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Down the dreaded Northeast Corridor, we sidestepped Philadelphia, Baltimore and DC.  All together the trip lasted 46 days and was slightly over 9,500 miles.  We enjoyed every minute of it!

Spruce Run Recreational Area - Clinton, NJ

 According to their web site, there are 7 sites with electricity here, and this is the only park in New Jersey with any hook-ups at all.  This place pretty much splits the trip home into two equal parts.  I bet Deb a nickel that she would want to just keep going and not stop, just to get home…I lost!  There are so many cicadas here, it is deafening (and they land on everything), and the park ranger just informed us that there will severe thunderstorms in about six hours. 

Surry Lane - Pelham, NH

 Arrived in the old family stomping grounds.  It’s been well over a year since we have been here.  The plan is to settle in on the first day, see family on the second, play some cards on the third.  

Executed with perfection!  It was great to see the extended family again…it’s been a long time

We followed it all up with dinner at the Tuscan Kitchen in Salem, it seems that knowing the entire staff has some advantages…thanks Marie and Nan.

Savoy Mountain State Park - Florida, MA

After a short walk on the Hudson River, we departed for Savoy Mountain.  We are back in the part of New England which is more familiar to me.  Our mission today is to make Mac and Cheese for the week-end get together.  There is a local cheese maker just outside of Williamstown.  It is a self-serve, on the honor system place with a chiller full of cheese and a freezer full of meat.  In the corner is a scanner and a credit card reader.  Having purchased the cheese and milk, we head to our campsite for an early afternoon of hiking and cooking.

Tomorrow we head for the family reunion.  We have put together our slideshow of nearly 300 photos, which include my world famous videos of waterfalls in slow motion!

Schodack Island State Park - Castleton-on-Hudson, NY

 We are getting close to Massachusetts.  The plan is to be there for the week-end, so we have slowed our progress to a few hundred miles a day.  It was probably a good idea.  The first half of the drive from the finger lakes region was pretty hilly and since we travel with everything, including the kitchen sink, we tend to take hills very slowly.  We have driven through lots of state capitals and have enjoyed the architecture of the capital buildings.  Albany is no exception,  the capital building is a huge egg.  I was enjoying it so much that I missed my turn and ended up on the road that went directly to an elaborate tunnel under the egg itself.  My GPS just looked at me dumbfounded!  As it turns out the tunnel ends up in a u-turn right back out the other way exactly to where I wanted to be.  I sort of felt like I was the ball on a miniature golf course.

The park is lovely, but almost directly under the New State Thruway bridge over the Hudson, 

Robert H Treman State Park - Ithaca, NY

 

We have been to Watkins Glen a few times and decided to try something different. It’s all the finger lakes of New York. Watkins Glen is on the ring finger and we are staying at the end of the pinkie!  The campground is less than ideal.  It’s overgrown with dirt roads and there is a small tree right in the middle of our campsite.  Deb and I have done our usual RV placement dance which looks kinda like we doing a senior version of the Floss.  We have ended up with RV parallel to the road (most other campers have come to the same conclusion).  But now to the fun part…even before we finish setting up, we headed out to hike the Rim Trail which leads to the top of Lucifer Falls and back on the Gorge trail.  Much of the trail was built by the CCC in the 30’s.  There is a stone staircase which goes up the side of a 300 foot cliff.  

Then came the path that they cut into the gorge.  Absolutely Gorge-ous 

Chapman State Park - Clarendon, PA

 

Today we went to Cuyahoga Fall National Park.  There is a scenic train that goes through the park. Only problem is that runs Wednesday thru Sunday and we were there on Monday, the other tiny problem is that it is sold out through the rest of the year.  We hiked to Brandywine Falls, the tallest falls in the park.  It was a nice 5 mile walk which culminated in a sudden rain deluge, about ten minutes after we got back to the RV.

We are now in the sleepy northwestern part of Pennsylvania, Trump flags abound but internet is in short supply.  We make it through the evening by binge watching DVD’s of M*A*S*H episodes, but we will be leaving early to catch some internet.

Butler/Mohican KOA - Butler, OH

 Maintenance stop. Deb did laundry, while I replaced the screws that came out of the Microwave, reseated an electrical outlet, and cleaned off the front of the RV that got “bug blasted” in North Dakota.  Since it was in the 90’s, we finished the day in the pool…since it is the first week in June, the pool was….refreshing!

Tomorrow, we’re going to Cuyahoga National Park, the largest National park in Ohio, then to Pennsylvania.

Whitewater Memorial State Park - Liberty, IN

 

Deb and I are pretty much dyed in the wool type A people.  We created the route for our RV trip back in January and we tend not to deviate (we did deviate slightly when a storm closed the road out of the campground for two days...but we hyperventilated the entire time and drive through the night to get back on schedule). This time we only had a one bar of internet and nothing exciting to do so we converted a two nighter to a one nighter and moved on, spending the second night in Indiana, at Whitewater Memorial State Park.  The park has a few halfway decent hiking trails, but the campground is 300 sites in large fields...perfect for people watching.  This is a Saturday night, with dozens of family get togethers.  There is the champion cornhole match and the misbehaved children...even a seven foot palm tree made totally from LED’s.  

Tomorrow is a maintenance day at the next KOA.

Chris forgot to mention the cicadas! A constant loud buzzing sound.

Fox Ridge State Park - Charleston, IL

 

A fairly long day, but an audio book, a discussion about sustainability, and a few discussions about our latest e-mail threads made the trip go by.  Fox Ridge seems okay for a one night stand, but it’s not going to  be an enduring love affaire.  We had planned this to be a two nighter, but we have decided to move on to Indiana for the next night.  

It’s Saturday, and that means a big breakfast.  Instead of cooking bacon and eggs, I suggested that we eat breakfast in the small town of Casey, IL.  Big things in a small town!

A local business man in Casey has used some of the scraps from his business to make the “World’s Largest ________”. We ate breakfast on the porch, overlooking the “World’s Largest Wind Chime, the “World’s Largest Rocking Chair,” and the “World’s Largest Teeter-Totter.”  

Backbone State Park - Dundee, IA

 The heart of the park is the Devil’s Backbone.  This is an interesting geological formation made by the Maquoketa River making an oxbow.  The backbone has 150 ft cliffs on both sides, sometime less than 20 ft across. It’s interesting, especially since it’s in Iowa.  This is the portion of the country that we, irreverently, refer to as the “I” states. These are the states with the worst roads, the least accommodations, and virtually nothing scenic.  

For an “I” state, this park isn’t bad.  We had  “chicken ala king,” which was really good.  Tomorrow is a two nighter in Illinois....we’ll see....

Newton Hills State Park - Canton, SD

 

We occasionally refer to our RV as our land yacht, since we traded sailing for RVing.  Sailing with wind just off the bow is uncomfortable, called “sailing to weather”. Yesterday, we sailed to weather the entire day with the prevailing wind just off to the right.  The fact that the prairies were dotted with wind turbines confirmed that it wasn’t going to get better, and our gas mileage confirmed it. As the saying goes, “Gentlemen do not sail to weather!”

After a full day of rolling prairies, we were skeptical that we would actually find a hill at Newton Hills State Park, but not only did we find a hill but some woods as well.  Even with a stop at Walmart in Sioux

Falls, where I had both pimentos and artichoke hearts on my shopping list (it took five employees including an inventory specialist to find pimentos...they were next to the artichokes), we got to the campground early enough for a nice hike on the “Woodland Trail.”

Tomorrow we should be on a beam reach the entire way.  Or as the saying goes, “may you have clear skies and following seas.”

Fort Ransom - Fort Ransom, ND

 

Hiking to the sunset vista last night, we met two people from Wisconsin who were going to go to Teddy Roosevelt on their way home.  I, of course, suddenly felt the need to go to Teddy Roosevelt too.  It was actually a National Park, 60 miles down the road we were already taking.  We took a nice 40 mile scenic tour of the park with the requisite bison and prairie dogs with a few wild horses and wolves tossed in.  From there, it was North Dakota prairies for 300 miles to Fort Ransom State Park.  This is a park straight from the twilight zone.  It took about a dozen turns to get to the deserted town of Fort Ransom and then another dozen to get to the park.  The park itself is virtually abandoned.  We may never get out again!

Our site is on the banks of the Sheyenne River, and an evening sun shower, complete with a brilliant rainbow topped the evening.  Tomorrow, we will try to retrace our path to escape back into the real world for a fairly short trip to South Dakota which will mark the halfway point in our trek from Seattle to Boston.