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...

Niagara Falls

Well, it is now August 10th - we left Ohio this morning for Niagara Falls, NY. Stopped at a rest stop for some lunch and talked with a tour guide at a booth there. We signed up for two Niagara tours – one on Tuesday and one on Wednesday. Found our campground - Niagara Heartland CG - which was about 30 minutes from Niagara Falls.  Here is the entrance to the CG and a picture out our back window at our site:

Unfortunately, when I went to unhook the trailer, the hitch would not open up.  And we could tell that the handle was loose/broken? Finally opened up the RV and got on line and found the phone number for the Reese Hitch Company. After discussing our situation with them, they emailed a list of Reese businesses in the area. I called the first one and explained my problem. The serviceman (Jay) asked where we were staying. When I told him, he said: “Oh, Don Stanton lives there. He helps us out a lot.” So I went to the office and asked the CG manager if Don was in the CG. He called him and he came right over to our site. He took my screwdriver and pried the jaws open so that we could unhook. Once we got setup, I drove to the Reese RV store (Manelli’s). Got lost of course and finally asked a guy who was getting his mail how I could get there. He told me that the street and road names change and that I was on right road. So I continued on – needed gas so I stopped at a station – about that time the skies opened up and the wind blew so hard I had to stand behind a pump to keep from getting soaked. Finally made it to the shop and Jay took the hitch out. He said that there were two problems – a clip had come off which made the handle feel like it was broken. Also the frame was bent. He knew of someone who could straighten it and arranged to get it taken care of. When I told him about our touring the Falls area, he also mentioned seeing the Lockton Canal and taking the boat ride thru the locks. He also suggested Reids, a popular hot dog drive inn that has excellent food and is cheap.

The next day we drove to Niagara Falls for our tour.  We caught our bus at a Super 8 and left our truck there.  We drove to various areas to see the falls:

Here we are just above the Falls.

 

These pictures show the Falls from various angles.  Notice the wooden walkways in some of them.

We took an elevator down 18 stories to get to the walkway below the Falls.  At this point we are on the walkway about to climb the stairs to the top.  Check out the 'fashionable footwear!!  Everybody gets to wear them.

At some points you were so close to the water that it was rushing over your feet. I kept looking at the construction of the stairs and platforms and wasn’t too sure how it was put together to hold all of the people that were there. But we survived.  Here is our 'after' picture.

We also took the boat tour right up to the falls, again with raincoats on.

Had it been windy, we would have really felt the spray, but it wasn’t bad at all. Apparently, with all the new buildings that have been put up on the Canadian side, there is not as much wind around the Falls and therefore, not as much spray.  Our tour guide said that in the 160 years that the boat tours have been taking place, there has never been a single accident, so we were it!

Our tour took us to some islands above the Falls - here is Mom on a bridge.

After the tour on our way home, we stopped at Reids and did indeed have two great sausage sandwiches, onion rings, and two drinks for $8.15!!

When we got back to the CG, we realized that someone had left three logs in our fire pit so we sat outside, burned all of our ‘shredder’ paper and ate s’mores.

The next day I picked up my hitch from Joe at Manelli’s. He lubed everything up, sprayed silicone grease on my slider hitch, made sure that it worked properly and then said have a good trip. I said, wait, what do I owe? His reply was, oh, give me $10 bucks!! Can you believe that? All I had was $20, so he got that.

In the afternoon we left for our second tour of Niagara Falls. Took a larger tour bus and it was full. We crossed over into Canada but first had to go thru customs. Since we had foreigners on the bus, we all had to get off and go into the customs office with our passports. No problems, but it just took time. We then toured the city and area by bus. Some of our group took the Maid of the Mist tour from the Canadian side while we went up in the tower to see the sights. WOW – both Falls are fabulous from this side. Later we picked up the boat people and saw the American and Canadian power plants. According to our tour guide, the American plant supplies electricity for NY City while he gets his electricity in Niagara Falls City from Pennsylvania. Go Figure!!

Later he dropped us all off to go behind the Falls. We donned rain coats again and then took an elevator down to these tunnels that take you to the back of the Falls.

Very impressive. Then we came back up and watched some fireworks which were very impressive as well.

By the time we got back to Niagara Falls and everyone got dropped off at their respective hotels, and we drove back to the campground, it was after midnight.

End of Niagara Falls trip....

Northeast Ohio

We then drove on to Conneaut, OH where our campground is located. Unfortunately, I had two sets of directions, and, of course, the one that I followed was wrong. But we did get to see Lake Erie while making our way to the right CG. I should have known when I booked this CG (Windy Hills Golf Club and Campground) where their priorities lie. When I checked in, the guy gave us site 60. We drove over into the campground and could not find site 60 so we took site 61. Before we could call him to tell him about the site, another 5th wheel pulled up and guess what site they were given? Right – site 61! Anyway, they didn’t mind, and took another site close to us. Mom did call back in and told him, but I don’t think he believed us!

The next day we drove back into Conneaut to the post office to get the mail that Julie had sent. The postal clerk looked into a cabinet and said “No, I don’t think its here.” Fortunately, I could see an envelope that looked like the ones Julie uses, so I asked him about it and it was the one for us. We walked over to a McDonalds, had some coffee and read our mail. In the afternoon on our way back to the CG, we saw a sign about a covered bridge so we checked it out.

Mom saw that there was a lighthouse in Ashtabula, OH which was about 8 miles away. It was a beautiful drive as we were right on the Lake Erie coastline all the way. We thought we should be able to see the lighthouse, but couldn’t. When we got to Ashtabula, we drove across this very ‘tight’ draw bridge and finally ended up on an overlook where you can see the bridge and hundreds of coal cars. The bridge raises on the hour and half hour to let boats thru – even the smaller fishing boats had to wait.

Anyway, the coal is brought here by rail and then unloaded with a conveyor system that takes the coal from the rail yard across the narrow waterway to a coal pile where tankers are then loaded. Very interesting. We also toured a museum there. It started raining so we headed back to the CG and spent the afternoon there.

We went to church on Sunday morning and then back to the CG to change clothes. We stopped at a busy restaurant (call The Beef & Beer Restaurant) and had Sunday dinner. Mom had stir fry and I had hot roast beef sandwich. Both were delicious. Then we drove over a to a city park/beach right on Lake Erie. We brought our books and a couple of blankets so we could lie on the hill and read. I walked down the stairs and out the boardwalk to the lake and back which took about 20 minutes. There was a big beach there with a lot of people swimming, etc. We were there most of the afternoon.

Here is a picture of of our 'reading' spot!!

Longaberger???

Well, it is now Auust 7th and we left the campground in Canal Winchester and drove to Newark, OH to see the Longaberger Home Office; it is made to look like a basket and looks real. As you are driving down the highway, you can see the handles sticking up in the air – there’s no missing it.

Then we drove to Frazyberg, OH where the Longaberger factory is. Took the self guided tour – they have an elevated walkway above the floor so that you can watch them make baskets. Very fascinating. After that, Mom made a basket herself. Here are some pictures of her making the basket, (with a little bit of help from Joe!!). The first picture is of the mold that is used to start the basket and Joe is looking for the right color strips for Mom to weave.

This picture shows her weaving the basket (round and round) and the next one is of her cutting off the excess.

Here she is pounding in the small nails to hold the final pieces in place. And, FINALLY, the finished product!!

Here are a couple more pictures around the facility:

It was a very enlightening experience for both of us and we thoroughy enjoyed it.

Next Stop - Conneaut and Ashtubula, OH