Massachusetts (1)

Well, it is now August 13th and we left for the Albany, NY area on our way to Massachusetts. Since it is a 400 mile trip, we decided to split it up into two days. We found our campground up in the mountains (1500 ft above sea level) got parked and enjoyed the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

In the morning, we left NY State and crossed over into MA. Almost immediately, we were in the Berkshire Mountains. What a beautiful drive. We got off the freeway and headed to our campground (Highview CG) a few miles from West Brookfield. Quite a drive up into mountains again but we found it.

This is a picture of the mountains in the distance.

While we were setting up, Larry arrived with sandwiches from the Loose Goose. That was a welcome site.
PS – forgot to mention that I90 thru NY is all toll road, and, from Rochester to Albany, our toll was over $38!
Seemed like a nice CG but had numerous electrical problems.  We didn’t get it straightened out but had to leave because we wanted to go with Larry to meet up with Jacky and Hannah. We picked up Jacky at the Loose Goose Restaurant and then drove over to the Muddy Brook Farm to get Hannah. She has been working with the horses there all summer from 9 to 5 and loves it.

8/15 Hannah was in a parade today with her horse, Bubbles, and, afterwards the girls that rode in the parade for the Farm give pony rides.

Does she look like she might be a little tired at this point?

8/16 The Muddy Brook Farm held their own horse show today so we were there by 10 AM and watched Hannah ride “Bubbles” in several events. She has been riding Bubbles for only about 3 weeks so far to train him. He still likes to do his own thing and doesn’t follow her instructions at times so she didn’t score very high, but she didn’t seem to care at all. Nancy and Mike came to watch Hannah so we had a nice visit with them.

And, after the show, there is alot of work to be done, including a bath for Bubbles!!

After the show, we drove back to our CG and we all went swimming in the pool.

Later, we started a fire in the fire pit and cooked sausages over the fire for supper. Later, we had s’mores.

We continue to have electrical challenges. I bought a 30’ 50 amp extension cord (not cheap - $175) to see if that would help. According to people on the Hitchhiker forum, you lose power when you have to extend your cord so far, and, with the 30 amp cord, the CG was supplying, we were losing too much power. Well, the new cord helps, but it still doesn’t solve our problem. It seems that when we turn on the hot water switch, there is a power drain. Don’t know what to do about that, but some have said that the anode rod the heater could be a problem (don’t understand that at all since we do have hot water). Anyway, I took out the anode rod (first, I had to buy a ½ inch socket wrench, an extender, and a 1-1/16 socket to do it – cost $45) to check it because they say that it should be replace at least annually and ours is over two years old. And they were right - it was badly corroded so I bought two new ones and now have a spare.

Our 3 tanks are in need of dumping (hint: the water in the kitchen sink wouldn’t drain out!!) so I tried to do that this afternoon. The black tank drained and then I started the gray tank but noticed that it was draining very slow. So I walked to the back of the trailer to see what was happening at the drain into the ground, and, sure enough, it was spewing out of the ground. I guess the septic tank was full or clogged or something. So I didn’t get the kitchen drain emptied. But I decided then and there that we were moving to some other CG. I found another CG on the internet and it turns out that it is the same distance to Belchertown as this CG is. I gave them a call and found out that they are full thru Labor Day but do have a holding site across the street.

And the monthly rate is $575 (compared to the $850 they want at this CG). We drove down to this place to see it, liked it, and reserved it starting tomorrow.

8/22 Hannah has another show today. Before we left the CG, I drained the kitchen tank – some spilled onto the ground again but it soaked right in. When we left for the show, we stopped at the CG office and told John that we would be leaving. I told him about the septic problem and he said that they were having problems with chipmonks. What next?
Anyway, this horse show was at the Sycamore Stables:

We drove to Belchertown and picked up Larry (Jacky and Hannah had already gone to the show), and drove to the farm for the show.

Hannah won a 1st, a 2nd, and a 3rd in the events she rode in. She was ecstatic and so were we!

We found out later that the day before, the owner of Bubbles rode her for about an hour and Hannah rode her for about two hours. So I guess the training helped.
That's enough for now...