To see family images for this posting click here.
For pictures from the entire trip here and from this post after leaving NJ here.

The title sort of says it all. This trip began with a plan to visit a nephew and his wife and three children in New Jersey. We studied the map, a relatively futile endeavor as we have stared at it so long for so many trips it is unlikely we will find any real surprises, looking for just that sort of serendipitous surprise. Well from NJ you can go south, not in the summer again, especially with hurricane season looking to spoil any such plans. You could go west, but why go west when we have just come so far east, besides, how far west can you go in three weeks and see or do anything. TN and KS did not appeal at this time. Ah, there is always North. We adore Maine and we have not been in NB and NS for so long it seemed like a good idea. All good ideas have problems, this one had us south and west of New York – the city. Getting around/past NYC is definitely a problem. I rerouted the trip several times, the last being as we were getting ready to roll. The Tappan Zee Bridge and 684 to 84 it was to be.

But I get ahead of myself (did I steal that line from someone? Maybe myself). The first stop after 6 hours of driving was Fla-Net RV Park in Flanders, NJ. I promised them a good writeup because they had been written up as terrible a couple of years ago. We were in section P which is for families with children and those who don’t mind them. As we had Josh, our 15+ year old grandson with us we had little choice. It is farthest from the mall and Chili’s both of which border the park. It is very near the exit which does not seem to make for a lot of traffic, at least this August. The internal roads are pretty poor, but it appears that work is being done and some of the bumps and rocks are a result of the general improvement in progress. Our area was well maintained grass and far quieter than we had been lead to expect. Minimal traffic noise, actually surprising anyplace in New Jersey, a far away train, no planes overhead and the people were quiet. I cannot comment on the shower/toilet facilities as we prefer to use our on board shower and toilet. It is why we are self contained.

Friday night, shortly after arrival we had Shabbat dinner on the coach and set off for Temple Hatikvah where Moshe Rudin, Carol’s nephew, officiates. It was a surprisingly short five minute drive from the RV Park. We enjoyed the service and the participation and met everyone present at the oneg following the service. Moshe and family, Joyce, Yonaton, Shimrit and Sophie came back to the RV Park to hang out and add to the dinner they had had to rush to get there on time. Carol cooked up a storm and they ate, not nearly as much as Carol would have liked.

Saturday morning found me retracing the previous night’s track to the Temple where the service was under way as I arrived. There was a scant minyan that grew as time passed. After receiving an aliyah (a call to pray before the reading of a portion of the day’s readings), I assumed I had been honored more than sufficiently as a guest of the Rabbi and sat back to relax. Moshe had something else in store that even he was not aware of until just before time for him to speak about the meaning of the days portion, Shoftim, justice (The portion Yechiel read for his bar mitzvah). As he began to speak he mentioned that I was a member of the board of the American Jewish Joint Distribution committee (jdc.org) Would I come up and tell the congregation something about the history of the organization and what it does. Fortunately I have heard the short version of the speech many times and given it myself several times.

We went back to Joyce and Moshe’s home for Shabbat dinner and play and in my case a bit of a nap in the middle of the chaos. Late afternoon the action began to resume and we set off for a play in the park. It was community theater production of Thoroughly Modern Millie a big musical and I was in dread of what we would be subjected to. What a surprise, after a nice diner dinner we settled into our lawn chairs for what turned out to be a fantastic production of the play. So much so, that I still do not believe that the performers had day jobs. I could have been convinced that this was a Broadway production. We had an hour drive back to the RV Park and we were very tired when we arrived after 12:30 AM.

Sunday morning we had breakfast, just Josh and us and then we drove to their house in West Orange for a day of adventures. The weather had squashed the original plan to go tubing in the Delaware Water Gap, it was sunny but too cool for some adults. We went instead to Glenmont the home that Thomas A. Edison maintained for his second wife and their three children. Following that tour we went back to Moshe and Joyce’s for lunch and then off to the birth home of Grover Cleveland, 22^nd and 24^th President of the United States. We returned to the house and played some more before we had to return to the coach for a light dinner, just the three of us, and to prepare for Josh’s departure in the morning. By 10 AM Rebecca had arrived to pick up Josh and we began our long pull that will eventually bring us to Nova Scotia.

Miraculously we encountered minimal traffic on I 287 over the TZ Bridge up I 684 to I 84. I will not say we were unscathed. The roads are beyond terrible. I had to get up to reclose doors and drawers and to rescue other items that were being hurled about as we careened from pothole to divot to broken roadway for over 100 miles. I fear that much more of that kind of road will significantly shorten the life of my coach. I suspect Alaska will not be as bad. When we arrived at the LL Bean store in Freeport, Maine we had to be careful as we opened cabinets and drawers as we had no idea what kind of mess to expect or what would fall on our heads if it was an overhead cabinet. We settled in to a parking lot with several other RVs and went off to shop and have a lobster dinner (for me). I have bought a replacement for HAL. The computer takes too much of a beating on the dashboard being on all the time and we cannot move it to the car conveniently. So after a lot of research I bought the Garmin Nuvi 350. We have been using it and I like it a lot. It will take some getting used to and the DeLorme mapping software on the big laptop screen has its advantages for planning a route, but the little Garmin is really great for on the road directions once the route is set.

The next morning, Tuesday the 21^st we drove up I 95 to Bangor and then took 9 to Calais where we crossed into to Canada two hours later we were in St Martin’s NB at the Century Farm Campground. We liked it so much we decided to stay an extra day and tour the Fundy Trail and relax. Tomorrow on to Nova Scotia.