Alton, Ohio

The Alton RV park is on broad street outside of the circle freeway I-270 around Columbus.
An unusual park as it's laid out in herringbone style which gives very long pull thrus. The above picture is not a trailer, but is attached to a 5th wheel trailer. The rear wheel swivels which allows backing up. We are spending a week here. The second night while we were in a restaurant, a drive by smashed the drivers window and took the GPS. I know, we shouldn't have left it visible. The window was fixed the following day. We dropped off the motorcycle and trailer at Carols sons home. I advertised the trailer on Craigs list and sold it in 12 hours.
We also dropped off lots of stuff at Ryans, including a queen sized bed. It's nice to have some storage space in the motorhome.

Louisville, Kentucky

Arrived at the KOA 6/23/2010. A big park, but no sewer, no cable, and only 30 amp for $42. I took a swim for ten minutes with my iPhone and it didn't like the water. I managed to get it dried out and mouth to mouth brought it back to life. My friend Dennis came to the park and we followed him some 40 miles to his home, where we had a delicious meal.

Nashville, TN

Image via Wikipedia

Arrived Nashville RV Country park on Thursday June 17th. Tonight we are about 11 miles north of Nashville, and feeling ready to be tourists. We already ran in to a couple we knew at BayBayou, camped just 2 sites over! They come here for a few months in the summer, and were here during the recent big floods when they had to move 4 times in 6 days to keep from having their 5th wheel flooded! We'll be here 6 nights, and hopefully the creek won't rise!!
On Saturday we went to a fabulous Farmers market. One night at the park, there was an impromptu jam session near our parking spot, so we took the chairs and attended. Five people with guitars and banjos that had never met played together.


The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee, USA is a full-scale replica of the original Greek Parthenon.

Update May 2010

Hello!

You may have followed our New England trip last summer.... If you did, you probably noticed that we simply "dropped the blog" before we actually got all the way back to Tampa - our apologies! I think we were worn out!!!

Anyway, we're going to try again with our 2010 travels, but first we think an update is in order (along with an explanation of the "calling card" you can see above)!

Short version: Lots of things have changed!!

Longer Version as Follows:

We spent the last seven and a half months at Bay Bayou RV Resort on the outskirts of Tampa, FL. It has to be said that it was NOT a stellar winter weather-wise! Lots of rainy chilly days from January - March! Our traveling friends, Ron and Janet, who live in the Northwest, wondered where the warm beautiful winter Carol had assured them of had gone! When they left for home toward the end of April, they had only had about 3 good weeks of weather since last fall! Soon after they left it turned "summer hot" and for the past few weeks we've been feeling ready to get on the road again!

In November 2009 Bruce bought a SmartCar convertible - we love it and drove it to Key West for Christmas which we celebrated with Carol's kids Ryan and Megan, Megan's boyfriend and his parents from France, sister Susan and her family. In February we decided that full-timing with 2 people in a toyhauler was just not comfortable for us, and started looking at motorhomes. We found a 2006 Monaco Knight diesel pusher and traded the 5th wheel and truck. Much of the rest of the winter was spent "re-organizing" everything! PHEW!!

In May, Carol decided to transition from "biker chick" to "scooter girl"! She found a deal on a Burgman 650 like Bruce's, and then sold her motorcycle to her EX in Ohio...

That brings everything up to speed, and now for "Summer 2010"!

We left Tampa June 9 on a slow trip to Ohio and points beyond (not further defined yet, but we know we'll be in Ohio all of July, and celebrating Carol's son Ryan's 30th birthday, and Bruce's father's 90th birthday within 2 days of each other!) We're towing a small trailer with Carol's sold motorcycle on it, and Bruce is driving the SmartCar until we get to Ohio. Once the bike is delivered and the trailer is in Ryan's hands, we'll tow the car and get to ride together in the coach!


Sometime around noon on day one, we decided we could make it to the Chattahooche KOA, about 30 miles west of Tallahassee. It turned out to be a cute little campground with a short order cook. The next morning we headed for Robertsdale, AL for a 4 night stay.

About 10 miles south is Foley, AL and Lambert's restaurant- famous for tossed rolls. It is truly a great, fun place to eat. That's right, they throw rolls!



























Also in town is Stacey's Pharmacy which has an old fashioned soda bar.

We did a lot of sightseeing all along the Gulf Coast while there, and fortunately found no signs of oil, just beautiful white powdery sand.


Biloxi area.


We also made a 440-mile round trip (by car) into Mississippi, again along the coast, and then way inland to visit friends of Bruce's who live out in the beautiful countryside. Gypsy, who stayed "home" in the air conditioning, had all 4 legs crossed by the time we got back!

Next we moved on to Arley, AL and spent 3 quiet days on the shore of Smith Lake, with no cell service to speak of, no internet, and just a couple of TV channels, but a great pool!

By this morning when we left for Nashville, we were detoxed from the internet and well rested!

The highest temperature we know of was around Montgomery, AL when Bruce noticed the SmartCar was registering 101F! Thank goodness for air conditioning!

Stay tuned!

Bruce & Carol

"We have a permanent plan, for the time being!"

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.


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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