October 9, 2008 – Home Sweet Home, Troy, IL

We made it home after about an 8 ½ hour drive today. A longer drive than our normal would be, but we needed to be home for my doctor appointment tomorrow. The final numbers are: 22 days, 11 states, and 4500 miles. I think about 75% of that was pulling the 5th wheel. We were able to see a lot of beautiful country, the fall colors, interesting historical and scenic sites. We enjoyed the whole trip and but have decided our favorite was the time in Shipshewana. The country side and farms are very clean and orderly, and there a lot of neat shops to look through. There were quilt stores for Karen and woodworking for me. The Amish really have some interesting and beautiful pieces. Lots of ideas! We are thankful to be home after basically a safe trip. So, this is the last post for now.

October 8, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

We had seen some ads for a few places in some surrounding areas that we planned to go to today. We started out looking for a place that advertised glider recliners especially for RV’s. It was in the country, south of here, near Topeka, IN. The GPS didn’t recognize the address, so we started driving in that area, thinking we could figure out the logic of the numbered roads. We couldn’t! Many of the roads ended at a “T”. We drove and drove. Finally, in Topeka, we stopped and asked at a gas station. The man there directed us to go back the way we had come, but told us where to reconnect to the original road. (We had tried to call the business, but got a fast busy signal like there was a problem with the phone.) We finally found it, down a couple of gravel roads. It was an Amish owned business that didn’t really have a phone, just an answering service. They had a few beautiful recliners, but not much in stock. They do lots of special orders and ship the chairs out to the customer. - We’ll think about it, but we were really impressed.

Another business advertised in the brochure we had was in Elkhart, IN. It was an RV Supercenter and sold all kinds of RV supplies. We headed in that direction, missed our turn and ended up on the other edge of Elkhart. At this point, Larry programmed Greta to find the place. We drove through Elkhart and finally found it. It had everything deeply discounted because they were going out of business. They didn’t have much left to choose from though.

The dip in the economy has deeply hurt the RV industry. Some of the manufacturers of RV’s have gone out of business also. We went past one large one that was totally cleared out. As with other businesses in this area, many of the RV manufacturers here employ the Amish. They have buggies parked at the edge of the parking lots, and there is usually a small barn there also for the horses. Also many of the Amish ride bicycles to work.

Leaving Elkhart, we went to Goshen, IN, where we were planning to go on a tour of the Keystone plant. Keystone makes the Montana and Mountaineer RV’s. We really enjoyed the tour provided to us and two other couples. If only the economy were better!!

We arrived back in Shipshewana just in time to attend today’s final guided tour at the Menno-Hof Amish-Mennonite Visitors’ Center. It was very interesting and explained the differences between the two sects. The Amish are the ones with the horses and buggies, dress in black and do not have electricity in their homes (among other more subtle differences). Mennonites do use the modern conveniences, including cars and electricity, but still live a strict lifestyle.

We’re in for the evening now and will be packing up to leave tomorrow morning. We’ll be home sometime tomorrow evening. It’s nearly 400 miles to Troy, so it will be a longer day’s drive than we usually plan for a day. It has been a fun and interesting trip, but it will be good to be home.

October 7, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

If this sounds different, that is because Larry is writing it today. We started the day with packing up and hand cranking in the slide-out so that we would be at the Forest River factory by 8:00 am. This meant we had to leave here by 7:30. No problems getting there, but than we had to find where to drop the 5th wheel off. Seems that there are two large factory buildings that are connected by a rock road. No signs on any doors, so I went in the first building and ask the first person I saw about where to go. Found we needed to go to the second building. Went to the second building and still no signs on any door, so I just picked a door and ask for our contact. They said to just drop it where I was parked outside the door, give them the keys and a phone number, and they would get it fixed and call by the end of the day. NO Paper Work except for my name and number on a piece of paper.

So, we were headed back to Shipshewana for breakfast by 8:30. On the way to the factory and back we did see lots of horse and buggies,

an Amish school with bikes and a place for the teacher to keep his horse during class,

and many people on bikes that were on their way to work.


After breakfast, we headed to the Shipshewana Flea market that is held on Tue and Wed. They said that over a 1000 vendors are in attendance, but I think that is during the summer. It was large, we did find some things to buy, but the weather was cold. Their main season is over and I think some vendors where probably at places like the Covered Bridge festival. So, all the stalls were not open and it was really not that busy. I get the feeling we are headed back here in the spring.

Since I was told they start working at the Forest River (and other RV) factories about 5:00, they to are leaving by 12:30 for the day. The starting time is in part to allow the Amish workers that farm time to get home and do that during the day light. Although they had not called us by noon, we headed back to see if they had finished. When we got there, the slide was out, a new motor was setting on the ground by the tire, and I could tell the original one had been removed and re-installed. I finally found the two men who had been working on it and was told the original motor was okay, it just had a bad connection with-in the case. They had removed the motor and fixed the bad connection and put it back on the RV. And, they noticed that the header beam for the slide was warped and the seal hanging up when you retract the slide. So, they removed it, and installed a new larger header beam that should not warp and do a better job of sealing. Since the warranty is only one year for the 5th wheel, I almost hated to ask what we owed. But I did and was shocked when they said; No Charge, just let them know if I had any other troubles. I have heard horror stories about Forest River, but they sure treated us right.

We took the RV back to the campground and than headed in to Shipshewana to see some of the stores that were closed last night. We did find a Quilt shop for Karen today and I had a nice talk with the owner’s husband. He was helping out while he is off for two weeks because of the slow down in production at the RV factory where he works. Interesting to hear his views of the economy, how it is impacting his work and the tourist trade here, and just answering some of our question on life style that we have asked ourselves as we traveled the back roads to and from Forest River.

October 6, 2008 – Shipshewana Campground South, Shipshewana, Indiana

We left Milan, Ohio this morning after a long and noisy night. The campground itself was nice enough, but it was noisy. We were near a seed company which had blowers going all night, plus we were near a busy railroad. Larry says it sometimes pays to be hard of hearing.

We arrived in this quaint and lovely area in the early afternoon. We are in the heart of Indiana’s Amish country. Larry insists I tell you this: On the way here this morning, he asked me what my favorite part of the trip had been. Since we left home 18 days ago, we’ve traveled over 3900 miles. I couldn’t say what my favorite part had been so far. I had enjoyed seeing all the areas, the wooded mountains through Pennsylvania and New York, the tour of historic Boston, the Cape Cod and Plymouth Rock areas, the coastline along Acadia National Park in Maine, majestic Niagara Falls, and the autumn colors in New Hampshire and Vermont. But I couldn’t say what my favorite had been; I couldn’t at least until today. Now I can pick a favorite, this area, a mere 390 miles from home, is my favorite of this trip. This area with clean and neat yards surrounding simple farmhouses and the town of Shipshewana with the quaint shops and restaurants is so lovely. We’ve spent the afternoon wondering through the shops and visiting with the friendly people. Tomorrow (Tuesday and Wednesday) they have a flea market with about 1,000 vendors.

We have to get going early tomorrow, as we are to have the camper in to the factory repair service at 8:00. Larry has still been hand cranking in the slide every day. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last.

October 5, 2008 – Milan RV Park, Milan, Ohio

Today was a driving day, so not much happened. Larry had to crank in the slide to leave this morning, and then crank it out again when we stopped. Hopefully, there will be just one more day of that before we get it fixed in Indiana. We left New York, drove thru the top edge of Pennsylvania that juts up to Lake Erie, and we’re now about half way thru Ohio.

We came through a lot of vineyard areas all the way here. Once when we stopped at a rest area in Pennsylvania, there were vineyards in every direction and when we got out of the truck, the smell of grapes made my mouth water. It smelled just like Welch’s grape juice! We were talking about the Icewine that we had found in Canada yesterday, and realized today that the zero degrees they referred to when they pick the frozen grapes, is not our zero degrees. We were in Canada and they use Celsius instead of Fahrenheit, so their zero degrees would be our 32 degrees. They said they pick them at about 8-12 degrees below zero, so I guess that would be somewhere around our 15-20 degrees (above zero). (Inquiring minds want to know.)

We stopped at this campground just because it was close to the interstate and a good distance between destinations. We’re just south of Sandusky, about half way between Cleveland and Toledo. There are quite a few hotels along the main road, so we started checking on the map about what is around here. NASA’s Plum Brook Station is nearby northeast of here. It is a testing facility. That was about all we could see per the map. We’re now settled in for the evening, having walked about a quarter mile down the road to buy a salad at McDonald’s to go with spaghetti we had left over from another evening.

October 4, 2008 - Niagara Falls North KOA, Youngstown, NY

Today was a busy (and expensive) day. We left this morning and went to Fort Niagara.

The French first had a post here in 1679. They built the French Castle

there in 1726 which provided living quarters for the military and a trading post. The British took the fort over during the French and Indian War, and then the U. S. took it during the Revolution. The British won it back during the War of 1812, but had to cede it back to the U.S. following that war. The last army units were withdrawn in 1963. The U.S. Coast Guard still has a unit there.

We had taken Penny with us (she stayed in the truck) while we toured the fort. We brought her back to the trailer before we went to Canada. We DROVE over to the Canadian side. While the view is much better from the Canadian side,

it is much more commercialized than the U.S. side. They have numerous tourist trap stores side by side. Huge hotels, chain restaurants and big casinos line the streets all with neon signs flashing beckoning everyone to come in and spend their money. The view is great though, you can see the falls so much better that from the U.S.


While we were walking along the riverside area looking at the falls and flowers,

probably about a half mile from the parking lot, Larry started worrying that he had left the GPS plugged in. He was afraid we would get back to a dead battery, so I sat and waited while he walked back to the truck and then back to where he had left me. Even he was starting to feel it in his calves by the end of the day. While I waited for Larry, I talked with a lady from Scotland who was there through a tour, but they had the day off. She was telling me the drive along the river toward Lake Ontario was so beautiful. After we left the downtown touristy area, we took the drive she had told me about. It really was lovely with huge old houses, mansions really, to the one side of the road, and the river on the other side. There were signs saying this was the wine tour drive. There were several vineyards and wineries along the way. The specialty wine of the area is Icewine. They leave the grapes on the vine and don’t pick them till they are frozen to below zero degrees. It was a really sweet wine.

Yesterday we parked in the parking lot of the Niagara Falls Park for $10.00. We could have left and re-entered or parked in any of the other parking areas just by showing our parking receipt. Today, we had to pay $3.50 to cross the bridge into Canada, then the parking lot fee was $20.00. Coming back into the U.S, there was no fee. The entrance into the U.S. was a slight search or look through and a few questions about whether we had any weapons and questions about what we had purchased, but no entrance fees. They looked at our passports, but didn’t stamp them or mark them in any way.

October 3, 2008 – Niagara Falls North KOA, Youngstown, NY

It rained most of the night, but eased up this morning about the time we were hooking up. We were ready to leave and getting all the hook-up jobs done when the slide-out refused to slide in. It has been getting stubborn for several days, needing a little coaxing before sliding in or out, but today no amount of coaxing would work. Most of this past week, Larry would have to wriggle the motor which runs it, a couple of times and it would work, and then it got so that he had to do a turn of the hand crank and then it would start up. Nothing worked today! He had to hand crank it in, then when we got here this afternoon, he hand cranked it out. Fun! At least we’ll be here two nights before we leave. We’re going through Millersburg, IN, next week on our way home, which is where the Forest River factory is, so we have an appointment to have them look at it then.

We drove mostly on New York’s turnpike today, almost 200 miles of it. It was an excellent four lane road. The only problem with that is that we almost had to take out a loan to get off it. We got off a little before Buffalo and it cost us $29.50 when we exited. It had to be paid in cash too. I don’t know what would have happened if we hadn’t had the cash, because they didn’t take credit cards. The only east-west major highways across New York are toll roads. Larry thought they should have issued us a deed.

We arrived here in time to go on in and see the falls.



We parked in a parking lot and walked ALL OVER. As most of you know, Larry is a walker. I told him his long legs don’t have to take near as many steps as my short legs do. The falls were beautiful,

but I understand they are even more so when seen from the Canadian side, so we plan on doing that tomorrow.

We prepared to drive over there by getting a Canada Card from our insurance company, but when we were walking today, Larry pointed out the bridge we’d be crossing tomorrow. It looked like there was quite a bit of traffic on it, so he thought we should just walk across and leave the truck on the U.S. side. He also was sure there would be no place to park over there because he couldn’t see a parking lot from where we were. Sigh! I think I have him talked into driving it tomorrow. I can only hope!

Back to the beautify of the falls, I have read the description of how it all was formed with centuries of erosion and all, but I prefer to think of God creating all this, sitting back and wondering how long it would take for someone to notice. I had the same thoughts at the Grand Canyon. I still prefer my version to the boring scientific version.

October 2, 2008 – Herkimer Diamond Mines Park, Herkimer, NY

We woke up to rain again today. It soon let up enough to get Penny out for a little while, but we had light rain while Larry was hooking up. This was a day of driving again. Probably four hours out of the six hour drive were on two lane roads. Since the GPS is programmed for the shortest route, sometimes the roads were questionable for being two lanes. Up, down and up, down again was the norm most of the day as we skirted the White Mountains of Vermont, the Tongue Mountain Range of New York and the lower edge of the Adirondack Mountains also in New York. A couple of places Larry said “I can’t believe I got the trailer through there.” We certainly took the scenic route and the roads less traveled.

As a side note, our GPS is named Greta Pauline Segelken (GPS). So Greta was taking some rather harsh criticism today! She took it all in stride though, always with a smile in her voice.

Through all the narrow roads, we drove in rain most of the day as well. When we got to our campground it was raining lightly. By the time we got into our site, it started to rain harder, then harder still while Larry was getting everything hooked up. Within 5 minutes of getting it all done and coming inside, it quit raining and the sun came out. The rain and sun have continued to alternate every 30 minutes, but it’s cold here, temps about 48 to 50 all afternoon. Snow showers are predicted for the higher altitudes – not here, we’re in a valley. I fixed spaghetti and a salad tonight so we could just stay in and relax after a trying drive.

October 1, 2008 Limehurst Lake Campground, Barre, Vermont

We woke up to light rain. We walked Penny, had breakfast and about 9:00 left for Rock of Ages granite quarry which is about 8 miles away. Larry had read in another blog where they had been here and he had seen it in some area attraction listings, so he wanted to see it. It was quite impressive. You can check it out here if you’d like: http://www.rockofages.com/visitors/index.html . Founded in 1885, they have cut out granite blocks for tombstones, statues and memorials.

They are down about 600 feet and the quarries, some abandoned and filled with water, cover 50 acres. The wasted piles are unbelievable. Getting into the quarry site, you pass huge mountains, called grout piles, of large chunks of granite. They said it is not cost efficient to try to do anything with them. We also toured the factory where they cut the stones.

It was all very interesting; some were really intricate and very artistic.

After the Rock of Ages, we went to Ben and Jerry’s (ice cream) in Waterbury, VT, about 20 miles away.

We were able to get into a tour right away, though the factory has been shut down for the last couple of weeks. We were given a small sample of one of their newer flavors, “Half Baked”. It was great. Of course, we each also had to buy a serving to try other flavors. Yumm!

When we got back to Barre (pronounced Barry), we drove through a couple of cemeteries they had told us about while we were at the Rock of Ages.

They had some pretty unusual tombstones and memorials.

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!

29 Aug 2008 First day of Retirement

Well, this is the first day of retirement. Figured I would spend some of the time attempting to set up a Blog for our family and friends to track our travel in New England this fall. With that said, this will not be a very interesting first post, but you have to start somewhere.


Thought I’d try the photo attachment feature with a picture of our home away from home.


Take care and come back about mid Sept to follow our New England trip.