Category Archives: Trips

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.

DC for the Fourth!

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We were able to score a week near Washington DC at Cherry Hill RV Park through the 4th of July!  It is the iconic place to be for America during that time.  The RV park is by no means cheap but it does provide a very family oriented location.  The huge selling point is the ease to get to DC itself.  A DCMetro bus actually stops at the entry to the park to take you to the DCMetro rail line.  You have to pay for each direction but it is simple to figure out and MUCH better than taking my truck to the city.

We toured the city for 4 of the days we were there.  We walked SO much!  It was hot and humid to the point of oppressive.  There were people everywhere.  There were fences for crowd control.  The traffic was horrendous.  Prices for drinks rivaled amusement parks.  In short, we loved it!  Come on!  This is Washington DC!  How could we pass this up?

We saw museums, monuments, memorials, oh my!  We did not get to see it all but here are some of what we saw.

Our first stop was the Air and Space Museum, it was closest to the Metro and we figured to hit the museums first.  Here is Glamorous Glennis:

 

Then the next spot that we wanted to see the most was the Lincoln Memorial (looks like no one else was there):

We could see the Washington Memorial and the Capitol from there. Notice the fencing, this was due to the fireworks being staged and then fired from either side of the reflecting pool:

 

We saw the Jefferson memorial which was pertinent since we were just in his ‘area’ (Williamsburg):

 

The most surprising memorial was for Martin Luther King Jr.  It was amazing.  On either side were quotes from him during the years.  I have included my favorite.

 

These were the closest shots we could get to the White House, naturally.  The Capitol was being setup for the concert on the 4th so access was restricted:

 

 

We went to the Vietnam Memorial, I took a picture of a serviceman that is the brother of a friend of mine.  A picture of the actual monument does not convey the emotion of it.  I won’t even try.  Here are some pictures of the WWII memorial and one of the Washington Memorial.  Regarding the picture of all the stars.  There are 4048 stars on the memorial and each one represents 100 American military deaths.  Wow.

 

The 4th came and we thought about going down to DC again to watch but ultimately did not.  We didn’t want to fight the crowds and it was amazingly hot and humid.  We went up on a hill in the RV park and were able to see about 4 displays going on around in different cities.  But what did we actually DO on the 4th?  We went to the local Ikea, I also did a trailer modification.

We have been noticing a holding tank smell when traveling but not while we are stopped.  It is more noticeable in our closet as that is where the vent pipes travel.  My thinking was the tank roof vents were not working when towing.  It seemed that instead of letting the tanks vent it was actually pushing air down the vent pipe into the tank and out the sink drains.  Or at least that is what I told myself.  The types of vent tops were like this:

These things have the vent pipe underneath the cap but it is like cupping your hand over it.  Very little airflow, probably even less during turbulence around it.  When we stopped off at Airstream of Virginia I noticed the new trailers were now coming with this:

The Lippert 360 Vent.  I had been looking at these and was going to get them.  So I did and had them delivered to the RV park.  Now to put them on.

I need a ladder to put them up and I DO carry one with me but it is packed with everything else in the truck.  Here are some shots about where the ladder is stored and everything that needed to be removed.

At least we could look in all the bins again!

We had a very enjoyable time in DC, a city unlike any other.  We will probably be back sometime in the future but it is time to move on again.