virginia

No net access tonite, but the phone works. We have more teeth than anyone else in the campground.

Rain

Be careful what you wish for...

It rained today. Last night, too. This afternoon some more. Lots of rain, lots of steep mountain passes, lots of good truck drivers. 3 idiot truck drivers, too. Watched the nearest-miss I've ever seen on a freeway.

We're in Pennsylvania. Gave up on the rain, got to the campground to find they got deluged yesterday. Camping in a mud puddle.

In other words, it was wet today.

P.S. This buffalo is not in Pennsylvania. There might be (okay) a bison in PA, but you couldn't see them because of the rain. Enjoy the picture of the south end of a bison going north. It certainly woke up the people in the tent!

more touristy

We then toured the Saratoga battlefield, labeled by most as the turning point of the revolution. Here American troops first defeated British (cream of the crop) troops on their own terms, and made the world take notice.

As a Morgan's Rifle's reenactor, I was especially interested in this battlefield, and the story of Timothy Murphy. The picture above through the trees shows the area of Freeman's Farm.

The bottom picture proves that Daddy's cannon is still bigger than Miles'.

French and Indian War for Dummies

Visited Fort William Henry today. After Fort Ticonderoga, it pales in comparison. To be fair, it is stuck in the middle of Tourist Heaven.

Above you see the tour guide and his assistant. The tour guide is portraying a member of a Scottish regiment, who has an advanced case of syphilis. Shaded spectacles were worn in colonial times, but only by those suffering from advanced VD.

And his assistant is portraying a grenadier, one of the elite of the Army. Competition was fierce to get into the grenadiers, including a minimum height requirement of 6 feet, and a maximum age requirement. Oh well, it's summer help...

Touristy area

Here is the authentic, historical sternwheeler paddleboat heading out for another excursion on historic (read touristy) Lake George. Pay no attention to the bow thrusters on this "historic" craft.

Oh crap,

Had a great post and deleted it. Just like last year. Dammit

Fort Ticonderoga

Nice rain last night, trees stayed dripping into the morning. That made for a late start. Also made for incredibly high humidity in the morning. Had to break out the owner's manual to figure out the defroster again. Dang German engineering, takes two knob turns and a button push to turn it on.

The clouds cleared later, and it was a beautiful (hot, muggy, buggy) day at Fort Ticonderoga. Tom was here before in 1984 with his Dad and brother Jim. Great place, good museum, only found a few items mis-labeled. This whole area is jam-packed with history, pick a war before 1820 and it was probably fought around here. Tomorrow we'll hit Fort William Henry (Last of the Mohicans) and cruise where the Battle of Saratoga was fought.

ON the road again, finally...

Did you miss us? We are back on the road, only 1 day later than I promised. It ended up requiring the National Guard and 16 crowbars to pry the Campaney family apart.

The first to arrive, we were the first to leave. The occasion of the trip was Sara's parents 50th wedding anniversary / family reunion party. As the family trickles back out, peace and quiet will return to Watertown. But not before new legends have been written, new sagas will be sung. The image of my 74-year old father-in-law chugging half a bottle of red wine will forever remain with me.

We happened to meet our old friends Randy and Steph on the trip. They were a Colorado stopover for us last year. This year they happened to be visiting home the same time we were, just long enough for a whistle-stop visit.

And no mention of the visit can be complete without mention of Saint Fiona, brother Andrew's wife. She arranged all the events with Sara via long-distance phone calls, while watching a household of kids that ranged from a lower limit of 5 to an upper limit approaching the population of North Dakota. We left Miles with her one night, hoping she wouldn't notice. I'm not sure she even did.

Now we are on the road, just a short 200 miles from start. We're going to visit some old forts and battlefields while we are still here. Drove through the Adirondacks today, a beautiful drive. I can only imagine how much better it is in the fall. That was the one nice thing I can say about being in the Army at Fort Drum, the fall maneuvers were very pretty.

We found a little campground nestled next to Schroon river (Dad, Jim, and I camped at Schroon Lake back in '84) buried in the pine trees. A storm is supposed to be coming, should be interesting tonight. We left her parents 4 hours ago, Sara has finally stopped sniffling. Boy, did I marry an emotional family!

The Campaney Family

Mom's sister Kath traveled all the way from England for the party. Although she tried to hide from the camera, we got her once or twice.

Saint Fiona instigated a water fight among the kids, she lost.

Miles has a new girlfriend

We did it

Well, here we are. 3 days stuck at 65 mph, we are in Watertown. On the plus side, travelling at 65 instead of 73 (our preferred western travel speed) caused our mileage to jump from 14.5 to 16.5mpg. Not bad for a 23 foot motorhome.

We'll be here through the weekend, look for a new post for the return trip on Monday. And we will post a bison picture soon.

It's SALSA, not SAUCE-LA, dammit!

Today we pounded out some serious miles. Took a bit longer, as we were forcibly reminded that on the East side of the Mississippi, people like to drive slow. And make motorhomes drive even slower.

We both took a vote and decided that Wisconsin has the countries worst drivers. Now, I don’t remember who I picked last year, but Wisconsin has them beat. I actually miss California drivers. Back home, I expect to be cut off, I expect turn signals to be ignored. Californians do it because we are rude. Wisconsinites just do it because they are plain stupid. Maybe they can’t drive without a foot of snow on the ground. But apparently, merging onto a crowded freeway at 30 miles per hour is OK here. Or maybe there is a sport called, “Make the California RV smoke his tires by braking”. There must be such a sport, they did it to me twice.

I was worried that incompetent driving was all I could write about tonight. Then we went to an “authentic” wild-west restaurant in Illinois. Yes, just like you I head to Illinois when I want real western cooking. It was quite western, buffalo heads on the walls, fake arrows sticking out of the furniture, even the waitresses carried (plastic) six-guns.

Our waitress, going by the western alias of “Marge”, raved about their chips and salsa. “Best dang chips and salsa you’ve ever had, pardner” was her direct quote. So we ordered some. The chips were pretty good. Not just Tostitos from a bag, I think they really fried them right.

The salsa, now. Umm, where to start. We almost got kicked out of the restaurant because we could not stop giggling about the salsa. Here is how to make authentic Illinois salsa: Open a #10 can of Tomato Sauce. Whisper a word in Spanish over top, such as “taco” or maybe even “frijoles”. Now serve.

Yup, the “salsa” was 100% genuine tomato sauce. Oh, maybe they mixed in one can of stewed tomatoes, but nothing else. I mean nothing. The cocktail sauce for Sara’s shrimp was positively burning in comparison. Gary Rake, I know you are laughing your head off at this one.

And we almost got kicked out again when the table next to us asked for, “More of that delicious salsa, please”!

P.S. It really was tomato sauce!

Still traveling east

We left Theodore Roosevelt Nat'l Park today but not before more buffalo came through our camp. One stopped right outside our motorhome window. On our way out of the park, we saw a flock of wild turkeys. A mom turkey and about 8 or 9 babies trailing behind her. We also went past a prarie dog town. The prarie dogs were out and about. There were a lot of them. All in all we saw some very cool wildlife.
We made it as far as Minnesota today. We still have 4 days left on the road before we reach our destination for the weekend in Watertown NY. We will be there the weekend and then on Monday the 6th we start heading back west again. It sure is a long way to upstate NY. There has got to be a faster way to travel 3000 miles other than flying or driving.
We will be boon docking tomorrow night, and the remaining nights, so there probably won't be a post for a few days.

Coolest thing ever

Ok, I know we already sent a post tonight, but we just witnessed the coolest thing ever to be seen in a campground. As we were sitting at the table finishing up dinner, a herd of about 30-40 buffalo including babies came walking right through the campground. Of course, we grabbed our cameras and went and took video and pictures. I think Miles is one of very few 4 year olds who can say he was only yards away from a real buffalo.
Just seeing that sight, has made the heat worth it. Boy I am glad we opted to camp in a National Park instead of in town somewhere.
Seeing the buffalo up close sure beats the two deer that walked through our campsite last year when we were in Wyoming.
We will look at the pics tomorrow and if there are some good ones, we will post them tomorrow night.
Happy Trails.
P.S. I was just informed tonight I made a mistake on our Crater Lake post. I typed that it was the biggest lake in the US when actually it is the deepest lake, not the biggest, I think those would be the great lakes. I think all this hot weather is melting what left I have for brain cells.

Oh, the heat...

You know, the entire point of taking the Northern route was to enjoy some cool, non-california weather. Apparently the weather gods ignored us, and we have an incredible heat wave following us across the country. We actually got 10 drops of rain yesterday (I counted). It is 10 degrees warmer here in North Dakota than it is in my hometown in Southern California. Someday it will rain! Notice the green line (our route) follows the path of maximum heat.

We have also tried rough-camping it a couple nights in state and national parks, ones not known for amenities such as 50-amp electrical service. The motorhome is behaving perfectly, the batteries and solar panels let us live in comfort comparable to the tent campers next door. But I have this big air conditioner on the roof that is useless. Tomorrow we will spend the extra bucks for a full-hookup campground and luxuriate in cold AC and hot water. Tonight we dine on grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches and cold beer ( the fridge works). Oh, wait, we're out of beer. Guess it has to be cold Martinis tonight.

We drove through Miles City, Montana today. A huge build-up to a huge dissapointment. Miles slept through most of his namesake town. We stopped for the unique wal-mart (only 10,000 of them in the country). We discovered that Miles City, Montana is where the locals deport all the old, senile drivers to. Yup, if you don't know how to drive, or love to drive on city streets at 5 mph while weaving from lane to lane, Miles City is your town. I am not kidding, I almost hit the same rear-spring sagging, ciggarette-smoke belching, no-one-under-80-allowed-inside Caddilac three times in 5 blocks. This will NOT be our retirement town.

Now we are in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Since he established the NP system, I guess they felt they had to give him a park. The great ones were taken, so he got the leftover. But it's a pretty damn good leftover, with lots of bison (not buffalo, as Kendra/Kassandra/Ka-teenybopper working for the park service explained to Miles).

Still in Montana

Well, did you miss us? Made it in to Montana yesterday, still in Montana today, Probably still be here tomorrow. Montana is a looong state. Decided on a whim to take detour to Lewis and Clark State Caverns, a large cave system that was NOT discovered by Lewis and Clark.
This is a really cool cave system that has not been entirely sissified. You have to climb a mountainside 300 feet to reach the entrance. Fortunately, once there it is 300 feet down through the caverns, and a horizontal trail back home. Unfortunately, Montana is in the middle of a heat wave and it was 97 degrees on that mountain. The constant 50 degrees inside the caverns helped. Ominously, automatic defibrillators are prominently displayed throughout.
The cave was beautiful, Miles was very good, and now we are all sore.
Tomorrow Starts the mad dash for New York. No more fun side trips, we Must make it back to Grandma and Grandpa's house. Freeway blast, here we come.

Still traveling north

Crater Lake in Oregon

Well, we left Oregon today but not before seeing the great Crater Lake. This lake is the biggest in the U.S. , and it is so beautiful. Take a look at these pictures. No, that is not the sky you are looking at that is the true blue color of Crater Lake. This will be a place we visit again in the future.
After seeing the very beautiful Crater Lake, we continued to head north on 97 through the rest of Oregon, and we ended our day in Mary Hill Washington. Tomorrow we will start heading for Montana. Join us then for more adventures and sites.

We are finally out of California!

Man, this state is Looong!

So we spent last night in a small marina rv park right on the shore of the main Stockton shipping channel. It's the furthest inland deep sea port on the west coast. (still nothing compared to the Saint Lawrence seaway). Still, the prospect of huge ocean-going ships cruising by your back door does sound cool.

Well, after the entrance excitement, we settled in to a quiet dinner and a good night. Met a retired Stockton City fire captain and swapped stories and beer. Turns out the big ships don't come in every day, so we missed the one entry. But this morning we saw fishing boats, rowing teams, and even a couple scruffy tugboats. And, Miles got to throw half the gravel pad back into the channel.

As we were buckling Miles in for departure, our neighbor came over and said, "Hey, a big ship is coming. It sure was.

Now we are in Oregon, think we will make Washington tomorrow. Except I forgot that Oregon is 55 mph everywhere, for everybody. AND THEY ALL FOLLOW THE RULES!

Maybe we'll make it...