Monthly Archives: April 2023

Fall Colors – Part 2

Posted on by

We start our next leg from Penn Wood Airstream Park in Pennsylvania. We are now traveling together for a long stretch. When Roxie and I were here in 2017, she asked how close Niagara Falls was. I told her around 200 miles. We both agreed that since we were so close, we should take a visit. The same conversation basically happened with us and the Chens. They had been there before also but it was a while back. We looked for some campsites and headed off north through PA and into NY. Just before we entered NY, we passed through Bradford PA. We had no idea but it was the headquarters of:

Zippo Lighters!

I was leading the drive so when I saw the sign, I immediately turned off the highway. I knew we would all enjoy it. They have a very nice store/museum. I liked seeing the array of damaged lighters that they have repaired, or replaced, free of charge. We bought a few items but George and Marcia outspent us. It was a good distraction and we pushed on to our campsite on Lake Ontario.

We took our day trip over to Canada and headed to Niagara-on-the-Lake. A snootyish town on Lake Ontario. We visited Fort George and got to hear the Canadian side of some of the conflicts with the USA.

We then ended up spending a good bit of time at the falls, watching the colors and feeling the power.

In that last picture, it shows my mom there in the late ’50s. Falls still look basically the same but compare the railing in the last two photos! Some things never change. Before we left the campsite we walked to Lake Ontario and could see Toronto in the distance.

Heading east, we made our way across New York on our way to New Hampshire where George’s parents live. Our next stop was at a marina along the Mohawk River, which is part of the Erie Canal. This marina is a stopping point for some that want to navigate the Erie Canal.

When I was in the office, registering for the site, I looked at their wall of business cards and saw a familiar one.

It was a card for Brad and Karen. We spent New Year’s with them as part of an Airstream group that was in Pasadena for the parade! You can check out their blog here.

The next day we made it to our destination for a few nights, Newport NH. Unfortunately, Roxie got sick with something that put her down for a few days. We don’t think it was Covid but we didn’t want to expose George’s parents to anything that could affect them. George and Marcia stayed in his brother’s driveway but we were unsure if there was enough space for us so we got a great campsite, complete with fall colors on its own!

We had reached a milepost on our trip, making it to George’s family. We have seen a lot of fall colors on the way, which was ‘supposedly’ our goal but we made small sub-goals on the way. Another sub-goal was to visit the Boston area, this was George’s old stomping grounds. Roxie had never been here, I was here in 1977 with my parents.

We stayed south of Boston at Wompatuck State Park. When we got there it was pouring rain, and hard to find the main entrance. Roxie and I ended up in a small hiking trail parking lot when I took a wrong turn and I seriously surprised myself by being able to turn around. George and Marcia ended up going down a road to the park that was blocked by a gate and they had to back down a road quite a little distance.

We eventually got to the campground and backed into our respective spots and proceeded to become completely drenched. George had a little more of an issue as his trailer, he backed through a ditch and broke his holding tank dump pipes. We just all gave up and went to bed. It was a long day. We will take care of things in the AM and I will continue the blog in the next entry.

Fall Colors – Part 1

Posted on by

One trip we always mentioned that we wanted to do was a trip to the eastern seaboard for the fall colors. We thought we would get to the Northeast in the fall and let the weather drive us south. We mentioned this to our friends George and Marcia, they were on board. We left on September 10th and would meet them on the way as they usually travel faster than we do.

As with any trip from your home base, the first day or two is always familiar. The same route, same towns, and oftentimes the same campgrounds. Our first nite was one of our favorites, Homolovi State Park. We got there and it was pouring rain with high winds (normal for Homolovi). I just hooked up the electricity and no other amenities. Didn’t even disconnect.

More I-40 travel the next day. Our stop was the Native American casino at Sky City. You can get spots there for around $20/night IF you ask for the discount. It is a decent RV park except for the terrible road into the RV park, it is abysmal. The park is on a slight incline so if you head into a spot you need to disconnect to get your trailer level. However, if you come in from the other direction, you can lift the tongue, stay connected and be level! We also set up Starlink here for the internet, worked great!

Yet another I-40 day. When heading east, you don’t have too many options in the western states. That changes when you get to Texas. We made our way through Albuquerque and ate at a local place off the road, Vicks Vittles. It was pretty good and it is always fun to eat locally. We stopped at Ute Lake State Park for the night. We stayed here with George and Marcia the last time we headed east with them. It is a good campground, with loads of space between the sites but it usually has a lot of bugs. It had a great sunset:

Our 4th day on the road started with finally detouring from I-40 and heading NE a bit to the Oklahoma panhandle. We passed through Dalhart TX and I read something interesting in their Wiki entry.

One more night before a bit of a break. We ended up at an Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE) campground at Fort Supply Lake near Fort Supply OK. We had a site that backed up onto the lake that was very nice, a bit windy. The next day was eastbound entirely in Oklahoma. We had been on the road for 4 full days and nights without disconnecting the trailer at all. It was time to take a short timeout.

We got to another ACOE campground at Brush Creek Park. It was right on the Arkansas River, just below the dam at Keystone Lake. We were just west of Tulsa OK. The next day was a ‘down’ day, not that we didn’t do anything, we just didn’t travel with the Airstream. It was interesting camping by the dam, many people were fishing the river and a horn would sound repeatedly whenever there was a change in the water discharge amount.

We skirted around Tulsa as we left and headed NE to our rendezvous with George and Marcia at Twin Bridges State Park. We had lunch in Claremore OK, the hometown of Will Rogers. It was very obvious that he was from that area and a huge amount of everything had his name on it. They are even in Rogers County! We got to drive along Route 66 for a long stretch primarily because I am too cheap to pay for a turnpike and back roads are better. We met the Chens at the campground and got to visit a bit with them.

George and Marcia had some friends/relatives to visit before our next connection so we parted ways in the AM. We headed into Missouri for our next stop. We took a selfie at lunch:

The evening found us at a private campground called Ruby’s Landing. My parents owned a campground for 10 years so it is always fun to stop at a rustic campground. But, this one might have been a bit TOO rustic. We were there on a Saturday night that happened to coincide with some Halloween camping event. Many scouts were camping in tents. Many others running around making noise, some being chased by a guy with a chainsaw and mask. It wasn’t too noisy in the late hours, luckily. I am glad we weren’t there for 2 nights.

Our next stop was just north of St Louis MO at a county park. Very nice location, good sites, and lots of trails around a man-made lake/river overflow. An uneventful drive through some very beautiful areas. But we keep pushing on to our next meetup location in PA. Our satellite setup is working great, with the TV on the left and Internet on the right (one looks to the south, the other to the north). The top of the truck is a great location when we don’t disconnect.

Following our theme of skirting around towns, we did the same with St Louis and continued ENE to the next state. Staying on a US highway instead of an Interstate highway we ended up south of Terra Haute IN at a county park. It was a beautiful park, a bit tight for the trailer but we made it. There were numerous restored historical buildings around a nice lake.

Another day, another state. This is much different than traveling in western states. Go around Indianapolis and end up at the Buck Creek State Park near Springfield IN. This is a beautiful campground, with lots of grass and trees. We saw a couple of deer wandering around. The camp hosts were very friendly.

Ohio was next, I couldn’t find a better route so we went right through the gut of Columbus OH. It was not a real issue but as we got to Zanesville I saw there was a Texas Roadhouse so that is where we ate. Downtown Zanesville was much more difficult with the trailer as it seemed much older and narrower. The reward was better than the risk. We spent the night at Barkcamp State Park. It had a large camp area for horses and a large infestation of flying stink bugs. The terrain was beginning to remind me of what I thought West Virginia would look like.

The next day confirmed my suspicions, we drove through Wheeling WV on our way to Pittsburgh PA. Our final stop was Penn Wood Airstream Park. We stopped here in 2017, enjoyed our stay, and decided to come back. We were here for 4 nights, and George and Marcia were meeting us here in a couple of days.

We really needed to do some laundry so that was first on our list, along with a Chinese buffet. The next day we had our main meal at a local farm-to-table restaurant. Took a little walk to the Climax tunnel. This is an old railroad bed that was repurposed into a 28-mile walk/bike trail, we only did a small portion of it.

George and Marcia showed up right on schedule. We did a little drive on the back roads of this area of Pennsylvania and took them also to the tunnel to see the area.

The fall colors had not changed all that much in this area yet, not to the degree we were looking at. We continued moving NE, but that is in the next installation.