19 – 26 September, 2016; Vermont and Maine!

Greetings folks!  The 19th was a special day for us, marking our two year anniversary on the road full time.  On 19 Sep, 2014 Terri and I began this great adventure.  Thinking back over the wonderful things we have seen, the people we have met, the time with family and friends, new and old, and the joys and challenges we have experienced and faced, we are awed, blessed and thankful!  Two years certainly flew by.

We last left you in Bernardston, MA and a great little campground with great hosts.  We had pouring rain most of the day on Monday, which was fine, as it was a work day for me.  Terri lit out between rain drops and checked out the local area on her bike.  We were up and at it on Tuesday with the destination of St Johnsbury, VT.  We landed at the Moose River Campground…real nice:

A shot off the roof of the Coach. I ran up top to check some stuff out, and figured I should take a pic or two.

Quite a nice front yard. Marty Moose was a great host.

This place goes all out for the fall. Decorations everywhere.

Shortly after we arrived, we headed out for a haircut for me and a bite to eat, and when we got back, they had decorated the power post at our site.

This girl always has to check out the water…Moose River in this case.

Looking at the power poles from the other side. Temps were unseasonable, in that we had the air on and were in shorts. Come on kewl weather! By the way, the Coach is trashed on the outside…we traveled in rain all day to get here. They charge $50 for you to wash your own RV…some obscure  law. Not gonna do it!

OK…great first day.  The leaves are not really changing too much as of yet, and most of the locals say that it will not be a real good color year because it has been too dry.  We will see…we are at the beginning of the season, and will take what we can get.   What we do know is that this part of the country is awesome…a term I’ve used many times, for many parts of our country.  While talking to the folks at the camp office, they let us know that they had a tour that the owners of the campground put together called the belly ache tour.  Named so because it goes to many sugar houses and cider houses.  It is about a 200 or so mile round trip tour.  So on Wednesday, the 21st we headed out, and we did go to many neat places…everything from sugar houses, to cider houses, covered bridges, Smugglers Notch, Cabot Creamery, Montpelier, Stowe and much more.  Here are some shots:

First stop was the Cabot Creamery. They do a great job here letting you sample everything. We were going to tour the inner workings, but just as we arrived, a tour bus pulled in that had a reservation for the tour…so we tasted a lot of the cheese, and hit the road. Good cheese for sure, but I wouldn’t put it over Wisconsin cheese!

Next stop was the Bragg’s Sugar House in East Montpelier. This is a small, family owned sugar business. It was real neat. They still do it the old fashioned way with a big pan and wood fire to cook the sap down. You have access to everything. They have really good Creemees too…ice cream with Vermont Maple syrup in it. Too sweet for me, but Terri loved it.

Outside of the sugar house. See the stack to the right? Small place, nicely done and nicely run. The owners are on site and are the ones that give you the tour and all.

On to the state house in Montpelier…the VT state capitol. It is the only state capitol city in the nation without a McDonald’s! It is a small town, and a really neat place that we want to see some more of at some time.

Moving onto the Cold Hollow Cider Mill! You can taste everything here. This stuff was awesome! We toured the cider manufacturing, and had a great lunch here.

The ground up apples going into the press to make cider. They have a spout that feeds directly into the tour area where you can taste the stuff right off the press.

We then traveled on to Stowe, VT.  Great little town.

Small town that apparently explodes in the ski season.

Neat little town.

Further up the road, we landed at the Trapp Family Lodge. The youngest member of the Von Trapp family built this back in the 80’s, and if you get a chance to wander the halls, you will see a lot of the history from the Von Trapp family getting to the U.S. during WWII and settling here. The real story is much different from The Sound of Music…just so you know.

The Trapp Lodge.

We then headed to Smugglers Notch, and over the mountain.  What a neat trip.  I forgot to take pics, but a real nice ride over the mountain.  We stopped at a pull off and ran into some folks coming out of the hills with what looked like folding mattresses strapped to their backs.  Come to find out, they use these to do a thing called “bouldering.”  Check it out on-line.   We went on down the road and found a covered bridge.

Headed back to the Campground, we got this nice pano of the countryside.

We got back in time to have a nice dinner at the campground, and prep for the Thursday move.  We headed out on as early as we could on the 22nd.  We only had about 200 miles to go, but it was all on two lane roads, through many towns to get to the Bangor, Maine area.  It was a very nice trip and not too stressful at all, but took about 6 hours with only one stop for fuel.  It was all truck route, and went through some very nice country.  We were able to definitely see the change in the types of trees from VT to ME.  We left behind mostly sugar maples and headed into hard woods interspersed with evergreens.  We landed at the Pumpkin Patch RV park in Hermon, ME about 3 in the afternoon.  This is a very nice park, and hope to remember to take a few shots before we leave.  Soon after we got set up, we heard from our great friends that live here now that we had been stationed with in Montana and Colorado.  What a blast to catch up with these folks!!  And what a wonderful family!  Cannot believe it has been so long, but that usually does not matter, as we pick up right where we left off.

Mike stopped over at the Coach after work, and we were able to catch up a bit.  He left for a bit and picked his two boys up after football practice (their school is right by our campground,) and he brought them by for a visit before they all headed home for the night.

Mike is a professor at Husson University here in Maine, and invited us to join him for one of his classes at the University the next day…you bet!  Mike and I were instructors together at one point in the military, and he was always one of the very best!  No wonder he ended up doing what he knew he wanted to do way back then.

The classroom had many more people than this…Bad Ron photo…but Professor Dr Mike has the stick. We are so grateful to have been able to attend one of his classes.  We got to meet a lot of the staff he works with, and got to “re-meet” one of their two wonderful daughters there as well!

After lunch at the university cafeteria and the class, we headed to Mike and Paula’s house and got to finally see Paula again and their oldest daughter.  We were in Montana for both of the girls being born, and met the boys when we were in Colorado together in ’01 and ’02.  I could go into pages and pages about this awesome family and how much they mean to us and our kids; however, I would not be able to do that justice.  Let it just be said, that great friendships last forever.

Later in the evening we headed out for dinner, and then headed to their boys high school football game.  It had been a long time since Terri and I enjoyed some Friday Night Lights!  Even though it did not turn out in the boys favor as far as who won, they played great, and are able to play together on the varsity team.

The last time we experienced Friday Nights Lights was when Jason was in High School in FL…needless to say, we were not in shorts, but blankets and hoodies. It was awesome!

It was a great night.  On the way home, Mike and Paula invited us to go for a hike with them and some folks from their church on Saturday morning.  Why, yes!  We left about 0830 on Saturday and headed to Borestone Mountain in Elliotsville, Maine for a great time!!  The hike is about 2.5 miles each way, and goes from about 900 feet to 1,900 feet at the summit.  What a rush!  Here are some pics:

At one of the overlooks on the trail on the way up.

The hiking crew sans Mike who is the photographer.

There are a few places in this country that leave us speechless…and this is one of them.

This hike was much more technical than we thought it would be. A few very vertical transitions, and iron bars inserted into the mountain to make sure you had grip. As you can tell by Paula’s hair, as we got higher, it got quite windy, which added to the “thrill” factor if you will.

Almost at the summit.

Mike, Paula, Terri and I.

A rather steep “5 points in contact with the ground” downward climb before the final press up to the summit.

Top of the hill!

Huddled together having lunch on the leeward side of the summit.

Just to give an idea of the elevation change.

Terri sprinting down the mountain.

Down always seems to be worse than up for us for some reason…

Yes, I am suspending myself by holding onto only iron and leaves!!

Almost at the end of a great hike!!

The lake where it all started.

What a great day it was!  We were back in the early afternoon.  Terri and I headed back to the Coach, as I was going to try to figure out why the heater would not fire up the night before.  I really wanted to get it going, as the temp was going to be in the 30’s the next two nights.  The heat pumps were still working fine, and we have the electric heater that we can plug in, but the heat pumps don’t do real well below 40 degrees.  Mike planned to come over and lend a hand later on, and in the mean time, I headed to the office to see if they knew of anyone that knew how to work on these older hydronic heaters in case I couldn’t solve the issue.  They gave me the card of a guy they said could help on Monday if we had not resolved the issue by then.  Also, one of the camp hosts that works here said he had some experience with these types of heaters and would stop by in a bit.  In the mean time, I decided to start pulling things apart to see if I could figure out what the issue was.  I guess if you pull enough stuff out and put it back again (maybe not correctly even) you get lucky every now and then.  After spending two hours fiddling around, I got it to fire up, and knock on wood…it’s been working fine ever since.  Mike showed up just as we were firing it up, and I blame him for making it work…he scared it into submission.  We had a bunch of smoke coming out of the exhaust, which has never been an issue before though.  Mike recognized it right away, even though he’s never had one of these things…he said, “hey, I think you’re getting too much air.”  Yep…I still had the access panel off and it was sucking air big time.  Once I secured the panel, it burned clean.  Stupid high school shop class mistake…duh!!  Paula joined us later, and we enjoyed a night catching up and playing a dice game Terri recently acquired.

We were invited to church with them on Sunday, and it was awesome!  Caught up with the folks we’d hiked with, and were warmly greeted by many others.  So thankful for their church and community.  God is good!

We headed over to Mike and Paula’s after church, and I got a couple of shots of their property, after which, Mike and I headed out fishing and Terri and Paula hung out and made dinner.

Mike and Paula have Bees!! And chickens, and rabbits, and dogs! Awesome! Note the wire around the hives…keeps the bears out…that have visited before the electric fence was up!

Chicken and Rabbit coop built and designed by this creative couple.

Ahhhh…out on the lake with Mike. We caught a few Crappie and Bass. It was an awesome , awesome time, or a “Wicked Pissah” as they say here!

Man…this brings back memories of doing the same exact thing with Mike on the Missouri River in Montana!

As the sun started to fade, we headed in and back for Mike and Paula’s, where Paula had cooked up a bunch of chili and corn bread for us.

On Monday, Paula and Laura joined us in the morning for a trip to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.  They gave us a windshield tour of the area, and we stopped at a couple of places in the park, or at least we tried to!  We all figured that on a Monday after school was in session and the leaves not in color yet, there wouldn’t be any Peepers (as they call them here) out and about.  Man, were we wrong!  Paula stated it was busier that she had seen it in the middle of the summer.  So, we bypassed a couple of areas, but we did get some great shots.  We decided to head out for lunch so Paula could get Laura back for work, and Terri and I would head back into town to fight the crowds in the afternoon.  Paula suggested we head to the Chart Room restaurant before it got too late in the lunch hour and too busy.  She was spot on!  No wait, and the food was awesome.  I had the boiled whole lobster special, Terri had bang-bang shrimp, and Paula and Laura has lobster rolls.  It had been years since I had lobster, and having it here was fantastic!  Here are some shots of the great day we had:

Looking out to sea from near the entrance of Acadia.

We tried to stop at Sand Beach, but there was no parking to be had, so we headed up to Thunder Hole, which is what this picture is of. When the tide is coming in, the impact of the water in this area is so loud, it sounds like thunder. The tide was out at the time we were here…but an awe-inspiring sight none the less.

Looking out toward Bar Island from the harbor. We had fun watching the lobster boats come in and unload their catch.

The little black spot in the middle of the shot near the little  boat is a sea lion that was playing around in the harbor.

The way they say it here!

A pano from the top of Cadillac Mountain looking south into the Atlantic.

The vistas were phenomenal with the naked eye. Very hard to catch in a photo.

Looking down at Bar Harbor. As you can see, there was a cruise ship in port, so another reason it was so busy.

Looking northwest from Cadillac.

Last shot of the day!

And just like that, another day in the books.  Terri and I headed back to the campground and called it a night.  We have managed to get reservations made for our next stops.  I had forgotten about Columbus Day coming up, so we were getting a little nervous about finding a spot during that holiday and all the Peepers storming in.  We will leave here on Thursday (grudgingly) and head back to St Johnsbury, VT and the park we were at before we came here for 4 days, then on Monday we will head over to the Burlington, VT area to a park right on Lake Champlain for a week.  We are hoping we hit peak color in VT during that week.  After that…we don’t know just yet.  Whatever it is, we have been having a blast and look forward to continuing to do so.

As I finish this up (started last night and ran out of gas) it is raining.  It is supposed to clear up bit around noon, so we will head out to see what we can see.  We were going to head back to Acadia early, as we figured it would not be so busy with the rain, but sometimes it is just nice to spend the morning relaxing with a hot cup of coffee on a cool morning listening to the rain hit the roof!

As always, we hope this finds you Happy, Healthy and Living Your Dreams!!

15-18 Sep, 2016; New York State to Mass…Beautiful Country

Howdy everyone from New England!  We made it to northern Massachusetts today, and have been in the rain most of the day.  Not an issue though…the sites along the way were fantastic!  The Berkshires, even enveloped in clouds and fog proved spectacular.  We were up and at it about 0630 today so we could make it to the next park before they closed the office for the day…not to worry…all went well, and we got to  our park in Bernardston, MA right around 2:00 pm.  I’m getting ahead of myself…we have had a blast the past few days, so let’s get started.

I told you the park that we were in was very tight…here is how our camp ground was set up:

Neighbor needs a can of Franks and Beans? No problem…open the window and pass it over.

Not complaining…the parks in the Niagara Falls area are very expensive, and we got this gem at a great price with full hook ups.

The interior section of the park. These sites are very short and not level at all…would have been a better “ambiance,” but we were out and about and busy anyway.

We were up fairly early on the 15th to check out the area north and east of us along Lake Ontario.  Here are some shots.

This is the Freedom Crossing monument in Lewiston, NY. This was where a major portion of the underground railroad operated. We had heard about this the day before from our tour guide. Impressive..

Here you can read most of the history for yourself…some cut off by the Bad Ron photographer, but you can Google it!

This is the Niagara River below the falls where it really opens up before entering Lake Ontario. This is where Josiah Tyron would take the escaped slaves in his row-boat to more safety in Canada…even though the Northern states were against slavery in this area, many slave hunters from the South would comb this area to find escaped slaves (even though they were now free) and return them to the South. In Josiah’s mind, as well as many others that operated the Underground in this area, the only way these folks would actually be safe was to get out of the country.

Another shot of the same area looking up-stream. Looks beautiful and peaceful now. Back then, the falls would have been much closer, and crossing this area at night would have been treacherous at best.

Further up the Coast, looking over Lake Ontario. It did not come out in the photo, but with the naked eye, we could see Toronto from this little state park.

Looking to the North East this time.

No matter which body of water we come to, Terri has to stick her foot in it…she said it was quite warm.

We took a nice long ride through the countryside, and stopped in a few areas just to enjoy the scenery.  A lot of the farm land in this area now seems to be taken over by grape vines…much more on that later.

After a stop at the grocery store, and a quick meal, it was time for a shot of the sunset before bed.

Friday was move day.  While getting ready to roll, we got a chance to talk to our neighbors from the past few days.  You rarely find folks in the camp ground here, as they are out and about touring the area.  In any case, the folks next to us were from Colorado and headed to Maine as well.  In fact, after we got set up and did some touring in the afternoon, we ran into them when we stopped for gas.  I was surprised, as they were planning on doing over 360 miles, and we only did about 120.  I guess they took a wrong turn, and were still going to motor on down the road…at least that was his story…hers was different, LOL!

We’ve received a lot of question about how we find camp sites, and I’ve mentioned the All Stays app a few times.  We use it most of the time to find and review the camp sites we are looking at.  Here is a screen shot of the place we landed on Friday:

As you can see, you get a wealth of info. Number of sites, rating, hook ups, price, rating, etc. Phone number and web site as well. It works real well for us.

I’ve talked about Passport America a lot this trip, and it’s paid off well.  This place has Passport, but only during the week, but they gave us a military discount that almost equaled the Passport rate.  Always pays to ask!

Here is a screen shot of the park we are at now. They offer PA rates, and we have two nights of full hook ups, 50 AMP for a total of $30…can’t beat that out here! The WiFi is spotty, but working for me, and the camp hosts are awesome.

Getting ahead of myself again.  The manager at the Waterloo Harbor Campground was great, and gave us a lot of ideas of what to do over the next two days.  We started with a bike ride along the north shore of Seneca Lake, which is located in the City of Geneva, NY.  Sheesh…we were just in Geneva On the Lake, OH the other night, and spent time in Lake Geneva, WI this summer…those Swiss!  It was a nice ride along some nice bike paths.

North end of Seneca Lake.

A harbor at the edge of the State Park.

It was Friday night, so I had to take a shot of the local Tiki Bar for our friends in FL!

After we got back to the camp ground, we headed out to tour a bit of the northeastern shore of the lake.  We ended up at the Three Brothers Winery and Estates, as recommended by the manager at the campground.

Looking west over Seneca Lake. These photos to not do justice to the awesome scenery!

Very nice place with nice facilities, live music and food. We had to leave a bit early, as they had a private party going on.

I almost forgot…they have a soon to be legendary brewery on site too!

We decided to head into Geneva for dinner, and I had the best pot roast sandwich I’ve ever had at the Brews and Beef Cafe.  The scenery and history and buildings in this little town at the north end of the lake are fantastic.

Downtown buildings. Could not get them all, so only took a shot of a couple.

When we were headed home, we saw the Harvest Moon on the rise over the lake.  I’ll post a pic here, but there is absolutely no way we can do justice to the awe-inspiring sight it was with the moon rising over the lake!

Moon rise over Seneca Lake.

That was about it for the night.  We headed back to camp, and met the new neighbors next door who were from Syracuse and spent the remainder of the night chatting with them around the camp fire.  We were up and at it early on Saturday to head down the western shore of Seneca to go to the Windmill Farm and Craft Market in Penn Yan, NY, then a trip further to the southern tip of the lake to take in the Watkins Glen State Park.  Here are some shot of the rest of the day.

Awesomeness with potatoes! Yes, I used an E like Dan Quayle does (even though I think it is proper in this case…have to ask Betty Beggs, my high school English teacher,  but I don’t think she’s around any more.) Also, I don’t know if I spelled his name right?? The Pierogi’s were awesome, as was the rolled cabbage.

There are a ton of shops at this market, but we only came away with a basket of concord grapes and some honey crisp apples!

On to Watkins Glen State Park.  Here is some info on the park from our friends at Wiki before we get to the pics.  If you are ever in the area, check it out.   More than worth the $8 parking fee:

“Watkins Glen State Park is located outside the village of Watkins Glen, south of Seneca Lake in Schuyler County in New York‘s Finger Lakes region. The park’s lower part is near the village, while the upper part is open woodland. It was opened to the public in 1863 and was privately run as a tourist resort until 1906, when it was purchased by New York State.^[1] Since 1924, it has been managed by the Finger Lakes Region of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.^[2]

Jacob’s Ladder, near the upper entrance to the park, has 180 stone steps, part of the 832 total on the trails

The centerpiece of the 778-acre (3.15 km²)^[3] park is a 400-foot-deep (120 m) narrow gorge cut through rock by a stream – Glen Creek – that was left hanging when glaciers of the Ice age deepened the Seneca valley, increasing the tributary stream gradient to create rapids and waterfalls wherever there were layers of hard rock. The rocks of the area are sedimentary of Devonian age that are part of a dissected plateau that was uplifted with little faulting or distortion. They consist mostly of soft shales, with some layers of harder sandstone and limestone.

The park features three trails – open mid-May to early November – by which one can climb or descend the gorge. The Southern Rim and Indian Trails run along the wooded rim of the gorge, while the Gorge Trail is closest to the stream and runs over, under and along the park’s 19 waterfalls by way of stone bridges and more than 800 stone steps. The trails connect to the Finger Lakes Trail, an 800-mile (1,300 km) system of trails within New York state.^[2]“

Onto the pics:

Entrance to the trails.

Amazing!

One of many waterfalls…although not as majestic as the ones we saw in Oregon, most impressive to say the least!

Looking out from behind one of the falls.

Caught this glimpse of a natural bridge formed when a tree fell over…

They have done a fantastic job making this place accessible to the many throngs of folks that visit here each year. It is over 1.5 miles from one end to the other, and over 880 steps if you take the gorge trail up. We took the gorge trail up, and the Indian trail back down. Fantastic!

Under Rainbow Falls.

We marvel at the work the State has done to keep this in great shape so anyone can visit.

On a suspension bridge on the way back down overlooking the gorge. I lifted the camera so you can see over Seneca Lake to the East.

Wow…what an adventure!  We wish we had time to visit all of the finger lakes, but, I guess it will only be Seneca this time.  We often laugh at the pronunciations and names of things…when you are not local, you screw up.  The guy at the camp ground office kept talking about a must see which is a little town at the north end of “Skinny Atlas” lake.  We could not find the lake on the map on the map!  Come to find out, it was very close to Seneca Lake and is spelled “Skaneateles.”  We love it!

After that 3+ mile hike up and down, we took another suggestion, and headed to the Grist Iron Brewing Company in Burdett, NY.  It is on the SE side of Seneca Lake.  What a nice place.  We had a beverage, and just enjoyed the scenery.

Before the pics, a bit of a side bar…we mentioned while we were in Oregon that you likely could not swing a dead cat (sorry cat owners) without hitting a microbrewery or a winery…well, watch out Oregon!  I think New York State is heavy on your heels!  they may be able to do it with a dead squirrel.  Seriously…there would be four or five vineyards located every mile along a 10 mile or so stretch.  This was in several areas!  And they were all busy.  Side bar closed…

Looking West from the patio overlooking Seneca Lake. We had to move inside, because Terri had a Pumpkin Beer that had a cinnamon and sugar mixture on the rim, and the bees in the area were more than happy to take it from her! She was not that inclined to allow them.

Interesting bathroom signs?!?!

Our beverages. Terri’s on the right, with the sugary substance now gone.

As mentioned earlier, we are in Bernardston, MA and will be here for two days, then on to Maine.  We have reservations starting there on Thursday, so we will take a couple of days getting there enjoying this beautiful country of ours!

Before we sign off, we have to wish my mom a very, very happy and blessed 88th birthday!  Courtesy of my sister, here is a pic of her and my dad at half her age, I can only hope we have the strength, faith and fortitude these two have had all their years together…love you!

As always, we hope this finds you Happy, Healthy, and Living Your Dreams!!!!

 

8-14 Sep, 2016: Illinois, Ohio, New York and Niagara Falls

Good Wednesday afternoon/evening folks!  We have been making some tracks once again…it is good to be back on the road.  When we last posted on the 8th, I was at the Cummins facility in Wisconsin getting my annual maintenance done on the Coach.  That went real well, no surprises other than needed a new air filter.  They are not cheap…$185!  I try to remove the air filter and clean it out every month or so, but it had been two years since I’d put a new one in, so it was time.  Other than that, normal fluid changes and lubrication’s.

We stayed in Terri’s mom’s driveway on the night of the 8th, and hit the road early on the 9th.  We had planned to take I-39 down to I-80 to start our trek East and to avoid Chicago, but we ended up going a bit further South in order to get over to Columbus Ohio on the 10th and 11th so we could visit some friends that were unexpectedly in Columbus for a bit.  We drove in the rain most of the day on Friday, the 9th, and it wasn’t too bad other than making a mess out of the Coach and the truck.  Terri found a place just north of Champagne-Urbana, IL.  It is the small town of Rantoul, IL and the RV Park (Prairie Pines) sits on the grounds of what used to be Chanute AFB, IL.  Chanute was closed by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) in 1993, and most of the base has been turned over to the local community.  I chatted with some folks that now live in the old officer’s housing, and it looks like Rantoul has made the most out of what appear to be great facilities like the gym, library, dorms that are now apartments, etc.  The RV Park sits in what used to be the base mobile home park, so it is kind of oddly laid out, as you will see in the pics that follow.  The deal between the Federal Government and the City of Rantoul as far as the RV Park is concerned is that the City has to make a major improvement every 10 years over the course of 30 years, at which time the property will be turned over to the City for good.  It was a nice place, and only $25 for 50 AMP, Full Hook Ups.

This is the West end of the park, looking out over what used to be the flight line. You can see hangars in the background if you look closely. What I meant about odd layout above is that you see the parking areas and sidewalks that used to go to the mobile homes. Now they lead to grassy RV sites…some of the time.

Our site…a pull through, kind of. The camp host (who has been here over ten years) led us through another camp site to pull straight into this one. Easy out the next day.

The pavilion in the foreground is a recent improvement, and the bath and showers are located in the building in the background…the building used to be the base dental office.

Most of the North side of the park is occupied by long-term construction workers that travel here each season.

All in all, it was a great experience, and we will stay here again if we are ever in the area.  Soon after we had gotten all settled, severe weather hit the area and the weather radio went nuts.  There were a few tornado’s that touched down not too far to the South of where we were.  Severe weather is always a concern when living in this box, but the bad stuff dissipated, and we had a great nights rest.  We were up and gone by 0900, but ran right into rain again, and it stayed with us all the way to the Columbus area.

We arrived at the Cross Creek RV Resort in Delaware, OH (just North of Columbus) about 3:00.  And just in time!  As soon as we got the Coach into our spot and plugged in, a nasty thunderstorm pushed through.  That lasted about an hour, and we then put the slides out and set up the rest of the camp site.  Cross Creek is a beautiful park, with tons of amenities, few of which we unfortunately took advantage of.  It was a little pricey, but we’ve learned to keep within our $600 per month camp site budget pretty well over the last two years.  In fact, we have actually come in under that each year so far.

Unfortunately, we did not get any pictures of the camp ground.  We headed out early on Sunday morning to meet up with great friends in Columbus.  Clay, Mary and Trase Travers were all in town, so we got a chance to spend the morning together and catch up.  God’s Speed to you all!!

That afternoon was gorgeous, so we decided to take in the Columbus Zoo.  Kind of pricey, but they honor a military discount, so it wasn’t too bad.  It was well worth the price.  This is definitely one of the nicest zoos that we have been visited.  The way they have arranged most of the animal exhibits gives you the feeling they are in their natural habitat…especially in the Africa area.

Hyenas playing around in the water hole area before the Cheetah run began.

They do a Cheetah run 3 times per day weather permitting. It was a blast watching these speed demons chase around like they were hunting.

One of the areas I was referring to above…every kind of animal that can live together without seeing the other as a meal lives in this expansive area.

The Reindeer are just losing their felt. As we walked past, this worker had just untangled two of them that somehow got one of the others halter off and they were hooked together.

And of course, the Bonobos. This gal looks bored, but the younger ones were flying all over the place, so much so that one of the elders had to smack a few to calm them down…funny.

We were up fairly early on the 12th for a shorter trek to Geneva on the Lake Ohio.  It is just East of Cleveland.  What a great place!  It is right across the street from Lake Erie, and they are a Passport America Park, which means we get 50% off their rates, as we are members.  For only $40 per year, this membership usually pays for itself in one or two nights.  I talked earlier about staying within our budget, well, this is one of the ways we do it…staying at an upscale independent park for half price…why, yes please!  And a gorgeous park it was!  Plenty of room between sites, cable TV, swimming pools, movie stars…er, nope.  Sorry, went Beverly Hillbilly on ya there.  But a huge, really nice place with a full grocery store on site, chapel, theater, meeting areas, stocked catch and release fishing ponds…they had it all, and for the PA rate of $25 per night…we will stay again!

Our long pull through site. The truck is still attached to the Coach…just a bad angle so you cannot see it.

Looking out towards the fishing ponds. The Coach got a bath this day too! I love Blue Beacon Truck Washes. They are the cheapest and they seem to do the best job. It was $50 to do the Coach and the truck, and they sprayed off our bikes for us too!

One of the ponds.

Another pond with a nice gazebo on it.

Nice pool! And the several restroom/shower/laundry facilities are likely the best we have seen.

Sun setting over Lake Erie. There is a path across the street from the park that the park Chapel built. It is first class as well…

Terri at the bottom of the overlook enjoying the view.

We were up and at it early again on the 13th, Tuesday.  We had a fairly short trek to Grand Island, New York, which is right near Niagara Falls.  Terri and I have never been, so we were looking forward to it.  I have to say, the highways in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Western New York have been great…I hope that continues as we move East.  We stopped at the first rest area in PA, and the lady working the counter couldn’t have been nicer.  She directed us to a few scenic routes that are navigable with the RV, and off the tollways.  Those of you from this part of the woods know that tolls are prolific!  In fact, we are considering buying an EZ Pass for the remainder of the trip…tough to swallow that though…I’ve been looking at alternative routes.

We had a very nice trip through some of the PA and NY wine country, and had a very uneventful trip through the city of Buffalo to reach Grand Island.  We are parked at the Cinderella Motel and RV park, with 50 AMP and full hookups, cable…but it stops there.  We hardly watch TV, so cable isn’t that big of a deal.  What drove us to this park is the location near the falls, and the price…they are another Passport America park, and rather than spending $75 a night for a really “tight” park, we are paying half of that.  What I mean by “tight” is that I know for a fact that if my neighbor on either side needed sugar, or a beer, or whatever, I could open the window and hand it to them  through their window!  Oh well, we are not here to spend all of our time the Coach anyway.  Looking ahead, it appears that I may have the unfortunate opportunity to blow the monthly camping budget in the NE…these places “ain’t cheap!!”

Onto today and the falls!  We decided to use the Gray Line tour system, and tour the Canadian side.  We are so glad we did!  It cost about $100 each, but well worth it for the places we got to go.  We totaled up what it would have cost us to park, and admission for what we got to do, and we would have spent way more than that if we had gone on our own, and we would not have gotten the history from our life long Buffalo resident and ardent Bills fan, Howard.  On to the pics.

Walking down to the Hornblower Canadian falls boat tour. This is a pic of the American falls….obstructed by the trees! The tower on the other side is the elevator that takes you to the boat tour on the American side.

A shot from the back of Hornblower of the Rainbow bridge that connects the two Niagara Falls cities.

Looking upriver toward Horseshoe Falls. Canada on the right, US on the left.

The American Falls…they will close this off in the next year or so to repair a bridge that goes to one of the islands. We learned soooo much today about how they control the water on this river, and how they get it to the hydro-electric plants further down river. What an experience…It would take pages to re-capture everything we learned.

Another shot of Horseshoe, the Canadian side, the behind the falls tour group (middle right) and a sliver of one of the out of service electric plants.

Selfies Suck I say, but here we are…the background is the spray caused by Horseshoe falls…can’t see a thing.

Down river by the “whirlpool” and the tram. The river make a severe 90 degree turn here, which results in a huge whirlpool on the left. The only place along the Niagara river where you can look across the river, and you are still looking at Canada.

More of the whirlpool.

The floral clock. Design changes twice per year. Maintained by the Horticulture University on the Canadian side.

OK…I hate heights, but this was worth it…looking at Horseshoe from the top of Skylon Tower.

The American Falls, Bridal Falls on the far right.

Well, that’s it for now.  What an awesome last few days!!  We are planning on exploring more of the local area tomorrow, and hope to get to the finger lakes next and spend a few days there.  We have not determined if we will go the northern or southern route around the lakes, but the southern route does not include tolls…so there is one indicator.  We are still looking at how we will traverse to Maine, but it appears now that we may catch I-91 in Mass, and take that all the way to the Northern end of VT and take US 2 over to I-95.  We will see.  If any of you have suggested places to go and see, routes to take, or things to do, please let us know!

As always, we hope this finds you Happy, Healthy, and Living Your Dreams!!!!

30 Jul – 8 Sep 2016; Wrapping up Summer, On the Move Again!

What a great summer we have had!  Unfortunately, it is coming to a close, but on the other hand, Terri and I are looking forward to getting on the road again.  We were very busy through the month of August with Ashley’s family, and spent almost all of that time in the park in Caledonia, WI near her house.  It is great being able to spend quality time with family, and not have to invade them…another reason we started this RV life!

Since it has been such a long time since we posted, I’ll likely make this mostly a photo blog, rather than going day by day.  We were lax in taking photo’s too, so not too many!  I’ve heard from a lot of folks that they miss the blog since they were accessing it via Face Book, so I’m re-activating my account so folks can keep up with our travels…thanks for wanting to stay with us on this journey!  And what a journey it has been…later this month we will mark our second year anniversary on the road as full-time RVers!!

To recap the past weeks, as mentioned above, we spent August in southern Wisconsin.  We were fortunate enough to be involved in graduation parties, birthday parties, trips and excursions in the area, a trip to DC for work for me, and just good old family time.  At the end of August we made a trip way up north to Boulder Junction, Wisconsin for a week to attend a wedding of the son of dear friends of ours, and to spend time with extended family at the camp ground.  Yesterday we made it back to Terri’s mom’s house in Wausau, and as I write this I am sitting in the customer lounge at the local Cummins shop waiting on the Coach to come back from its annual physical…or maintenance if you will.  Hopefully it won’t be too painful in the wallet.  Early tomorrow we plan to start our trek to the NE, and hope to take in everything from NY, NH, ME, VT and hopefully some of Canada.  We don’t know how long we will be up that way, but will try to extend in the cooler country as long as we can.  The long term plan right now is to be in FL for December, and MS in Jan and Feb…we will see.  Let’s get started…

We sure got our share of heat in August this year! It did cool off at night most of the time.

Terri and I shopping for decorations for Emma’s grad party…turned into more of an off to college party…She is going to Hope College in Holland, MI…thus the reason for the sign and the orange letters.

Having a walking taco bar for food, so a trip to the big box stores was in order as well.

Saturday, the 6th of August was finally cool enough for a fire.

There is a huge farmers market near the camp ground every Sunday. This is a stand for one of the micro-breweries in Kenosha.

We also found some “rummage” sales on Sunday, the 7th. My brother-in-law has a frying pan just like this one for cooking on the camp fire.

Terri dropped me off at the Milwaukee airport on Wed the 10th for a short trip to DC for work. The clouds were awesome on our descent into DC.

An awesome view from the rooftop of our company headquarters in Crystal City.

My good buddy Dan Deans giving me the nickle tour before my departure Friday evening.

Made it back in time for Emma’s party on the 13th.

The taco bar was a big hit!

Decorations turned out well.

Hard to see here, but later on Saturday while sitting outback of Ashley’s house, the sky was absolutely filled by hundreds and hundreds of Dragon Flies. They are one block off of Lake Michigan, so don’t know if there was a hatch near the lake or what, but I’d never seen anything like it.

As I was watching the dragon flies, I caught something out of the corner of my eye, and saw a rabbit being chased by a Coyote. We’d seen a lot of Coyote scat in the area behind their house, but had not laid eyes on the it. I ran around back through the neighbor’s yard, and took a quick video of the Coyote headed for the lake. These shots are not the greatest as I pulled them off of the video.

The Coyote saw me, stopped, and just sat for a while. As I took a step towards it, it scampered off. The shoreline in this area if full of broken up rocks and concrete for erosion. It makes perfect housing for these critters.

We were fortunate enough to have Toby quite a bit in August. Here we are headed for the bike trails.

Terri, Toby and I met Ashley at a little Mexican Restaurant on the 16th, the night before Toby’s 4th birthday. The folks at the restaurant put on a great show for him!

And on the 17th, we celebrated his 4th at his house!  Batman AND Spider man cake!

The weekend of the 19th brought a huge adult softball tourney to the park we stay at. We had Batman for the weekend, and he scaled the fences.

I always seem to get small tears right at the knee in the shorts I wear. Instead of getting a new pair (these fit just right!) I made some modifications.

This park is busy on the weekends, but clears out during the week, and we have most of it to ourselves.

On Wed, the 24th, we found a weekly food truck and music event that we hadn’t known about. It was only about 20 minutes from the park. Great food and a great time.

It’s a real nice venue at an athletic complex, and it is also a ski area in the winter.

Part of the small ski area.

We had Toby through the weekend of the 26th, as Ashley and Garreck were taking Emma to college. Here is Toby “instructing” a new friend on the proper use of the bubbler, as it is known up here.

We took Toby to his house a couple of days for his nap so we could mow lawn and such. I guess we wore him out!

Finally some cooler weather again and more fires.

Saturday, the 27th was a perfect day for the local Racine Zoo!

The Zoo, although not real big, has a lot to offer. It is located right on the banks of Lake Michigan, so the vistas are great as well.

Toby and L’il Joey.

The birds were acting nuts! The Zoo worker said that in the late summer after rains, they go crazy. All you had to do was stand still and you’d have five or six of them on you. They climbed into Terri’s purse as well. The worker at the door had to check purses and pockets as people left the cage.

Later in the afternoon Toby and I took a walk around the Kenosha harbor and got to see the Big Red Ship giving rides.

I’ve mentioned before that we get to meet some really great people in our travels.  A few in particular are the maintenance man at the park (Mr. Bob) and the camp hosts, Dave and Judy.  They were wonderful.  Terri and I really enjoyed our chats with Bob…he would try to stop by and take a break from mowing or whatever and just catch up with life.  He knew Toby had a birthday, and I found this on our site post:

What a wonderful gesture!

We will miss them, but hopefully catch up again next spring.

Monday, the 29th was move prep day.  Since we had been sitting for quite a while, I checked all the fluids, and decided to get all the tires to the proper pressure.  They were not far off, but I hadn’t equalized them in a while.  I run 110 PSI in the front and 95 PSI in the rear.  Luck would have it that as soon as I started airing the front left, the valve stem core gave out.  Thank goodness I have spares and the core tool.  After that near debacle was avoided, I had to air the tire up about 20 PSI.  I have an on board compressor, that will max out at 120 PSI, so when you get over 100, it is real slow going.  One of our neighbors (Joe) who has been here all summer stopped by when I was done, and showed me the neat gauge he made so you can tell when your system is aired up.  I can do that if I run inside every few minutes, but that is a pain in the rump.  Here are a couple of shots of what Joe made:

He just added an in-line gauge to his air chuck. It is a little tattered, but works well. I’ll be making one of these soon.

The rest of the prep went well, and after an early bed time, we were up early and got all of our goodbyes in, dumped, and hit the road for Terri’s mom’s house.  The trip to the Camp Ground we  were going to for the wedding would have been a bit longer for one day than we wanted, so it was great to break it up by stopping at Shirley’s.  The only issue we ran into was the fact that the county was re-paving the road in front of her house.  I stopped to re-fuel a few miles away, and Terri took the truck up to see if we could get through.  The foreman indicated I had about a 30 minute window to get in, but they would then be shutting lanes down.  I made it in plenty of time, and we pulled the lawn chairs out and watched the work.

Things have changed quite a bit from what I recall from my youth seeing this done. Now they chop up the old black top, and recycle it. It goes to a place near where they are working to be re-tarred if you will, then goes on trucks and into the heater and paver.

It was fun to watch, and the foreman and crews were great to chat with.

We had a nice night catching up with Shirley, and Ryan and Mason stopped by for a while.  We were up early on Wednesday to make the trek to Boulder Junction, WI and the Camp Holiday RV Resort.  We had to leave by 0900, or we would have been stuck for the day as they were starting the second coat of black top.

Here is our site at Camp Holiday. Very nice park, and we were right across from the playground on one side, and the lake on the other. Ashley and family arrived later that day, and Rob and Pat and family arrived on Friday.

It was an awesome week and long weekend.  We met James and Laurie and family wed night in Minocqua for a water ski show, and just to catch up.  Their eldest son Josh would be getting married on Saturday.  We had a blast all week…great bike trails, cards, fires, food, wedding, visits to family and much, much more.  Here are some shots of the week:

The lake with the water trampoline.

Fabulous bike trails located less than two miles from the park. They go for miles and miles! Some of the best trails we have ever seen.

The blue dot gives you an idea of where we were at.

It wasn’t real warm each day, but the beach was located in a protected area and the water temp was warm.

Awesome wedding venue on the lake!

Great friends James and Laurie, parents of the groom.

Post ceremony reception before dinner.

What a nice venue, and fantastic wedding!

More days of swimming!

View from Terri’s cousins house on Gunlock Lake near our camp ground. They have a beautiful house and location in the Northwoods!

Stacy showing Toby how to put the boat in the water.

Brandon and Stacy took us for a boat ride around their little piece of heaven.

Love this shirt! Saw it in a store in Minocqua on Tuesday while we were staying out of the rain. It rained, hailed and blew like crazy Monday night. I didn’t sleep a wink, and we were joined by Toby and Ashley about 0400 when it was getting real bad. Garreck and Shiloh roughed it out in their tent camper.

Sunset over the lake on our last night.

Well, that’s about it!  We drove in the rain yesterday to Shirley’s, so the Coach is nasty dirty now.  the Coach should be done soon, and then we will prep for an early departure tomorrow.

As always, we hope this finds you Happy, Healthy and Living Your Dreams!!!!