The most frequent question we heard as we prepared for our seventh annual crossing of the United States was, “Are you going to take a different route this year?” If you have been following, you know that we departed from our usual route when we left Virginia. We had not gone to Florida since 2005 and this time we went south of Okeechobee and spent time in Boynton Beach. As we passed through New Orleans we went way south to Grand Isle. Finally when we left Austin we turned north out of Ft Stockton headed for Carlsbad then on to Bosque Del Apache NWR (National Wildlife Refuge) where we have settled in to Bosque Bird Watchers RV Park. I expect that, weather permitting, we will continue across the high plain of New Mexico to Arizona where the choice will be north to I 40 (very unlikely) or south to I 10 and on into Tuscon. That all remains to be seen. The forecast for tonight is snow and freezing rain in this area which may cause some different thoughts in the morning. Our plan now is to decide what we are doing tomorrow. So what else is new?

Today’s forecast (February 15, 2008) was for difficult driving conditions and snow and rain and fog, etc along our route. We had clouds followed by sun with temperatures ranging from the 30’s into the mid 60’s depending on altitude. We had decided to head for this campground as it overlooks the overnight roost of the Sandhill Cranes that are migrating through Bosque Del Apache. When we were here several years ago, we were searching for the cranes and after arriving late in the evening we were stunned to be awakened by the large birds flying out of their roosting pools with the sunrise. After we got here this time, we set up quickly and took the car to tour the NWR to see as many birds as we could. I will spare you the entire list. We did see a Bald Eagle and many Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. The ducks were too numerous to even determine how many species we saw. The last addition to the list were several Killdeer and of course we saw a Great Blue Heron.

This is not high season here! There are six or seven campers in the campground. The nearest town is San Antonio, NM and there is nothing there but a bar and grill. Socorro counts as the big city and it is not big enough for a Wal Mart and it is 50 miles away. 60 miles north of that is Albuquerque. As many or more miles to the south is Las Cruces. I expect we will see neither of them this trip.

To go back briefly. We had a great stay at the Carlsbad KOA. Although we seldom stay at KOA’s because they offer many amenities that are not of interest to us and are priced accordingly, this place is very special. We have never seen such nice facilities in ANY campground. I had the smoked brisket dinner, delivered to the coach for $10.00 and really enjoyed it. That is a treat I do not remember being offered in any campground we have stayed in. Susan and Scott are working very hard to make an enjoyable stay. They even arranged for me to have a local mechanic come to the site and change the oil in Gee 2. This is a change in their basic policy which forbids such work being done on premises. Dave, who did the work, was very concerned to keep the site clean and prevent any spillage of oil. His price was very fair as well, especially as he had a 15 mile drive to get to us. Thank you to the Bachers. If you are going that way, I can certainly recommend a stay there.

As I have noted before, we are inclined to short days on the road if there is a place we feel like stopping and there is no schedule to force a long day. Crossing Texas will result in at least one long day, if not two. The I 10 mile post at the Texas Welcome Center just west of Louisiana reads 880. But I get ahead of myself.

After leaving Grand Isle we were enchanted with the low prices and high welcome of Louisiana State Parks and decided to stop at Sam Houston Jones SP north of Lake Charles, LA. Because we arrived with no reservation on Thursday before Mardi Gras weekend we were able to get into an end site in the older section of the park for only two nights. It was plenty! I could not find the sewer connector as it was under debris under several inches of water. We could not use the back half of the site as that was where the mud and water was. And two feet beyond our picnic table was the exit road for the dump and the units near us. There was just room for the bigger coaches to squeeze past our car which we refused to park in the mud. That being said the park is lovely and worth a visit for anyone who is passing. It is in the midst of wetland and on the bank of the Calcasieu River (don’t ask me to pronounce that). Our big adventures were a drive around the scenic loop on LA 27 which took us through Holly Beach yet again. We were impressed with the amount of rebuilding that we saw this year.. After our drive though last year we were convinced that Holly Beach would not be making any kind of a come back. We stopped at a Cameron National Wildlife Reserve and took an hours bird walk during which we saw very little other than a Golden Eagle and the usual Great Blue Heron and Great Egret and assorted little birds we could not identify. On our return to G2 we freshened up and went out to a local Cajun restaurant. Carol made do with asparagus salad and sauteed mushrooms while I ate stuff I don’t normally eat.

The next day we headed for Texas. We did not go very far, stopping at the Escapee community in Livingston, TX, about an hour north of Houston. While we were there we did many things, some that we seldom do, such as watching the entire Super Bowl. I am not much of sports fan, but the Giants have been my favorite since my college days when Y A Tittle was QB so we went into the club house and joined a bunch of others who shared finger food while we watched the game on a big screen TV. We also took a couple of hikes in the Big Thicket National Park.

One of the things that Escapees offers in Livingston is Care Center. We had heard about this before and were intrigued so we took the offered tour. Care provides Adult Day Care services for Escapees whose health has declined so that they can no longer travel or those who need to recover from surgery or injury but are not willing to give up the RVing lifestyle. There is a separate camping area where the sites include ramps fitted as necessary to provide access to the RV and help is available to deal with the physical needs such as changing propane tanks or emptying the holding tanks. Three meals a day are provided for the person needing care and for the caregiver (there must be a care giver living on the RV) . The adult daycare provides respite for the caregiver five days a week. Much of the work is done by volunteers and all of the construction costs were contributed. Nothing was built until the money was in hand. There are many other features and the cost is remarkably low. It is a wonderful facility and many of the people we know in Escapee consider it very important for their future.

We left Livingston and turned our wheels toward Austin and the the Rainwaters. We pulled into Austin Lone Star RV, where we have stayed before to find that it is operating under new management. The most immediate impact was that our frequent camper cards had become worthless. The good news was they had lowered the price dramatically and had not improved much of the facility that affects us – the roadways while putting money into stuff we have no use for, washrooms. Our visits with Leigh and Pat were fun as always, too much to eat and plenty of touring. Our first night there we had been promised “boot scooting” Texas for dancing. After dinner at the East End Cafe we went to “The Broken Spoke” a classic Texas Dance Hall. The entrance is though a bar into a long hall with a dance floor in the middle and tables around the edges, separated from the floor by a low wall. The dance floor is for dancing only as signs make very clear. It is filled with every number performed by Dale Watson and his group of rockabilly performers. We danced until we were exhausted and then drove Leigh and Pat home and returned to Gee2 for a good nights sleep in preparation for more activities they had planned.

The highlight of the day was a stop in Boern TX where we ate in an old Inn and in this out of the way old German town the menu was very interesting and the food was excellent. On our way back we stopped in Gruen (pronounced Green) to see some more small town Texas life and lots of tourists, mostly Texans, filling the eating places and buying the items offered for sale. The last stop of the day was Iron Works BBQ back in Austin where I finally got my teeth into some great beef ribs Texas style (too big and too good to describe). Sunday was some more touring, dinner at their home and then farewells until next year. There was only one little problem, Carol and I had not agreed on where we were going, nor had we planned a route.

We knew that Dan and BeverlyArmstrong whom we had last seen two years ago at Dockweilers in LA were traveling I 10 from Houston toward Gila Bend. For us to continue west it would be best to travel on I 10 because to get to our preferred route, US 90, would take us far more southerly than we intend this trip. We called the Armstrongs once we were on the road and confirmed that they were indeed westbound on I 10 about 100 miles ahead of us and they were willing to hold up in Ft Stockton, at the Wal Mart, to wait for us. Thus we found ourselves pulling into the smallest Wal Mart parking lot we had seen with the most RVs we had seen in a Wal Mart at about 4 in the afternoon. We managed to park along side the Armstrongs and we had happy hour until we broke for dinner and then we reconvened for after dinner conversation.

The choice of Ft Stockton is easy. If you are crossing Texas on I 10 and are not so insane as to commit to a 12 hour drive, you will stop there, because there is no other choice along I 10 that makes sense. This still left us with a question about the next day. Continue west, or turn north? We had been talking about Monahans Sand Dune State Park which we stayed at our first trip across and decided to include it in the itinerary. This opened up the idea of returning to Carlsbad NM which we also stopped at that first year. We stopped at Monahans for a couple of hours to take a hike in the dunes and have lunch. Then we pressed on to Carlsbad and the KOA north of town owned by former Rochestarians who are friends of Carol and Tim Kolb (Carol works in the office I have in Rochester). This is a very lux campground with the nicest club house facilities and bathroom facilities I can remember seeing. I won’t be using them since our on board facilities are very comfortable for us. We will tour tomorrow and Thursday we will move on to avoid a storm that is headed this way. I expect we will have to drive through the front again as we did last year.

Next post you (and I) will find out what our route decision was.

The Hanks, who we met in Topsail Hill Preserve, mentioned that they were planning on going to Grand Isle, LA. If you look at a map of Louisiana and follow the Mississippi River to its end in the Gulf then go northwest across the water, you will see a spit of land with LA 1 that is an island. Going east on that island, eventually you run out of road (and land). That is Grand Isle State Park. The town of Grand Isle has little to offer in the way of entertainment, shopping, or places of interest. There is a small supermarket which includes a hardware store. There are two major oil operations, Shell and Exxon Mobil. There is a lot of shrimping, more on that in a bit.

Given its location at the end of the road, you would think it would be hard to miss the State Park, wrong! By ignoring Germaine (the GPS) and misreading a road sign in the belief that a barely improved thread of asphalt could not possibly be the entrance to a state park, we drove on into a residential area. Fortunately, the road ended in large parking lot for the sport and commercial fishing area which enabled me to turn around and, with the help of locals, find the entrance to the park. As we had figured from the reservation web site there are plenty of open sites. Louisiana is one of the few states that provides a 50% discount for those of us carrying the Golden Age Passport. Compared to $38 plus tax in Florida the net of $9 and NO TAX becomes a real bargain. We are situated in a row of sites with our back to a dune line with the Gulf of Mexico just on the other side with a beach that stretches as far as we want to walk in both directions.

We have been asked what we do in a place like this with no access to the internet since Verizon service dropped off about 20 miles up the road. Our contact with the outside world is pretty good between satellite TV (ugh), local off the air TV (double ugh), NPR radio out of N.O. and the phone. We have many unread books, some of which will be ready to trade by the time we move on and there are people to sit and chat with. Our best entertainment is the sea and bird life. Dolphins feed just off the beach, herding redfish in toward the shore then feeding on them. This takes place 10 to 20 feet off the beach in as little as three feet of water.

The birding has also been pretty good. Here is a list of the identified species we saw yesterday, January 29^th, as we walked the beach and lake trail: Willet, Least Sandpiper, American Oyster Catcher, Tree Swallow, Royal Tern, Least Tern, Brown Pelican, White Pelican, Great Blue Heron (on almost every daily birding list I can remember) Great Egret, Double Crested Cormorant and Gulls. I am sure of my identification of Herring Gull and Ring Bill Gull I am sure there were others, but I have not paid enough attention to even think of sorting them out.

We also witnessed the merciless nature of life in the wild. We came across a Cormorant and a Pelican with broken wings on the beach in the space of four hours. In both cases this was the result of the bird misjudging the waves in a dive for fish and hitting the water at a wrong angle. We have sat and watched these birds diving for fish whenever we are near the water and I cannot remember ever seeing this before, but it is more common than we realize. When it happens far out from shore there is no way to see the result. We spoke to the ranger about these injured birds and she said that unless they were banded there was nothing that could be done to help them or to put them out of their misery. Nature will be permitted to take its course.

Yesterday, when we did the birding, was glorious with temperatures in the high 60’s to low 70’s and plenty of sun. We expect that will not happen again for a while. Last night a front came through with a slashing rainstorm followed by high winds. At 5:00 AM we heard a crash as the grill, which I lash to a table, blew over with the table. The winds were so high that we were rocking so we pulled in the slides to preserve the topper awnings and reduce the surface exposed to the wind. This morning we discovered that the doormat we have used for seven years is no place to be found. It is “Gone with the Wind”. [written later] After a brisk morning walk, keeping my eyes open looking for the doormat, I found it tucked up against the street side rear wheels.

I did promise more on shrimping. There are many boats lining the bayous and rivers that are setup for shrimping. This is a major industry in these parts. Although I do not ordinarily eat shellfish, it seemed foolish to pass up the opportunity to have them as fresh as they can be. We set out after lunch, by car, to see what was available on Grand Isle. The supermarket had no seafood at all, just meat. The produce section was better than Carol expected and not outrageously expensive. We bought very little. We stopped in another small shop to ask about seafood and they pointed us to Dean and Blanchard as the only place in the area still open. We found the turn off of LA 1 that they described and realized we had already been that way, but we persisted and this time turned right on a road that seemed to be a private drive. We wended our way toward the shore where we found a large packing plant. In what looked like a breezeway were two large containers with a very large scale. There was a workman there who spoke in a language or accent that was not particularly intelligible to us. We did figure out that he did have whole fresh shrimp in the containers and they were two different prices (presumably different sizes. I bought a pound of the more expensive ($3.75 a pound) and figured I would have them for two meals. After cleaning and grilling in olive oil, garlic, lemon juice and some pepper, I had a very nice portion for one meal. I enjoyed myself, but I doubt I will repeat the experience, certainly not in hurry.

Although the people we gathered for Happy Hour on Wednesday evening asked us to stay on, we decided to move on on Thursday with a deteriorating weather forecast and a desire to get to Texas someday. Thursday we were on the road by 8:45.

Can’t seem to get out of this state. Sunday night found us in Topsail Hill Preserve State Park, still in Florida. Getting into the site was an exercise in patience and finesse. Whoever had deemed this site suitable for a 36 foot motorhome was a sadist. With Carol watching a low post by the right (curbside) rear wheel I got that wheel within a couple of inches of the post while missing a tree with the front left (street side) corner by a similar couple of inches. I still had to cope with a tree three feet behind me once I got clear of the front tree. I pivoted neatly into place wondering how I would ever get out when the time came. A short time later as we completed setting up we met Al Hanks, who with his wife Nancy, was on the site one away from ours. I have no idea how anything bigger than our car would negotiate the entrance to that intermediate site. We agreed to meet for Happy Hour at 5:30 and Carol and I set off by car to explore the Panhandle beach area. We drove along 30 A and were suitable impressed with the many fancy large homes that line the beach blocking almost all access to the hoi poloi that do not own the beach front property. Certainly the view is blocked. We drove through Watercolor and Seaside and it is clear that these are very nice places and very PLANNED.

On our return to the campground we made the coach neat for visitors and shortly the Hanks arrived bringing additional goodies to our small gathering. Somehow, before we knew it, three hours (and a couple bottles of wine) had passed. Al is retired from Consumers Union where, among other jobs, he built and then managed the automotive test facility. His wife, Nancy is a retired school teacher. She and Carol had a great time and Al and I had many things to talk about including improvements to our motorhomes and experiences with buying and maintaining them, his is a 2004 Allegro Bay on the same chassis with the same drive line as Gee2. Nancy was particularly taken with the many hooks we have mounted in strategic locations, like the ones on either side of the entry door where wet coats can be hung to drip into the stairwell rather run through the coach to the shower to hang them up. These never seemed like a big deal to me, although I do remember that we discussed what kind of hooks and whether we would like their appearance for several days before mounting. Such is life when the two of us have many hours and days together with limited other company.

The weather continued to be cold and wet. The second day we drove out to the west to explore and found more large beach houses and too many repeats of the same stores you can see everyplace else in this country. Also there was too much traffic. We turned back and got on our bikes to ride around the park, out of the traffic. At 6 we joined a group that Al had put together for a social hour in the clubhouse. Then we went back t their coach and finally to ours for a snack and some sleep.

When we awoke it was Thursday and we knew two things; we were leaving the very expensive (by our standards) Topsail Hill Preserve and we were going west. We had not put together a more serious plan and it seemed more sensible to depart and figure out what we would do as we rolled. We had been in touch with some organizations in Louisiana about volunteering some time, but Mardi Gras is coming and all the volunteer programs are closed down as all accommodations are booked for revelers and everyone takes part in Mardi Gras. There is no place we want to hang around for two weeks in lousy weather so we are moving on a bit aimlessly.

As we crossed out of Florida into Alabama we stopped at the Welcome Center to have lunch and maybe figure out where we would spend the night. We recently joined yet another RV organization, Escapees, and they have several facilities in the south and southwest. We had never seen one, much less stayed in one so we found there is one in the Gulf Shores area, not too far from the Joy and Shaul Antar as it happens. Escapees is an organization for full and extended part times RVers who have SKPed the grid and gone off to live on their rigs. The defining bumper sticker is “Home is where we park it”. Is this too convoluted? I have several threads running here and I am losing track. The campground is fantastic. It is an RV park designed by people who have been is a lot of RV parks. Access is easy, there is plenty of space and when they asked if I had a satellite dish for TV my affirmative answer resulted in some shuffling to be sure I would be able to see the satellite with my dish. All the people we have met here are really friendly and pleasant. Tomorrow we will do some shopping, I forgot my dress shoes among other things and there are plenty of shops and then we will meet the Antars at Temple in Mobile for Shabbat Service. Who knows what Sunday will bring.

If you are looking for pictures, I have not taken many and most of them are of the coach in a campground, boring!

We have done it. We are in Florida. Our first night here we took a chance and tried to get into Payne Prairie Preserve in Micanopy (see posting from January 2005 for details and pronunciation). Upon arrival we were informed that all the sites were reserved and there was no room for us. The ranger suggested that we consider Sportsmens Cove Resort, just a few miles south in McIntosh, FL. We called and then drove there to a welcoming reception. The place looked a bit like a dump at the end of F Ave right on Orange Lake, but it was pleasant enough sitting on a berm with water on three sides. We wandered down to the shore, drawn by noisy bird calls. They turned out to be many Sandhill Cranes just off the beach. They are a resident population here, unlike the migratory Sandhills we finally caught up with in Bosque Del Apache NWR several years ago. In the morning we awoke to their cries and a walk down the water’s edge yielded a Wood Stork to add to my birding list. It was a great start to our Florida visit.

We breakfasted and set out for Ft Desoto County Park campground where we had paid for four nights back in late November when we were just planing this trip. Other than starting out in a slashing thunder storm with buckets of water falling on us, the drive was uneventful. We arrived before 1 PM and began to set up camp. As I walked to bedroom, after opening the slide I noticed that a trim board had fallen off the closet. This is turning out to be the trip of minor and not so minor mishaps. So far none has been terribly serious, just annoying. With a bit of persuasion the trim board has been restored to it position and ought to stay there. For good measure I played with the window shade over the bed. The guide string has jumped the track a couple of days ago and I had not gotten around to looking at it. It too 30 seconds to put it right. What Next????

Writing a week later: We had very nice visit with Art and Natalie (Carol’s brother and sister-in-law) in St Petersburg. Their daughter Erica came in for the day on Monday and brought along Yonatan, their grandson, who was visiting them and his girl friend for the week. Our time was spent mostly visiting and just a bit shopping for some needed replacement parts for the bike rack – another casualty. Oh yes on Wednesday morning, the 16^th, as I walked around the car I noticed that the wear bars on one of the tires was showing, groan, another replacement required. Although the car has only been driven 21,000 miles those tires have been dragged another 30,000 or more behind the coach. Time to find a tire store and get them replaced before something bad happens.

On Thursday we pulled out to head even further south. It is past time to see my Aunt Evelyn in Boynton Beach. The best arrangement we could make for camping was in Clewiston, FL at the Okeechobee Landings RV Park. This is 1 ¼ hours drive from my aunt each way. The campsite was nice, right on a small lake with plenty of birds, mostly White Ibis and one Anhinga. Our visit with Aunt Evelyn was very good and she took us to tour the assisted living facility she plans to move into in the coming weeks. Newport House appears to be a very nice place where she already has many friends. I hope she has an easy transition. It being Friday we had dinner and went to Temple with her. It is clear she is well known and liked there and many people were already congratulating her on her move, although she says she had told no one and the move has not even happened yet.

We left for Okeechobee Landings RV at a bit before 10 PM and arrived quite tired at 11:15. We fell into bed and left the departure mode until the morning. We rolled out about 10:15 and made 13 miles before stopping for fuel and grocery shopping. We finally started moving at noon. The only problem was where to go. I had set our destination as Alabama, but had no intent or desire to get there in one day. As we scanned the map while committing to drive up the center of the state on US 27 we realized we would be passing directly by Deer Creek which the Topfs and other people we know call their winter home. We called ahead to find that they had no plans and the site directly across the street from them was temporarily available. They made arrangements for us to stay and we made our stop at about 3 PM with the Topfs and many other CHAI members. While we were at dinner it began to pour. Once again we were in the midst of torrential rains. This time we had traveled in golf carts from the campsites to the restaurant and there was no way to get four of us under cover in the golf cart. We waited while Norm and Shelley went back and got a car to pick us up. We spent a pleasant couple of hours in their coach and them came back to Gee2 to write and rest.

No idea what we will do tomorrow, Sunday the 20^th.

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.