Monthly Archives: August 2017

To the Mothership and beyond!

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Time to continue west, trying to get away from the humid weather, including rain!  We headed southwest from Niagara Falls and ended up back in Pennsylvania.  We joined Passport America and have been trying to use it whenever we can as it gives us 1/2 price rates.  I found one in Mercer, PA.  About 60 miles west of our stop in Penn Wood.  Roxie wondered if we would ever leave Pennsylvania.  Here is our spot in Mercer:

Mercer was a good time to get some rest and do the standard household stuff (laundry, etc.).  Then it was time to move on and we headed into Ohio.

We were able to take advantage of some courtesy parking in Wooster, OH.  This one was through the Airstream Courtesy Parking group on Facebook.  Jason and Andrea were very accommodating and their spot was oh so nice.  Top of a hill with great views and on grass.

It happened to be my birthday and we were thinking about going out to get something to eat but instead, we ate in like this (I actually cooked – grilled cheese):

 

On our drives around Wooster we saw a few buggies:

But we had to move on.  We had a goal, Jackson Center, OH, the Mothership, Airstream HQ!  We got there Sunday and found a spot in the TerraPort:

The next day we took the tour and saw Wally’s Gold Trailer and an original Bowlus.  As most people already know you can only take one photograph inside the tour so I will not show that one.  However, one of our fellow tour takers took a LOT inside.

Over by our spot, I found this plaque by some picnic tables.  I am not sure what this means:

We ended up staying for 4 nights (at $10 per).  We went down to Dayton to get my tires rotated on my truck and to see Dunkirk in IMAX.  However, all fun comes to an end and we got on the road again but stopped up the road in Wapakoneta to visit the Neil Armstrong Museum.  Wapakoneta was Neil’s hometown and they are very proud of him.  It was a nice little museum.

We were talking with a fellow Airstreamer about this museum and we were recollecting about the lunar landing.  I was 8 at the time of the landing (July 20, 1969) and I DO remember seeing it on TV but what I really remembered that the next day was declared, by President Nixon, to be a national holiday.  That meant that my ninth birthday (July 21, 1969) was a national holiday, at least for one year.

 

Since we were in the area…

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We were in northern-ish Pennsylvania.  West Virginia to the south and New York to the north.  We succumbed to the adage of “we were in the area so…’.  The area we were near was Niagara Falls!  Honeymoon capital of the USA!  This is one of the places that Roxie and I have both wanted to see but for years it seemed unattainable.  Not until now.

We were unsure where to stay until I looked at the WBCCI courtesy parking for the area.  I had tried this before for a couple locations earlier but it didn’t pan out.  This time we got a quick response from Mike Clack and he said he had plenty of room for about 6 or more trailers and we could come on by.  I wanted a secure place to drop the trailer for the day while we went to the falls.  This worked perfectly.

We made it to Mike’s, not until I had missed the turn once and had to reverse.  It was easy to get to his parking area and setup the trailer.  Very grassy.  As soon as we go there it started a downpour of rain and it was on and off all night.  The next morning there was standing water in the grass by our trailer, about 1-2”.  I was unsure if I was going to get out the next day.  Here are some pics of his location and the secluded entry for it:

Yes, those are ruts I carved getting out in 4×4.

Mike’s location is about 30 minutes from the falls themselves and we enjoyed seeing them.  The first stop was down from the falls to see the whirlpool:

Everything at the falls was a bit commercialized but I kind of expected it to be, still a disappointment.  We immediately set off on the Maid of the Mist:

Yes, you get wet but you don’t care.

We also went to the edge of the falls:

We have heard the view from Canada is prettier and also there will be fireworks.  So we decided to head north.

We got to the Canadian border guard and he asked if we had any weapons with us.  No, did not bring the gun.  But he mentioned pepper spray as one of the ‘weapons’ so that sent us under the ‘canopy’ for a bit more investigation.  They looked in the truck, in the shell.  Roxie thought they might want to take everything out of the truck and look in each bin.  Oh well, if that is what they wanted, we had some time to kill.  They didn’t look too thoroughly and let us go our way.  They were somewhat interested in our full-timing and why we had so much stuff in the truck.

Since we were over the border we did a bit of driving around, went to Niagara-by-the-Lake and was able to see a glimpse of Lake Ontario.  Got some diesel and had to convert liters to gallons, and USD to CAD (it was more expensive than the US).  We went back to the falls and decided not to pay the parking price of $5 per 15 minutes.  We finally parked up the hill, ate some dinner and walked down to the falls and waited for the fireworks.

Since we are so far north it doesn’t get dark until 9:30 or so.  Fireworks didn’t start until 10 and there were lots of people.  They also light up the falls.  You can see the American Falls in red, white, and blue with the Canadian Falls in red and white:

It took us a while to walk back up to the truck but not too long to get back to the US.  We were back to the trailer about 11:30 and leaving the next day.

We were able to see Mike on the day we left and thanked him for the spot.  We said that he welcomes anyone to stay there when they want.  Look at the Airstream Courtesy Parking group on Facebook for more information.

We headed off down the road to our next destination.