We are back on the road. This is the seventh winter we plan to cross the US from Rochester to Los Angeles and return. The plan is a bit obscure right now. We have made it to Malena and Dan’s in Covesville, VA (that’s Charlottesville for most people). The trip started a day early because there was a forecast of ten inches of snow overnight on January 1. Rather than see what would happen we left on the first at 2 PM. This was exciting as we decided to try for this at 9 AM while dawdling over breakfast. From the moment we said “let’s try” we went in to high gear and by 1:50 PM the car was ready to tow with the bikes on the roof and almost everything was packed in some fashion or other. I say almost because some things got left behind, most notably all of the dressier shoes I usually move back and forth except my sneakers and sandals. The dressiest shoes I have are docksider type shoes and I guess they will do until we get to a shoe outlet in our wanderings.

The plan for now is St Petersburg, FL from January 13 to 17 taking a stop in Raleigh, NC to visit the Cohens on Thursday the 10^th. From there we roll over to I 95 down to Jacksonville, FL and across to Ft Desoto where we have reservations while we visit Carol’s bother and sister-in-law Art and Natalie. Other family concerns might force us to go deeper into Florida for a day or two but we firmly intend to be on our way west no later than the 19^th. We may stop in Louisiana on our way, but we have no reservations for Marde Gras and I understand it is at the end of January into the first week in February. We will have to avoid that. We hope to begin our eastward journey well into April which should make Utah and Colorado doable on our way east. This all remains to be seen. We have family concerns that will necessitate my flying back to Rochester a couple of times and may cause other unplanned diversions.

As we prepared to depart several concerns plagued me. The biggest was getting the water system back together and dewinterized in the expected deep freeze of Rochester. Another was my four new back tires. Finally, I had dragged the hitch pretty hard on the last stop of our summer run and I was worried about that. None of these caused a problem. I did find that the 12 volt power points by the driver were not working meaning I could not run the computer without running the generator while underway. The other was the entry door would not open easily from the outside. Since I found myself going in through the driver door to open the entry door for Carol a couple of times this was nasty. Fortunately a liberal does of silicone spray (not WD-40) freed up the catch and all is working there. Next, I pulled out the chassis builder’s operational manual for the fuse layout and wonder of wonders it pointed me to the exact fuse that might be causing the problem. As it was too cold to stand outside the driver door and lean in under the dash, I pretzeled myself around the drivers seat and located the fuse. I pulled it and upon examination I could see it was blown. I had a spare which I plugged in and it is working for now. I just bought 5 replacements for the mini 20 amp fuse, just in case. I had been carrying the one I had since our first trip in Goliath 7 years ago.

I have washed off the Northeast salt and road grime and other than a large drawer that has fallen off its slide everything is ready for us to move on when the time comes.

Our visit with the kids lasted until Thursday, the 10^th when, as planned, we left for Florida by way of Raleigh. Before we could leave some more repairs became necessary. A drawer that carries considerable weight in food, batteries and other sundries decided that its track had been sufficiently abused by rough roads and it dropped a bunch of ball bearings and other parts in my lap as I tried to reseat it. I got it back together, sort of, and set out to find replacement parts which are now in storage awaiting a down day with mediocre weather or a total collapse of the existing track, whichever comes first. Having satisfied myself that I could accomplish no more in that arena, I set out to put the under sink drinking water filter back into service, the very last step in dewinterizing the water system. I no sooner hooked it up and turned it on than it sprayed water in my face. Further examination determined that the plastic shaft that passes through the counter has a small hole in it. No reasonable repair is likely, need to buy new, and of couse the only way to by new is a complete kit. It awaits installation.

As we set out from Dan’s we stopped at the bottom of his road to reconnect the car for towing. As I started to walk to the door to drive off I noticed that the rock guard which extends across the rear of the coach was not hanging right. Closer examination revealed that one of the two welds that it hangs from had broken. This approaches being a show stopper. I tied it up with bungy cords and said to Carol that surely we would find someone with a welding setup along the road who could fix it easily. 120 miles later just after a driver change I spotted Tony’s Painting and Body Shop just south of Tightsqueeze, in Chatham, VA on US 29. I pulled in and went in to see if Tony could help. Boy could he help! He pulled his welder out to the coach and stationed a helper to reset the breaker every time he tripped it while redoing the weld. 15 minutes later we were headed down the road and Tony, who has his own RV refused to accepted any payment for helping another RVer with a problem.

Thus we made it the Harv and Lisa Cohen’s in Raleigh where we parked on the street in front of their house as we had four or five years back. I had forgotten how steep the street is. The back of the coach was so low that water would not flow up hill from the rear bath to the holding tank. We also tripped the GFI in the garage during the night and woke up to battery power only. Not a real issue except when it comes to grinding the coffee beans. I fired up the generator for that chore as the inverter had also gone on strike. Not a good start to the day! We did have a wonderful visit and got to see their daughter Rebecca in her goalie array at practice and dinner at Sweet Tomato.

First thing in the morning we rolled out with Florida in our sights.

See photos from the entire trip here or from just his last post, through Maine, here

We stopped at the Bethel Adventure CG just outside Belfast, Maine (about ½ mile outside) late in the afternoon, they had Passport America rates and looked interesting. There were a lot of outdoors activities offered which included kayak shuttles where they take you in a van 10 miles upstream and you paddle and drift down the Androscoggin River back to the campground which sits right on the bank of the river. This sounded good to us until we awoke to 55 degrees and winds 10 to 15 mph. We asked for a moderately strenuous hike and the owner of the campground suggested Table Top which includes about a mile on the Appalachian Trail in it’s circuit. Since the trail would be mostly out of the wind it seemed like a good alternative. The climb started out with a steep ascent that essentially continued for the duration of the climb. It did sometimes get even steeper. We climbed and scrambled over rocks for over an hour to achieve the top which provided an incredible view of the valley (notch) and we met several interesting people during the ascent. We came down the easy (!) way which led back out on to the Appalachian Trail where we ran into a “through hiker” who had been on the trail for 5 ½ months and was in sight of Katahdin, the final summit on the trail. Having had enough fun for one day we went into Bethel for a look around and returned to Gee 2 for rest and clean up.

Wednesday we moved on to Vermont and set up camp in Groton State Forest, actually just outside the forest in a private campground with the very imaginative name of Groton Forest Road Campground. It is not special, but it is Passport America and thus half off and the scenery is wonderful. After setting up we retraced to St Johnsbury, VT for a bit of a tour. We were through here in our tenting days and have no memory of the town. It is the home of Fairbanks Morse Scales and was a major rail center for this part of the country. After our tour we returned to Gee 2 and relaxed. Thursday was to be our hiking day but it dawned cold and wet. Carol and I worked at our computers and got familiar with a photo management package called JAlbum which is open source and quite powerful for preparing photo albums for upload to the web. Some results should be available for viewing soon (now available see the link at the top of the page). Enough sitting around so we headed off to the Cabot Creamery, less than 20 miles from our campsite. There we enjoyed the tour of the manufacturing plant for cheddar cheese and cultured products. We also bought some cheese.

We returned to the coach for lunch and found the sun shining and the temperatures rising so we set off to find a trail to hike. After a bit of hemming and hawing we set out on the Peacham Bog Loop Trail. This turned out to be a bit more than we bargained for. From the description we thought about leaving our hiking sticks behind and taking a bottle of water. At the last minute wisdom prevailed and we loaded up our hydration backpacks and put on our hiking boots and grabbed our sticks. We returned to the car 3 hours and 45 minutes later having traversed a broad variety of terrain including steep rocky climbs, the bog and even a dirt road. We were hiking from one yellow over blue blaze to the next and we were so far in from the main road it got a bit tense a couple of times. But the blazes were faithful and made it back exhilarated and exhausted.

I got the bikes back on the car and the car hooked up for towing while Carol cleaned up the interior and began the preparation of dinner. We are both at our computers with little energy to do any other work. I suspect it will be an early night tonight so we can get up and find parking for Gee 2 near Montpelier so we can meet David (my sister Sandy’s husband) for lunch when there is a break in the Fairpoint-Verizon hearings of the Vermont Public Service Board.

All of the above worked out. We stopped at Mekkelsen RV on Route 2 on the way into Montpelier and they were gracious enough to permit us to disconnect and leave the coach on their sales lot for several hours as a courtesy. When we returned I found a stick on map of Canada in their parts department that was on our shopping list so I bought it there. They appear to be good people.

We had a wonderful, if too brief, visit with my sister and her husband and I now am sitting in my den in Rochester with Gee 2 in the back drive waiting to go into storage. I cannot wash it as it is raining all day.

Pictures from the entire trip are here, and from this post here (not much)

We have had a day. Drove down from Fundy NP across the border with only a 30 minute delay. The Customs inspector asked about food products such as beef and citrus such as lemon. Told her I had eaten all the beef and there was probably a lemon or two on board. She did the briefest inspection in the refrigerator and announced she had seen no lemon and left us to go on our way with 2 ½ contraband lemons in our possession.

After setting up on the third site we tried in Seaview Campground, the second was ideal, but reserved for someone else, we got out the kayak for the first time this trip and carried it down to the shore where we launched it for an hour tour that took us all most to Eastport itself and, we learned later, just avoided the “Old Sow” a famous major whirlpool in the middle of the bay we are on. We cleaned up and headed into town with the idea that we might find a place for dinner, or return to the coach for more great home cooked food. The place was empty. It appears that everyone has taken Labor Day as a stay at home holiday, we know better as there are very few empty campsites to be found. We wandered into a couple of restaurants including Rosie’s a funky looking place off the main drag with a side room for music and the sale of antiques and other stuff. We were met at the door by Al who is the chef/owner Linda’s husband. We wandered through the place but there was no one else there eating and it was a bit early so we wandered on through town watching the few people about going about their business and in particular watching a man hanging from what must have been a modern adaptation of a Bosun’s Chair working on top of a sail on a tall two masted ship in harbor. It appeared that the block had jammed and we was dangling well above the deck to clear the jam.

We then wandered back to Rosie’s with the idea of eating there. It took a while. With our first round of beer we started to get acquainted with these transplanted New Jersey people who had uprooted overnight and moved to Eastport six years ago without ever visiting first. Linda is an antiques dealer and Al works construction for cash and deals antiques as well. They both run this very laid back restaurant together. He works the floor and she cooks. I will not replay the entire conversation. Suffice it to say we talked about a lot of things and in particular about the change in their lives that lead them to this. As the talk flowed dinner moved further into the recesses of our minds and it was the advent of the second beer, a rare occurrence in my life, that reawakened my interest in food. I had stir fried lobster and vegetables in a deep fried tortilla bowl with rice. Carol had the same minus the lobster. It was great. Various locals drifted in and out while we were there and we seemed to be included in the flow of chatter between the kitchen and bar. I suspect that on a busy Friday or Saturday night the experience would be very different, but the food would be just as good. The bread was beyond expectation and everything else was quite good.

Moving again tomorrow, destination for the day is undetermined, it could be as close as Belfast, ME, or someplace in New Hampshire.

For pictures from the entire trip click here from this post only here.

Fundy National Park in New Brunswick is where we spent Friday and Saturday of the Labor Day Weekend. Sunday, tomorrow as I write, we will be traveling about 150 miles to a different time zone and a different state of being. We have a spot in Eastport, ME for at least one and possibly two nights. But as always I am jumping the gun. The drive into Fundy was anything but boring, the descents were first gear and stay near the service brakes while swinging the wheel to meet the curves. Tomorrow, Carol will have the pleasure/pain of crawling back up those grades. I suspect that anyone caught behind us will time time for a round of Sudoku or a hand of bridge. We call them disciples, because they are following us for so long.

On our arrival day we walked down into the town of Alma, which claims to have the highest tides in the world. We saw the basin full to the bottom of the bridge and we saw it dry, with a rill of water in the middle. We saw boats high and dry, a long way from the water and the next time we came by they were floating in the same place. While there I bought some scallops to prepare myself. All the restaurants had wanted to cover them cream sauces and over cook them or deep fry them. At Carol’s suggestion I brought home a pound and prepared half by sauteeing them in olive oil and fresh garlic (too much garlic by most people’s standards). They were wonderful. Why do restaurants go out of their way to louse up fine foods?

In the middle of the night the wind came up and the awning I had left up to shelter us from rain started to make noise in the night. At 3 AM I got up and stowed it. Tonight I stowed it as soon was dinner was done. Today’s plan was predicated on a year out of date tide chart! We were given a brochure with a tide chart for Hopewell Rocks showing low tide at 12:51 We spent the morning on a lovely hike along the Salmon River. We arrived at Hopewell at 12:20 to find the tide already rising, low had been at 9:44 AM, and there was a very limited amount of time to play on the exposed seabed. Nevertheless, we paid our admission and took a shuttle to the stairs to the seabed and got out there before the tide had entirely returned. We could see that earlier one could have walked at least ¼ mile out from the fantastic Hopewell Rock formations, we could only just get a hundred feet or so out and that only for a few minutes as the rising tide was covering more and more or the sea bottom driving us back to the higher formations near the stairs we had descended. After we decided we had had enough and the tide decided the rest, we had our lunch at a picnic table and began the return trip. We made a turn off the back road onto a tertiary road to explore a protected shore bird area. At our first stop we met Dale and Norm who clearly were interested in the birds and were from the area. They showed us a walk that took us out to the point where the Spotted Sandpipers where flocking with Semi Palmated Plovers. After spending some time viewing and being eaten by the mosquitoes, we set out for Cape Enrage where there is a lighthouse and other facilities maintained and operated by a teacher from Moncton and 18 past and present high school students as their summer activity. As we got to the lighthouse, there was Dale up in light. He has a key as a member of the local Naturalist Organization and was headed there to give tours of the lighthouse. We had a very nice tour indeed.

Back to Gee 2 for dinner and preparation for travel in the morning.

Please note: if you read the previous posting when it first went up, there was a factual error. I did not find the batteries at the Perlmans “while touring.” While talking to David I mentioned that I could probably fix the lock and he told me I could find the batteries in the top drawer to the left of the large cabinet upon entering the kitchen and that a large white notebook containing instructions for all aspects of operating the house should be found in the bottom of that large cabinet. It was so. Took me three passes through the book to find the necessary brochure because it was on the second or third page and I went by it too fast. The facts have been updated in that posting!

Images from the entire trip are here, from this post here.

Baddeck is the “Beginning and End” of the Cabot Trail. We took the southern route in the coach, avoiding the two large mountains and extra 100 miles going the northern and much prettier route. We set up camp in Baddeck Cabots Trail Campground, a former KOA , with pleasant people and very nice facilities. We set a new record for shortest day’s drive, 55 miles. We set up, had lunch and went off to see what we could find. One of the objectives was to see the Perlman’s house on the Cabot Trail. For those who don’t know, we have friends from Rochester who prefer that there second home not move about, so they built a house up here. The report is it is gorgeous, both the house and the setting. I would show you David’s pictures, but I can’t find them on line at the moment (see two pictures in the posting above). We had been given the access code to get in and tour the house, but the batteries in the lock failed. I called David and he answered and told us how to get in anyhow. While talking to David I mentioned that I could probably fix the lock and he told me I could find the batteries in the top drawer to the left of the large cabinet upon entering the kitchen and that a large white notebook containing instructions for all aspects of operating the house could be found in the bottom of that large cabinet. It was so. Took me three passes through the book to find the necessary brochure because it was on the second or third page and I went by it too fast.

While driving there we had stopped at a gallery along the road “Iron Art and Photography” and met the photographer whose name is Carol. We spent some time and had a nice conversation. We had taken the “shorter” road up though Englishtown and took the cable ferry across to the Cabot Trail. We stopped by the Puffin tour boat in English town just to see what it was about and decided to take the tour in the morning. We worked our way back to the campsite and made dinner on board.

On Tuesday we got up sort of early and drove out to Englishtown to take the boat ride to Bird Islands, Puffins guaranteed. Well we did see two puffins floating on the water in the distance. The breeding season had ended the week before. When the season is in swing there are thousands of them lining the shore and in the water. We saw one bald eagle and when Donelda, our guide, tossed a fish for it, it dove on it and plucked it out of the water right in front of us. The picture is off center and blurred, but it is posted, see above. On the return to shore we set out over the ferry again and turned north to get to a restaurant called the Clucking Hen. It was very nice, the best we had on the Baddeck side of Cape Breton Island. We visited several galleries along the road and found one leather crafter where I bought a couple of belts I needed. We returned to the coach and had a late dinner on board.

Wednesday was dedicated to a complete circuit of the Cabot Trail. This is one of the premier scenic drives on the continent. We deviated to the north at Neil’s Harbor and took the lesser road along the shore. This took us through White Point and Dingwall, small communities that depend on the sea for a living. As we drove through Dingwall, I noticed that the GPS indicated that the road we were on continued back around to the Cabot Trail, time to find out how good this software is. I set a destination as back on the trail where this road seemed to come out. As we proceeded the road condition deteriorated from dirt to double track (one track for each side of the car) and became so narrow that the RAV barely fit though the brush. We came to a fork and Melanie (the GPS has a female voice, now renamed Germaine) said to take the left, I did and we found ourselves on the floor of a limestone quarry. There seemed to be a track that concurred with the route Melanie was touting so we continued on eventually into the back of the Victoria Recreation Center parking area which lead out on to the Trail.

Nothing could phase us now so we headed for Meat Cove, this is way out of the way and is and out and back over miles of paved road and 7 kilometers of dirt. We pressed on, stopping at a small Provincial Picnic Park for a picnic lunch we were carrying. We resumed our trek and arrived in Meat Cove as expected. The road just ends and there is some parking on the road, otherwise it is necessary to pay $2 for parking space in the campground. We wandered about a bit remembering a high viewpoint that did not seem evident. Looking up at a passing eagle we saw people on a headland above us. Having the trail head pointed out to us we set out on a fifteen minute very strenuous climb to the head land where we could look out over the entire area. We climbed down and resumed our circuit.

We were looking for one more hike, somehow we missed the turn and continued on a bit to a grand overlook. As we pulled in I noted that we were next to two other cars with NY license plates. While getting our bearing a gentleman approached and asked what part of Monroe County we were from as we both had bought our cars from Hoselton. We did a double take and realized that we were talking to Joyce and Robert Herman. It turned out further that they had just been visiting mutual friends in Cape Cod, the Tuckers, and had also stopped to see the Perlman’s house. We were unable to get together for dinner as our schedules just did not work. We will have to try in Rochester. We had dinner at Lynnwood Inn, better we should have eaten elsewhere.

Today , Thursday, we got up and did a lot of stuff around the coach all morning. After lunch we set out to mail a bill (how archaic) and go for a hike to be followed by some shopping, mostly for food. We drove out to Uisge Bahn Falls (Ush kah Bahn) Park and took a 2 ½ hour hike before returning to Baddeck. I stopped at the Alexander Graham Bell Museum to replace my old hat, but they were out of stock. We bought supplies as we will be dry camping in Fundy National Park in NB tomorrow and Saturday, the reward for failure to plan ahead. Still don’t know where we will be Labor Day. Maybe NB and maybe Maine.

You will know almost as soon as we do.

For images of the entire trip click here For images from just this post click here

Nova Scotia, we still are not sure when we were here last. We were tenting and staying in B & B’s. The car was my Jeep and it had a car phone, some time after ’94 but not much after. We crossed from New Brunswick with the thought of going straight through to Cheticamp, the western entrance to Cape Breton National Highlands Park where Cheticamp Campground was to be our initial base of touring. The advisor at the Visitor Center said it was another 7 hours, and we had already been on the road for 4 hours. We reset our sights for Thursday night on Pictou, another 2 hours up the road. We found our way to Harbour Light Campground just outside of town. The facilities were complete and the WiFi was mostly high speed. The place was “comfortable” not particularly neat but well kept. The entrance was scary, sort of like falling off a cliff as we came off the highway. Once we leveled out it was fine. Getting out was easier.

We toured Pictou and remembered touring it on our first trip and not being particularly impressed. It is a fishing town and its big claim to tourist fame is the PEI Ferry landing. After walking the waterfront and visiting a couple of galleries we stopped to share a kiddy size Wild Blueberry Ice Cream dish. That was indeed the highlight of the day. We returned to Gee 2 for dinner and our various projects. We befriended the RVers on either side of us. One couple was celebrating their 50th Anniversary and the others were of similar or somewhat younger vintage. They were both full timers, having no home but there very nice 40 foot Diesel Pushers. We parted in the morning headed our individual directions Cape Breton. I expect we may run into them out here, although they are working around from the Baddeck side first.

It started to rain lightly as we drove and continued to do so on and off most of the way. As we finished setting up in the drizzle I put up the awning to provide us some dry space outdoors, but the wind kicked up so I stowed the awning and it really started to rain hard as I closed the door. We decided to sit tight. Have dinner on board and get some projects completed. We had a lot of phone calls all day starting with an early call from Yechiel to say that he had resubmitted his paper for publication on deadline just minutes before. We looked a the clock and realized it was 6:15 AM in LA where he lives and he had been up all night finishing the rewrite. Ten hours later he called to say the publisher had accepted it as is (a bit too long) for publication. We all will sleep better tonight. He needs to have this in line to be published for his tenure review.

The trip continues to be enjoyable, the views are glorious and the people friendly. I am sorry to disappoint those who are used to the “Perils of Paul(ine)” in these journals, but we are getting better at it and the coach is well broken in and behaving fine. How’s that for putting the evil eye on myself?

It is Sunday evening as I write. It has rained on and off for the past two days while we have been here. Yesterday we went to the laundromat for some excitement and clean clothes. Most of the people in the Cheticamp Laundromat were tourists. We all got talking and we somehow got talking the most to Roberta and Isaac Hantman. We parted after agreeing not to go to lunch together. We met again at the Coop Food Market and we invited them back to the coach to eat their lunch and continue talking. We got to the coach and the gnats and other small flying things were so pervasive we could not stand outside. As such things seem to happen we took a nice long hike from the coach away from the insects up to some salmon pools (fishing sites) and continued talking.

On the way back they said there was a French Arcadian Music Review they were planning on going to. Carol and I thought that was a capital idea and agreed to join them for dinner before the review. As we waited for the show to start, it became clear that the four of us might well be the only non French speakers in the arena. The entire review with a couple of minor exceptions was in French. Fortunately most of the action was broad and clear Gisele the husband could not be bothered with the music and dancing in his living room. How he was able to avoid foot tapping, or other reaction to the very lively music and step dancing I will never know. He even participated in two square dances, without missing a beat or a turn while appearing to be totally disinterested. That was the action, the rest was great music, dancing and singing. A special guest fiddler showed up and performed at the intermission. How he was able to get the music he did out of his electrified fiddle with his clearly self taught approach I will never know. He clenched the neck in his left hand in a manner that did not permit him to move up the neck and he held the bow several inches up from the frog. The fiddle was perpendicular to the ground and the bow seemed to go up and down. It was a painful sight, but the sound was grand.

After the review was over and the bows were taken, the fiddler came back on stage and began to perform again. The cast began to reappear in street clothes and took turns step dancing to the music for the fun of it. It was a sight to see them dancing in thong sandals and sneakers, but it did not seem to limit them in the least. During the performance we were seated in front of the hostess of the B and B where the Hantmans were staying. After the show she invited us to join them for breakfast as her guest. We accepted with alacrity. The breakfast was delightful, French toast with home made syrop (French spelling). We parted from the Hantmans once again and set off to pack up lunch and get out on the trail. We took our time making several stops along the way until we came to Skyline trail head. This was promised to be at 2 to 3 hour hike. We took three and a half hours, but that included a a couple of stops to stare at a moose and her calf alongside the trail and other stops, especially at the headland where a boardwalk has been built to protect the environment. This overlooks the road and the Gulf of St Lawrence. While there we had another unplanned stop as we ran into the Hantmans again, they were returning from the headland as we were still on our way out. We parted, again. It was worth the trek and then some. We took the back trail of the loop which was much less well manicured than the trail out. This took a bit longer as the trail was rough and muddy in places not to mention 50% longer. We are moving to Baddeck tomorrow. I hope we will have internet service so I can post this, otherwise it will just keep getting longer.

We have not made plans for the Labor Day weekend (or is that Labour Day up here in Canada). We may end up dry camping whether we chose or not.

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.

Through some miracle of mismanagement we arrived at the Perry Fairgrounds for the Rally without credentials for the coach and car. This meant we had to go to Will Call to pick them up. This put us in the Holding Area, from which we expected to be moved to a General Parking area. It was not to be. There we stayed and after three hours the word came that we were “home” for the week. We repositioned a bit to make everyone have necessary space and set up for the week. It was meant to be. Our neighbors, Dan and Val on one side and Phil and Rose on the other, became friends who we will probably run into again someplace in these United States.

The big news was that it did not rain. It has not happened before that there was no rain during the Rally in Perry. The weather started warm and clear and improved to hot and clear with great cool sleeping nights. We had several gatherings with the CHAI gang who were mostly in the Volunteer Electric area. The pot luck dinner was fun as always and dinner at Preisters was fun although the food was, as expected, awful. The Chapter decided to make a significant gift to the Whitville, TN Paper Clip Project with part of the surplus in the treasury. I can’t wait to see the minutes so I can include them in the Secretary’s book I keep.

Carol’s seminar on photographic composition had the expected glitch. This time we could not find how to dim the lights so the slides could be seen. The second session, work sharing, went better as we were able to get everything working and the lights were dimmed for us. Only two people brought work in a format we could project. One, Ronni Silver, had some very nice work and we spent a fair amount of time with alternate cropping and some change of contrast. She and her husband Rob are full timers and I am sure we will spend time with them again in the not to distant future.

We depend on serendipity to provide our entertainment. We had reservations in Forsyth, GA at the KOA we stayed at 2 years ago to do laundry, empty our holding tanks and recover from the 5 days dry camping with 4600 other coaches. When Carol went to the office to get quarters for the laundry she was greeted by Dan who had just arrived with no advance knowledge that we would be there. Naturally we got together for happy hour a couple of times. Friday, right after arriving, Carol and I drove into Macon for a look around at Cherry Blossom Festival. We took the well mapped scenic drive and then wandered around thee downtown area. When we went to the festival site we decided that there was nothing doing there that interested us enough to warrant the $6.00 parking investment so we went back to the coach. On Saturday we drove to Juliet. GA the home of the movie Fried Green Tomatoes and then on to a nature preserve that advertised some nice hikes. We set out on a 2 mile loop hike and only realized that the directions were misleading about half way though, the hike in to the loop was a mile, so the total trip was 4 miles. Instead of an hour hike we were on the trail over 2 hours.

On Sunday the 25^th we headed for the Wilmington NC area to visit with Cousin Mimi and Joe and to see Uncle George. We stopped at Sesquicentennial Park outside Columbia, SC. It is a gorgeous park but designed with much smaller units than ours in mind. We maneuvered through the park with one of us walking ahead and providing guidance for the closely spaced trees and low hanging branches. We managed to avoid disconnecting the car and doing any damage. While there we got a call that my mother had fallen at the Jewish Home and needed to go to emergency at Highland Hospital for another saga that overlapped our travels. We pulled into Mimi and Joe’s farm yard mid day on Monday to a wild greeting by 4 dogs, 4 geese, 2 Guinea Game Hens and assorted other farm animals. I continued talking with people about Mom who was left unattended on an ED bed and fell IN EMERGENCY and broke her other hip. As we were at least 12 hours away, our son Dan flew in and was joined by my sister to be there for surgery. We made plans to move the coach to Dan and Malena’s where, after an overnight stay, we detached the car and drove to Rochester to relieve them. Two nights overnight in our house and back in the car for the 500 mile run back to the kids, with Mom stabilized and back in her room at the Home recovering with round the clock aids. Whew!

We made it back in time for Sedar on the farm and spent most of Pesach there, the kids were off school and we played with them and did a lot of work on the farm, I roofed the rest of the enlarged chicken coop, did some pruning and assisted in catching chickens and picking up fresh eggs. There is no need to detail the endless rounds of conversation about Mom’s condition and care, it has been continuous.

Monday, April 9, we left the Covesville farm for Rochester and the end of our Winter Hegira, two days earlier than planned, just because enough is enough and there is much to do before we leave for Turkey and Israel on April 28. There was one more adventure to be experienced. We decided it would be wise to stay in a campground rather than a Wal-Mart as that would provide the opportunity to take the time to clean out the holding tanks before going into storage. It is still early for most campgrounds in the northeast, but we located one that claimed to open on April 1. When Carol called, Wayne, of RV’s Mountain Top Campground said he was there and we could come in, but his water supply was frozen. We still had plenty of water in the fresh tank so we said that as long as there was sanitary sewer and electric we were happy. For those who know the Mansfield, Tioga PA area this place advertises a 180 degree view of the Tioga Valley. The turn off of 287 is one block before the road to Ives Run. What Wayne failed to mention is that after 1.5 miles the pavement ends and the climb continues for 3 more miles. The place makes rustic look up-to-date. The views are magnificent and the fact that it backs up against the Tioga Game Hunting Preserve adds to the interest as there is a field of Elk and other game animals just over the fence to shoot with the camera.

Tuesday morning I once again added air to the new tire on the left front and we set out for our non mobile home. . .

We have now been in Rochester almost two weeks and preparations for departure to Turkey are moving along, we have our visas, flights and packing list. We just need to execute. I will post from Turkey and Israel as the opportunity presents.

From Galveston we drifted east bypassing Houston and stopping in Lafayette, LA at a KOA just off I 10. We set out to have dinner at PreJeans, famous for Cajun cooking and live music. It is considered one of the must restaurants in the area. The food was fine. The musicians looked as if they were some place else. They played fine, when they played, but they appeared to be totally bored with the whole show. Our Red Stick Ramblers CD is quite a bit better.

By now I had booked a flight back to Rochester to see my mother and we were drifting on a schedule so we headed for the Biloxi, MS area to see more of the destruction wrought by Katrina and Rita. We stayed at Magic River CG in Long Beach (MS not CA) and it was rustic. There were full hookups and everything worked, but the sense was that most of the people staying there were doing construction work in the vicinity and there was not a lot of “camping” being done. We drove all the way to Biloxi along the gulf and then tried to come back along the bay side, but military establishments kept getting in the way, so eventually we found our way back to Magic River CG and made dinner there as we had not seen any place we would consider stopping for dinner. Nothing was open except for seven of the twelve casinos and the other five had big construction crews working to get them reopened. Nothing else seemed to be progressing with any speed..

In the morning we set out for Gulf Shores, AL and the Gulf State Park campground. Our departure was marred by a series of fits from HAL, the GPS and my computer. They did not want to communicate. Carol was driving and I thought I had memorized the rather convoluted route to I 10 so we drove on while I did battle with the computer. Naturally the key turn was not where I expected and we wandered rather aimlessly as I rebooted this and screamed at that. Finally I got everything working together just as we both spotted the I 10 sign. That was only the second time in 6,000 miles and 2 months that we didn’t have the mapping software running when we needed it.

We found or way to Gulf State Park right on the Gulf in a twenty mile stretch of Alabama between Mobile Bay and the Florida line. We stayed in this park in 2004 before Hurricane Ivan devastated the area. We tried to return in 2005 but were told they were not open. There was a major change from the storm. Before it was not possibible to see how big the park was as the sightlines were blocked by masses of trees. Today there are almost no trees and many of the activities have not been resumed. We had two other reasons for going there. I had learned that I had a cousin living in Fair Hope, AL not more than 30 minutes from the park and we would be an hour from Pensacola which is a reasonable airport for me to get to Rochester for a couple of days. Besides, who can pass up a chance to eat at Lambert’s, the Home of Throw’d Rolls. I wrote about this place in’04.

We had Joy and Shaul Antar bring their children Simcha and Ariel out to the RV on Sunday, Purim. It was more exciting than we knew as Ariel is totally enamored with RV’s from the movie of the same name. I can now sign R V quite fluently. Carol went to Simcha’s school on Friday, while I was in Rochester, and enjoyed bing there when she was tapped for Junior Honor Society (she is almost 13). On Saturday we went to their home in Fair Hope and then out to dinner at the Marriott Grand where Shaul is emplyied.

My visit with my mother was reassuring. She seems to be content and rather more communicative than she was when we left. We continue to face challenges, but I guess that is just the way it will be for now. It turned out that my timing brought me into Rochester when the RPO would be playing, conducted by Pinchas Zuckerman. I thought to take my grandson Josh to the dinner and the concert and by the time we got it together there were 9 for dinner. After intermission Josh wanted to know if I had introduced him to everyone in the hall. We both enjoyed the concert. This is not the place for a full review. I especially enjoyed having the time with Josh. I know that the visit he had with his great grandmother had to be hard for him, but he said he wanted to visit more often with his mother.

My flights worked far better than I had hoped. My USAir connection in Charlotte, returning, was 30 minutes which leaves no leeway for anything. I was at the gate for the connection with time to spare and my luggage was in my hands!

On my return to Gulf Shores I learned that the Topfs had caught up with us and were on a nearby site. We have crossed paths with them three times this winter. Naturally we got together for activities during the day and had happy hour together. We were not in the mood to dine out so we dined on our own coaches and got together for dessert. They moved on to Montgomery, AL while we decided to stop in Seminole Lake SP in GA. You can find it on a GA map by looking at the south western corner where GA meets FL and AL.. We remembered stopping here two years ago and thought we could remember the campground. As we pulled in we agreed that it was the place we were thinking of. We are on a site on the water with room to spare and the inflatable kayak is inflated and sitting on the shore for the first time this winter. We were warmly welcomed by Anita and Larry, the campground hosts, who remembered us from two years ago. We have seen nesting Osprey and had a Blue Jay perch on our picnic table while we were sitting there.

We also have witnessed the stupidest piece of human behavior by campground management we can remember. Some complaint was registered against the hosts, apparently by another volunteer couple and Anita and Larry, who have been here several years, were fired on the spot leaving only a first time volunteer couple who are leaving for the FMCA rally tomorrow. There will be no hosts here for the weekend when the park will be full. Anita and Larry were so hurt that they pulled out within a couple of hours. I guess their biggest sin was working too hard to keep the place nice and make people welcome. Money cannot be an issue as they were volunteers, receiving nothing but their campsite and hookups in return for their effort.

We will continue to retrace our steps on Saturday when we move to Paradise Lake Campground in Tifton, GA. This is 80 miles from Perry where we will enter the fairgrounds on Sunday for five days of togetherness with more than 5,000 other coaches and Carol will present her Seminar on Wednesday at 1:30 and her workshop on Thursday. Then we are off to who knows where on route to Charlottesville, VA.

The first day we were at Mustang Island State Park February 25, we had taken a drive south to Padre Island National Seashore to see what that is all about. The area is gorgeous seashore with plenty of birds and miles of hard beach to drive on to camp on and to just sit on. Here is Carol dining by the car. The next time we come this way we will camp out on the beach.

A quick correction. The Ploessers had gone on home to Kentucky. Shelley and Norm Topf joined us mid day on February 27 as the stock market was headed for one of its deepest point slides ever. Fortunately, in percentage terms, it was just awful not disastrous.

We sat around the coaches and caught up with each other and our thoughts on many things. The women decided we would get together for dinner on the coaches rather than try to find a decent restaurant. Since Shelley was definitely not able to do any work, Carol volunteered host onboard G2. We prepared fajitas with chicken for three of us and lots of grilled veggies so Carol had plenty to eat as well. The food and wine enabled us to forget the market and go on to other things.

Later when I checked email, it turned out that the Hoggs had driven right by Mustang Island SP in the early afternoon while we were in Port Aransas birding. They had thought about stopping to see how the park looked for future reference, but decided to drive on. They were staying at a campground on route 35 and we planned to drive that way on our way. Can’t say on our way where as we had no clue where we planned to stop, but we are sort of headed for Gulf Shores, AL eventually. Anyhow we agreed to pull up on the wide shoulder of TX 35 outside their resort and have a get together right there. As it turns out the local highway department had other plans and they created a work zone for a mile either side of the entrance and there was no place left to stop. When Pat called with this news they said they would stand in the entrance to their campground and wave as we went by. We checked in by phone as we cleared the ferry at Aransas Pass and 20 minutes later we slowed on the shoulder of the road, now serving as the main right-of-way and waved and honked to the Hoggs as they returned the waves. Thus we now have a new kind of get together a “Wave By.” We hope to see the Hoggs next a year from now as we crisscross our wanderings in the southwest of the US. We also have a tentative plan to meet them in Calgary in the summer of 2008 as we head for Alaska and they join up with us on the way.

We left Shelley and Norm in Mustang Island SP and made tentative plans to see them in Gulf State Park, AL. For sure we will see them in Perry, GA at the rally in mid March.

At some point I looked at Carol and saw she had a passenger:

We are getting very comfortable making friends and meeting them in the middle of no place as we all seem to circulate in the same region. In our case, if there is someone we want to spend time with, it is not difficult to modify our driving schedule to make it possible. We can always vamp for a day or drive an extra couple of hours if it will enable us to meet up with someone. We have even been known to go 200 miles in a different direction for the same reason.

Just for a refresher; we seldom want to drive more than 250 miles in a day. Six hours of driving is more than enough and although that sounds like over 300 miles it usually will take us that long to cover 250 miles. We almost never go faster than 64. We stop every two hours at least to change drivers. Anything that looks interesting can initiate additional stops. Oh yes, some fuel stops can take 30 to 45 minutes if there is a line at the RV Island or other errands that need to completed while stopped. The other thing that slows us down is the use of many lesser highways. Since we don’t choose to roll at 70 MPH, we are much happier off the interstates. Also there are many more interesting things to see on the old Federal and State routes.

Given those parameters it is easy to see that we can extend our range from the normal plan rather easily by sticking to Interstates and limiting our stops. Books on tape or CD are the greatest way to extend range. If the reader is great, who wants to spend time stopped with the story off?

At the moment we are in Galveston Island State Park (19 consecutive nights in Texas State Parks) getting ready to move on in the morning. We have eaten well, toured well and gotten to see Galveston. We will be back