After early morning Bible study…. by solar- powered light….

…And our Junior Ranger ceremony (I had to host one myself since the Rangers weren’t doing them)…

… we left on Friday, Oct 23rd from Shenandoah and headed toward the “Waltons Mountain” area . We truly loved Shenandoah (Day 1 here and Day 2 here) but we were excited for more adventures.

Most of our friends know we LOVE the Waltons and find it’s such a pure and sweet family show that we can all enjoy. We have all the DVDs and watch it at night regularly. So when we saw that there was a Thousand Trails by the Waltons area we were so exited to add this into our 2 week vaca!

Thousand Trails Lynchburg (actually called Lynchburg RV Resort) worked well because it was free again for us (since we have an annual membership) and we needed a campground to plug in and do laundry and a town to grocery shop before we headed back to the woods.

The campground was quiet and all the normal activities and amenities were closed… but it was still a pretty spot and good stop over for us.

Sadly the laundry machines were broken so we had to go elsewhere… but we can have fun anywhere:

We don’t have any TVs in the trailer but many nights in Woody we watch a DVD on the computer . This is what it looks like to snuggle up and watch a show together:

Saturday morning we were off to the Waltons Mountain Museum which was about an hour and 15 minutes from the campground. We were so tickled when we turned onto the Waltons road and John Boy’s truck passed us !!! So fun!

The museum was very small but for big fans like us – it was great !

We loved learning about Earl Hamner Jr. and his real siblings and life on the mountain:

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The original Ike’s and a ledger from a local general store from the 1850s . Was very interesting to try to read that!

And loved all the re-creations. John Boys room:

Ike’s:

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The living room:

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Our favorite was the kitchen. We love the warm feeling the Waltons give us! I look at that kitchen and think of loving family and laughter and faith:

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We loved all the little details in the rooms but especially the kitchen!

And the sweet front porch:

And of course they had a confiscated Appalachian still just like the Baldwins sister’s that they used for “the recipe”. The poster by the still said the real inspiration for these characters was a mother and daughter that lived 7 miles east of Schuyler Mountain (“Waltons Mountain”) that made special moonshine from apricots instead of apples which was what everybody else in the area used:

The museum also had a HUGE WWII collection. We were especially intrigued by the radio:

that looked just like the one my PopPop carried and controlled in WWII. He earned a bronze medal for his valor as the primary communicator in the 29th division during the battles over the Roer River:

<Sniff sniff > 🇺🇸

After the museum we made sure to see the actual house where Earl Hamner grew up:

The shed where he ran his first printing press:

Their Baptist Church building right around the corner:

And the remake of the Waltons house which is now a bed and breakfast:

They’re all right next door to each other. We were definitely the youngest people there by a generation but we loved it!

We drove around Lynchburg just enough to get some exercise and some dinner:

And we did drive through the Liberty University campus …but then it was off to the grocery store and bed so we could head off for more adventure.

This was a great little stop for us to break up our national park days!