The check-in process takes longer than other parks because....well, they're just slow. When we checked in, and had to go to the office for other things during our stay, the front staff often incorrectly calculated numbers in their heads, asked us to repeat things, and seemed to be unfamiliar with how to best use their computers.  They get you in and out, and are polite in doing so.  It just seems to take quite a bit longer than it should.

It's probably a good idea to disconnect your toad in front of the office.  As an alternative, take the loop to the left that goes in front of the cafe and un-hitch in the parking lot.  Those seem to be the best spots since they are long and level.

CHP is not cheap.  Before your 10% Good Sam discount, premium back-in sites will cost $78 per night.  This rivals Fort Wilderness in Orlando, which speaks well for the old realtor's adage "location, location, location".  The campground offers many amenities, including on-site bus stops, plenty of help to understand and assist your siteseeing, pools, playgrounds, clean bathhouses, clean and modern laundry rooms, and a very nice diner.  There's also an 18-hole mini-golf course and an extremely well-stocked camp store.

The campground is very clean, and the maintenance staff responds quickly.  

Camp Sites

Sites at CHP are quite close together, but they are easy to get into and (as far as I know - be sure to check) all include 50 amp service, water, sewer and the best cable TV that we've encountered in our very short time doing this.  There are 60 digital (high definition) channels.  "Regular" sites have a picnic table and a fire ring.  Premium sites add a concrete or brick patio pad, a metal table with chairs, and a grill.

In almost every case, your toad will have to be parked sideways between your backed-in rig and the street - and it'll barely fit with your toad off the road. (There are a few pull-through sites, but the vast majority of sites at CHP are back-in).   Our 43' rig fit as long as we backed our tag axle to the end of the gravel site and hung the tail over the grass.  This still allowed room to park our toad in front of the coach.

Sites are pretty close together.  Our neighbors fire ring was probably three feet from our bathroom window (and had grass growing in it due to lack of use).   Most fire rings were quite a bit more accessible, though.

Nearby Shopping and Attractions

If you turn right on Cherry Hill Road as you exit the campground, it's about a four minute drive to a Home Depot, Best Buy and Shoppers supermarket.  Shoppers is really nice, rivaling some of the largest Ingles we've seen.  It includes a very nice salad bar, ready-to-eat food, deli, bakery, and a pharmacy.

Turning left out of the park and driving a few miles, you'll come to a nice shopping area with many restaurants, a Kohl's, a Target, and quite a few other retail outlets.

Our GPS said that it would take 31 minutes to drive from the campground to the Washington Monument.  I say that as a reference, because there's no way we'd drive into DC's traffic when the metro is available.  CHP has bus service at frequent intervals that can take you to the nearest metro station (College Park, about 4.2 miles away).  You can also drive to the Metro station, which will take 20+ minutes and will cost a little more than $5 to park for the day.

CHP sells metro cards for $2.  If you plan to go into DC, we'd recommend paying $10 for a card that will have $8 on it ($2 is for the card itself).  We went all the way to the Washington Zoo and returned in rush hour and each had 15 cents left on our cards at the end of the day.  It's really easy to add money to your cards at any Metro station.  If you're 65 or older, you can get a Senior Metro Card.  I believe it also costs $2, but all of your fees are discounted 50%.  Nice.

CHP offers a siteseeing information session every weekday at 4pm.  The nice lady who gives the talk is well-informed and gives quite a few great tips for getting around Washington.  She knows the metro system, bus lines, and quite a bit about the area's attractions.  She also has handouts that show local restaurants and shopping.

Will we go back?

Probably, but it's pricey.   I think that a lot of parks like this have amenities that we'll never use (the bath houses, playgrounds, multiple pools, and more), but we pay for them anyway.  CHP appears to be well-managed and, from everything I've heard, it's the closest "nice" park to the DC attractions.  But despite how nice it is, $490 for a one-week stay is steep.

Nappanee Part 2: Things to do and places to go

While waiting for our Newmar coach to be serviced, we were able to explore the area a little bit and experience some of the places we had been told about by other RVers.  In this post, I'm going to list places we went and tell you a bit about them.

Customer Service Lounge and Parts Store

When you've got nothing better to do, go sit in the Customer Service Lounge.  I described the lounge in Nappanee Part 1.  We enjoyed sitting there and talking to others who were waiting.  We also went next door to the parts department and were able to pick up a spare pair of windshield wipers, a water filter, extra LEDs, extra matching floor tiles, and a few other things.  Items in the Parts Store may be hard to find when you're on the road (like the spare wipers), so we decided to get them while we were there.

Newmar Kountry Klub

The Klub is very close - on Delaware Street next to the overflow parking area (and about 1.5 minutes from the service center and FHU parking area - everything is close!).  You can go in, say hi and pick up the latest issue of the Klub's magazine "Konnections".  They also sell apparel.  They're only open until noon, though.  Be sure to go in the morning.

Plant Tour

Between the FHU area and the overflow area on Cheyenne Street is the place where you can go to take the 10am or 1pm plant tours.  They ask that you arrive 15 minutes before the tour so that you can fill out a short form, don your safety vest, put on safety glasses and headphones, and clip a receiver to your belt.  You can also go into a room where you can see a cross-section of a typical Newmar RV wall, roof and floor and view all of the fabrics and color schemes for the latest model coaches.

The person who gives the tour then talks to you for about 10 minutes and makes sure that you can hear her through the headphones before you walk a short distance across the street and start the tour.  Tour groups range from 1 to about 20 people, with the more crowded tours being the ones in the morning.

While there, we took a 10am tour one morning and then the 1pm tour two days later.  In the morning tour, you see the workers actually putting the coaches together, whereas the afternoon tour often happens in the absence of workers because they're heading for the parking lots shortly after 1p.  Sometimes, if the afternoon group is small, the guide may let you walk around the coaches more.  At 10a, it's harder because you'll be in the way.

During the tour, they ask that you don't take photos or videos.  You are also asked to stay within a path on the floor that is outlined with yellow lines.  Stay close to the guide because you'll want to hear what she's saying and the transmitter starts to lose its signal if you're about 20 feet away.

All Newmar coaches are built in Building 7, which is between the FHU parking and the overflow parking right off of Cheyenne Street.  Inside the building, rigs are literally pushed from one station to another in a u-shape around the inside perimeter of the building.  Chassis are prepped in a building across the street and driven over to the plant.  It's strange seeing a guy sitting on a stool driving the chassis across the street.

The tour takes about an hour and ends with some free time outside the factory door where you can walk through some new coaches that are being cleaned up after quality inspection.  Whenever you're ready, you can walk back to the tour office and turn in your gear.

Reservations aren't required for the tours.  Although the afternoon tour may sometimes afford better opportunities to walk closer to some of the in-progress coaches, we preferred the morning tour because you can see much more of the actual construction because the workers are there.

Dutch Kitchen

The Dutch Kitchen is a restaurant that is about a quarter mile away from Cheyenne Street and only about a 2 or 3 minute drive from the FHU parking lot.  The food is good, and they have a breakfast and lunch buffet on Friday's and Saturday's.  It's the closest restaurant to the Newmar facilities.  It opens around 6am, 5am on Fridays and Saturdays.

In the same building as the Dutch Kitchen is the Dutch Village, a consignment market with three long isles of booths where you can find all kinds of trinkets, decorations, clothing, and things for the home.

Amish Acres

Amish Acres is a complex on the east side of the Newmar service center, right at the corner of Alcott and the main road through town, US 6.  You can drive from the FHU parking lot to Amish Acres in about two minutes.  They have a family-style restaurant that serves (you pick two) chicken, ham, roast beef and turkey.  They also bring out beef and noodles, mashed potatoes, green beans, bean and ham soup, rolls, cole slaw, and more.  The $18.95 per person price includes your drink and dessert.

As you enter/exit the restaurant, there's a gift shop with all kinds of baked goods made every morning.  They also sell pre-made (dry) soup fixin's so that you can take them back and cook them later.

Amish Acres also has a round barn theater; that is, a theater in a round barn.  It's quite the setting for a theater production and the plays we saw (two of them, including Fiddler on the Roof) were okay, even with a sound system that is in serious need of improvement.

Between the restaurant and the barn is another shop; I forget what they sell.

Ticket prices for the plays are about $29, but there are discount coupons at the Customer Service Office for some savings on the meals.  You can save about $10 when you buy two dinners.

Martin's Super Market

There is a small grocery store on US 6 that we first believed was the only store in town.  Later, we discovered Martin's Super Market across the street, which is very much like a large Ingles.  There's a deli, Starbucks, and everything you'd expect in a large grocery store.  When you leave the FHU parking lot and turn left going east towards downtown, you'll pass three stop lights before you turn left just before the McDonald's to get into the Martin's parking lot.  It takes about 8 minutes to drive there from the FHU parking lot.

Rentown

From the FHU lot, go south to US 6, turn right and go down a couple of miles or so.  Look for signs that tell you to turn left to Rentown.  Follow the signs.  You'll end up at a grocery store (with lots of baking goods and local produce), a furniture store, and a nice restaurant called The Dutchmaid Eatery.  My wife absolutely loved the food there.

El Cielito Lindo Mexican Restaurant

When you leave the FHU lot and turn left (east) on US 6, you'll go to the downtown area.  The center of downtown is the intersection of US 6 and US 19.  Just before you get to that intersection, look closely at the stores on your left and you'll find El Cielito's.

El Cielito's serves typical Mexican fare and, like most Mexican restaurants, has a large menu.  We went on a Thursday night about 6pm and the place was packed.  We had to wait about 15 minutes to get a seat.  The service was adequate (they get your order and bring your food), but they were so busy that there was no time for idle chit chat (like "Welcome!  How are you doing?").  The food was good and so were the prices.

RV Hall of Fame and Museum

The RV Hall of Fame and Museum is a must-see if you're interested in RV's and RV history.  Follow your GPS.  In general, you'll be going to Elkhart.  The museum is about 35 minutes or so from Newmar.

The museum has a lot of vintage RV's, many of which you can walk through.  There's a sizeable gift shop and a huge RV library on the second floor.

Plan to spend about two hours or so at the museum.  If you want somewhere to each on the way there or back, look for the Stacks Pancake restaurant along the way (left side going, right side coming back).

Rise and Roll

Rise and Roll is a donut shop and bakery.  The locals love it, and it's within two miles of the FHU lot. Go towards town and turn left on US 19.  Drive a couple of miles.  It's at the corner of County Road 50 and US 19.

They open at 7am, and may be out (so we heard) of some favorites by 1pm.  A fellow RVer we met at the service lot couldn't stop talking about their Bavarian donuts.  We enjoyed a cinnamon roll and a caramel donut.

Rocket Science Ice Cream at Coppes Commons

Coppes Commons is a large building that was formerly used to build Hossier cabinets.  It's a large brick structure on US 6 just past US 19 on the right (if coming from Customer Service).







Inside, you'll find a grocery store where you can buy bulk cooking items (like rice, etc.) and tons of containers of things like chocolate covered almonds.  The store includes a counter where you can order BBQ (with a seating/eating area).

There are several other shops within the complex, including an antiques store, card shop, and a second-floor museum displaying all kinds of vintage Hoosier cabinets.

Outside Coppes Commons is one of five quilt gardens in the area.  You'll have to go to nearby cities to see the other ones.

One of our favorite stores in the Commons is Rocket Science Ice Cream.  Cream is poured into a bowl, flavorings and other things you request are added (like oreos, almonds, etc.), and then they mix it using nitrogen to freeze it as they stir.  The result is some really good, smooth ice cream.

Other restaurants and places to eat

We didn't go to any of these places, but there's an Italian restaurant about four minutes away (towards town), and Nappanee also has a Dairy Queen, Burger King, McDonald's and a few pizza joints.  All of these are on the main road (US 6).  Just turn left (east) when leaving the FHU lot and drive until you see them.  They are all within 8 minutes of the parking lot.

Movie Theater

Yep.  Nappanee has one.  We didn't go there, but it's just north of downtown's main intersection (US 6 and US 19).  It only has one showing each day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Nappanee Part 1: Service and Parking at Newmar

Our trip to Nappanee to have some work done on the coach will be described in two parts.  This writing will describe their parking lot areas, their facilities, and the service we received.   Another post immediately following this one will relate all of our local experiences, including a description of Nappanee, restaurants and outings, and our tour of the Newmar factory.  In other words, Part 1 talks about what we went there to do and Part 2 talks about what we did while waiting for the service to be completed.

Arriving in Nappanee

I'm not going to tell you how to get to Nappanee or the Newmar Facility - you have a GPS.  When you get into Nappanee, you'll likely be on Highway 6.  This is the main drag through town.  When you see a big farm-looking building (Amish Acres), there's a road beside it called Arnott Street.  If you're coming from the Elkhart area, you may even be arriving in Nappanee on Arnott Street, because it's also known as County Road 3.

Turning off of Hwy 6 onto Arnott Street, you go until you are at the corner of Arnott and Cheyenne Streets.  Newmar's Service Center is at this corner, and so is their full hookup (FHU) parking.  There are three rows of parking:  one row is RVs parked next to each other, some "pull-thru" and others back-in.  The other two rows are "back-to-back".  When you pull into one of these, be sure to leave room for someone to back in behind you.

If there's no room in the FHU lot, you just keep driving down Cheyenne Street until the next road, which is Delaware Street.  The corner of these two streets is where you'll find additional electric/water-only parking.  All of these are back-in.

Service Center Camping Parking

FHU parking next to the Customer Service Lounge

The FHU lot beside the service center has 24 sites.  These sites are clustered next to their Customer Lounge, which is open during the day and closed at night.  However, you can get the door code from them so that you can go in after hours.  The only problem with this is that they don't send you the code with your service material and no one is there on the weekend to give it to you.  So if you arrive after 3pm on Friday, you're out of luck for after-hours access to the Lounge until Monday.

The same is true for wifi.  It exists, but you won't get the passphrase unless you arrive during working hours.

Like you'll find in campgrounds, the people in the lot are a friendly bunch and are willing to talk about anything - especially the reasons that brought them to the service center.  As far as I'm concerned, this is good because you can get a lot of good info about what to expect.

There is an open-top dumpster located behind the customer lounge.

All FHU sites offer 50 amp service and are reasonably level

The two parking areas (FHU and electric/water-only) are very close together.  Tours begin right across from the electric-only lot, and the Parts Department is next to the Customer Service lounge.

The First Day of Service

We had heard all kinds of things about what to expect the first morning.  The papers that Newmar sends you before your appointment include a paper to put in your windshield so they can identify your coach and a little bit of information about the lounge, parts department, and the local area.  Somewhere in the information, they tell you that a technician will probably be at your site at 6:15am.  Everyone talks about getting up at 5am to be ready for them.

We woke up at 5am and had our coach completely prepared (jacks up, slides in, aired up) shortly after 6am.  Our assigned tech showed up around 6:20.  He explained that they were running a bit late because they had just returned from a trip to Pueblo (Newmar International Rally) and had to put some equipment away before going out to the coaches.  To me, that meant that they normally show up at 6am.

Our tech's name was Scott, and he took the time to go over everything that was going to be done to our coach, answer our questions, and tell us who to call if we needed anything.  Then he told us which building the coach would be in.  When we were finished, he made a brief inspection of the coach before pulling it out and driving it about a quarter mile down the road to Building 11.

During our meeting with Scott, he told us that he expected to have our rig back in its parking spot around 2:15p.  We went out to breakfast and then went to the Customer Service Lounge located beside our RV parking.

Customer Service Lounge.  FHU RV parking adjacent to the building.

The Customer Service Lounge is nice.  There are small desks with plugs to use for your laptops, free wifi and coffee, restrooms, plenty of seating, a soda machine (outside) and a couple of tables with puzzles and games.  If you ask the person working at the counter, which doubles as the parts counter when you enter from a door in the next room, he'll give you a piece of paper with the combination to the door so that you can get into the Lounge after-hours.  The same paper also shows the wifi password.




We made sure to return to our RV parking space by 2:15p, and the techs were already there parking the rig.  They explained what they had done and answered our questions.  We were told that they would be back at 6am the next day, so we should be up and ready.  They parked, put out the slides, dropped the jacks, plugged in the electric and went home.

The main reason we were at Factory Service was to have our upholstery replaced under warranty due to an issue where the piping was fraying.  On the first day, they replaced the two recliners and the couch, but said that the driver and passenger chairs were being sent out and would not be back for 5-7 business days.   Once we got the coach back after the next day's service, it would be sit-and-wait until the chairs were ready.

The Second Day of Service

On the second day, they had fixed a few more things (all minor) but had to order a few parts.  It was Tuesday, and they had brought the RV back to our parking spot (site) about 1130a.  Since we weren't there to talk to them at 1130, I called the number they gave us to call if we had questions about our service.  When the supervisor hadn't called back by 2pm, I called him back and was able to speak with him.  He said that they had to order a few parts and that we wouldn't need to have another 6am pickup until Friday.  Thus, Wednesday and Thursday were "days off" for us.

Final Day of Service

On Friday morning, our tech (Scott) showed up shortly after 6am and went through everything with us.  He told us that our chairs were in and that they were going to go ahead and install my cell booster antenna on the roof.  I hadn't expected them to do it because they were so busy, but the Newmar folks are quite accommodating and they do everything they can to help you out.  It looked like we would have everything wrapped up by the afternoon and would be able to head out on Saturday morning.

Shortly after 2pm, Scott brought our coach back to our parking space.  They had completed everything, including the two captain's chairs.  In addition, they had installed the cell booster antenna on the roof and fixed a small issue with our awning that they found.  They also found a problem with the roof radio and CB antennas and fixed those.

Newmar service is everything you've heard - and more.  They accommodated our last minute requests, completed all warranty items, finished our 12-month checklist and took care of several "retail items" like the new lights in our pantry.

Be sure to read Nappanee Part 2:  Things to do and places to go