September 30, 2008 Limehurst Lake Campground, Barre, Vermont

We drove almost all day on 2 lane roads that were up, down, and zigzagging back and forth through the Sugarloaf Mountains in Maine and the White Mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont.

We had thought we would get here in time to tour a little, but the drive took longer than we had expected, so we set up the campsite with our carpet and awning, securing it, of course.

It’s so nice here, we’re in a quiet little campground with full hookups and the back of the camper looks out over a little lake.

I fixed a light supper and we ate here since neither of us wanted to get out again. We watched the news and weather report on the TV while we were eating. It’s supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, so Larry went back out after we had eaten and put the awning down and put the rug away.

We’ll tour a couple of places tomorrow and stay here again tomorrow night before we leave. When we leave here, we’ll be heading across New York state to Niagara Falls.

September 29, 2008 – Pumpkin Patch Campground, Hermon, ME

After all the rain of the past 3 days, today dawned beautiful! The sun was shining almost all day. This evening it started to cloud up a bit, but apparently, Hurricane Kyle has moved out to sea quicker that they had predicted. We went to bed last night with Kyle still threatening the coast. Earlier in the evening I mentioned to Larry that he hadn’t secured our awning, he said he would do it later. After we got to bed, I mentioned it again, he had forgotten to do it, but the wind wasn’t blowing very much at all and the weather man had predicted that we wouldn’t see much of the storm. About 2:00 he woke up worrying about the awning. We still didn’t have much wind, but he wasn’t able to really rest, so he got up and went out and put the awning down. I’m sure the neighbors loved hearing the slam of the awning hitting the camper at that time of night.

Since it was such a beautiful day, we drove to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park today.

It was a glorious day, the weather was beautiful and the area was beautiful as well. The tide was in when we first got there, so all the bays were full and the waves were crashing in and spraying.

We drove around some of the bays first, and then drove up Cadillac Mountain getting out at several points.

Driving back it almost seemed as if the trees had turned to their fall colors more than they had been this morning. Again, the word is Beautiful!


One of the unique things we’ve seen in this area is some of the older farm houses are joined to the barn.

Many of them have been added on to several times and finally joined to the barn. I’m sure they have some pretty severe winters up here, so this way, they don’t have to go out into the weather.

Another of the unique things for this area, but this applies to all of New England, not just Maine, is that there are Dunkin’ Donuts on nearly every other corner. We’ve never seen so many DD’s. A fairly small town, maybe the size of Troy, would have probably 3 or 4 Dunkin’ donuts! We got back to Hermon about 5:00, stopped at a drive-in that had been recommended by the people at the campground, and got a haddock basket and clams. We ate there at the picnic tables then came back to the camper to settle in for the night. The awning is down.

September 28, 2008 – Pumpkin Patch Campground, Hermon, Maine

We drove about 5 hours north and east to this really nice campground near Bangor, Maine. There aren’t so many trees here, but the sites are nice and level, plus we have full hookups, including cable TV and internet for under $30 a day. We’re really roughing it!

It rained off and on (mostly on) the whole way here and is still raining. We had planned to go to Bar Harbor, Maine, which is on the coast and part of Acadia National Park. We changed our plans though, because of the tropical storms and Hurricane Kyle. The way it looks, it should quit raining here tomorrow and the storms are moving northeast of here. We’ll drive to Acadia either Monday or Tuesday, depending on the weather.

We’ve been switching back and forth between eating out and staying in and cooking. When we were sightseeing in the Boston area, we mostly ate out, trying the clam chowder, clams and fish. This evening we went into Hermon and tried lobster. We both felt it was highly overrated. It’s too much work for what you get. I think we’ll both be sticking with the other sea foods.

Larry’s head hasn’t bothered him. It looks like a nice clean cut, not at all inflamed. The doctor had told him yesterday that he could shower and wash his hair yesterday evening if he wanted, but he waited till this evening to shampoo. I applied the ointment afterward and it looks real good. I keep thinking it should get sore, but maybe there is enough blood flow in the head that it will heal quickly. It’s quite a gash though, about 3 inches long.

That’s all for this evening, no pictures again. We saw lots of color in the trees on our way here, but it was really raining and foggy, so we didn’t take any pictures. It’s almost 8:00 here and the Amazing Race will be on soon, so we’re settled in to watch that tonight.

September 27, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

Larry here: I thought I would start out this entry and take credit for a relaxing down day. We had decided to leave a day early for Acadia Nat’l Park in Maine (our next stop). But, while getting ready to go, I stood up a little too soon and met the 5th wheel hitch up close. Now I have 14 staples closing a 3 inch cut in the top of my scalp (but I feel fine, not even a head ache). And, although needing stitches or staples, I kept pressure on it from the start and it had stopped bleeding and just needed help to stay closed, per the doctor. By the time we got back from the hospital, it would have been a rush to make it to Acadia by tonight and require our not stopping if we saw something that intrigued us. I really am trying real hard to not rush anymore, so taking Karen’s advice we will stay here the last night we had already reserved. It is raining again, but hopefully it will pass and we will leave tomorrow morning (rain or shine). I will leave it with this and let Karen add her thoughts.

Karen’s turn: We had talked last night and decided to move on to Maine even though we were paid up through tomorrow. It was supposed to rain all Saturday after a rainy Friday, so we thought we might as well be traveling since it wasn’t going to be a good day to get out and do anything. The rain had slacked off last night to just a drizzle about the time we went to bed and was about the same this morning, so Larry went out to do his part of the preparation of hooking up. I was working on getting the inside things ready to go when he comes to the door and says he need paper towels, and fast! I grabbed some paper towels, thinking he must have gotten something on his skin or clothes. There he stood with his hand on his head. He slapped the paper towels on the top of his head and said he needed to get stitches. I grabbed my jacket and purse and started for the truck. He wanted to drive! I insisted I would do the driving this time – I’ve never driven his truck and he wasn’t crazy about relinquishing it over to me. I stopped at the office to ask where the nearest ER or medical clinic was. They gave me a map and showed me one of each. The hospital was nearer, but we decided ER’s are usually rather slow, so we would go for the clinic which was the opposite direction. That was a mistake. We never did find the clinic. I finally stopped and asked some people coming out of a restaurant and they directed me to a hospital about two miles from there. After nearly an hour of sitting in the waiting room, they took him in and put in the 14 staples. He insisted on driving back and wanted to still leave for Maine. I thought we should just stay put and take it easy for the rest of the day. For a change, I won out. We’ve been lounging around the camper all day. We’ve been taking turns reading, watching TV and playing on the computer. He says it doesn’t hurt, not even a headache. I guess that is just proof how hard headed he is!

September 26, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We’ve had RAIN today! We woke up about 6:00 am hearing drops hit the roof of the trailer. It sounded worse than it was. I went out to walk Penny and it was just drizzling, but all the forecasts have been predicting heavy rains for today and tomorrow, clearing on Sunday. Larry left early, about 7:00 to get an oil change on the truck. I decided to use that time to vacuum a little. When Larry got back, we had some breakfast and then we got the laundry together. I went to the laundry center here at the campground and when I got done with that Larry had plans ready to do a little more local sightseeing.

We went to Lowell, MA, which is just 10 miles or so from here. That is the site of the Boott Cotton Mills Museum which is a former textile mill that has been set up as a museum and is managed by the National Park Service.


Apparently they have more than the textile mill on a tour that includes a canal boat and trolley rides. Because of the rain, all we did was tour the textile mill where they had working looms on display. They had videos of interviews of former workers and displays depicting the American Industrial Revolution. Most of the people in the interviews stressed how bad the working conditions had been, with the noise, the dust and the demand for more and more production, but they all said they felt lucky to have had a job. Before leaving Lowell, we went into a small quilt museum also.

Now we are “home”. We’re in for the night, warm and dry, while we listen to the rain hammer on the roof.

September 25, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We did some more sightseeing on our own today, driving a little north of Boston. We intended to go thru Salem first, then to Gloucester and Rockport which nestle together and sit on the coast. Somehow we ended up going to Gloucester first. Both Gloucester and Rockport are touristy fishing towns with lots of little artsy shops and overpriced clothing.

We enjoy just driving around and looking at the homes and the coastal views. We stopped at one of the restaurants and shared a lobster pie. It was described on the menu as the “Lazy man’s lobster”. It was lobster meat already picked out, cooked with butter and buttered cracker crumbs over it. It came with fries and slaw. It was really good. I think we’ll wait to get to Maine to get a real lobster dinner.

We stopped at the “Halibut Point State Park” and walked through some of their trails. It was on the coast and surrounded an abandoned granite quarry.

There were hundreds of giant granite boulders still there. I would have liked to have picked out a new countertop while there, but Larry didn’t think they would appreciate us trying to load their little rocks.

This afternoon we finally made it to Salem. We stopped at the Witches Museum, but we weren’t interested enough in witches to pay the $8 each to tour it. We walked around the adjoining block to the tourist center and went in there to see what kind of literature they had on the area. As we were leaving the building, we walked past a man sitting on a bench. I looked at him and when we were past, I said to Larry “that man looked just like David Roady”. He said “I thought so too.” Could it be??? Surely not! We turned back and he had left the bench. There was a lady standing there and Larry asked me if that wasn’t his wife. I wasn’t sure as I had met her only a couple of times. We stood there waiting to see where the man had gone. He came back to the lady in question, and Larry asked him if he was Dave Roady. When he asked, Dave recognized us also. They are in the area waiting to board a cruise ship to Nova Scotia and Canada. They were with a group touring the Boston area prior to the cruise. Small world!! For those of you not from Troy, Dave is a former teacher at the Junior High, formerly our tax preparer and city treasurer for Troy. Dave and Marguerite are also parents of Lenny’s best friend, Patrick. I guess it was fate for us to miss the road to Salem till later in the day.

September 24, 2008 – Minuteman Campground, Ayer, MA

We took our own tour today, driving to Mystic, Connecticut and Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. Mystic is an old sea port town (founded 1654)

that now caters to tourists with shop after shop lining the narrow streets. By narrow, I mean streets that look as if they would have to be one way, but they aren’t. Parking is allowed on one side of the street, there is room for one other vehicle to travel down the street, and signs instructing you to pull over if meeting another vehicle. The houses in the residential area are sometimes built right up to the edge of the street. Maybe I should say the street goes right up to the edge of the house, because considering the age of the houses, they were probably there first.

Providence, RI, the capitol of Rhode Island is a typical New England city, and we just passed through it. Newport, however, was a really beautiful and another very old city (founded in 1639). It had huge gorgeous houses and enormous yachts in the port. Wow! Newport is very much a tourist destination also, but not as crowded as Mystic, but I think that is because it is probably a little more expensive. We did pick out a vacation home

and boat (the one in the background)

in Newport though. Think I better start buying lottery tickets!

We ate out in a drive-in restaurant that had been on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. I can add another “D” - Disappointment! The food was all good, but nothing fantastic. I think we enjoyed the chowder and fish better in Boston yesterday at the food court in the shopping area. They had a combo meal of clam chowder and cakes. I ordered it assuming it was clam cakes. It wasn’t, it was like hush puppies, except it was more like fried bread dough. Also, the chowder was very thin. Larry had a fish wrap. That was pretty good. It was fried fish with slaw, rolled in a tortilla and was about 2” in diameter.

We got back about 6:00 and we have each taken a turn walking Penny around the campground. It’s good to walk a little after a long ride.

September 23, 2008 – Minuteman Campground

We took a sightseeing tour through Boston today. We had to leave at 7:30 to meet the bus at a hotel about 20 miles from the campground. That meant we had to get up a little earlier than usual. I know - - we always complain about waking up early, but we are on Eastern time here, which makes it an hour earlier than we’re used to and believe it or not, we have started sleeping a little past our former 5:30 wake up time.

We got on the bus with a couple of other couples and then gradually picked up a few more people as we went into Boston. I think we ended up with 16 people total. The driver seemed really quiet and gruff when we got on, and I told Larry we must be picking up someone else who would lead the tour, but once he got started talking he gave a really good tour. He was very knowledgeable about the details of history! We stopped at the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow home,

which had briefly served as George Washington’s home and headquarters, but it wasn’t open for touring on Tuesdays, so we were only able to walk around the outside of it. We also stopped at the Boston Public Library (oldest public library in US), Trinity Church (beautiful old church),

Old North Church (Paul Revere’s “one if by land, two if by sea),

Copps Hill Burial Ground (oldest burial ground in US) and also the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). There were quite a few other buildings and establishments he elaborated on, such as Harvard and Boston University. We got back around 5:00. It was a busy but good day.

September 22, 2008 – Minuteman Campground

It rained most of the night, last night, even though the forecast had been for clear weather. It remained cool and cloudy all day, fortunately it didn’t rain anymore today. We took jackets when we left this morning, since it was in the low 50’s and we were headed for the coast. We were glad we had them.

We left the campground about 9:00 am and drove about an hour and a half to Plymouth, MA. Plymouth Rock was a bit disappointing. Yep, it was a rock! They had construction and barricades all around it, except for a three foot square piece of plexiglass that you could look through to see that, yes, there was a rock there. They also had a replica of the Mayflower to tour.

That was pretty interesting. It was amazing to see how small it was! The hull at the largest part was only 90ft. by 25 ft. They sailed with 102 passengers, plus cows, pigs, chickens and barrels and barrels of preserved foods (salted meats, and dried beans, fruits and vegetables). The bunks where the crew slept were about 2 feet by 5 feet. Larry didn’t think he would have fit very well into the bunks. There was a brick hearth for cooking meals inside a room on the upper deck. I believe they said they lived on it for seven months, 5 months of travel and another 2 months before they had houses built.

We then toured the Plimoth settlement (no, that’s not misspelled). This showed a village of the Native Americans, the Wampanoag. They had Native staff there to explain their way of life then and now. Then there also was an English village set up, with people re-enacting how they lived. You could ask questions and they would explain the lifestyle as if they had been transported in a time machine and knew no other way. There was a group of teenagers from a school touring and they were busy asking questions and writing the answers in notebooks. I overheard one of the re-enactors tell them something about having butter shipped in from England. I asked why they had it shipped in because they had cows. She acted very indignant over the question, because with only 3 cows for the whole village, they couldn’t spare any of the milk to make butter!

She was almost yelling that she would make butter if the 3 cows belonged to her own family, but they had to supply everyone.

It was all very interesting.

We ate on the way back at a little hole in the wall. We’re always hoping to find something like they show on the Food Network. We didn’t! We had one of their lobster rolls and also crab cakes. Not being really thrilled with either, we ordered fried clams to go and ate them on the way back. None of it was worthy of “Diners, Drive-ins and Dives”. We got back about 6:30 pm. Penny had stayed in the truck the whole time we were out and made it just fine. She seemed to have lain in her cage the times we were away from the truck.

September 21, 2008 – Near Boston, MA

We drove thru some of the Catskill Mountains today on the way here to the Minuteman Campground outside Boston. We stayed pretty well on the interstate today though, so it went pretty fast. We’re booked in here for the week, with plans to leave the camper set up here and drive around to see some of the area sights. We’re really roughing it though. HARDLY! We have all the comforts of home including cable TV and a really good internet connection. It’s a beautiful campground, and we have a really private site even though it’s almost in the middle and very near the office. We didn’t get a picture this evening, so we’ll try to remember to get a picture tomorrow. That’s it for today.

September 20, 2008 - Tunkhannock, PA

We traveled today for nearly 8 hours. That’s a long drive in the truck and pulling a trailer. Eight hours isn’t near so bad in a car as it is in the truck. The drive was even harder on the rough roads we were on all day. We knew we would be on two lane roads all day, but they were really rough, which sometimes causes the trailer to jerk. Needless to say, Larry was exhausted by the end of the day which was complicated by trying to find a campground. We were traveling on US route 6 (Avenue of the Grand Army of the Republic) – two lane the whole way which was supposed to be scenic. Most of it was scenic, the first couple of hours we drove thru the Allegheny National Forest, which was beautiful. Then we followed the Susquehana River the rest of the way. Nearly all of it was in a valley between some minor mountains, though some of it was up and down over them (including a couple of long 6% grades). About 3:00 we decided to change our original route and started looking for a campground. We saw signs showing one a mile or so off the road. We drove into it, thru an extremely narrow and winding road, got there, no one was there at the office. They had a note on the door, saying to pick out a site and they would be back later. It looked pretty run down, and there were maybe 8 or 10 trailers in the whole place, none of which looked like they had moved in the last few years. We drove thru it, past one bunch of people sitting outside their camper who looked like they came straight out of “Deliverance”, and we drove out and on down the road.

We arrived here, in Tunkhannock, about 4:15 or 4:30. We’re about 30 miles west of Scranton, PA. We will drive about 6-7 hours tomorrow to arrive at the Minuteman Campground, near Boston. We plan to make this our base for a week while we tour the area.

Needless to say, we didn’t have any side trips today, it was all steady driving. We came this route because of something I had seen on the internet about Towanda, PA. When we got there I couldn’t remember what it was I had wanted to see, still haven’t remembered. May never find it again . . . . .

September 19, 2008 – Mercer, PA

We traveled thru Ohio today and stopped about 30 or 40 miles into Pennsylvania. The first 2/3 or so of Ohio looked about like Illinois, - fairly flat and lots of corn and soy bean fields. By the way, their crops are ahead of the ones in our area, they were combining beans in a couple of places. I guess they didn’t have the extremely wet spring like we had. In fact some of their streams and lakes looked a little low. The latter part of Ohio was somewhat hilly.

We had called this campground yesterday, but were told they were without electricity, as was most of the area after the storm from hurricane Ike. We never saw any damage anywhere, but the news people on the radio always mentioned the power outages. We called the campground before we got here and asked again and they said power had been restored today. We pulled into the campground about 3:00. They had a sign about a free Amish tour, so we asked about it. After we got set up, Larry went back and they gave him 4 or 5 laminated pages to follow the route thru the Amish country. We followed the route (or at least tried to follow it) thru most of the tour. A few places led us to dead ends before I read further down to where it said the road would be a dead end and we would have to retrace our path. It was really interesting, and we met or passed several horse and buggy sets on the tour. One highlight mentioned was an Amish school house. It was a one room schoolhouse, outside were outhouses, a hand pump for water and a shed for the teacher’s horse. Most of the tour, there would be Amish homes and farms with horses and buggies and next to it would be an “English” home or farm, with cars and trucks outside. At one point, it said to look up at a certain intersection, because this would be the last we would see electric lines for several miles coming up. So in that area, all the farms were Amish. One man was mowing his lawn, by riding on two rotary mowers pulled by a horse. Larry says that was the Amish version of a garden tractor. We would have liked to have had a picture of that, but we know they don’t like to have their pictures taken, so we didn’t try. We did take a few pictures of some of the farms where they had cut their corn and tied it into shocks – I guess that’s what it’s called tied into bundles and left standing in the field.

Larry thought I got him lost a few times on this tour, so he said Greta (our GPS) doesn’t need to worry about losing her job! As a bonus, we stopped at an Amish roadside stand and bought some cinnamon rolls from them. Yumm!

September 18, 2008 – Brookville, Ohio

Just a few miles down the road before we stopped for the day, we passed Greenville on Rt. 127. This, by the way, was Greenville, Ohio. I thought Greenville and Rt. 127 were quite coincidental.

We stopped the first night in a KOA, at Brookville, Ohio, a little before we got to Dayton. It was a beautifully kept park. After supper we walked around the campgrounds. It’s really quite large and immaculate. They have a pond for fishing, a nice large swimming pool (closed for the season), mini golf and a playground with a sand box area. This all was near the office and little campground store and snack bar. There were gazebos filled with benches and one with cooking facilities. They also have several cabins to rent.

Toward the outer edge, but within a block or so from the restrooms and showers, there were several tents (probably 15-20) set up as a group. There was a large van pulling a trailer by it with a sign on it saying “Wandering Wheels”. Larry said he had seen several bicyclists coming into the campgrounds and he wondered if that was the group. We just greeted an older man coming out of the restroom and started to keep on walking, when Larry notice he had on a t-shirt saying “Wandering Wheels”, so he asked him if he was with the group in the tents. He said he was, and explained they had been bicycling in the general area for the past week. This man introduced himself and told us he was 83 years old. He said the age of the group probably averaged about 75. They have one man aged 92. They usually do about 25 or 30 miles a day, staying some where different every night. Their longest day had been 45 miles. Amazing! I’m sure I couldn’t keep up with them!