You just never know what's next!

UGH!!!!! Well, here's a picture that I was hoping wouldn't show up in the '09 trip!!

Yep, the truck went DOWN!!! The morning we left Junius Ponds on our way to Allentown, we got as far as Cortland, NY on US 81 and "funny things began happening". We were able to limp into the Ford Dealership in Cortland - it turned out that there was a problem with the cooling system for the EGR, and yet again a small leak in the radiator! Ford paid for everything and to have the camper towed to a nearby campground so we made the best of an unexpected 3 day stay in Cortland before we could get back on the road to Allentown. Thank goodness for the bikes!

With the 4th new radiator in 45,000 miles, we headed out about 6PM on Wed September 2nd, and got only a half hour down the freeway when the transmission hose blew and we were off the side of the road and GOING NOWHERE!!

We contacted the dealership and the co-owners came out with 12 quarts of fluid - it took all of them!!! Apparently when they put everything back together and were trying to hurry and get it done for us, the tech forgot to slide the clamps back in place!!! Good grief!!! Well, about 9:00pm we were back under way and got to the Walmart in Trexlertown around midnight!


Thursday after taking care of some things in Trexlertown, we left for Pottstown, PA and the KZ Dealership. However, because we weren't able to get it there on Monday as planned, they didn't have time available to do the major warranty work on it then. We decided to leave it with them for the entire month of September so we could follow through with the rest of our plans!!!


We headed to Maryland to see friends Pete and Barb and stayed with them for Labor Day weekend. What a treat! We had great trips out on the Chesapeake Bay on their boat, played with their Kayaks, enjoyed watching all 6 dogs, 2 birds, and several cats figure out how to "play nice" together, and of course ate great sea food.

Bruce and "Harley" seemed to develop a special bond!

The picture below was taken off the back of Pete and Barb's boat looking across the bay toward Annapolis one evening.





Before we left the area, we found time to visit a dear friend of Carol's, Kaye Craft, who lives in Rockville, MD. With Kaye's busy travel schedule, we were lucky to have an opportunity to enjoy a wonderful lunch and great conversation with her.



It also gave us a chance to drive across the Bay Bridge for another amazing view of the Chesapeake.





Then it was time to leave for Ohio with just the dogs and the truck. Bruce dropped Maya off in Ada, and we left Gypsy and the truck in Columbus with Ryan who took us to the airport for our trip to California.

More as soon as we can get it together!!!
Bruce and Carol

Phelps,New York

HELLO! HELLO!!

No, we didn't fall off the face of the earth.... just got WAY too busy to take care of the blog until now..... So, we're going to do this last official post of the New England part of our trip, and then a few posts covering our adventures on the way to Florida, as soon as we can get them togehter!

Here we go!




Well, here we are at our last stop on the Great New England Tour! It's exciting to be in the Great Lakes area of New York, and at Junius Ponds Campground in Phelps. Without doubt this is the biggest campsite anywhere, and having spent her 60th birthday here, Carol is quite nostalgic! Janet and Ron had a wonderful pull-through just one site over and we celebrated the successful completion of our trip together with a cookout on our last night in the campground.


o

During the week we took a wonderful ride all around Seneca Lake to Watkins Glen. The road coming down into town from the famous Watkins Glen Race Track provides a breathtaking view of the Lake (as captured from the passenger seat behind Bruce).

Along the way we counted 44 Wineries just around the perimeter of the Lake! It's such a beautiful view everywhere you look, and we had wonderful weather to enjoy it all.

Stay tuned for our final post for '09!

Carol & Bruce

Parish New York-8/17/2009

The trip to Parish,NY was an easy 75 miles drive down interstate 81 from the Canadian border. It was a beautiful day, so Carol drove the rig and Bruce rode the scooter.













On our first walk around the park, Bruce spotted the scooter to the left which had counter-rotating wheels with the slightest breeze!



This is probably one of the nicest places we have stayed this summer. It's 266 acres include a lake (bass fishing), woods, a lot of open but mown grassy areas, 2 pools (there are separate adult -21 and over- and children/family pools), an adult and family club house, a cafe, and on Saturday night they had a live band with dancing outdoors under the stars.















We were lucky to again have a spacious site, not too far from the pool and the adult club house and just a short walk from the horseshoe pits. Bruce has been teaching Carol to pitch, and evidently he's a great instructor because in one of their games she tossed a "double ringer"!! To be honest, it was much more of a fluke than any newly developing skill, but fun anyway!


















A couple Carol met in Sebring, Fl during her 1st year of retirement, live about 10 miles from the campground, so we got together with them to go to the races at the Brewerton Speedway on Friday night. Their grandson was driving that night, as did his grandfather years ago!












On Saturday, the husband (whose name is also Bruce) took us on a great ride around the area. He was riding his 1983 1100 Goldwing which looked like new! He and Joyce put over 100,000 miles on it when they were doing cross country trips!





Along the way that day we stopped at the Salmon River Falls which claim to be 10 feet higher than Niagara, although relatively narrow. People (including Bruce!) actually walk right out to the edge!










So now we're headed to the Finger Lakes area - our last stop on the "Grand New England Tour of '09".

Bruce & Carol

Wellesley Island/Thousand Islands - the St Lawrence Seaway

Welcome to the Thousand Islands!

The bridge to Wellesley Island. $2.50 to go, Free to return. From the US side, it crosses the shipping channel of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, so it's REALLY HIGH! Fabulous view!

We stayed at Seaway Island RV Park on Wellesley Island. We woke several mornings to look out the back door and see deer eating apples from a nearby tree! Bruce got this great shot right out the door!

You can see we had lots of room at this location too! Maybe because of the economy, there were plenty of open campsites. The campground owns property on both sides of the road, and it was just a short walk across the street and down onto docks on the river. From there you could watch the ocean going vessels as well as river traffic - up close and personal!

The little campground store didn't have a lot to offer, but they did have the best icecream and for prices not seen in a decade or two! YUM! We had to do a lot of extra walking and some swiming to compensate!

One piece of poor planning; they put their dump site on one side of the exit road, and the rinse faucet (with a too short hose) on the other! You have to move the cute phony well cover to find the dump, but they say it stops the kids from playing in it! A shortage of parents?


Bruce says he thinks it's a dexterity test - they want to see if you can crawl under the trailer to get the hose!

Well, we didn't have to deal with that until we left, and while there, besides our nearly daily icecream cones, we did a reasonable job of touring the area.

We spent one day riding and had lunch in Gananoque, Canada. It gave us a chance to spend the remainder of our Canadian money while enjoying the sights! Unfortunately, when we grabbed the camera that morning, we forgot the battery was out re-charging!! You'll just have to trust us - it's beautiful!

Later in the week we took the traditional boat tour of the Thousand Islands out of Alexandria Bay, and yes, we even took a functional camera! Out of over a hundred pictures (so we got carried away!) here are a few....

Our Boat as it came in to pick us up...

The power plant structure attached to the island at Boldt Castle. In the past you could get off the tour boat and wander around the island looking at these incredible structures and enjoying the grounds, even if you didn't want to tour the Castle. NOT any more! It's all or nothing, so we took a pass and stayed on the boat.



On the approximately 1800 islands, there are many with just one house and hardly any "island" at all!

On the other hand there are some fabulous homes on larger islands, like the one to the right below, many owned by business titans familiar to most of us.

The home directly below is on one of two islands owned by one family. The bridge you can see is in fact the shortest international bridge! They say the owner has commented that when he would get in trouble with his wife, he just took his dog, some beer, and went to the other country until things calmed down!

Even though we hate to leave this area, we're off next to Parish, NY.

Carol & Bruce

Lake George, NY-Adirondak Adventure park

Lake George, New York.

It was an adventure trying to find our next park! We drove an extra 25 miles looking for it thanks to some newly discovered short-comings of "NIKKI" (the GPS). On the way there were beautiful back woods roads, but also things like this "aging" bridge with just one lane open...

.

A wrong turn at an unmarked intersection led to crossing a one lane bridge and going down a one lane dirt road under construction. With a 20,000 lb trailer and 9000 lb truck, the bridge was a little nerve racking.

Finally! We arrived, and were happy to have the longest pull-through site yet - could even leave the truck hitched had we wanted to!

On Sunday, Carol had received an email from her cousin Peg letting her know that their other cousin, Phyllis was going to be in town (Fort Plain, NY) on Tuesday and wondering if we were anywhere near. From Lake George, it's only about 75 miles so we responded, "why not?". Carol had not seen Phyllis for 41 years!! Peg kept it a secret that we would be there, so it was quite a surprise - amazingly, Phyllis recognized Carol right away!

From the left, here is Phyllis, her husband John, Carol, Peg, and Peg's dad, Ken (93). Phyllis' dad, Austin, and Carol's mom, Elsie, were Ken's younger siblings.


We all had pictures to show and stories to tell, but before it got dark, we drove to St. Johnsville (about 7 miles down the road) where Carol's other grandparents lived. It was a very nostalgic day, and we were worn out by the time we got back to Lake George!

After resting up on Wednesday, on Thursday we took a 217 mile trip on the bikes and caught two ferries - a short one at Ticondaroga crossing from New York into Vermont again, and then at Burlington, VT, a twelve mile trip across Lake Champlain back into New York.

This first ferry runs on a cable and is pushed by a sort of tug for it's 1/4 mile crossing!

Pictures with "helmet hair" are never good...but, it was so beautiful out there on the lake, we couldn't resist including this one crossing Champlain.

And here we are arriving in Kent, NY, with the mountains of Vermont barely visible in the background.

From here we rode on over to Lake Placid, home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. Many of the structures are still there, including the incredible ski jumping ramps!! YIKES!

On Friday we treated ourselves to an elegant dockside dinner at The Sagamore in Bolton Landing with Ron and Janet. It has quite a history, having been built originally in the 1800s, twice burned down, and rebuilt. Carol remembers having first been there over 50 years ago with her parents who were both from New York state and used to bring the family back for camping from wherever they were living at the time.

What a great place, and a nice way to wrap up a week in this beautiful region of NY.

By the way, we did actually ride into Lake George itself on Saturday. It's still hard to picture thousands of motorcycles here as they are every year and seems best to us to be here when it's a little more peaceful!



Next we're off to the Thousand Islands!

Carol & Bruce

asdfklj;aslkh

Shelburne, Vermont July 31

Getting through customs on the return to the U.S turned out to be a non-event! We arrived at Shelburne, Vermont just south of Burlington on Thursday afternoon, and had a great private pull-through camp site.

It rained most of the day Friday and we had tequila sunrises that night with Janet and Ron. Big mistake! Carol was sick all night. Saturday was beautiful, so in the afternoon we took a short scooter ride around the area instead of the ambitious ride we had planned.

Shelburne is a suburb of Burlington, VT but is known in its own right for an outstanding museum and visitor's farm. Janet spent quite a bit of time with the spectacular quilt collection at the museum. Bruce and Carol took Maya swimming in the swift river that ran through the back of the campground, and quickly tired her out!

The 2nd time we rode in to Burlington, Carol still wasn't feeling up to taking the ferry across Lake Champlain and making a day of riding, so we simply walked through the street fair that was taking place. Ben and Jerry's seemed like it would be a very "therapeutic" stop - you know, easy on the stomach - but alas, one can only wait in line so long! The place was packed! We opted for a little place down the street!

On the walk, we came across a "one-man-band" - amazing!

This was a short stay, and we'll have to save our ferry trip for the next stop - Lake George!

Carol & Bruce

Welcome to Quebec

Crossing the Border

July 23 we crossed the border into Canada. Bruce was finishing a call on the cell phone when we pulled up to the guard at the crossing. (it's .69 per minute for the next week so he didn't want to just hang up!) We think that the guard was not happy about this and we were directed to go park for a full inspection! Two young and very serious border officers searched the truck thoroughly and then the camper for about a half hour before sending us on our way. Interesting experience.

Camping de Compton!

We went on to Camping de Compton, RV Park. It is a large, well equipped RV park with everything except cable. We did get antenna TV with one English-speaking station and several in French. The area is one of rolling hills with lakes and large farms.

The homes and farms in this area are very neatly maintained and typically have beautiful landscaping with abundant flowerbeds.

We met up with Carol's friends, Claude and Rennee Martin, who stay at this campground in the summer and spend winters in Florida. Claude and Renee were camping in Apopka, Fl the first year of Carol's retirement. The three of them enjoyed riding together and talked about getting together some time in Compton, QC.

After a serious accident on their Goldwing a short time ago, they decided to stop riding and got a Smart car! The car, at 104", is only 14" longer than Bruce's scooter, and with the top down and top side rails out, it's a pretty fun ride! We must have made quite a site, following them on the scooter around the countryside where they both grew up and then raised their own children as well.

Among the stops we made was the Abbey St. Benoit, a beautiful place where the Monks support themselves by making cheese, maple syrup, and other items. Renee's father who was a mason, actually worked on the building which appears to be traditional on the outside but is very modern inside.

Unlike winter RV parks in Florida, summer camping includes lots of families, tents, tent campers. We met a young couple who are doing it the fun/hard way!!!

All this stuff, 2 adults and 2 kids, and 2 bikes went into 2 motorcycles and a trailer! We think it took them about 4 hours to pack up. Only for the young!

Another interesting nearby place was Coaticook, home of the world's longest walking suspension bridge! And no OF COURSE Carol did NOT walk on it! Are you kidding? (On the other hand, neither did Bruce) But we got some great pictures. Here's one:

So, that's it for our Canadian visit! See you back in the States!

Carol & Bruce

Tamworth, New Hampshire July 16th

Arrived Tamworth, NH, 63 miles west of Portland, ME on Thursday July 16. While most of the campground is heavily wooded with a nice stream running through it, we are in a more open area. After 2 months on the road, we have driven over 4000 miles plus about 1300 on my scooter.

There is a Christmas in July event going on here and here are a few photos.

Maya loves to swim in the river. (see movie clip)