Dang RV

Onward to Maine! Looking at the map, I could see the trip around Lake Champlain was going to be a pretty long one. Considering the extremely high cost of gas in New York, I found it more economical and time-saving to take the ferry across the lake rather than go around. Somewhat apprehensive about taking my trailer on the ferry, I knew I didn’t want to take the nearest ferry over to the heart of Burlington, VT. The landing drops you at a steep slope up to a very busy narrow street where I would have to manage a left turn to get to Route 2. OK, I chickened. I dropped down to the Essex ferry instead with a nice smooth flat end landing out in a rural area. Driving onboard was a little nerve wracking and Jesus didn’t seem to want to take the wheel either so I put my trust in the deck hands and my mirrors which all worked fine.  Well, it was actually pretty cool.

I drove through Vermont quickly and on through New Hampshire. It’s not like they are all that big anyway. I got to see the White Mountains and went past various tourist traps I had heard of until I crossed into Maine and pulled into Bethel Outdoor Adventure and Campground in Bethel, Maine for the night. It’s a Passport America Park and seems to be pretty popular with the river enthusiasts. They provide canoes and kayaks as well as transport to the river. I might have stayed a while but it also was host to numerous enthusiastic mosquitos all day and night. I HATE mosquitos (acid rock, flower smells in soaps, barking dogs, etc.).

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I got a hankering to see the Adirondack Mountains, Lake George, and Lake Champlain so up to the northern tip of New York I went. Again, despite calling twice to verify my aircard would work near Lake George, it didn’t work though there is a tiny signal there in some spots. Calls to all the nearby campgrounds that purported to have wifi yielded more “yes we have it if you sit by our office” nonsense. The C2C campground, Adirondack Adventure Resort,  was very very nice with wonderful helpful staff but with no Internet I had to leave. Bummer. I was looking forward to seeing Lake George and the Great Escape Six Flags amusement park. It was not to be.

Rather than abandon that leg of the trip, I made some more calls farther north until I located Ausable River Campsites, a Passport America park in Keeseville, very close to Ausable Chasm, Lake Champlain, and Lake Placid. Woohoo! Solid gold strike! While they do have wifi throughout the park, after half an hour on it it turns to crap every time. I swear the 3rd party providers of it are throttling it to discourage any long use. Happily, my Sprint aircard worked there so I was in business. The park has a wonderful heated pool and lots of planned activities. I managed to get on the hayride and grab some ice cream at the social.

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While I am not a rabid baseball fan, I do very much like baseball and wanted to get 3 baseball fantasies satisfied on this trip. I accomplished the first already when I had a catch on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. The next was to see The National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. To be in the presence of The Great Bambino (Babe Ruth) and The Ironman (Lou Gehrig) would be awesome. I was also hoping the women in baseball would be there. I was not disappointed.

It has not been an easy part of my trip. I had hoped to stay at a Passport America campground just south of Cooperstown. After driving through buckets of rain, hail, and lightening to get there, I discovered that there is no aircard signal anywhere in the area. None. Zip. Zero. The park I had reservations at did have wifi but you have to sit outside their office to use it which is not terribly comfortable or useful for 9 hours a night while working. They have a repeater but it isn’t currently working. I stayed one night in a soft wet grassy area then had to seek out other arrangements. It’s a good thing I have a 4×4 truck to get out of there. Getting out of the wet grass and going up the steep dirt driveway back out to the road wasn’t easy.

I found another park with wifi all through it within a couple miles of Cooperstown and still affordable. Unfortunately, it also had no aircard signal and their wifi had gone down during the storm but they had not noticed until I pointed it out. After several hours of trying to get it back online with the installer out of the country and his on-call buddies not answering their phones, I had to move on again.

I finally ended up in Herkimer, NY in the Herkimer Diamond Mine Resort KOA. It is more expensive than the others but it does have full working wifi with plenty of repeaters as KOAs often do. It is right across the street from a diamond mine where you can try your hand at mining for a unique experience and it is next to a large creek where tubing is quite popular. I took advantage of their ice cream socials while I was there and wasn’t going to miss out on free s’mores at the campfire either. The staff were friendly and two nice workampers invited me over to their campfire as well. I played a bit of bingo too.

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I moved on to Waterloo, NY next to experience the Finger Lakes, Lake Ontario, Fort Sampson Training Center museums, and the National Women’s Rights Museum in Seneca Falls. Little did I know that this is also The Erie Canal Historic area so I hit a major homerun with this choice. Ha ha! I bet you thought I actually planned all these travels super well. Nope. I travel by whim and mood.

I stayed at Waterloo Harbor Campground. It is very small with only 22 sites but it has full utilities, was inexpensive as a Passport America park, very nice staff, a laundry room I sure needed, nice enough bathhouse, and a small connecting canal for resident boats. It is also in a great location for sightseeing. Not much of a view like camping at the state parks gets but who needs it when you are sightseeing and the state parks don’t have full utilities.

I hit up the Women’s Rights museum first. It was far more educational than I expected. I had no idea I was banned from the best colleges in the country (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton) the day I was born and on through high school solely because of my gender. I served my country just as well as any man while still not a full citizen. I knew I was not allowed to play Little League growing up and that I was required to wear a dress to school (I even got sent home once for wearing culottes, shorts with a skirt covering). Still, the museum was an eye opener.

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I finally made it! I was supposed to catch the falls last year but ran into so much fun in Michigan that I ran out of time before I had to get down south before the snow fell or campgrounds closed in the north for the season.

I chose to stay at a C2C park in Holland, NY. It was a bit farther away than I liked but much cheaper than trying to stay closer and it was quiet during the day for sleeping. The park itself sucked and could hardly be called a resort. It has no sewer hookups even for their permanent residents, the electrical and water hookups are far away thus both requiring extensions, the bathhouse was marginal with showers that only work while pulling on a cord (cheapskates), to get anywhere there requires transportation because it is so decentralized with large hills to go up and down, the dump is in the middle of the grounds thus requiring you to drag your RV down and up a steep hill, the pool is toward the back on a high hill, the lakes are unattractive, my Sprint aircard did work but only marginally with 0-1 bars though it did at least get EVDO, flying bugs were all too plentiful, and the office would not accept my outgoing mail. Never has a campground not accepted my outgoing mail! This is a zero customer service park which I would not recommend for more than 1 night.

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Before leaving Gettysburg, I thought I should give my aunt in Pittsburgh a call as a courtesy. The last time I was at her house was 30 years ago and the phone number I had was probably equally old but what the heck. The number rang which was a good sign. The next instant a familiar voice answered. Wow! I nearly fainted. As soon as she heard I was traveling through the state, she invited or rather insisted I visit her. I have other aunts but she has always been the family favorite, probably because she is so much like our parents were, full of life and fun. I also discovered one of her daughters still lives nearby so there was no way I was going to pass on an opportunity to see both my aunt and cousin.

The drive to Pittsburgh was not uneventful. The highway goes through several tunnels which I always enjoy. At one tunnel, there was a huge sign that went on and on in print too small to read at 55 miles an hour about what is not allowed to go through. I wasn’t sure if my propane tanks on the trailer were allowed (they were apparently). There was also a long line developing to go through. I am not real good at waiting in stop and stop traffic especially with 7200 pounds behind me pushing me. I decided to opt for the over mountain route instead. Just my luck, I got stuck behind some idiot trucker who seems to believe he owns all the roads. He took the entire mountain at 20 miles an hour despite a huge line of cars behind him and numerous opportunities to turnout to let us pass which he is legally required to do, assuming of course that he is not actually God or the true owner of all roads in America. Everyone was angry as hell that night I am sure. <chanting chanting cooling down> On the plus side, the route I took passed right by the spot where flight 93 crashed on 9/11 so I got something out of that route. When they said it crashed in a field I immediately thought open flat land but it is certainly not. It is a very hilly and beautiful area.

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I had seen enough of bloodshed in Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville I thought but a trip to Pennsylvania just would not have been complete without a visit to Gettysburg where the war began to end after days of the bloodiest fighting ever and the South’s failure to win on northern soil. The South had hoped to humiliate the North with a solid win and thus get the North to consider ending the war and allow them to secede. I guess they did succeed in part of that but not in the way they imagined.

Gettysburg is where 10 roads meet near the Virginia border. That set it up to be destined for a fight sooner or later. Both commanding generals had selected other good spots where they wanted to fight though neither knew exactly where the other was. Scouts were sent out to find food, shoes, etc. They accidentally stumbled upon each other and the fight was on at Gettysburg. Cannons everywhere fired incessantly. Snipers in rock clutches in fields and in houses in town picked off many officers and others. Streams were undrinkable as they filled with blood. It was a horror no man should ever have to see.

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Looking for my next stop, I spotted the Shenandoah Valley on the map. I felt a terrible ache to see it though I didn’t know why. Happily, there is a C2C campground there in Front Royal, VA so deciding to go there was very easy. I stayed at the Skyline Ranch Resort in Front Royal. I found it to be an excellent campground with full amenities and friendly staff. They have a petting zoo, stables, very large pool, jacuzzi, clubhouse with snack bar, games, putt putt golf, and fabulous adult lounge. The theme of everything in the resort is western which is fun and the country porch on the cowboy and cowgirl bathrooms is a nice touch. The “treehouse” design of all the rental cabins is certainly interesting. The only issue I had was no satellite TV there due to all the trees. Oh well. Again on the plus side is the excellent location just down the road from both Skyline Caverns and Shenandoah National Park with Skyline Drive across the top of the Blue Ridge Mountains and the Appalachian Trail. Luray Caverns is not far either.

I managed to get a lovely sunshine day to go to the north entrance of the national park and drive Skyline Drive. The views up there are stunning. I very much enjoyed the twists and turns of the drive through mountains filling up with spring color. My GPS came in pretty handy as it showed me each turn coming up. There are a lot of hikers and bicyclists there so you may want to bring some extra water to help out a fellow traveler.

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