8/10/23

Travel day

We promised we would say good bye in the morning but first up Mike has to clean the windshield. Denny comes by to chat and then it is time to say final good bye’s until December when we will see them again at DSRV.

We know it will be a long way to Chicago so we will overnight at a rest area along the way.  We find Menomonie Rest area which works out perfectly. This will leave only about 4 hour drive to Libertyville to Steve and Carolyn’s the following day.  It is a great travel day and the rest area works out great. There is a truck that pulls in next to us that leaves his generator or engine running but it actually works like white noise and drowns out all other noise so we sleep well and are ready to go in the morning.

For the next two days we are just doing miles this time rather than doing scenic stops as we have made plans to visit with our friends the Mansfield’s in Libertyville, IL.  First North Dakota, Then Minnesota, followed by Wisconsin, onto Illinois… Fortunately when you full-time in an RV you better like to drive and we do. We often have our greatest conversations just driving down the road, looking at the sites, and listening to Pandora music. We wouldn’t want to make tracks like this everyday,

8/11/23

Libertyville, Illlinois

We arrive in Libertyville around 3:00pm and though Steve is still working, Carolyn greets us in the yard to help us park.  Once parked we begin catching up. They have been busy with their house remodel since buying the property a few years ago when they relocated from our home town in Connecticut to be nearer their kids. Carolyn shows us some of the renovations they have made since the last time we were here, a year ago.  Eventually we set some chairs up out back and Steve gets home from work and joins us.  We really don’t have any big plans except to relax and enjoy the company!  At one point Mike mentions that he would love to see their kids (Kristen and Alex) and their kids and spouses.  Not sure if this will happen but will try!  Carolyn and Joanne are used to their Friday afternoon wine time so we pour some wine and then grill up some swordfish and corn on the cob. Delicious dinner.  Nice to have an actual shower to use!  That is probably the only drawback to their house- the guest bath is at the opposite end of the house from the guest bedroom. We have to walk all the way through the living room and kitchen to use the guest bathroom. But they told us about their plans to reno the master bath to make two bathrooms; a master and a guest bath right across the hallway from the guest bedroom.  

8/12/23

Libertyville

This morning Carolyn and Joanne get up early to get a morning walk in with their dog Pepe; Vienna is too old to keep up anymore.  Next up we decide to take a trip to the home of Harley Davidson in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (about a 45 minute drive from their house). This was a great thing to do and took several hours to go through the museum.  On the way home we stop for wine and Joanne is looking for a tie dye kit to do with Mac when we get to Boston.  Successful on both counts and knowing we will grill up some chicken for dinner we head home.

 

8/13/23

Libertyville

Today we have a slow morning- another walk for Joanne and Carolyn while Mike does some work in the RV and Steve reads the morning paper.  Next we head out to meet Kristen and her family at a local playground. This is not a normal playground but a huge monstrosity of a playground!  Kristen has two young boys under 5 and a baby due in a few months- another boy! It is fun catching up with her and watching the boys. Her husband (Also Alex) is very nice and we all have a nice visit.  Then Steve takes us for a drive around different unique neighborhoods in the area.  We have had a great visit with our old Clinton friends but time to push on.  Tomorrow morning we head out and are bound for Newmar in Nappanee IN for some coach work!

8/14/23

Nappanee IN

Unfortunately in Crater Lake we had a miscommunication and ended up backing over a boulder which damaged the two passenger side baggage doors. In all our years of RVing this is the first mishap like this. Most Rver’s experience issues like this at some point and we have been lucky to avoid it until now. Fortunately neither one of us were injured and it’s just the RV.

Mike tried his best to get the doors at least in working order when it happened, though they still needed to be repaired by a professional.  We were able to get an appointment at Newmar in Nappanee,  IN the manufacturer of our coach. The plan was to have them replace and paint 2 doors.  Getting an appointment at Newmar is never easy and we were very happy they could squeeze us in with such short notice which worked great with our travel schedule.  We know we will have to be out of the coach for at least one full night so we reach out to our college friends Barb and John Jablonski, who live in Michigan,  to see if we can visit and stay with them one night. They will happily accommodate us and are flexible with which days we will be able to come.  Sounds like a great plan…

Since the last time we have been to the service center at Newmar’s headquarters in Nappanee they have built a new facility with excellent camping accommodations. It is a “state of the art” facility and the lobby/waiting area are super as well. Besides the baggage doors they are also addressing a few other punch list repair items we have. They are very organized and deliver a first rate customer service experience.

The first couple of days we can return to our RV and sleep so we opt to visit the “RV Hall of Fame” in Elkhart, IN on the first morning. Elkhart is considered the center of the universe in the RVing community. We had visited it nearly 6 years ago so are looking forward to our stop and see what has changed or been added.  The afternoon we opt to take in a movie. We saw the movie “Barbie”, which had been receiving so many great reviews; but we both agreed that except for the last 15 minutes of the picture we didn’t enjoy it and were astounded by all the fuss the movie is making…

8/16/23:

Today is Wednesday and we have an 8:30 appointment at MINI of Ft Wayne to get the brake light turned off; a normal check-up under warranty. We had made the appointment when we saw we would be at Newmar for a few days with our coach unavailable for us to use. The MINI service place was about an hour drive from Nappanee. 

After the car service was completed we started the drive to Bloomfield, Michigan where our college friends Barb and John live. It was a pretty easy drive and we arrived early afternoon.  It was Barb’s birthday on this day and Mike’s is tomorrow!  They are always fun to be around and we got a walk around the gardens and then spent some time catching up.  They were some of our closest friends in college and we got married two weeks apart in 1980.  After lunch Mike and John took a drive to see some of the cars that are in town for the Vintage car stroll known as the “Woodward Dream” Car Cruise. The cruise is a once a year celebration where car enthusiasts from around the world come and enjoy a weeks worth of festivities and nightly cruising between Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan.  Joanne and Barb went for a walk through their neighborhood while Mike & John are out cruising.  Afterwards we all went to dinner at their country club for a celebratory birthday dinner!  Dinner and the setting was perfect and we opted out of deserts in the restaurant to visit a favorite ice cream bar downtown where we can enjoy all the cars cruising the dream… The cars were so much fun to see!

8/17/23

Back to Nappanee

Happy Birthday Mike!

We get a later start to our drive back to Nappanee; it’s just too much fun catching up with John & Barb!  Also before leaving Mike promised John he could take a drive in the MINI which takes longer than planned…  Once we get on the road it is a three hour ride back to pick up our coach. Originally we thought we would get back and leave on that same day to head towards NY and Letchworth Falls State Park but it begins pouring out so we decide to take it slower and depart the next morning. We had to remove all the hitches, bike rack… for the paint work so we still had to reattach all that and get the bikes back on. Unfortunately as we were getting the bikes back on Mike rams his head into the bed slide full force and gashed his head open.  Once we determined he did not need stitches we slowed down more and finally got everything accomplished.  Ready to go first thing in the morning!

8/18/23

Drive day

As we depart Nappanee we reflect on how lucky we were to have been able to fit this into our schedule without having to change much around.  We head out beginning on back roads and eventually getting onto the highway through Cleveland Ohio and get into NY. Joanne see’s a good rest area we can make it to that gets raving reviews.  That is our plan for overnight tonight.  We end up pulling in around 4:00pm and are hopeful we can still get a good spot, and we are lucky!  There is one tractor trailer in a spot but we will get into the area of the parking lot closer to the river with a better view.  It is an awesome rest area and an attendant says people actually come there to picnic and hang out during the day on many weekends!  By the time night falls almost the entire parking lot is full with semi’s and RV’s.  We felt fortunate to have arrived and gotten the parking spot we did!  We had a quiet night and awaken to a beautiful view of the lake.  

8/19/23

 As we begin the drive today we start off on some back roads to get us further along before we have to begin paying tolls.  Once on 90 (toll road) we get near Syracuse and construction begins putting us in two lanes both lined with Jersey Barriers. Joanne see’s a sign that say’s “no trucks, trailers… in the left lane” but some are passing us anyway. At one point a semi gets so close to us that Mike’s only option is to let the truck hit us or go to the  right as much a possible.  As he goes right Joanne see’s he’s getting too close to the barriers and just as she say’s something we hear the side of the RV scrape along the Jersey Barrier.  We finally find a place to pull over to check the damage and see that the scrape goes along the bottom of the 5 back baggage doors; including the ones we just had replaced!🤦‍♀️ Mike is furious especially because the signs are clear that there should be no big semi’s in the left lane. There just isn’t enough room for two big rigs along side each other through the construction zone. Of course the truck just continued on his way never even realizing the damage he caused.  Of course this just ruins the day and the rest of the drive is long and tedious. As Mike calls around to try to get quotes from various places for paint work (thank goodness there was no body damage, dents…).  The estimates are upwards of $6,000. That is just painful!!  Especially since we had just paid over $4,000 to fix the same doors at Newmar 3 days ago. The “silver lining” is everything is again fixable and we didn’t get injured. Reflecting back we were extraordinarily lucky not to have gotten severely injured in this episode. The Semi could have easily hit us and pushed uss over the jersey barrier causing us to roll down the hill. It could have been so much worse in so many ways. It will cost us some money but at least we are both safe….

We arrive at Letchworth State park in Western NY in the late afternoon in spite of our harrowing encounter with tractor trailer and Jersey barrier. We have been to this incredible park in the past and always look forward to another stop at the “Grand Canyon of the East”. Our plans for a couple days are to do a few hikes during the days, take a tour of the adjacent Morris Dam, and just kick-back for a few days.

8/20/23

The views in Letchworth State Park are truly amazing! The classic river/bridge shots always are always special moments.  We have been here before, though moments like this never get old… A few hours in nature hiking and catching these type of views go a long way of taking the sting out of yesterday’s  damage…

8/20/24

Today we decide to drive to over the Mount Morris Dam site and take a guided tour of this facility which controls the water/river that carved the great canyon. We have toured many dams including Hoover Dam in Nevada. Of course this is on a smaller scale but nonetheless its impact has been significant for years. The US Army Corps of Engineers actually built the Mount Morris Dam in the late 1940’s to reduce flooding on the lower Genesee River. Today the dam continues to provide flood protection along 67 miles of the Genesee River Valley from the village of Mount Morris to downtown Rochester where the river enters Lake Ontario. Mount Morris Dam and Recreation Area continues its function to present day and now includes a day use park that offers a beautiful setting overlooking Letchworth Canyon. Glad we took this time to visit this important structure that is so critical to the Genesee Valley.

8/21/24

Today we plan on driving all the way to Hudson MA. The plan is to camp for the night at a Cabela’s that Joanne saw on RV Parky. We think we stayed here in the fall of 2018 when we were finishing up in the Adirondacks and New Hampshire. This location would put us only about 45 minutes from Salisbury’s Beach Rose RV Campground where we will get a visit in with the Dew’s and maybe get to babysit granddaughter Mac.

Departing Letchworth State Park we head East to Massachusetts. We arrive late day and find a great spot on the side of the rear parking lot so we are able to extend our slides out over a grassy area. There are some other campers there doing the same thing for the night. We actually meet another couple full-timing as well in a Motorhome with the obvious “South Dakota” plates. They are in their first year of the adventure and since we are into our 5th year they allow us to share a few insights. This location will work great for the night knowing tomorrow we will arrive early enough in Salisbury to get situated and  then drive down to see Cait and Bruce in Charlestown, hopefully getting there early enough to pick Mac up at day care.

Tuesday 8/22/23. Salisbury MA

We arrive at Beach Rose CG early as we were only an hour away!  We have been here so many times at this point that it feels very homey to us. We get set up then head down to Charlestown to pick up Mac and see the kids.  As we walk with Bruce down to daycare he tells us we can go right in to pick her up as we are on the pick up list!  We walk in and Mac see’s Mike through the glass. Amazingly she recognizes him, gets away from the snack table, washes her hands and gets her back pack to meet us at the door!!  We cannot believe that she remembers us from the last time we saw her in March (almost 5 months ago).  This makes us feel so good. We begin to head to a playground nearby and Caitlin joins us (she got off the train from Stamford, CT).  We head back to the apartment for burgers and drinks and then we head back to Beach Rose for the night the whole way talking about a great beginning to a week with the kids.

8/23/23 Beach Rose; Salisbury MS

Today we keep busy finishing set up of the RV and campsite. Joanne takes a walk down the side road near the campground while Mike works on logistics of getting the scrape fixed.  Mid afternoon we depart for another dinner visit with the kids at the apartment. We have been given the job of picking Mac up at daycare and taking her to a playground nearby. Cait and Bruce will meet us at a pub close to the playground then we will head back to the apartment for dinner. We feel bad because the kids are working all day then trying to entertain us at night. But that’s the schedule they had for us.  Another nice evening being able to sit out on the side deck. Gram gives Mac a bath and Pop reads her as story and it’s off to bed for her!  We don’t stay much longer as the kids are working the next day and we will meet them at an outdoor concert venue that Caitlin’s company is sponsoring. 

Thursday 8/24/23 Salisbury MA

Joanne makes some apps to bring along. We meet up around 4:00 at the outside venue and get an area set up for the 5 of us.  It is very crowded and we are happy we arrived early to be sure we had good seats. After the concert / picnic the plan is for Gram and Pop to take Mac home with us for a few nights so the kids can have a short get- away.  Mac is teary eyed at bedtime because Mama and Dada aren’t around but she quickly settles down and falls asleep. A good night and on wake up she is cheery and bright!

8/25/23 Beach Rose; Salisbury MA

We awake to a rainy day but Gram has some ideas up her sleeve!  Cait packed Mac’s scooter so after breakfast (Mac helped make pancakes), and the house is picked up, Gram takes Mac out to do some puddle jumping and scooter riding!  By this point it is wet outside but not raining (maybe drizzling).  Mac is quite good on her scooter and she is just enjoying walking around the campground.  We come back to do some art projects in the camper (painting, gluing…) and of course lunch and snacks!  It is a day spent at the camper but a good one!  Gram gets her in to the shower for a rinse off before bedtime using the hand held shower head.  There are a few tears at bedtime but again; she settles down quickly and gets a good night sleep.

8/26/23 Beach Rose; Salisbury

Today Gram found a great little farm about 5 miles from the campground where we can go blueberry picking and look at some farm animals.  We get breakfast and dressed (a dress of course!) and then it is off to the farm. Today is a gorgeous, warm day, so planning to go in the pool in the afternoon.  The farm is a great success (Cider Hill Farm Amesbury, MA). We look at the chickens and goats first then get the container for pick your own blueberries.  We also paid to pick your own sunflowers.  Next up to the little farm store for some cider donuts.  Mac falls asleep on the way home and then gets a good nap before pool time.  She LOVES the pool and meets a little friend that is 4.  She is not afraid of the water and bc it is late in August instead of in June, the water has had a chance to warm up.  Afterwards we head back to the camper for dinner.  We know that tomorrow is the day mama and dada will be back so we try to get as much snuggling in as we can.

Sunday 8/27/23 Beach Rose

Another pretty nice day so after breakfast we get some scootering in and Gram makes some Chicken Parm (with Mac’s help) for dinner.  Originally the kids told us ETA would be around 5 but mid afternoon it changed to 3.  We take Dakota to the dog park and catch the kids up on our few days with Mac and then it is dinner time. Bruce gets pretty frustrated with Dakota but all in all a good visit. We say our sad good byes as we will depart tomorrow morning heading South for the remainder of the summer and Fall…

8/28/23 Clinton CT

The drive down to Hammonasset is pretty easy with a stop in Old Lyme for gas at Costco.  We know we have a pretty busy schedule in the three nights we will be here.  We arrive early afternoon and see that the site we had reserved is surrounded by people all from the same extended family with us smack in the middle!  Joanne goes to the office to see if we may be able to switch and no problem.  This puts us at a site with no one around us! 

For this three day visit we are scheduled to see Dawn and Don Paradis, the Shiely’s, Doug and Mel Elliott, Todd, Mari,  and Gretchen!  Phew!  That’s a lot!  But we got it all in and had great visits with everyone.

Joanne got a walk in the campground with Gretchen, We had breakfast with Don and Dawn, We had drinks and dinner with Susan and Rob and also dinner with Doug and Mel. Mike and Joanne met with Todd at his store (so Joanne could get her jewelry cleaned!) and Mike met Todd. Mari, & John at Pica Chica’s….  It was busy but a great visit in our hometown.  It was also fun to drive around and see changes that have taken place over the years that we have been gone.  Next up is Assateague and Joanne is certainly looking forward to that!!

8/31-10/8/2023. Assateague State Park MD

Camp-hosting, family and relaxing

We weren’t sure (after 2021) if we would ever want to host at Assateague again so after taking last year off we decided to give it another chance this year.  So glad we did!  We had a great month with a great new host supervisor and awesome campers on our loop.  Several campers stopped to thank us for taking such good care of the island and for all that we do. We arrived on Joanne’s birthday (8/31) which is so appropriate since it is her favorite place (her Zen place; place of solace and peace).  We pulled in around 4:00pm in the afternoon, got our car tag and got set up on our site (I 232).  Shortly after we arrived Donna Racine (new supervisor) stopped by to greet us and said she would drop shirts and binder off in the morning. No worries as we have plenty of shirts and hats from previous years!  We also got a visit from the hosts that just moved from that site saying that several sites camping together on our loop had been caught several times hand feeding the horses!  Sounds like trouble right from the beginning!  In the morning we got right out shoveling horse apples and checking on our campers making sure they are aware of the horses and requirements for food, dog food, and keeping their distance. A ranger stopped to say hello and also to tell us that the campers that were feeding the horses had gotten evicted but to let new campers in that area be aware that the horses have now become accustomed to getting food so they should be wary.  We were very pro-active and so this never became an issue.  Donna stopped to deliver our shirts and binder and chat with us for a bit (probably to size us up…)

A good beginning to the month; although the host meeting was a little stressful for our new host supervisor as Linda (Loop A) and Tom (Loop F) got into her face during the meeting.  After that meeting we had little contact with Linda or Tom and all the other hosts were very nice. It already looked like there will be a lot less host drama than 2021.  The new host coordinator Donna R. is a big part of this change.

By the second day it was unseasonably hot and we had to crank up the AC (and it stayed on for two weeks!) We watch how much energy we exerted outdoors.  The first day of the heat we did a clean up beach walk up to the day use area and then had to clean almost all of our sites (it was Labor Day with almost all sites going out).  We were pretty wiped out and got dehydrated.  We were pretty careful after that.  We got to the beach for walks and just to sit several times and the vibe was pretty good. Fred and Julie were in their usual camp spot so we did some things with them both during the day and in the evenings; games, fires, dinners out…)

Also this year they have a new bathroom cleaning crew!  We have never seen the Assateague bath houses look so clean!  And we let the crew, the rangers, host supervisor Donna, and anyone else of importance know how pleased we were with the bathhouse cleaners; several campers made comments to us about it also!

Gradually we get into the routine of Mike getting up early and putting his “costume” on and getting out to be sure there is no “poop on the loop”. This usually involved talking to some campers along the way so Joanne had a leisurely morning in PJs for a bit and eventually getting the bed made and breakfast ready for when Mike returned. Next a cup of tea outside greeting campers as they walked by. Around 10:30 begin our cleaning rounds; up one side of H-Loop and back the other side, then the primitive tent sites. Finally a check on the bath house, especially the outside shower areas,  which it seems the bath house cleaners might need to be reminded about.

 

Deb and Tony arrive mid month and we begin doing things with them. Just after they arrived we had a severe Hurricane warning which evacuated most of the island. We really spent considerable time regarding what to do. Deb & tony left and went inland like most of the campground. We finally decided to pull in our slides and just stay on our site. There were few of us that stayed and it was a night we won’t forget!  The morning after the storm we couldn’t believe how empty the park was. We have never seen it that empty in over 40 years of coming to the island. It was a bit of a surreal morning.

 

One afternoon when Deb and Joanne got a walk in on the beach the dolphins put on a spectacular show with jumping and riding the waves in!  So many pods participated in this and the two of them (Deb and Joanne) had never (in all the days going to Assateague) seen anything like it.

We did get a bike ride in over to the National Park and rode the camp loops as well as walked the “Life of the Forest trail”.  This was one of the only days that was not too windy or too hot. Was a great ride and fun to reminisce about our time camphosting there back in August of 2018.  Another activity Joanne participated in was water color painting at the Ranger Rec/Interpretation Center… Didn’t know she was an artist too???

A few days later a tropical storm blew in (Ophelia) and although they did not evacuate the island many campers left (including Deb and Tony). We decided that since the island wasn’t evacuated we would stay and ride it out.  Although we did pull both our slides in the storm wasn’t as bad as everyone thought it would be.  Unfortunately the weather stuck around for about ten days and interfered with the family’s time there. Sabrina and Jason came with James to camp in a tent, Nick and Carly rented a camper but there was little time spent outside. Steve and Debbie also had to spend a lot of time inside their Unity.  Too windy and wet to do much.  This was a good year for Karina and Arnie to rent an AirBnB where we all ended up gathering for dinner one evening (their camper was in the shop).  With slides mostly in it was difficult for much visiting inside campers. Once Nick and Carly and Karina and Arnie and Jason and Sabrina left the weather improved and we actually got some beach days and outside visiting in.  One evening all the sibs went to the Southgate Grill for happy hour (great Margarita’s) and the burger special.  Not everyone was happy with their meal but it was still a chance to be together. Then Good Bye’s to Karina and Arnie and we are left with Deb and Tony, Steve and Debbie and the two of us!

The six of us did a mini MINI rally down to Chincoteague for lunch; though most of us said “no need to go back”!  But the drive was a good one.  We made grilled pizza and also did a dinner at Crab Alley.

Eventually time for all the family to depart and us to move to a different campsite for a few days following the host time.  This extra time was great for resting and catching back up with Julie and Fred. The new site (268) is an awesome site with lots of space and the backyard close to the dunes.  The sound of the waves is louder and the sea smell is greater.  Donna had asked us to do some mentoring while we were there for the extra days; which we were happy to do (in reality Mike did most of the mentoring).  Mike trained for two days in the booth and showed some hosts how to manage the wood and ice cart. We touched base with some new hosts to see if they had questions and to describe how the job worked.  Once it was time to leave this magical place we reflected on what a great experience this year of hosting has been and we filled out the application to come back.  We had some minor issues but for the most part it was an enjoyable month.  Hoping to get the same site we have been on but we both know hosting or the site are not givens!

Please find a few more pic’s of Assateague Island 2023…

With our summer season drawing to a close, which usually includes camp-hosting for the month of September, on the beach, at Assateague State Park we both looked back on the last 6 months of travel on this Revolutionary Journey . We have definitely been sucking the marrow out of life’s bone everyday…  We have “walked our talk”, practicing the mindset of  “Carpe Diem” each day … Time to Relax and slow down a little for a couple of months….