The "Cuz"

As I mentioned in the previous post, cousin Nancy (in the back with the hat???) had come to Columbus for the reunion. In fact she had flown in on a one way ticket. I’ll explain.

In our wanderings and communications with friends and family a visit (when in the area) and continued communication with Nancy has become a regular thing. In our last visit to the Chicago area we even promised her a camping trip sometime. I have a vague remembrance of being kind of roped into it. I think it was a Kat and Nancy thing? So…. This was that promise. We thought a return trip home from Columbus with us in the RV might be kind of neat and it turned out just so! We stopped ‘again’ at the Air Force museum in Dayton, drove through Amish country in northern Indiana, visited the RV/MH Hall of Fame in Elkhart, and camped at a couple of state parks. The ‘again’ at the Air Force museum was because Kat and I had just been there a week or so earlier and wanted to see some more. Especially Kat, which kind of surprised me. Her dad had been a tail gunner on a WW II B-29 and that may have been her favorite. She even liked the Air Museum better than the RV Hall of Fame. Though it was nice too. They had some real historical and vintage RV’s including one used by Mae West. Worth a stop for any RV’ers. At our first state park Nancy was trying to ‘hit’ (I use the term lightly, and with a smile) on some bachelor school teacher that she met on a morning walk. We even dropped her off at his school in the morning while we had breakfast. All very secretive though! We didn’t hear much more but I do know that she met his class and had a short visit. At a state park in Michigan Kat and Nancy took a drive to Lake Michigan but couldn’t find it. I told them it must have dried up or been moved? They never did find that lake. One can only wonder?

I do need to bloviate a little here. I make light of the girls not being able to find Lake Michigan, but then if it’s like most of the country any water front property is private, developed and most always off limits to the riff-raff. And being from Oregon like I am, it just ‘chaps my hide’. You see, in Oregon we don’t have private beach front property! Not on the coast anyway. The Pacific coast belongs to the people of Oregon and there is access to it all. The same is true for large sections (greenways) of the Willamette River through Portland and up the valley from Eugene. Politically speaking Oregon may seem like the ‘Peoples Republic’ in many ways but you can ‘By God’ get to the beach!!!! Oh! And if you don’t happen to be from Oregon, you’re still invited! All thanks to the late Governor Tom McCall.

We all had a good time and some laughs, built one fire to make it seem like ‘camping’, and dropped Nancy off in Downers Grove just a little too soon for her. But we did get her right to her door step which is better than the airlines would have done and better than she thought we could do. We had no desire to hang around and take a chance on any cold northern weather so for us it was time to ‘beat feet’ and head on south!!!!

The Heart of it All

That is what is on the Ohio state auto license plate anyway. Because I am a native Buckeye I suppose I can go along with it. At least as long as the good people of Ohio don’t get carried away with it. But when you travel and see as much as we do, it’s not hard to get the idea that there are some mighty fine places in all parts of the good ol’ U.S. of A. and I’m also certain the good people of Ohio know and understand that as well.

Our first stop in the Buckeye State was to see J.T and Linda McAdams in Thompson somewhat near the Cleveland area. J.T. use to be Terry and live and work with me at the post office in Oregon. Most of you know the story and I’m not going to go into if you don’t. Suffice to say we were very good friends as were our wives at the time. We both lost wives and then lost touch with each other for a while but that has been corrected. The wives too! It was great to see J.T. and meet Linda. We plan on staying in touch this time and doing some RV’ing together. We spent a few days in their driveway and saw some of NE Ohio. Mostly J.T. and I got caught up and then got to enjoy Ike. Hurricane Ike that is! The remnants came through Ohio while we were there and disrupted things for a time. Thompson had 98 mph winds and knocked out power for three or four days although we left on the second day of that. We only sat in the dark for a short time because J.T. has a generator. And of course being in the RV, we are self contained and don’t have to worry about that stuff.

Then it was off to Columbus and a visit with my family. We did stop at the Ohio state park at Alum Creek long enough to be ripped off by paying for a site with electricity and not having any. It was a small thing and I know that the crews were working hard to clean up the mess from Ike, but I still think the State of Ohio owes us a free night at a state park. Anyway; on to Columbus! As is always the case now, we park in front of sister Sandy’s house in the cul-de-sac and make ourselves to home. Brother-in-law Dom had even wired us up with 30 amp electrical service. Maybe he was trying to make up for the state park system? And as is also always the case, we had a wonderful visit. I’m sure lots of folks think their family is about the best and I’m no exception, except of course …………………... I am right!! Ha! The highlight of this visit was going to a Ohio State football game. Nephew Dom (Donnie) got tickets for Sandy, myself, nephew Mike and his son Garrett. I hadn’t been to a Buckeye game at the ‘shoe’ (Ohio States famous ‘Horseshoe’ stadium) since 1960 when I was dating Janie Biggs. She was the daughter of the then team trainer, Ernie Biggs. That was a while ago and it has changed a lot, which you may, or may not, know? I did not! And I watch a lot of football. On TV of course. Anyway; it use to be that you dressed in something nice, went to the game, watched the game, cheered and applauded as appropriate, maybe had a Coke, watched Woody do a minor (or major) rant, and maybe, if you were fortunate, you had an Ohio State hat. No longer!! Now you dress in everything Ohio State Buckeye scarlet and gray, I think in some cases right down to your underwear. Face or body paint would be acceptable, as would a string of Buckeyes around your neck. You would want to get there about three hours before game time to go to the ‘Skull session’ and see the band and team members and hear something from coach Tressel. You might get your picture taken with Brutus the Buckeye (we did), buy anything Ohio State, or any kind of party or tailgate food at any of the assorted booths surrounding the stadium. It is pretty much insane. Not in a bad way, just wild and crazy and colorful and loud. And then you go into the stadium. A sea of scarlet, with the band, cheering student sections, and waves, and the Jumbotron to show you what you can’t see. It’s just nuts. But it was really cool and I thank young Dominic for the experience. And they won! Beating Minnesota something, something, to something. But I’m still not the biggest Tressel fan.

After the game we went to young Dominic’s for a family reunion. Technically it would be mostly Sandy’s family which is of course is also my family, minus my kids who would be in Oregon. Aunt Mary, our family matriarch was there as were cousins Patti and Nancy from Iowa and Illinois respectively. Mike and Phyllis made it from North Carolina, and I think pretty much all the Columbus folks were there. Mostly all who could be, were there. Sheri was our most gracious host and of course it was a joy to be there. I know that, because of course,…….Sheri told me I knew that! Just kidding Sheri!

So once again we spent some time in Columbus and saw some old friends and places; went to the GUM men’s breakfast, and traded barbs with Phil and Sam (a regular thing now, the breakfast too); spent hours getting up to date with Sandy and Don’ and enjoying their company and hospitality; played a little with Buffy, who is still just sooo cute!; blocked Rose’s view down the street for a couple of weeks; and risked life and limb while Kevin roared in and out of the driveway next to us. It was all good and in time we’ll go back and do it again!

Over the mountains to Niagara

We had a very pleasant journey through the White or maybe the Green mountains to Niagara Falls. I get the White and the Green mixed up but we did them both at some point in our New England travels so I’m not going to look it up just now. We stayed in state parks along US Hwy 2 and the St Lawrence seaway through NH, VT, and NY. They had names like Coles Creek, Sackets Harbor, and Four Creek. It may have been a little early for the renowned ‘fall’ color but it was still a beautiful and relaxing trip. I was in part influenced by the fact that we were headed west. I’ve done this a lot in the past ten years and it always happens that I feel just a little better heading west. Maybe it’s some of what Horace Greeley was talking about that comes out in me. More likely it’s familiarity and comfort level and the calling of home and heart. Anyway! The weather was great, the highways were in good shape, the traffic was light, and mostly it was just us. How bad can that be? Far from it!

I do have one small complaint though. Well, maybe not so small! There ain’t no moose! There’s s’posed to me moose!!! I wouldn’t complain, but this is moose country and every few miles there is a yellow sign that says “Watch for Moose”. Well, I’ve been watching and all I can say is. “Liar, Liar”!
I saw one moose (pictured) but he was a poor specimen indeed.

It was at Four Creek that we stopped for a few days and went in to Niagara Falls. We drove the few miles south into Niagara Falls and parked at some cultural (?) center or something, which overlooked the Niagara river. We didn’t realize but a few minutes later a trolley came by and we ran over to see what was the deal. As it turned out it was a trolley to the Falls. Not only that, but it was free. So we got on for the ride. The trolley dropped us at the Visitor Center and scenic overlooks, and the place where you ride the Maid of the Mist. All this was very unexpected and we thought quite fortuitous. We took the Maid of the Mist boat ride which was quite a ‘kick’. The boat takes you up passed American Falls and into the spray and mist of Horseshoe Falls. Everybody gets a blue plastic raincoat for the trip and as it turns out, it really is necessary. We couldn’t believe how much spray we got. We got on with some folks who were on a tour and they told us that they were told to go to the front of the boat for the best experience. We got right up front and I think they were told right. We had a great view and we got all the spray and mist. I was worried the camera might be ruined but it came through OK. Kat was a little more ‘the worse for wear’. She had trouble pulling her hood tight and really got soaked all the way to her underwear. We did some other things but it really was the highlight of Niagara Falls.

Maybe I should not relate this story but it’s kind of hard to resist. When we bought our tickets, got our raincoats, and walked down to get in line for the Maid of the Mist ride we got behind two young couples who were probably French Canadian. They may have been French or Belgian or something but they were foreign and spoke what sounded mostly French. The guys were wearing their funny little European shoes and what I would call Capri’s, or I have heard them called mud pants. I don’t think these guys would say mud pants though. That would be too masculine I think? I’m trying to set the mood here. They were very European and I think Capri’s is the best term. Anyway, one of them was trying to help the other put on his blue raincoat. These are very lightweight see-through raincoats and I just couldn’t shake the image I was getting. And as too often happens I voice what I’m thinking. Out of the clear blue I said to them, “kind of like trying to put on a giant blue condom huh”? Kat just about pee’d in her pants and said later , she would have “crawled under a rock if she could have found one”; fortunately these guys and girls thought it was kind of cute too. Well maybe, because I think after they had some time to think about it for a couple of minutes they weren’t so sure it was so cute. They kind of shied away from us and we didn’t see them the rest of the trip……… Oh well!

Bar Harbor

We’re just about as far east as you can get in the US, but not quite. Lebec, about 2 hours (half that as the crow flies ENE of here) is the eastern most point. At least that’s our neighbors story. We’re camped next to a couple of couples from there. As I told them, “we’ll just call that good, two couples from Lebec is close enough.” Maybe the next trip when the roads are better we’ll do more! We’ve been on US Hwy 1 and it has been a piece of crap. Hard on the dishes and RV. Yesterday we took the free shuttle from our campground into Bar Harbor to sightsee, shop, and have lunch. On the way back I was going nuts. There were too many screaming kids, talking people, and the ride was right out of ‘hell’. We were sitting over the rear wheels and having our innards relocated by the jarring ride on the washboard Hwy 1. I think we’ve both had enough of the East Coast for now. It has been fun and we’ve seen a lot but……!!! It’s time to go. Too many people and cars in too little space.

But, we’ll be feeling better and getting into a little more relaxed situation in the next couple of days. Labor Day is upon us. Shops and eateries are already closing the day before Labor day. All the screaming kids, their idiot parents and ankle biting dogs can go back home and to school where they belong. That may be a little harsh but you know what I mean.

Before I close on Bar Harbor I really need to say that in spite of what I’ve written, the New England experience has been very nice. It’s much nicer than I remember from last time. Nice people and scenic country. A good experience all around. Kat says she could even live here. That may be too much of a stretch for me but it was nice. We saw the coast (the ‘shore’ as some call it back here), Acadia National Park, Kat got some lobster at the ‘lobster pound’, and I had haddock which was very good. I’m just not a lobster guy when it’s about $32 a pop. If it were half that I might go for one. But the lobster pound experience is not to be missed and I enjoyed Kat enjoying her lobster. Messy! Messy!

As a side note I must report on Jade. She escaped last night sometime and came back about 6:30 this AM. We didn’t miss her until she came back. You may remember that she uses the RV door catch as a “knocker” when she wants in. I thought I heard knocking and then the doorbell rang! Kat was still sleeping but I got up and sure enough it was Jade. We put on one of those cheap stick-on door bells and the button is pretty close to Jade’s regular knocker and she somehow ‘rang’ the bell. Then I discovered she had knocked over the lamp, pulled back the shade, and opened the screen. Who knows how long she was gone? But I guess she figured she didn’t want to become one of, or get eaten, by one of those Maine Coon cats!

Mr Bill and NYC

It’s been a great summer for watermelon. I just had to put that somewhere. I don’t know when I have had more or better watermelon than we have all the way back to Georgia. That was back in April and we have kept one in the frig since then. I cut up half in chunks and put it in a Tupperware bowl and cover the other half with plastic wrap and then do it all again in order as necessity dictates. We often sit, each armed with a fork and the bowl between us stabbing sweet and juicy chunks of watermelon and doing whatever else we happen to be doing. The only rule is, no ‘dirty pickin’; that will get you a gentle, or not, stabbing with a fork.

But this is titled, Mr. Bill and NYC. We really wanted to go to New York City and see at least a few of the sites. Whether justified or not I have always had a little trepidation about driving the motorhome into and thru large metro areas. I think NYC qualifies as a large metro area. Still we were looking for solutions and ultimately arrived at one. There are just a couple of campgrounds somewhat near NYC and they do offer bus tours to the ‘Big Apple’. We chose the KOA park north of the city in Plattekill, NY. As far as we’re concerned it was a good choice. We took the Gray Line tour from there.

Our tour guide referred to himself as Mr. Bill and he did a very commendable job. He was very knowledgeable and kept us all from going too far astray in the crowds and hustle and bustle of the city, all the while telling us what it was we were seeing. Much of the tour was sightseeing from the bus but there were 4 or 5 stops to get out, look around, or do a little shopping. We got out for the ferry ride to Liberty Island and the Statue of Liberty, with a stop at Ellis Island and a walk through Battery Park. We stopped for lunch at South Street seaport on a pier that had a great view of the Brooklyn Bridge. Then we stopped at the Empire State building and Times Square, where we got a piece of Juniors very famous cheesecake. We drove through Little Italy, China Town, by the WTC site, which is now closed for construction, and passed Rockefeller Center and down Broadway. My disclaimer for folks more knowledgeable than I about the ‘Big Apple’ is that it wasn’t necessarily in that order. It was a very good tour and I would recommend it to all. But rather than talk more about it or give you some kind of history lesson, I will just post some of our pictures.

The GPS experience and Muddy Run

I don’t know if I ever mentioned that we bought a GPS unit back in North Carolina. Kat had been wanting one and we were in Wal-Mart very near her birthday when we found a unit she wanted. So we got it! The pity of it is, and I swear this is true, not 10 minutes after we bought it, Kat’s son Rick called and asked if she would like a GPS for her birthday. I’m thinking, “crap Rick, you could have called 15 minutes earlier and saved me $200”. Her was even going to buy the same unit at Wal-Mart and have us pick it up at the Wal-Mart in NC. Anyway we got the GPS. It’s a Tom-Tom for better or worse and Kat appears to be happy with it and play with it a lot. I don’t get to use it much, but I do get to follow the directions of my new “over the road” boss, Susie. That’s her computer generated voice, Susan actually. The are other voices, there’s even a Mr. T, and we understand other folks have more descriptive ‘pet’ names, some not so nice. The Wayward B#@&*, and the Navigator from Hell, among others, have come to my mind. Susie can be very accurate or she can be very inaccurate, or put a different way, she can be very, very good, or very, very bad. It’s a ‘garbage in, garbage out’ kind of a thing. One of the problems we encounter is that she doesn’t know we’re driving a land barge and pulling a dingy behind us. She just doesn’t have a real good conceptual knowledge of road width and clearances. And sometimes an address we use for a destination may not be the address we should use, like campground X may get it’s mail at address Y, and it’s hard for us to park at address Y, a PO Box. And sometimes addresses and coordinates are wrong or get entered wrong. Anyway it can be a challenge at times. I have found that a little common sense and skepticism go a long way. But it took some experience.

When we left Washington DC and headed for destinations north we had some specific problems that kind of highlight our learning curve. Our intent was to skirt Philadelphia and the major metro areas, spend a couple of nights in Pennsylvania and take a back door into New Jersey. Well! Susie avoided everything. We did see a couple of barns but I don’t know that they were in use, and I had to stop a couple of times to clean the broken branches off the TV antenna and air conditioner. Then I missed a turn! Believe me, you don’t want to miss a turn in these circumstances. It may be OK on the Interstate or somewhere they don’t actually have to pump sunshine into, but you don’t want to miss a turn in rural Pennsylvania. Susie will recalculate! And after a tough day of recalculating I think she becomes a little agitated and slightly vindictive. It’s like, “OK you stupid sucker, let’s see if you can follow this”. In this case we were headed down a road between two cow pastures and then the pavement ran out, and then the fence ran out, and then the cows ran out, and then the gravel disappeared down a gully and into the forest. And there is no place to turn around. I mean it’s disconnect the car and back the RV a half mile back up the road and turn around. Just before I start that process a pick-up pulls up behind us and a rural Pennsylvanian gets out and says “ya lost?” I said “ah heck no, we were just getting ready to spread a blanket get out the cheese and bread and have a glass of wine, care to join us”? Well actually that wasn’t the conversation at all, but the rest is mostly true. He asked if we were headed to Muddy Run campground, which we were, and then told us the road (for want of a better term) does go thru to the highway and it’s just a couple miles to the campground. Whew!!!!! But it was down through the forest and gully and pretty tight for the barge. What he didn’t tell us was that there was a tree down covering half the road (for lack of a better term). I was able to get out and pull it off the road some and then Kat held the branches out of the way while I drove thru. But we made it! And Susie proved to be right. But like I said she doesn’t know I’m not driving a Volkswagen Bug!

Muddy Run was! And all the RV sites available were hillbilly sites. That is; Hillbillies, like me, built with one leg longer than the other to be able to stay level walking down the ridgeline. Except here they were so far from level the jacks just couldn’t compensate enough. Even with ‘Boarding House’ rules we were bumping into each other frequently, not that that is such a bad thing when Kat is the bumpee, nevertheless I made certain I got the uphill side of the bed. But it wasn’t all bad, they had lots of critters for Jade to watch and a nice little café with great ice cream cones.

Cherry Hill

Cherry Hill is a very nice RV Park just on the Washington DC Beltway in College Park MD. There are not many choices at all near DC for parking an RV and seeing the city. This is perhaps the best and in fact the only one I/we’ve tried. It has all the amenities, pool, café, rec hall, and a store with an RV supply section. They even have a tourism director on site who can help with all those little tourism things. On our first day we went to the orientation and picked out a few things to do. Not that it’s hard. If you can’t find something to do in Washington something is very wrong. And a whole lot of it is free. Transportation is easy and relatively inexpensive if you don’t mind public transportation, that being the Metro, and some walking. We had to take a bus to the nearest Metro Rail station and then from there you can virtually get about anywhere in the metro area including all the tourist attractions.

We did all kinds of stuff and quite frankly the first couple of days kind of wore us out. We went to the National Zoo (free), and the National Mall and all it’s museums including, Air and Space, Modern Art (yuk), Natural History, American History (unfortunately closed), Art (plain old), the Botanical Garden etc, etc. all free. Then we rested at the pool a little and started again. We chose to take the Washington-By-Night bus tour and it was well worth the price. It’s mostly a driving tour with four or five stops at monuments including the Lincoln, Jefferson, and FDR Memorials. It’s not quite as easy as it used to be to get in the Capitol so we contacted Ron Wyden, one of our Senators for a tour and did that one day. An aid is assigned to conduct tours on a regular basis. We were fortunate to see the House Republicans in their protest of Speaker of the House Nancy Polosi’s decision to not bring an energy bill to the floor for a vote. Kat and I would have stayed longer to watch that but we only had a short time. Still it was great to see. Go House Republicans! The rest of the tour was good too but the highlight for me was to see Polosi getting slammed a little, though not nearly enough. We went to the Supreme Court building and Union Station and had an opportunity to by a hot dog and coke for $9, that would have been $9 for each of us, but we passed. We did get some good frozen desserts from a stand for only $3 each. I didn’t say it was all cheap. We had lunch at the Dept. of Agriculture cafeteria and that was neat. I wondered if that was where my grandma used to eat when she worked in DC way back in the 50’s? Who knows?

We did experience one of the sadder moments of our RV travels while at Cherry Hill. Our neighbors from California, Henry and Mildred Hoyt took the DC-By Night tour a few days before we did and Millie, who I really never had the opportunity to meet, though Kat did briefly, took suddenly ill and passed away at the FDR Memorial. I had talked to Hank a little before this happened and he was real nice old guy, they were in their 80’s. During the tour Millie complained of feeling a little poorly and went to the restroom. They found her passed out in the restroom just a few minutes later. She had had a heart attack went into a comma and could not be revived. We didn’t know all this immediately but when they didn’t show up at the RV for a couple of days Kat inquired at the office and found out what had happened. When Hank did show up he was obviously devastated. I talked to him at length and Kat gave him some hugs and attention. Two of his children came back to help him make arrangements and get home. He was going to go stay with his daughter and ‘son’ in law who had some interesting work for him to do. It had something to do with cleaning up fossils and tree burls, anyway, Hank was looking forward to it. Like I said, Hank and I talked quite a while over the course of the two or three days before he left. I’d like to think that if nothing else I provided come comfort in listening and understanding. He was a nice old guy! We’ve sent him a couple of cards and hope he is well.