Back in the U.S.A.

Crossing the border at Calais, Maine (St. Stephens, NB) was a breeze.  Lovely lady came aboard, asked a couple of questions and said, "Enjoy your trip!"  Took all of five minutes.  We drove across Maine, abandoning our previously planned trip to the coast (avoiding summer crowds) and headed straight for Stowe, Vermont.  Spent one night in Gorham, New Hampshire, a Good Sam campground about a mile east of town and it was fine.  Then on to Goldbrook, just south of Stowe.  Adjacent to open fields that were getting ready for a BIG antique, classic car show.  The guy who runs the campground has a reputation that precedes him of being a grouchy, grumpy grinch.  He lived up to it.  Regardless, we will stay there again for numerous reasons including a good site plus friends and family nearby.  Great beer in Waterbury!

Then the long haul began last Friday.  From Stowe we traveled south on I-89, then I-91 to the Mass Pike which is actually I-90 and west to I-81 and thence south to Unadilla, New York for the night, only 363 miles.  The next day, Saturday, we pushed on to just north of Columbus, Ohio, 662 miles.  And the next day, Sunday, to Eureka, MO to a KOA just west of St. Louis near Six Flags on I-44, 526 miles.   Monday, 473 miles to Oklahoma City, across MO and a good part of OK where we put down at Twin Fountains our usual stopping place as we have family in OKC and if we're going to Camp Newell, which we skipped this time, it's convenient.   Left there yesterday afternoon and overnighted in Amarillo and decided against our usual stopover at Overnite and opted for the KOA.  Hmmm.
Today we will cap off about 300 more miles to Albuquerque for a couple of days and then "home" to Santa Fe for a few months.  If anyone wants more info or details let us know.  The past five days are  a blur of interstates, mostly good roads with several exceptions that fortunately didn't last long.

So this latter part of our summer travels from Nova Scotia back to Santa Fe has covered some 3100 miles and if you add the first part, from Santa Fe to Nova Scotia via Montreal and Quebec, you can add another 3000+ miles since we left Santa Fe back in June and stopped at the Guru Rally in the Ozarks and spent a couple of days at Camp Newell.  That's a lot of miles and mucho fuel and many campgrounds.  And "Big Blue" has performed admirably.  Highlights have to be the rally, the Maritime Provinces, as well as Montreal and Quebec and yes, the Clydesdales plus our meeting Wayne Martin in New Brunswick.  Many stories to share later, down the road when we see you.

Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

(The new hitch seems to work just fine and it is definitely a heavier duty Blue Ox than the Alpha.  If anyone is looking for a new 10,000 lb hitch, the Aventa LX seems like a good choice.  I would also recommend an "immobilizer" that reduces, or eliminates, any play in the receiver.)

Truro, NS was indeed a good camping spot, not easy to find via GPS as it is in Hinden, just outside of Truro on another Route 2.  Depending on which way you're traveling you can take either exit 15 or exit 12 from the 104 and my suggestion is to call Scotia Pine campground for specific directions.  Tall pine trees border each campsite and we got in fairly easily, a shaded spot and did not even need the awnings.  From Truro, you can venture forth according to your preferences whether to Cape Breton, Halifax or Digby on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy.   Our choices were to Lunenberg on the south shore and Digby, each on different days and an overnight to Digby leaving the big rig in Truro.

Side trips for the scenic routes worked well and those would have been tough with the coach so we left it parked and just took the truck on the back country and bay and ocean routes.  The tides and the tidal bore on the Bay of Fundy are among the world's highest tides, as much as 25 feet or more.  The small villages have a lot of charm and character as do many of the people who live there.  We did not do P.E.I. or Cape Breton this trip but those are both highly recommended and some people camp at the entrance to the Cabot Trail.

We went whale watching from Brier Island at the far end of Digby neck and Digby is one of those picturesque fishing villages so typical of the Nova Scotia coastline.  In Digby's case the main feature is scallops.  Lobstering season was over in July in most places but still available on the menus. 

From Nova Scotia, we traveled back to New Brunswick, rain all day Thursday, July 24, to St. Andrews, NB, off the new Highway 1, south on Route 127.  The campground is Kiwanis Ocean Front Campground on Water Street fronting on the bay. Delightful place, great weather and terrific view as we are parked pulled in head first, looking across the street to the bay.  It's the middle of the summer and not crowded in a great place. 

Cleveland, Montreal, Quebec, New Brunswick

The past couple of weeks have rolled right along.  Had a great visit to the Rock n Roll museum and hall of fame in Cleveland.  Worth a stop if you get near. Then moved on east.  Stayed at KOA's respectively south of Montreal and then Quebec city for a few days  so we could visit the cities by simply crossing a bridge over the St. Lawrence River in each place and not have to drive through the city traffic.  Much to see and do in both of those areas, the usual tourist stuff and ate our way through both places.  Missed a great little place in St. Romuald as it was closed one night and the next night they were holding a private party.  Did have a great dinner at Intimiste in Levis, not far from the ferry.
Our French is poor, Susie's better than mine which is mostly non-existent but more and more Quebecois are speaking English.

On south from Quebec into New Brunswick and in looking for a campground, following a new GPS which I don't like much at all (Magellan 5120 LXT), we ended up on a small country road going nowhere.   I saw a couple of guys looking at us like we were crazy and when I pulled over by a bridge to make a U-Turn, one of them came up to the window and said, you must be lost.  Yep, I said, we are.  He said he had a farm there but lived about 6 miles away and we could camp in his driveway where he had a 30 amp plug in.  We thanked him and said we had reservations at a campground and he insisted on taking us there so we wouldn't get lost or try to go under too low clearance.  So, we took him and his wife out to dinner in Woodstock, NB, and he took us home to show us their new house, two of his three restored tractors (very big International Harvesters) and stories of the past winter and results of the "hurricane" Arthur that flooded his farm and cows.  You just never know where you might end up if you don't know where you're going.

We are currently just outside of Moncton and headed for Nova Scotia this week, will be staying at Scotia Pine RV Park near Truro, probably leave the rig parked there to explore Cape Breton and other parts of Nova Scotia including Halifax and other points of interest.  Will be close to the tidal bore in the Bay of Fundy and report on all of this and more later.

PS - The U-Turn was too sharp and bent a shaft on the tow bar which necessitated a replacement. Went with a heavier duty version of Blue Ox, Aventa LX.  The swivel ball looks cool!

MIAMI, OK and EASTWARD

This is the first leg one of a longer trip as we are headed for Nova Scotia and the Maritime Provinces but allow me to digress a bit for those interested.  We left Camp Newell last Wednesday, before the long 4th of July weekend, got out before Newell shut down on Thursday, a day ahead of Friday the 4th.  We headed for St. Louis as it was an easy drive across Missouri on I-44 and we put down north of St. Louis in Illinois at at KOA near Granite City.  Not the best place we ever stayed but convenient and OK for us.  Here are a few highlights, highly recommended for your consideration.

1 - Grant's Farm and the Budweiser Clydesdales.  I won't go into all the details but we definitely found it worth the time.  Those beautiful horses are so spoiled but they earn it, either by pulling the wagons or being in commercials or just being there for us tourists.  There are three "hitches" in different parts of the United States to take care of different regions of the country.  One is housed in St. Louis at the brewery, one in Merrimack, New Hampshire where the training facility is and one is in Ft. Collins, CO.  The breeding farm is in Boone, Missouri, west of St. Louis by a hundred miles.
Learned a lot about these gentle giants and Budweiser's investment in them.  Also got four small, complimentary bottles of beer!

2- Springfield, Illinois for Abraham Lincoln's home, museum and library and the Dana-Thomas house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.  For either you history buffs or friends of architecture and design, including furniture for one of Wright's early prairie houses (1902-04), don't miss a trip to Springfield if it's within your reach.

3- Dayton, Ohio.  This is close to my hometown so we stopped here for some more 4th of July celebrations including fireworks and family time.  And today, we're off to the Air Force museum at Wright-Patterson near Dayton.  Then we're headed to Cleveland and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame.  Good stuff and I will catch you up on these two and more later.  Want to keep these posts within a reasonable length.

Note:  Miss I-70 through Indiana if you can.  The road was so bad that we bounced loose several things including a few drawers and the plug to our front TV and can't find were to put it back in!

FULL TIME HERE and THERE

This story began on January 4 when we became "homeless" except for our then RV, a 2006 Allegro Bus with 2 slides, a 400 Cummins and a toad, a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Dude, our loyal and loving Labradoodle.  The travels began and the last post here was at the beginning of May.  Since it's been awhile, here's an update with more to come.  We traded the Allegro Bus for the Newell, # 729, in February in Miami at the factory and set off toward warmer weather in the Southeast.  At the beginning of May we were back "home" in Santa Fe where we plunked down at Trailer Ranch for the following six weeks.  Since we had lived in Santa Fe and Abiquiu for almost 20 years we still considered it our home base and so it is.  It's where we get our mail and where our legal residence is and will remain.

We departed Santa Fe on June 16 and headed for Oklahoma City where we have kids and grandkids and have been "camped" at Twin Fountains this week.  Michael Day was here earlier but we missed connecting although will find him next week at Table Rock Lake along with some other Newell gurus.  Met Jody Reese from Lawton this morning and saw his gorgeous '95 red and white Newell with Oklahoma Select on the rear.  It's a group of 7th grade girls who play basketball at a fairly high level and travel widely to do so.  His daughter is on that team and they travel to games in their Newell and are here for a couple of days of games in OKC at Douglas High School.

Looking forward to the Newell guru rally next week and from there we will launch farther east and north and northeast until we can't go any farther and end up in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.  Seems like a good place to spend a number of weeks this summer lollygagging around, seeing the sights and taking it all in.  May go through northern Michigan on the way, parts of Canada and will then stop in Maine and Vermont before heading back to Santa Fe at the end of summer.

If anyone has a don't miss this on your list of travels in those directions, let us know.  In the meantime, happy and safe travels to all and to all you happy campers out there, we may see you down the road along the way.   Stay tuned for the next update a few weeks from now.

Savannah to Townsend, TN to Eureka Springs to Newell

From Cape Canaveral we headed to Savannah because I had some work on St. Simon’s Island, about an hour south.  Found a fairly good KOA about 30 miles south of Savannah, spent a couple of interesting days there.  Would recommend a walking tour with Savannah Dan. There are also trolley tours and a good riverfront walk.  Wonderful, historic, most southern city!

From there we headed to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the timing was ideal for dogwood and red bud.  Found another KOA in Townsend TN, as they are quite predictable and accommodating although I had an argument with a tree limb and lost.  Caused a small amount of damage to the PS awning cover,  Sawed off the limb, about 5 inches in diameter and parked successfully although dragged a little gravel going in and out of the space.  Took the loop tour in the national park, very worthwhile and spent another day in and around Gatlnburg.  Be sure to visit Elvira’s Restaurant if you get near Townsend.  It’s on the Wears Valley Road.   AND, if you are going to Townsend, it’s better to come in from the north off of I-40 at Knoxville through Marysville.

Then it was off to Eureka Springs, Arkansas for a few days and we would recommend a visit to The Stone House for a real wine/beer treat and a nice big cheese plate.  Rather European in feel and taste and great service by the owners, Rob and Amanda.  We also made visit # 2 to Bentonville from the KOA campground just outside of Eureka Springs and re-visited Crystal Bridges, Alice Walton’s fabulous museum of American Art.  William Paley’s collection was on loan from MOMA and it was such a treat to see the Monets, Picassos, Gaugins, and others.  Alice is getting ready to move a Frank Lloyd Wright house from New Jersey to the musem grounds this summer, saving it from the floods in NJ.  Kudos to her!

Headed to Oklahoma City for a few days to visit with some kids and grandkids, parked at Twin Fountains, bad inclines in and out of a level spot above the office.  Avoid that if you go there.
I did raise the rear end going out and that helped a lot, thanks for the suggestions.  Also found out later that we were about an inch and half too low in the rear and a little high in the front and that was adjusted at Newell along with our list of 23 other items, mostly small annoying stuff although they did replace a Mach 5 water pump that kept throwing an error message.  Had some issues with air in the lines that is corrected fairly easily by just letting some faucets run open for awhile.

Our appointment at Newell was for April 28, thus we pulled into Camp Newell Sunday afternoon 4/27 and the place was full up.  So we parked up front with the pre-owned coaches and there seem to be a quite a few there at the moment.  There were also some newer ones in for service and perhaps of interest to some a classic '89 owned by Dick and Maura Quirk.  It’s in great shape and they have lived in it full-time for the past ten years.  We are real newbies, both to Newell and to full-timing but enjoying it all, at least for now.  We began this trip at Newell in mid-February and here it is May already. We are in a very funky RV park outside of Guymon, OK having left Miami, OK this morning around 8:30.  Going "home" to Santa Fe for a month and then off to the west coast.  More later.

KW to Sarasota to Cape Canaveral

After a month in Key West at Boyds it was time to move on and wanting to see The Ringling in Sarasota we motored off the Keys and across I-75 to Naples and north to Sarasota.  We plopped down at Sun ‘n Fun on Fruitville Pike, just east of I-75 and about 8 miles from Sarasota but easy travel in any direction.   This is a huge resort, lots of park models and big areas for RV's including big rigs. Plenty of activities and resources including pool, fitness center, etc.  Some people actually spend the entire winter there.   The Ringling museums = circus, art and mansion – are all well worth the time and price.  There is also a classic car museum across the street from The Ringling worth a visit too.

Tuesday, April 8, the rain came down, hard, all day, so it was stay put and it blew over in time to leave Wednesday morning and drive across to Cape Canaveral.  North on I-75 to Tampa, pick up I-4 and go east, past Orlando and Dizzyworld again (ugh!) but after some congestion around the not so magic kingdom, it thinned out and easy sailing on to Port Canaveral and Jetty Park which is part of the Port.  Easy in and parking, nice spot, reasonable and good facilities.  Not a lot of amenities but clean and friendly.

Susie had looked ahead and found out that there was a launch scheduled for Thursday and weather permitting, the countdown had begun.  We spent the entire day at the Kennedy Space Center and the peak was watching the Atlas rocket put a pay load up toward the space station, some kind of spy equipment.  The I-Max movie about building and maintaining the space station was also a highlight.   Recommend that if you haven’t visited and you are ever close by, KSC is really worth the trip and the time.  Be sure to take the tour bus to Saturn V and have enough time for both sites, the visitors’ center and Saturn V.   Tomorrow we leave for Savannah.