Part 22 - Laramie to home

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Oregon

Dates: Friday August 31 to Sunday, September 2

Miles Driven: 1,162 (13,341 total to date)


Summary: Friday was an uneventful day. The slides went in fine and we left our campsite in Laramie slightly after 9 AM. We drove the remainder of the way across Wyoming, stopping for the obligatory $0.50 ice cream cones at Little America. Shortly after entering Utah we merged onto I84 which we would take the rest of the way back to Portland. We drove ~470 miles on Friday and stopped for the night in Snowville, UT, just south of the border with Idaho.

On Saturday we left Snowville and headed NW on I84 into Idaho. We drove across the southern portion of Idaho, and back into Oregon. It was good to be back in our home state. The kids were especially excited to be back in Oregon. They wanted to know if we couldn’t just keep driving and get home that night. We could have made it home really late that night, but no one would have enjoyed that, so we stopped early, spending the night just south of La Grande. We enjoyed our last night camping by relaxing in the pool at the campground. Well, I relaxed in the hot tub and the kids had fun playing in the pool.


On Sunday we drove the rest of the way home. We had less than 300 miles to go so we had a relatively short day, arriving back home mid afternoon. After 78 days, 30 states, 6 provinces, and over 13,000 miles we were finally back home. We had a great trip, but we were also all glad to be home. The kids rushed inside to explore the house (they claimed they had forgotten what it was like).

Next up: School and work on Tuesday. We will add some closing thoughts over the next couple of weeks, as well as get the photos for the last few sections posted.

Part 21 - The drive home, Amana to Laramie

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming

Dates: Wednesday, August 29 to Thursday, August 30

Miles Driven: 824 (12,179 total to date)

Summary: Wednesday morning we said goodbye to my parents. They headed east, and we started the drive back home. We dropped down to I80 and started the long drive home. We are planning to take 5 days to go back home so we need to average about 400 miles a day. The scenery on Wednesday in Iowa was basically trucks on I80 with fields of corn in the background. Corn, corn, and then some more corn, with an occasional field of soybeans thrown in for variety. Then we entered Nebraska and it was more of the same – lots of trucks on I80 and more corn, corn, corn. We went ~430 miles on Wednesday, and stopped for the night at Fort Kearny State Recreation Area.

On Thursday we got up a little bit earlier and were almost ready to go by 9, which is early for us. One of the last things we do before leaving is to put in the slides on the trailer. When we went to put in the main slide, the front part started to go in and the back did not move. I crawled under the trailer to see what the problem was. The slide has two gear driven shafts that move it in and out. However, there is a single motor which directly drives the gear connected to the front shaft. The rear gear is driven by a rotating rod that connects to the front gear. I found that the bolt connecting the rod to the front gear had sheared off, causing the rod to not rotate when the front gear moved. I had a bolt in my tool box that was the correct size so I reconnected the rod and attempted again to put the slide in. This time I had Karen manually crank in the slide in so I could see if everything was working properly. Unfortunately, only the front part started moving in and the new bolt sheared off, just like the original bolt. I spent a bit more time trying to figure out the root cause of the problem before resorting to calling the technical assistance line at Holiday Rambler. It was a long and frustrating morning as I was put on hold multiple times, then told they would call me back in a few minutes (which apparently means they will call back in 30+ minutes), and so this continued with me providing the same description of the issue to multiple people over the next 3 hours. Finally they dispatched someone to come out. Once the guy was on site it took less than a half hour to get everything fixed so we could proceed on our way. I will give the guy who came out an “A”, and Holiday Rambler a “D-“. I wouldn’t have even bothered with then except the trailer is under warranty so if I didn’t work through them I probably would have had to pay the bill myself. We finally left the campground at about 1:40 PM. Despite the late start we still managed to drive ~390 miles, crossing the rest of Nebraska and making it ~100 miles into Wyoming, stopping for the night in Laramie as it was getting dark. When we drove through Cheyenne I stopped and bought a large adjustable wrench so I could manually turn the gears on the trailer slide if they ever get stuck again. Hopefully it will never happen again, but if it does I don’t want to lose 4 ½ hours getting someone out to fix it. I would hate to think how long it would have taken if we were in a more remote place.

The only bright side of the issue in Kearney (the town has two e’s in its name but the fort only one which was another source of confusion with Holiday Rambler that took up more time) is that Karen and the kids got some time to go see Fort Kearny. Originally we weren’t going to go to the fort as we didn’t want to get going too late. However, when it became apparent that we weren’t going anywhere quickly when dealing with Holiday Rambler I unhitched the truck and they drove the ~3 miles from the campground to the fort and spent the morning doing something fun. I don’t think they would have wanted to listen to me complain all morning about the poor service from HR tech support. The kids enjoyed looking at the exhibits and going through the recreated stockade. At least they had fun before being strapped in their seats for the rest of the day.

Photos (to be loaded soon): http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part21drivehome1

Next up: The final 3 day drive to get home

Part 20 - Iowa

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Missouri, Iowa

Dates: Monday, August 27 to Tuesday, August 28

Miles Driven: 310 (11,355 total to date)

Summary: We left Colleen and Tom’s house Monday morning and drove north up to Amana, Iowa to meet my parents. My parents live in Oregon, about 30 minutes from us, but due to overlapping vacations we thought we were not going to be able to see them for ~5 months. They left at the start of June before we did for a ~ 2 month trip up to Alaska and NW Canada (Yukon and Northwest Territories). They also had a fall trip planned back east that they were going to leave for in late August and not return home until the end of October. At the last minute we managed to get our schedules arranged so that we could spend two nights with them in Amana while they were on their way east and before we made the final ~2,000 mile drive west to home. We got adjacent campsites in Amana. By the time we arrived in late afternoon they were already in the campground and set up. We had dinner with them that night, celebrated Elizabeth’s birthday with them, and got caught up on each others adventures.

On Tuesday we sent the day exploring the Amana Colonies with my parents. They have been there several other times so they acted as our tour guides. The Amana Colonies were founded in 1854 by a group from Germany and Switzerland seeking religious freedom. They formed seven villages in the area – Amana, East Amana, Middle Amana, High Amana, West Amana, South Amana, and Homestead spread out along several miles of the Iowa River. For the first 75 years in Amana they practiced a communal way of life, as a self sufficient community with no personal property. Then in 1932 the “Great Change” occurred and they discontinued the communal way of life. However, the church life continues today with few changes and the Amana Society that was formed with the original commune members as shareholders still exists today. The Amana Society still farms over 25,000 acres around Amana and over the years the Amana Society diversified and started such businesses as Amana Appliances. They even own the campground that we stayed at. It was interesting to learn some of the history of the area and see some of the buildings and the businesses that are still in operation today.

On Wednesday morning we said goodbye. My parents headed east, and we started the long drive back home. From Iowa we don’t have any major stops planned. At this point we just need to get back home so we will have time to unpack and get ready for school and work next Tuesday.

Photos (to be loaded soon): http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part20Iowa

Next up: The final 2,000 mile drive home

Part 19 – Missouri

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Illinois, Missouri

Dates: Wednesday, August 22 to Sunday, August 26

Miles Driven: 465 (11,045 total to date)

Summary: On Wednesday morning we left Springfield and drove west to Hannibal, Missouri. Hannibal was the home town of the author Samuel Clemons (AKA Mark Twain). He grew up in this small town on the Mississippi River, and his most famous books, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, are based on experiences and characters from his boyhood in Hannibal. We arrived in Hannibal in mid afternoon and went to the Mark Twain museum as well as touring his boyhood home and some other buildings from that time period that have been restored. We then found a campground outside of town where we spent the night.

On Thursday morning we went to Mark Twain Cave. Samuel Clemons spent a lot of time as a boy exploring this cave and several scenes in books are based in the cave. After touring the cave we drove back into town. We had lunch and saw a few sites that we didn’t have time to see on Wednesday. In the afternoon we went on a Mississippi River cruise on the Mark Twain Riverboat. We then drove down to St. Louis were we spent the next 4 nights at our friends Colleen and Tom’s house.

On Friday we drove into St. Louis for the day. We spent most of our time at the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the waterfront in St. Louis. We started out by going up to the top of the Gateway Arch. Karen and I had both been there before, but it still feels weird to go up to the top of a structure and when you look straight down you just see the ground 600 feet below. We then spent a bunch of time in the Museum of Westward Expansion which is located under the arch. There is a great Lewis and Clark exhibit along with other exhibits on Native Americans and the settlement of the west. We also saw a movie, The Great American West in the four story high widescreen theater. We had dinner before heading back to Tom and Colleen’s.

On Saturday we took it easy, getting caught up on laundry and doing some other chores. The kids had fun playing in Colleen and Tom’s small pool with their kids. After dinner we went back into St. Louis and spent the evening at the City Museum. The City Museum is very difficult to describe and is like no other place I have ever been to. Their website describes it as “eclectic mixture of children's playground, funhouse, surrealistic pavilion, and architectural marvel made out of unique, found objects”. It is housed in a 600,000 square foot old shoe factory, and everything in the museum is made of recycled material – items salvaged from old buildings, old vehicles, etc. There is an outdoor area where you can go through a three dimensional maze of ladders, staircases, tubes, slides, etc. that include two airplanes suspended high above the ground, plus an old fire truck, etc. Inside the building there are numerous mazes connected with a sometimes bizarre looking collection of items, items from old carnivals, … You really have to see it to appreciate it – see photo below from their brochure to get a flavor. We all had a fun time and the kids both said it was their favorite thing we did on the entire trip! That is saying something as they have really enjoyed a lot of things we have done over the past 10 weeks.

On Sunday we went to a St. Louis Cardinal’s baseball game with Colleen, Tom, and their two kids. We enjoyed the game and the Cardinal’s beat the Braves 4-1 so everyone was happy. We went back to Colleen and Tom’s and the kids played in the pool before it was time to go to bed. We had a great stay in St. Louis. Thanks Colleen and Tom for your great hospitality. We enjoyed your company and the kids had a lot of fun.

Photos (to be loaded soon): http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part19Missouri

Other notes: Most of the schools back here have been in session for a week now, so we are starting to find tourist sites without a lot of people, or in some cases places have already gone back to their winter hours. Almost every place we were back east they were surprised that we did not have to be back for school until after Labor Day as their schools all start either the 3rd or the 4th week of August. The exception was Michigan. My uncle said that Michigan schools used to start in August, but the legislature passed a law to help the tourism industry that forbids schools from starting before Labor Day.

Next up: Amana, Iowa

Part 18 - Indiana, Illinois

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois

Dates: Friday, August 17 to Tuesday, August 21

Miles Driven: 541 (10,580 total to date)

Summary: We left Tecumseh and dropped back down into Ohio and then resumed our trek westward. We drove to Wakarusa, Indiana (south of Elkhart) and went to the Holiday Rambler factory to take a tour (our trailer was manufactured by Holiday Rambler). On this tour they give you safety glasses and you actually get to walk around on the production floor where the RVs are being assembled. We signed a plant tour release, form, but it was still surprising given the potential liability that they let you walk around amidst the workers assembling the RVs. They don’t make our trailer model at the factory we went through, but it was still very interesting for all of us to see how they build the RVs. After leaving the Holiday Rambler factory we drove to a campground SW of Chicago where we spent the next 3 nights.

On Saturday we took the train into Chicago. We spent the day at the Field Museum down on the Lake Michigan waterfront. We especially enjoyed the exhibit on the peoples of the Americas. This exhibit chronicles the settlement of the Americas, from the first peoples to populate North and South America, to the numerous great civilizations that rose and fell over the centuries. The kids also really enjoyed the Egypt exhibit. We could have spent a lot more time, but the Museum closed at 5 so we had to leave then. The rain started sometime in the afternoon while we were in the museum and it was wet when we came out of the museum. We didn’t bring umbrellas so we ran from overhang to overhang as we headed back to downtown to try and minimize getting wet. We stopped for dinner before heading back to the train station. Despite our best efforts we were damp by the time we got to the train.

On Sunday we took the train back into Chicago. We started out at the Sears Tower, the tallest building in North America, getting there right when they opened. We went up to the observation floor. Visibility was not great, but we were able to see the immediate Chicago area. By the time we were ready to come down the clods had moved in and it was raining as we left the building. As we headed towards Navy Pier, it changed from a light rain to a hard downpour. Despite having umbrellas and rain coats we ended up getting mostly soaked. We had lunch at Navy Pier. After lunch Karen and Elizabeth went to the American Girl store. They had reservations to see a show and to have tea that afternoon. Elizabeth brought her doll, also named Elizabeth, to participate in the festivities. Elizabeth and Karen had a great afternoon at American Girl. While the girls were at American Girl, Matthew and I went to the Chicago Children’s Museum. The Children’s Museum is located at Navy Pier so fortunately Matthew and I didn’t have to brave the elements to go there. Matthew and I left the Children’s Museum at 5 and walked up to American Girl. Fortunately it was not raining too hard at that time. Matthew bought Elizabeth her birthday present at American Girl. He had planned on doing this for months and had told Elizabeth that her present was going to be late. We ate dinner at the hard Rock Café and then walked back to the train station in the rain.

It poured down rain all night long and was still raining hard when we packed up and left Chicago the next morning. We decided that Chicago is misnamed. Instead of “the windy city” it should be called “the rainy city”! After leaving Chicago we headed down to Springfield. It finally stopped raining a couple of hours after we had left Chicago. We stopped at a couple of route 66 sites along the way, arriving at the campground outside of Springfield late in the afternoon. We spent Monday and Tuesday nights in Springfield. On Tuesday we spent the day in Springfield. We started out in the day at the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. We took a guided tour of Lincoln’s home, as well as another restored home within the park and also went through the exhibits in the visitor center. We then spent the rest of the day at the Lincoln Presidential Library Museum. The two audiovisual programs at the museum were extremely well down. The exhibits in the museum were also outstanding. The most sobering exhibit was an electronic map, “The Civil War in Four Minutes". Each week of the war is condensed into one second, with battle lines that continuously move, showing the changing progress of the war. The sobering aspect is the casualty counter that shows the human impact of the war – over 600,000 casualties from the South, and more than that from the North. Later that evening we went to Lincoln’s tomb. On Tuesday evenings during the summer there is a lowering of the flag ceremony. We attended that ceremony and then went through the tomb after that before returning to our campsite for the evening.

Photos (to be loaded soon): http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part18Illinois

Other notes: We rode the train into Chicago from Tinsley, ~ 1 hour out of Chicago. The train ride was unbelievably cheap. Karen and I paid $5 each for a weekend pass to ride the train, the kids were free, and there was no charge for parking at the park and ride lot. They definitely were encouraging people to take the train versus driving into town. In comparison, in Philadelphia we paid $5+ each for a 1-way train ride, the kids were not free, and we also had to pay for parking at the park and ride lot. Boston was similar to Philadelphia – a bit cheaper for the train ride, but more for parking.

Next up: Hannibal, Missouri (Mark Twain country):

Part 17 - Michigan

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Ohio, Michigan

Dates: Tuesday, August 14 to Thursday, August 16

Miles Driven: 189 (10,039 total to date)


Summary: On Tuesday morning we said goodbye to Aunt Julia, Uncle Bill, and Rudy and headed up to Michigan to visit my aunt and uncle in Tecumseh. We left Columbus after lunch, and arrived in Tecumseh in late afternoon. We spent the next 3 nights camped in the driveway of my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Bill’s house. After arriving the kids and I had a squirt gun fight outside to cool off before dinner. That night my two cousins who live in Michigan came over for dinner along with some of their family. I had not seen my cousins in several years so it was good to see them and talk to them that evening.

On Wednesday we went with my aunt and uncle to Hidden Lake Gardens which is a few miles west of Tecumseh. Hidden Lake Gardens is comprised of several hundred acres of natural woodlands and open meadows along with a managed arboretum and other outdoor displays of shrubs and flowers. There is also a tropical conservatory as well as ponds and lakes. We all enjoyed seeing the displays of plants, especially the unique flowering plants in the conservatory. The kids really enjoyed feeding the fish, turtles, and swans. Wednesday afternoon we rested and got caught up on laundry.

On Thursday Ruth and Bill took us to The Henry Ford in Dearborn. The Henry Ford includes the Ford museum and Greenfield Village. The museum has an extensive collection of automobiles from early steam powered vehicles to modern day cars. The museum also has extensive collections of many other things – old farm equipment, stoves, appliances, etc. as well as a number of items of historical significance that Henry Ford collected, such as the chair President Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated. Greenfield village is a collection of restored buildings that have been moved to the site including the building where Ford was born, Thomas Edison’s laboratory, and many more of historical significance. We were only able to see a very small fraction of the items at the museum and Greenfield Village. You could spend days there and not see everything. At the end of the day we took a tour of the Ford Rouge factory. The highlight of the tour was watching the assembly line where F-150 trucks are built. You can walk overhead on catwalks around the factory and see workers performing most of the different steps in assembling the vehicles. It was very interesting to see first hand how a modern automobile factory operates.

Thanks Ruth and Bill for your great hospitality! You always make us feel so welcome.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part17Michigan

Next up: Chicago

Part 16 - Ohio

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky

Dates: Thursday, August 9 to Monday, August 13

Miles Driven: 828 (9850 total to date)

Summary: When we left Unionville we decided to take a more scenic route to Ohio rather than going straight across PA on I70. On paper this route should have been only ~1 hour longer than the more direct route, but it turned out to be significantly longer based on the bad weather that we encountered. We first went south into Delaware, and then headed SW into Maryland towards Baltimore. We then headed west across the northern part of Maryland. Shortly after we turned onto I68 near Cumberland the rain and wind started. It rained harder than I have ever experienced before and there were extremely strong wind gusts. Visibility was close to zero. Part of me wanted to pull off the road and stop, but I figured that was more dangerous than keeping going since other drivers would not be able to see we were not moving and might think there was another lane of traffic and run into us. We ended up driving about 20 miles an hour with the hazard lights turned on praying that we wouldn’t come across someone stopped in the road. Fortunately everyone else was doing about the same thing as we were. A couple of people passed us, but pretty much everyone else was driving at the same speed. The torrential rains continued for at least 30 minutes, then changed to just hard rain, although the wind gusts continued and they made it sound like something was hitting the trailer or falling off the trailer. I half expected to find something large missing from the trailer when we stopped. We stopped for dinner in Morgantown West Virginia, and by that time it was just raining. However, as we headed north up into Pennsylvania the torrential rains started up again, this time accompanied by thunder and lightning. The second time was worse than the first as by this time it was early evening, and when the rain came it became dark and even harder to see. It was still raining hard when we pulled into our campground near Washington, PA. I was glad for the day to be over and thankful that we had made it without incident. Not sure what the weather would have been like if we had taken the more direct northern route, but I doubt it could have been any worse, and we didn’t get to enjoy the scenery given the bad weather. By Friday morning the rain had stopped and we continued eastward. We stopped for a while at Buckeye Lake in Ohio before continuing on to Cincinnati where we spent the next two nights.

On Saturday we met Karen’s friend Daniela and spent the day with her family. Daniela is a friend of Karen’s from college. She is from Argentina, but moved to the Cincinnati area a few years ago. Karen has corresponded with her but had not seen her in almost 17years. However, within a few minutes it was like they had never been separated. We met them at their house and then followed them into town. We started out with lunch in Newport, Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from downtown Cincinnati. After lunch we went back into Ohio and went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. It is located on the banks of the Ohio River, which once marked the boundary between free and slave states. The exhibits in the museum go over the history of slavery in the Americas, and highlight the efforts of abolitionists to assist slaves in escaping to the northern states and securing their freedom. After leaving the museum they showed us some of the highlights of Cincinnati before returning to their home. Daniela and Andres have two kids, Augustina and Martin who are each about 1 year older than our children. The four kids spent the rest of the day playing in the neighborhood association pool while we visited. Andres went out and picked up pizza and which we ate next to the pool. It was after 10 when we finally pulled the shriveled up children out of the pool and headed back to the campground. The kids were having so much fun that it was hard to get them to stop! Hopefully it won’t be 17 years before we see Daniela and her family again.

On Sunday we headed up to Columbus to visit with some of Karen’s relatives. We spent the next two nights at Karen’s Aunt Julia and Uncle Bill’s house. We parked the trailer in their driveway and slept in their house. It was nice to sleep in a real bed for a change and be in a spacious house again! When we arrived Sunday afternoon we had an early dinner with Karen’s aunt and uncle and three of her cousins along with their spouses and children. The kids had a great time playing together and we visited with the cousins that we had not seen since we were in Ohio last in 1998. On Monday we drove into Columbus and met Karen’s Aunt Suzie for lunch. We then tried to do some sightseeing around Columbus but didn’t have much luck. The first three things that we wanted to see were all closed. Turns out that most all of the tourist attractions are closed Monday’s in Columbus. So, we spent part of the afternoon driving around from site to site only to find out that they were closed. We did see the outside of the replica of the Santa Maria (Columbus’s flag ship), but couldn’t go on board and take the tour. The only thing that we found open was an interesting display of giant bug sculptures in a botanical garden. Monday night another of Karen’s cousins who couldn’t come on Sunday came over for dinner and we visited with him. While we were at Julia and Bill’s the kids had a great time playing with their dog Rudy. We had a good time visiting with everyone while we were in Ohio. Thanks Julia and Bill for your great hospitality!

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part16Ohio

Next up: Michigan

Part 15 - Onward to Pennsylvania

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania

Dates: Saturday, August 4 to Wednesday, August 8

Miles Driven: 642 (9022 total to date)

Summary: We headed to Springfield Saturday morning. We were glad to leave the campground that we had stayed at. It was easily the worst overall place we had stayed at. It was hot and humid Friday, and our “30A” electric service that the campground advertised did not work. As soon as we turned on our air conditioning (which should draw less than 15A), it tripped the breaker in the trailer because the voltage was so low. After reading the campground rules, we noticed it said no air conditioners or electric heaters allowed (probably because they knew their electric service could only support charging batteries). We spent a hot night the night without AC. The road to get into the campground was very rough, but the road to get to the dump station was impossible to traverse. The dump station road was shaped like a “V”, with the center at least 12” lower than the sides. It was covered with rocks ranging in diameter from 4-8” (with a few larger ones), and was fairly steep, with tight corners and lots of trees next to the road. It would be a great road for trying out your new high clearance 4x4, but not something I was going to try and take the trailer down. So, we headed down the road without emptying our holding tanks and without a good nights sleep. We drove into Springfield and went to the Dr. Seuss Sculpture Garden in the morning, and then we all got much needed haircuts before continuing our journey westward. We headed back down into Connecticut, drove across New York and part of New Jersey. We spent the night near Hope, New Jersey, near the border with Pennsylvania.

The next morning we headed down to Easton and went to the Crayola Factory to see how Crayons are made. In addition to the crayon making demonstration and information on the history of Crayola there were a lot of art activities for the kids to do that they enjoyed. We then headed further south to Washington Crossing which is where Washington led the continental army across the Delaware River on Christmas night to surprise the British at Trenton and secure one of the first significant victories of the revolutionary war. We went through the visitor center on the PA side of the river and then walked across the bridge to the New Jersey side of the river and to the park on the east bank of the river. Much easier to cross the river on a bridge than to row across an ice chocked river at night! After leaving Washington Crossing we headed to a campground in Unionville which is about 1 hour west of Philadelphia. We spent the next 4 nights in Unionville.

On Monday we drove to Valley Forge where Washington and the continental army spent the winter of 1777-78. A couple of original structures remain at Valley Forge, including Washington’s headquarters. There is a very informative visitor center, and there are recreations of the simple cabins that the soldiers built and spent the winter in. 12 soldiers built and lived in each cabin – 4 sets of triple bunks. We drove several miles around the roads in the park to the different sites and saw a lot of deer, including several fawns. We went back to the campground early and did laundry while the kids went swimming.

On Tuesday we took the train into Philadelphia for the day. We went to the Independence Visitor Center, the Liberty Bell Center, took guided tours of Independence Hall and Congress Hall, and went to Benjamin Franklin Post Office and Museum along with Betsy Ross House and other sites. We learned a lot about the time of the revolutionary war as well as the early years of the republic when Philadelphia was the capital. We had dinner in Philadelphia and then took the train back out to the suburbs where our campsite was.

On Wednesday we drove west to Lancaster, in the heart of Pennsylvania Amish country. We toured an 1805 house that used to be part of an Amish farm. The guide was very knowledgeable and educated us on the beliefs and practices of the Amish and Mennonites. After lunch and going to an Amish farmer’s market we drove up to Hershey. We took the chocolate factory tour and marveled at the myriad of chocolate products available for sale in the gift shop. After finding our way out of the gift shop (it was the size of a large department store) we headed back towards Lancaster and had dinner before heading back to our camp. Along the way we passed many Amish farms and numerous Amish buggy’s driving along the roads.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part15Pennsylvania

Other notes: The campground in Unionville was our favorite so far. It was quiet, the staff was very friendly, and everything actually worked! We normally dread doing laundry as most campgrounds only have a couple of washers/dryers, and a lot of times they don’t work very well or you have to wait for them to be available. This campground had 6 washers and 6 dryers that looked brand new and they all worked. They were all empty so we did 5 loads of laundry at once and were done in 1 ½ hours versus the normal laundry ordeal that takes several hours or has to be spread across multiple days.

Next up: Friends and relatives in Ohio

Part 14 – Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut

States & Provinces visited on this segment: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut

Dates: Monday, July 30 to Friday, August 3

Miles driven: 669 (8380 total to date)

Summary: We left our campground in Chichester Monday morning and headed south into Massachusetts. After lunch we stopped at Plimoth Plantation outside of Plymouth Massachusetts and spent the afternoon touring this recreation of the early 17th century pilgrim settlement. Plimoth Plantation is a recreation of what the settlement looked like in 1627, 7 years after the landing of the Mayflower. The settlement has been built using the same construction techniques that the pilgrims used, and the staff wears period clothing and plays the part of some of the original settlers. They move about the settlement doing typical tasks from the time (tending the gardens, cooking, building and repairing structures, etc. You can interact with them, and ask them questions about the life in the colony, its history, religion, etc. However, they don’t know anything past the year 1627, so if you ask them something they about shouldn’t know they give you a puzzled look and tell you they don’t know what you are talking about. A couple of them asked us where we were from, and we said Oregon. They said they didn’t know where that was. After asking us some other questions, and us telling them it was far to the west, etc., one asked if Oregon was near the Isle of California. We said yes. Not too much different than today when many people aren’t sure where Oregon is but if you tell them it is north of California then they know where it is. We all enjoyed Plimoth Plantation. We then found a campground where we spent the next three nights.

On Tuesday we went back into Plymouth and toured the Mayflower II. The Mayflower II is a recreation of the original Mayflower and was launched in 1957 in England and sailed over to America. On board we learned more about the conditions that the settlers faced while sailing over to America in 1620. We spent some additional time walking around Plymouth and then headed SE to Cape Cod for the rest of the day. On Cape Cod we went to a couple of light houses, when to the visitor center for the National Seashore, and the kids went swimming out near the end of the Cape.

On Wednesday we spent the day in Boston. We drove into Quincy and took the T (subway) into town. Our first stop was in Cambridge, and we went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I showed Karen and the kids where I lived while in graduate school plus some of the other sites on campus. We then got back on the T and headed into back into central Boston, getting off next to Boston Common. We spent some time enjoying Boston Common and the Public Gardens. The kids went on the swan boats, and they splashed around in frog pond to cool off as it was very hot that day. We spent the rest of the day walking the Freedom Trail. The Freedom Trail is a marked walking path through the streets of Boston that takes you to 20+ old historic sites – the Old State House, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere’s House, the Old North Church, … We ate dinner at Quincy Marketplace and then took the T out of town and drove back to our campsite near Plymouth. We were tired after walking several miles in the heat around town.

On Thursday we said goodbye to Massachusetts temporarily and drove west to Rhode Island. We stopped in Newport for lunch and went on a tour of The Breakers, a 70 room “summer cottage” built by Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1895. It is amazing how much money the rich had back then and how they spent it - basically to impress and out do their friends. We left RI and headed down to Stonington Connecticut to visit a friend of Karen’s. After checking in at the campground we drove into Stonington and met Karen’s friend Ann at a club on the waterfront that she belongs to. The kids played at the swimming beach at the club while Karen and Ann visited and we sipped our margaritas. When the sun went down the kids changed clothes and we had dinner. Ann had prepared a great picnic feast to have down at the waterfront. She grilled hamburgers for the kids and we had lobster, a great salad, bread, and other goodies. Ann gets an A+ for the delicious food as well as the “presentation”. She had a floral arrangement for the table, and we ate our dinner by candlelight. We were spoiled! After dinner the kids made smores, and then ran around with sparklers that Ann had brought. We stayed until the club shut down.

On Friday we met Ann for breakfast and got a tour of her art gallery in Stonington before we said goodbye and headed out of town. We drove north through Connecticut and back into Massachusetts. We spent the afternoon at Old Sturbridge Village. Old Sturbridge Village is a recreation of a New England rural village from the early 1800s. They have moved more than 40 buildings in from around New England and costumed staff performs tasks representative of the lives of early New Englanders. We enjoyed seeing demonstrations of many tasks from that time period – cheese making, dying yarn, making pottery, … After leaving Sturbridge we drove west and found a campground close to Springfield.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part14MassachusettsRhodeIslandConnecticut

Other notes: I had almost forgotten about all of the police officers in Massachusetts, but it

only took a day or so of being back in the state for me to remember how many police there are in the state. I don’t exaggerate when I say that in three days in Massachusetts we have seen easily twice as many police than on the entire rest of our trip. Half of the population must be employed in law enforcement. They are everywhere – driving down the roads, beside the road with someone pulled over for speeding, hiding alongside the road waiting to catch someone speeding, patrolling the city streets on foot, writing parking tickets, and of course (only in Massachusetts?) at all road construction sites. Massachusetts had a law (and it seems to still be in effect) that for all road construction sites there needs to be a police office present when any work is being done. Even though they don’t seem to do anything, there they are beside the road (asleep?) in their police cars at all road construction sites even if the work being done is 100 feet off the existing road and there is no change to the normal traffic flow. Not sure why there is such an extreme police presence, but it was something that stuck me as being very different when I moved there to attend MIT in 1988, and again on this trip it seemed very different than everywhere else we had been in the US and Canada. In case you are wondering we didn’t get stopped by any of the police.

Next up: Philadelphia

Part 13 – Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont

Dates: Thursday, July 26 to Sunday, July 29

Miles driven: 859 (7711 total to date)

Summary: After leaving the hospital in Calais we headed down to Bar Harbor. When we got there it was close to dark, but we were thankful to be able to get into the campground at a more reasonable time and to start getting back on a normal schedule. We spent the next two nights at a nice campground that was right on the water on Mt. Desert Island. On Friday we went into the town of Bar Harbor, and explored Acadia National Park. We drove up to the highest point on the island (Cadillac Mountain), and the kids went swimming at Sand Beach on the SE side of the island. Supposedly this is the only sandy beach on the island, but even it was not very sandy. On Saturday we left Acadia and headed SW across Maine. We stopped to see some sights in “the other” Portland, including the Portland Head Lighthouse which is south of Portland. We then continued across the rest of Maine and into New Hampshire. We spent the next two nights in a campground in Chichester, just east of Concord.

On Sunday we headed off for a day trip to explore New Hampshire and Vermont. We ended up spending most of the day in Vermont, but drove through some picturesque small towns in New Hampshire. In Vermont we went to the Calvin Coolidge State Park in Plymouth Notch. The state has purchased and restored most of the buildings in this very small town where President Coolidge was born and grew up in. There is a museum with displays on Coolidge’s life, and most of the buildings in town are open to visit including the house he was born in, the general store his father ran, and the church that the family attended. After leaving Plymouth Notch, we headed north. We went to Stowe, and stopped at the Trapp Family Lodge. Karen is a huge fan of the movie The Sound of Music, and Stowe is where the family settled after they fled Austria before World War II. The family opened up a lodge which has turned into a large resort. The youngest son of the captain and Maria still runs the lodge. We ate dinner in Stowe, and then stopped in Waterbury for a tour of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory, getting some ice cream for dessert. We found out that every Ben & Jerry’s employee gets 3 free pints of ice cream for every day they work. I like ice cream, but think I would either get tired of eating it or get very fat if I worked there! Guess I should keep my job at Intel. After leaving Ben and Jerry’s we headed back to our camp in southern New Hampshire for the night.

Here is a poem Elizabeth wrote while in Acadia National Park:

The waves crash on the land.
My feet can feel the sand.
The rocky cliffs so high.
Oh my! Oh my!
It’s beautiful to see.
It seems to call to me.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part13MaineNewHampshireVermont

Other notes: While hiking back down from the summit of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park, a woman going up said to Elizabeth, “Is your name Elizabeth?” After Elizabeth said yes, she said that we had been neighbors at another campground. It turns out this was a couple from Alabama that had camped next to us 10 days before in Ottawa. While we had left Ottawa and headed to Québec City and the Maritime Provinces before entering Maine they had went to Montreal and then through Vermont and New Hampshire. Our paths met again in Acadia National Park. The woman said she had recognized “Elizabeth’s beautiful hair”. It’s a small world.


Next up: Massachusetts

Part 12 - Nova Scotia and back to the USA

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Maine

Dates: Tuesday, July 24 to Thursday, July 26

Miles driven: 671 (6852 total to date)

Summary: On Tuesday, July 24 we took a day trip to Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. Other than a brief stop at the visitor center, we spent the day down by the waterfront in Halifax. We started at the Pier 21 National Historic Site. Pier 21 is where the vast majority of immigrants to Canada first entered the country and it was actively used as a processing center for immigrants up until 1971. Pier 21 is the Canadian equivalent to Ellis Island in the US where millions of immigrants first entered the United States. The Pier 21 museum has interesting displays, artifacts, and movies on the people who immigrated to Canada. It describes the reasons that many immigrants choose to come to Canada, the process that the immigrants went through, what the immigrants experienced once they arrived in Canada. The part I found most interesting were the first hand audio and video interviews with immigrants. Once we finished at Pier 21 we walked along the boardwalk by the waterfront to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. The maritime museum has many interesting exhibits, including a large exhibit on the Titanic, and a pirate exhibit that the kids found especially interesting. Canada’s first hydrographic vessel, CSS Acadia, is docked at the museum’s wharf and we toured as part of the museum admission. After dinner and some shopping along the waterfront we headed back to our campsite in New Brunswick.

Wednesday marked the half way mark of our trip – 5 ½ weeks into the trip, 5 ½ weeks to go. Fittingly, this is the day we started to head west. We packed up, but decided before we truly headed west that we wanted to spend a little more time in Nova Scotia. So, with the trailer in tow, we headed back into Nova Scotia. After entering Nova Scotia at Amherst we turned SW and drove down to Parrsboro for lunch. We then drove the rest of the way around the peninsula, stopping at some beaches and lighthouses. We then reentered New Brunswick late in the afternoon. A couple of days before Karen started to have sciatica pain. Karen has this same problem ~3 years ago due to a ruptured disc in her back. The pain got increasingly worse, and by the time we were ready to stop for the day Karen was in severe pain, so we decided to find a medical facility. We drove to the town of Sussex where we found a hospital. They gave Karen a shot, some painkillers, and a prescription for some drugs that “would get rid of the pain” as well as eliminate the inflammation in her vertebrae that was likely causing the nerve irritation. By the time we left the hospital it was ~11:30 at night. We decided it was too late to check into a campground, so we tried to find a motel where we could park the trailer and get a room for the night. We couldn’t find anything in Sussex so we decided to continue on to Saint John which is a much larger town. We arrived in Saint. John sometime after 1 AM and found that all the motel rooms were full, We were told that our best bet for finding a room was to continue another hour or so to St. George. So, we headed on down the road. Before we got to St. George we saw a sign for a provincial park, and thought we would drive in and see if we could find an empty site or even just a safe place to park for the night. I stopped at the registration booth to see if there was a map of the campground or any information about what to do for late arrivals. Much to my surprise someone inside turned the lights on and opened the door. A park ranger invited me inside, found us a suitable site, and got us registered. He then followed us down to our site and helped us get backed in and hooked up. The campground at New River Beach was heavily wooded, had a maze of unmarked roads, and it was pitch black. It would have been virtually impossible to find a campsite without his help and very challenging to get into the site as the roads and site were narrow. Note sure what he was doing up at 2 am when we arrived, but we thanked him several times before he departed off into the darkness. We considered him our guardian angle that was looking after us.

When Karen left the hospital Wednesday night she was feeling a little better. However, after a couple of hours the drugs started to wear off and she was in as much pain as before. They had given here one dose of the prescription medicine to take in the morning before she could get to a pharmacy, so she took that but it had no affect. We packed up as quickly as we could Thursday morning and headed into St. George and found a pharmacy. The pharmacist told Karen that the prescription was just for Alieve (a slightly higher dose that the over-the-counter pills) and that was not going to help her problem. The pharmacist recommended that Karen find another hospital, and she gave us directions to the hospital in Calais Maine, which was only about an hour away. We spent the middle half of the day at the hospital in Calais, and the doctor there was more understanding of the problem that Karen was having and gave her a couple of prescriptions that were more appropriate in addition to treatments that were administered in the hospital. Note: It took a few days for the pain to gradually subside (which the doctor said it would), but she is doing better now.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part12NovaScotiaAndBackToTheUSA

Other notes: I finally got into a situation where I needed to use the sliding feature of the hitch. On our second day in Nova Scotia we were looking for a specific beach outside of Parrsboro. After a few km the road turned to gravel but it was still a wide, well maintained road. After a few more km the road narrowed and there was a dead end sign. There was a turn around, but if was not very large. On the one side of the road there was a ditch, and the other side had a drop off. There was no way I could get the trailer turned around with the hitch in the standard position. After sliding the hitch to the rear position I was able to maneuver back and forth to get turned around and headed back into town. The sliding hitch saved the day. We never did find the beach that we were looking for.

Next up: Maine

Part 11 - Prince Edward Island

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Prince Edward Island


Dates: Monday, July 23


Miles driven: 228 (6181 total to date)


Summary: We took a day trip to Prince Edward Island from our base in Sackville, NB. To get to Prince Edward Island we took the Confederation Bridge, which is billed as “the longest bridge over ice covered waters in the world”. It is ~8 miles long and links PEI with New Brunswick. We headed over to the north side of the Island to Cavendish, and toured the Green Gables House, made famous by Lucy Maud Montgomery’s “Anne of Green Gable” books. The house and grounds are preserved as part of Prince Edward Island National Park. We went through the original house, and there is also a recreation of the barn that originally was next to the house. The house was interesting but the recreated farm buildings were very sterile, and didn’t really fit in. The barn was spotless inside and had modern locks, lights, etc. and even a plastic cow in it which made it very cheesy. There are also a couple of trails mentioned in the books which we went on, the haunted woods trail and lovers lane. However, the trails were a disappointment. Unfortunately they have preserved only a very minimal area around the house and the trails. As its name implies, the haunted woods trail goes through the “haunted woods”. However, in places the haunted woods is only ~20’ wide (1-2 trees), and there is a fairway for a golf course on either side of the trail and the golf cart path crosses the trail. Kind of hard to imagine the “woods” being haunted when there aren’t many trees and you can see the golf course on both sides of the trail. If you got scared in the haunted woods today you could just hop on a passing golf cart and get away quickly! “Lover’s Lane” trail is not quite as bad, but you can still see the golf course on one side and a service road for the golf course crosses the trail. The flowers in the garden behind the house were beautiful, but off in the background the golf course detracted from the overall setting.

After leaving Green Gables we headed west along the north coast and went to three different light houses. We enjoyed the scenery of the countryside and the small fishing towns along the water. We then headed SE to the capital, Charlottetown. We had dinner in Charlottetown and walked around the waterfront, admiring the flowers in the park and the boats in the harbor. It is a very nice quiet town, with a population of only ~30,000 people. We observed a beautiful sunset from Charlottetown before heading back to our campsite in New Brunswick.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part11PrinceEdwardIsland


Other notes: We finally found some place that had recycling!!! Back home we recycle as much as we reasonably can, and almost always have significantly more recycling than garbage. We definitely take advantage of the curb side recycling program. When we travel we try and keep our same recycling habits. Based on our experiences back home we thought that we would not have any problem at least periodically finding places to recycle along the way. However, with the exception of some places that had recycling for aluminum cans and a handful of places that took plastic pop bottles, we found zero recycling at campgrounds, parks, rest areas, etc. So, we kept collecting more and more recycling. After ~5 weeks on the road we had several grocery bags full of paper & cardboard, along with several more full of plastic bottles, yogurt containers, & milk jugs along with glass jars and tin cans. When we pulled into the parking lot of the Green Gables House we found they had large recycling containers at multiple places in the parking lot that would take all of the types of recycling that we had. Fortunately I had most of the recycling in the box in the back of the truck so we took a few trips over to the recycling bins and properly disposed of everything we had with us. I still find it surprising that no other government or private ran park, campground, or tourist site we have been to had any real recycling station. I guess we are spoiled at home. The state parks in Oregon have recycling centers where you can recycle everything mentioned above plus even other harder to recycle items like batteries. Fortunately we have enough space in the trailer that if we have to carry the last 6 weeks worth of recycling home with us we should be able to do so.

Next up: Nova Scotia

Part 10 - New Brunswick

(click on map to enlarge)


States & Provinces visited on this segment: New Brunswick


Dates: Saturday July 21 to Sunday, July 22


Miles driven: 390 (5953 total to date)


Summary: We left our campsite Saturday morning and headed south on highway 2. Shortly after lunch we arrived at Kings Landing Historical Settlement, ~30 minutes west of the Fredericton. Kings Landing is an open air living history museum. It is a restoration of a typical village in the Saint John River Valley in the mid 19th century. The settlement includes buildings moved to the site primarily from the local area prior to a dam being completed in the 1960’s that would have flooded the structures, but some were moved form other areas of New Brunswick. The settlement is spread out across ~300 acres, and includes (among other things) working water powered saw and grist mills, a print shop, blacksmith shop, cabinet making shop, numerous houses and farm buildings, an inn, and a couple of churches. Staff dressed in period costumes do demonstrations of various trades as well as perform routine household work using tools/methods from the mid 9th century. It was very interesting and well done – highly recommended if you are in the area. We spent the rest of the afternoon at Kings Landing until the closed. We then found a campground on the outskirts of Fredericton, and went into the capital city and walked around the downtown area next to the river that evening.


On Sunday morning we packed up and continued east, heading to Hopewell Cape on the Bay of Fundy. We had checked the tide tables when we entered New Brunswick and were able to time our arrival to coincide with low tide. The Bay of Fundy has some of the largest tides in the world, 40+ feet difference between low and high tide. At Hopewell Rocks Ocean Tidal Exploration Site the ocean tides have carved interesting shapes into the rocks along the shore. At low tide you can walk on the beach around the rock formations. At high tide you can rent kayaks and paddle around the rock formations. It would have been great to experience the site at both high and low tides, but we only had time to experience the site at low tide. The kids enjoyed walking and playing in the mud (most of the tidal flat is either rock or mud, not sand). The kids even somehow convinced a random man walking by to shake their hands when they were covered with mud. They were just joking but he went along with it and shook their hands. After leaving Hopewell Cape we drove back north to Moncton, and then SE to Sackville where we camped. We spent 3 nights in Sackville, using it as a base to take day trips without the trailer to Price Edward Island and Nova Scotia.


Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part10NewBrunswick


Other notes: For its population base, New Brunswick had by far the best road infrastructure of anywhere we visited in Canada. Highway 2 from the Québec border in the NW corner all the way down to Nova Scotia in the SE corner was a new or very well maintained 4 lane freeway. Likewise highway 1 down along the southern part of New Brunswick was a 4+ lane freeway all except the last 100 or so km heading into Maine. Even some of the roads heading off in other directions appeared to be nice 4 lane freeways. This was very surprising since most of the areas we drove through in New Brunswick were very sparsely populated and the total population of the province is less than 1M people. The New Brunswick roads were in sharp contract to those in Ontario. 95% of the road that we traveled from Sault St. Marie to Ottawa were 2 lane undivided highway. The Ontario roads were in general well maintained, and there were frequent passing lanes, but there was almost no divided highway despite the fact that we were in much more densely populated areas (Ontario population is 11+M) and that part of the route we took is the major west-east route across Canada. There was also very heavy traffic on the roads in Ontario, and the roads in New Brunswick had very light traffic. For some reason there appears to be a big difference in priority placed on transportation infrastructure in the two provinces. The other provinces we were in were somewhere in between Ontario and New Brunswick.


Next up: Prince Edward Island

Part 9 - Ottawa, Ontario to Edmundston, New Brunswick

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick



Dates: Wednesday, July 18 to Friday, July 20



Miles driven: 563 (5573 total to date)



Summary: Rain, rain, then more rain, followed by heaver rain and strong winds pretty much describe the three days we spent in Québec. It was cloudy when we entered into Québec province in late morning on Wednesday, and before we made it to Québec City it had started to rain. We found a campground just a few km from the city center, and got unhooked in the rain. The campground was on a steep hill and was heavily wooded. With the rain it made the gravel/dirt roads very slippery. I had to go into 4WD mode to be able to back up the hill into our site. It rained all night long, and was still raining when we got up in the morning. We waited for a while in the morning hoping it would stop, but finally gave up and headed toward the city center, stopping to buy some umbrellas. It finally stopped raining about the time we parked in the old part of the city. We had a rain free afternoon and early evening in the city, although it was very windy and cold especially late in the day. We spent a bunch of time walking the city streets and walls of the old city, took a tour of the Citadel, and took a horse pulled carriage ride tour of the city. Shortly after we got back to our camp site it started to rain again, this time harder than previously. The weather forecast was calling for rain for the next 2-3 days, so we decided to head east and try and get out from under the storm even though there were more things we wanted to see in Québec. It rained hard all night long and It absolutely poured the next morning as I got the trailer ready to go, and I was soaked by the time I was done. I changed clothes and we headed down the road. Driving was miserable all day long as it poured down rain and we had 30-40 mile an hour winds that blew the rain horizontally in sheets. It was as bad as or worse than the worst winter rain storm that occurs in Oregon. At the rest areas we didn’t even try and walk over to the restroom buildings, we just ran back and used the toilet in the trailer. Even in the few seconds it took to do that you got really wet. On a day like that it would be nice to have a motor home so you never had to get out of your protective cocoon. The rain finally started to let up late in the day as we approached New Brunswick, and when we arrived at our campsite south of Edmundston the rain had finally stopped. Québec City was beautiful despite the rain and I would definitely recommend visiting there, but hopefully you will have better luck with the weather than we did.



Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part9OttawaToEdmundston



Other notes: Shortly before we left for the trip we bought a portable GPS navigation system. After looking at reviews of different mfg and models on-line I decided to buy a Garmin Nüvi 350. It was the least expensive Garmin model that had audio prompts that said the name of the road – e.g. “Turn right on Main Street” rather than just “Take the next right”. This is definitely helpful if you don’t want to have to look at the unit while driving and want to confirm that you are turning on the correct road rather that just turn when the unit says to turn. So far it has performed almost flawlessly and we couldn’t really ask for anything better. The unit has taken us where we want to go whether that was to Dale and Gladys’s farm in rural Minnesota on County Road 32 or to the Hard Rock Café in Ottawa. The only place we didn’t get to directly that we wanted to was a Wal-Mart in South Dakota. We asked it to take us to the nearest Wal-Mart and it found one in Spearfish, SD. However, when we got there it was an empty building & parking lot. Turns out that Wal-Mart had just closed that store and opened up a new store the next exit down on the I90. Like any map, things can get stale rather quickly. However, every other preloaded place we have tried to go was still where the system said it would be. Our biggest gripe is that it doesn’t know how to pronounce Oregon correctly. It says “or-e-gone” rather than “or-e-gun”. Can’t really fault the system for that as that is how most people outside of Oregon pronounce it.



Next up: Further east in New Brunswick, then Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia

Part 8 - Thessalon, Ontario to Ottawa, Ontario

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Ontario

Dates: Sunday, July 15 to Tuesday, July 17

Miles driven: 510 (5010 total to date)

Summary: When we woke up on the 15th the gloomy damp weather that had been with us since we entered Michigan was gone and we were back to mostly blue skies. I was glad to leave the RV park in Thessalon that we stayed at as the campground had lots of issues. See “other notes” below for the issues with this RV park and some of the common issues we have had with campgrounds we have stayed at. Elizabeth says she wants to build and run a campground when she gets older and I told her that before she starts she needs to have an open forum with a bunch of experienced RVers to get their ideas, and then solicit additional feedback from them on her plans before she starts construction. Many of the parks we have stayed at appear to have been built by people who have never owned an RV or stayed in a campground before.

We left Thessalon on Sunday morning and drove ~2/3 the way to Ottawa, spending Sunday night in Mattawa. The campground was on a small lake, and the owner said that the water in the lake was warm. It was almost 7 PM by the time we got to the campground, but the kids wanted to go swimming so I took them down there while Karen got dinner ready. Apparently they have a different definition of warm in Ontario than we do in Oregon. Water in most lakes in Oregon is cold even in the summer, but at least we normally say it is cold. In Ontario I think they must say the water is warm if the ice on the lake has been melted for more than a couple of weeks. Seriously, it wasn’t quite that cold, but I thought the kids were going to chip a tooth based on the uncontrollable chattering of teeth that accompanied the shivering when they got out of the water. On Monday we resumed our trek east to Ottawa, arriving early in the day. Note that arriving early for us means we got there by 5 PM! Karen did laundry while I worked on getting the blog updated. We spent 2 nights at this campground on the southern outskirts of town.

On Tuesday we drove into Ottawa which is the capital of Canada. We found a central location to park and spent the day walking around town to see the sites that we wanted to see. We started on Parliament Hill, seeing the capital buildings and the grounds. We also saw the changing of the guard that is an elaborate ceremony that takes ~40 minutes. We then headed over to the Hard Rock Café for an early lunch, and then took a tour of the Canadian Mint. The had an interesting scale there that told you how many troy ounces you weighed, followed by how much you would be worth if you were made out of pure gold. After visiting the mint we went across the river into Québec and spent the rest of the day at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. This is an awesome museum. We spent most of the time going through a very interesting and comprehensive exhibit on the history of Canada. The display takes you from east to west through Canada as you go forward in time from the first European settlement of Canada (the Norse) to the present. There are many life-size exhibits which made it very interesting, especially for the kids. We also spent some time in the Children’s Museum. The kids could have spent a couple of days there. It was huge, and Karen said it is by far the best children’s museum that she has been to. There were other exhibits in the museum that looked worthwhile, as well as other things in Ottawa that would be interesting to see but we needed to move on so after a very busy day (and 4 pairs of tired feet) we moved on east the next day.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part8ThessalonToOttawa

Other notes: The campground in Thessalon was a beautiful setting on the shore of Lake Huron. The setting was fine, and the people were nice, but the utilities were all very poor. The water pressure that night varied from a small trickle to nothing, forcing us to use water from our tank. We suposedly had a 30A plug-in, but they must have had too much total load on their power lines, or too small of gauge wire for the length of run that they had to our site. We tried to use the microwave, and it didn’t sound right at all (the fan was and the turn table were going too slowly), and the lights dimmed when you tried to run it. I didn’t have a meter to check it, but the voltage was apparently very low. We didn’t use anything that had a motor or was sensitive to voltage level while we were there. Finally, the sewer connection was basically worthless. Instead of having a sewer line in the ground with a vertical connection, the sever line was 4” PCV pipe running on top of the ground, and almost flat. It didn’t seem like there was nearly enough slope for it to work, but I tried to empty some water from one of the gray water tanks the next morning, and sure enough, most of the water just came out the end of the sever pipe onto the ground. So, we went to the dump station instead of using the sewer connection. While this campground had issues with all the utilities, lots of campgrounds have at least some problems with their infrastructure design. Probably half the places we have stayed with full hook ups have had brain dead sewer connections. Our site in Maryville, MT had the sewer connection located at the highest point in the camp site, at least 12” higher than the ground level by the trailer. We have also had several sites where the riser for the sewer pipe was sticking 8-12” out of the ground. It is kind of hard to get water to flow up hill! Based on our experiences we normally just ask if they have a site with electric and water and plan on using the dump station when we leave rather than get a full hook up site. Unfortunately, most of the sites that are big enough to fit our trailer have full hook ups, so we get the worthless sewer connection rather we want it or not. We also had a couple of other campgrounds beside the one at Thessalon where the voltage on the electric service seemed very low so we minimized our electricity use. Water has been fine everywhere except for Thessalon.

The other problem with many campgrounds is their road/site layout. A large number have the RV parking pad at a right angle to the access road. That coupled with narrow roads and other obstacles makes it difficult to get into many sites even though they advertise themselves as “big rig friendly”. While many of these parks were likely designed when the average RV was shorter, if they had simply made the RV parking pad angle back ~30 degrees from perpendicular it would make backing into the sites MUCH easier regardless of the length of your rig. Adding obstacles like posts and garbage cans right at the front of the site also adds unnecessarily to the challenge. I do have to say that I am getting much better at getting into tight spaces, although I am still far from being an expert.

Next up: Québec City, Québec

Part 7 – Belgrade, Minnesota to Thessalon, Ontario

States & Provinces visited on this segment: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ontario

Dates: Tuesday, July 10 to Saturday, July 14

Miles driven: 975 (4500 total to date)

Summary: We left Dale and Gladys’s on Tuesday and truly had no plan on where we were heading next other than generally east. We discussed different options as we drove east towards Minneapolis, and ultimately we decided to head up to the northern most part of Wisconsin and go to Apostle Islands National Lakeshore on Lake Superior. We didn’t leave the farm until about noon, so we only made it to Menomonie, Wisconsin that night. The next morning I got the oil in the truck changed and we headed north to Ashland, which is on the shore of Lake Superior. We spent Wednesday and Thursday night in Ashland, camped in a nice city campground right on the water. On the way to Ashland on Wednesday we went through several hard thunderstorms, with strong winds, thunder and lightening, and hard downpours. Fortunately when we got to Ashland it had cleared up and we had a nice campfire and roasted marshmallows. On Thursday we drove north to Bayfield, went through the visitor center, and took a 2 hour cruise through the Apostle Islands. We had nice weather for the cruise.

On Friday we resumed our trek east again. We made it ~2/3 the way across the upper peninsula of Michigan (the UP), and spent the night in Munising on the shores of Lake Superior. It started raining right after we arrived and rained most of the night. On Saturday we packed up again and headed east to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. We visited the locks, learned some of the history of the locks between Lakes Superior and Huron, and saw several large ships go through. We then said goodbye to the US for the next couple of weeks and crossed the bridge into Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. It was getting late so we only drove another hour or so after we got into Canada. We spent Saturday night at a campground on the shores of Lake Huron just outside the town of Thessalon, Ontario.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part7BelgradeToThessalon

Other notes: We had the first self created problem of note with the trailer on this segment. While leaving the campground at Menomonie I hit a water pipe with the trailer. The site that we were in was a pull trough site and had a large tree on the right hand side as you exited the site and an embankment immediately past the road in front of the site. To insure I cleared the tree on the right I initially went slightly to the left to get around the tree and then turned as sharp as I could to the right since the embankment prevented me from going too far forward. As I turned the corner I heard a small thump, but knew I had cleared the tree fine as I could see down the right side of the trailer. Then in my rear view mirror I saw a small geyser of water behind the trailer. The left rear stabilizer jack on the trailer had hit the water faucet. Bummer. I went down to the campground office so they could get the water turned off and then returned to survey the damages. The pipe sticking out of the ground was 1” galvanized steel, and I had bent it over at a 45 degree angle, plus sheered off the faucet. On the trailer I sheered off one of the two bolts securing the stabilizer jack and bent the brackets that connect the jack to the trailer frame. The campground owner told me I owed them $20.07 for damages (including tax). Not sure how they came up with this value, but I gladly paid it as I was expecting something significantly more. At a minimum they would have to dig up the pipe, replace the riser and the faucet. That assumed that just the riser was bent and that it didn’t cause any damage to the tee or main water pipe underground. I removed the stabilizer jack from the trailer and headed off down the road before they changed their mind. I stopped at the next RV dealership that I could find to see if I could get replacement brackets for the jack. They weren’t terribly helpful but ultimately said they could not find and replacement brackets in their part catalogs, much less havining something in stock. I surveyed the damaged parts again and concluded that I could probably fix it myself, at least good enough for now. I stopped at the local hardware store in Stanley and bought some new bolts and nuts as well as an assortment of washers to use as shims to compensate for the bent brackets. After we arrived at the campground in Ashland I was able to partially straighten the brackets and then get everything put back together with the parts that I bought. The jack is a couple of degrees off square, but works fine. Total cost for this mishap - $21.37 + ~ 2 hours (30-40 minutes dealing with the initial problem, 1 hour looking for brackets & parts, plus 15 minutes to get everything put back together. I am getting more use out of the tools that I brought along than I would like!

Next up: Ottawa (Canada’s capital)

Part 6 – De Smet, South Dakota to Belgrade, Minnesota

States & Provinces visited on this segment: South Dakota, Minnesota

Dates: Sunday, July 8 to Monday, July 9

Miles driven: 225 (3525 total to date)

Summary: We left De Smet on Sunday morning, stopping to visit the cemetery where the Ingalls family is buried before heading out of town. We then headed northeast to Belgrade, Minnesota to visit Dale and Gladys, friends of Karen’s from her time in the Peace Corp in Belize. Dale and Gladys are dairy farmers, and we parked our trailer on the farm while visiting with them. The kids had an awesome time on the farm. They helped feed the cows, bottle feed new calves, gave hand milking a try as well as hooking up the milking machine, and even cleaned up a bit from the cows. They also enjoyed playing in the hay loft, and “getting lost” in the corn field. The weather this year has been warmer than normal and all of the crops are weeks ahead of where they normally would be this time of year. The corn was 7+ feet high, so even an adult could get lost pretty easily. We enjoyed visiting with Dale and Gladys and getting caught up what has been going on in their lives as well as Karen reminiscing with them about their years together in the Peace Corp. Dale and Gladys are retiring at the end of September, so they are counting down the remaining days of milking. It was ~80 days when we were there. They have bought a fifth wheel trailer and plan to spend the winter months down in Arizona so they were interested in our experiences with our trailer since they have not used their trailer since purchasing it earlier this year. Dale and Gladys took us to a small family run zoo that was about 20 miles from where they live. The zoo has a wide variety of animals bad it was interesting to hear about them on the guided tour.

Photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/bryan.vacation/Part6DeSmetToBelgrade

Other notes: Special thanks to Dale and Gladys for their hospitality. They made us all feel extremely welcome and were great with the kids explaining everything to them and letting them help out on the farm. I think we each gained a couple of pounds eating Gladys’s great cooking. We even had 30A electrical service for our trailer so we could run the AC! We offered to let the kids stay longer and said we would pick them up in a few weeks on our way back west, but Dale and Gladys weren’t quite that accommodating.

Next up: Somewhere further east.