In the beginning…

Best to start at the beginning, don’t you think? As our very first post, we’ll give some background which might be a bit boring for most. April and I are in our ’60’s, married 40+ years, 3 wonderful grown kids with families doing their own things, and retired summer of ’16. We both love to travel and thought our way through the options, landing on the decision to buy a small- or medium-size travel trailer to use for annual longer (3-month) and shorter treks around the US and Canada.

We did the research, concluded an Airstream was too pricey for us as newbies, and purchased a 2017 Forest River Rockwood Mini Lite 2104S. Link to get info on the current model of the 2104S. To the uninitiated (which we were until we dove into this), the model number usually starts with the trailer length from the hitch to the back bumper, so the actual length of the trailer box is about 3′ less. Lots of categories and sub-categories in the RV world – you’ve seen tow-behind travel trailers as well as “5th wheel” trailers which connect to the bed of a pickup. The travel trailer we’re getting will be towed behind our 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee diesel and we will unhitch it from the car almost every time we set up camp.

Note that all of the posts that follow are in chronological order from most recent to oldest. This covers all of our major trips, which now total about 50,000 miles – all of the lower 48 states and 7+ provinces. Lots of stories. We often get asked, “What’s been our favorite …(fill in the blank)”, and we can never come up with just one answer. Fun stuff. Enjoy.

(Notes: Best to click “Follow” since we only post when we travel and don’t travel all the time. We and WordPress don’t spam. We use plenty of links in the posts to allow you to dive into the details and over time some links won’t work. Let me know where I can update an older post. There are now a lot of posts so more enjoyable to search/scan from a computer vs mobile to find a particular park or destination.)

Schoodic Peninsula – it’s the coast of Maine!

First another shot of the primeval forest along one of the trailer near our campground. This was one of the best trail-running spots yet and I know the elves were watching me…

Got a recommendation from Lisa about the seafood chowder and pie at Helen’s in Ellsworth along our route after crossing into Maine. It was 10:30am right after opening but, hey, it was 11:30 Atlantic time so in we went. Got lemon meringue and blueberry pie slices to go and they were even better than the chowder and lobster roll! Loved their sign.

Our site at Acadia Seashore Camping was another win – the sunset views were unbelievable..

On our 2019 New England trip, we spent several days in Acadia National Park, but on the more popular and larger western section on Mt. Desert Island. This time, it was all about the Schoodic Peninsula. Seeing the beauty of the Maine coast, hearing the sounds of the waves against the rocks (many different sounds!), watching the porpoises or lobster boats in Frenchman Bay – this is a special place.

So glad to finally use the bike rack adapter, took advantage of the bike-friendly roadway and trails that wrap around the park’s perimeter mostly along the peninsula coastline. One of the recommendations when we checked in at the campground was Raven’s Nest, an unmarked trail to some incredible rock formations. The sounds of the waves rushing into this gorge were moving, even with relatively calms seas.

A surprise was The Schoodic Institute, located in the former campus of the Navy Security Group Activity Base. When Rockefeller was putting in his carriage roads on Mt. Desert Island, the existing Navy facility was in the way, so he “convinced” them to move to Schoodic Point. The main building, and others, were designed by an architect retained by Rockefeller – not your typical Navy facility! Since 2004, this has been a research and teaching institute with a very impressive offering including meeting facilities.

A late lunch was at Corea Lunch on the Wharf, another recommendation from our campground host, and one of the best lobster rolls – and chowder – yet. And, once again, we had a spectacular view while munching our lunch.

We’re one stop away from the end of this, the longest phase of our summer adventure. Today we drive to my cousin’s in Ogonquit where we’ll park in his driveway for the night. Then our home-on-wheels heads back into storage for a few weeks before we step our way south. So many incredible sights, so much local seafood, so much poutine…!

Campobello: The journey and the destination!

Our anticipation of a fun driving day was spot on – also fun knowing that for most folks these ferry rides are just a way to get somewhere. No surprise, the terrain on the drive to the first boat was looking more and more like inland Maine.

As with many coastal regions, the first ferry between Letete and Deer Island is free, as an extension of the highway. It’s always a bit of a thrill driving our “big” (it’s actually not) trailer onto any ferry, especially so with the low tide and steep on/off ramps.

Deer Island was, for us, simply a road between ferries, but it’s got some interesting features, most notably Old Sow, the largest tidal whirlpool in the western hemisphere! We didn’t see that one, but did see smaller whirlpools due to the same effect of tidal flow in, out and around all the islands in this area (they’re in the photo, though you might need some imagination).

The next ferry was even more of an adventure – smaller, and the tide was a bit lower still. Between Deer Island and Campobello Island, the ferry has no loading dock but drops its ramp onto the beach (concrete on Campobello)! Per our very own Cap’n Tom, it’s a “hard connected hip tow” aka, a tug boat next to a barge. Much quieter when the engines aren’t in the same boat.

Took a time-lapse of the approach…pretty cool!

Our campsite #34 at Herring Cove Provincial Park was nestled in a primordial forest complete with dark, moss-covered forest floor…and a hobbit house! We can tell it’s post-Labor Day, as the campground and the park are almost empty.

We’re working on using up food as we near the end of the journey, but just had to try out the local lunch fare, at The Porch. Still in Canada, so couldn’t pass up the bbq pork poutine paired with a Picaroons Irish Red (part of my BPPPPV regimen, right RB?), while April had the housemade tomato soup and a BLT – delish! And, of course, a spectacular view; note the salmon farming cages right offshore.

Exploring a bit, got to the south end of the island and the Mulholland Point Lighthouse at the foot of the bridge to nearby Lubec in the US of A. Lubec is the easternmost town in the US, with a clever slogan: “Where the sun first rises and adventure awaits!”

The trails from the campground wind through some gorgeous, mossy terrain and made for a couple of pleasant morning runs. Lots of oxygen in these woods!

The main attraction is Roosevelt Campobello International Park, and it alone is well worth the extra few hours north of wherever you’re going or living in Maine. This is the only park in the world co-managed by two countries, a beautiful, well-tended and historically-rich testament to the Island, to FDR and, especially, to Eleanor. We started with a fascinating ranger talk (they always are!) about the former first lady at “Eleanor’s Tea”. Her life has so many stories, some are tragic and most are inspiring…her advocacy for the working class (a first lady in a coal mine?!), African Americans, women’s rights and others had roots in her childhood. The talk did a wonderful job of looping her mother’s derogatory label for her, “granny” back to her late-age reputation as a loving granny for many.

Campobello entered the Roosevelt sphere due to its development as a summer destination for the rich in the 1880’s, and many, including the Roosevelts and their neighbors the Hubbards, built “cottages” there, both beautifully restored. That fireplace is in the Hubbard entry hall – what a thoughtful first impression!

This was FDRs bedroom, where he first suffered the impact of polio and where their 5^th child, Franklin, Jr., (tragically, the second FDR, Jr.) was born – their only child born in Canada.

Lunch at the Prince Café in the park was lobster grilled cheese and another brothy-not-creamy version of seafood chowder, our favorite style (check out the chunks of haddock!). Oh, and it was served with a view.

If you’re not interested in energy geek stuff, skip this. You might recall we drove past the only tidal power plant in North America, in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. No surprise this isn’t the first rodeo…given the tidal swing in the Bay of Fundy, there has been a recurring vision of tidal power in this area, first conceived in 1920 by a civil engineer named Dexter Cooper, friend of FDR. Fascinating story of politics, technical challenges and practical constraints, it was started in part as a jobs creator in the great depression and never completed – though the project town and one dam remains. In the picture, the first and only dam constructed still lies between Treat and Dudley islands. Cooper’s plan was audacious though feasible, to build a set of dams that would block tidal flow in this area, allow the pressure head of that water to turn a turbine after the tide swings, then do it in reverse for the opposing tide – magical renewable energy! It was estimated to provide enough power for the entire state of Maine. Crazy? Maybe, but there have been plenty of similar grandiose projects: the Aswan, Three Gorges, and even Hoover dams, to name a few – all with their pros and cons.

Today we cross the bridge to Lubec, Maine, then south a bit to near Acadia National Park – back to the USA!

Back to New Brunswick: St. Andrews By-the-Sea

We saw plenty of motorcycles on the drive through Digby to the ferry, but no big jam-ups with the Wharf Rat Rally going on and its 8,000+ bikes. Always fun putting our little trailer onto one of these boats, and the trip across the Bay of Fundy was, well, a fun day. Not too windy, no whales but some great views.

Saint Andrews is a resort town and has been since the late 19th century. Kiwanis Oceanfront Camping is on the edge of town, and the view from our “ocean view” site (#21) was spectacular. The rest of the campground is packed in, but quiet.

The town has all the features of a quaint, formerly-British old seaside resort complete with plenty of cute restaurants and shops, a picturesque harbor with the USA in view, at least 5 whale-watching tour groups, streets in a traditional English grid and a massive resort hotel from the railroad tycoon days (more on that later!) rebuilt in 1914, the Algonquin.

And every seaside resort town worth its salt has a craft brewery. In the flight of hazy IPA, saison, blueberry IPA and red ale from St Andrews Brewing Co, the red was my favorite.

We’ve seen our share of amazing gardens, and St. Andrews’ Kingsbrae Gardens is a bit unusual in that it’s relatively new – opened in 1998 – but rivals some of the oldest with its beauty and variety: sculptures, a labyrinth, woodland trail, animals, etc.

Lunch dockside at Seasons by the Sea Bistro was as delicious as the view was spectacular. Seafood chowder with a cod bahn mi (what??!) and a seafood flatbread…yum! That sailboat on the sand at low tide is from The Netherlands, has sailed around the world and has been roaming for 12 years – the solo captain was a rather colorful character.

Nearby Ministers Island is unusual in many ways, not least being it is only accessible at low tide. (Note the car to the left.) An easy bike ride from our site, at least one of us kept a close eye on the time so as not to be trapped for an extra 6 hours.

The name comes from its sale to the local minister in 1791, and it eventually ended up with Sir William Van Horne in 1891. Van Horne was one of the big-league railroad barons with a fascinating life story. An American (one of few to be knighted) who had worked with the railroads since childhood, he became famous for completing the Trans-Canada Railroad for Canadian Pacific, ahead of schedule and under budget. He viewed the railroads as key to the growing tourism industry and built a set of hotels – including the Algonquin – along the railroad line to cater to the wealthy. His 50-room summer cottage here included a 2-story bath house with a view, for his saltwater tidal swimming pool dug into the shoreline rock below.

Another hobby was his prize-winning dairy with a huge barn. (All this made me wonder what the ultra-rich tycoons of today will be remembered for….!)

Caught this early-morning scene while walking the pups along the shore across the street from our site – not at high tide. Typical of the various views we’ve enjoyed here.

Some interesting driving today…first drive to the ferry to Deer Island, drive one end to the other then another ferry to Campobello Island, our last stop in Canada!

Nova Scotia left coast: Grand Pré, Annapolis Royal, Digby

There are many places where a short drive leads to big changes in the look of the land, and Nova Scotia is no exception. This is a long post…sorry but there’s so much here (and so much interesting stuff I’ve left out)!!

From rocky seaside to lush, rolling farmland in about 50 miles, “This is the most beautiful area yet!” (nice that April says that a lot…)

On the way we stopped for lunch and some of the local cheese and produce at the Wolfville Farmers Market. Home of Acadia University, Wolfville combines college town charm with the history and beauty of the region – one in a long string of tourist destinations along this coast.

Klahanie Campground was not our preferred layout but turned out fine for this stop…it’s basically a small town with mostly permanent sites. Turned out fine – tons of little kids riding bikes and visiting each other, got very quiet at night and many people cleared out for the last half of our stay.

The history of this region is fascinating and tragic – another story of the forced migration of a peaceful, innocent culture. There are links to Cajun country, Acadia National Park, Longfellow and more. Short, generalized version is that 50 French families moved to this area in the 1600’s, co-existing with the indigenous Mi’kmaq and bringing some creative farming methods. They spread from Maine to Nova Scotia and established their own Acadian identity – separate from France – but since the area became the focal point for trade and governance by England and France, it was fought over for decades. The worst of many bad events was The Grande Dérangement, the forced expulsion by the Brits between 1755-64 of over 12,000 Acadians, who were shipped off to various ports. About half died and the rest were scattered , many eventually finding their way to New Orleans…Cajun country. Grand Pré has become the center for remembering all this, with a wonderful National Historic Site and UNESCO World Heritage status. Longfellow wrote the popular poem Evangeline in 1847 which drew attention to the story and did much to pull together the scattered Acadians.

One of the fascinating details of this fascinating history is the dike (dyke) system used by the earliest French/Acadian settlers to reclaim marshland. Given the huge tidal swing at this point in the Bay of Fundy, they built earthen dykes with unique 1-way valves, or aboiteau, to keep seawater back at high tide, and letting cleansing fresh water out at low tide – converting salty marsh to fertile, arable fields. Clever, eh? Still in use today. The houses in the distance were once on Long Island, and all that you see from there to foreground (and left-to-right out of view) is now behind aboiteau dykes.

But wait, there’s more…! Turns out the Annapolis River Valley has an abundance of vineyards and apple orchards with some pretty tasty wine. Couldn’t pass up lunch of gazpacho, cheese sandwich and fries at Luckett Vineyards, with a tasting (and purchase!).

Just over an hour to the next campground (this ain’t the US West!) and a completely different campsite setting at Mountaintop Cottages & Campground just outside Annapolis Royal.

Again, tons of fascinating history at Annapolis Royal – the practices of the indigenous First Nation Mi’kmaq, the Acadians, etc., etc. Battles between the French, British and Americans totaled 13 attacks, more than any other place in North America! This was the first capital of Acadia and, later, Nova Scotia with enough of an impact on early Canada to become a National Historic Site in 1994.

So much to see here, and first up was the Annapolis Royal Historic Gardens. Gorgeous, old, tidy, and very peaceful – huge trees, a reconstructed Acadian house, and prim English gardens.

And yes, there’s a craft brewery and cidery right in town, Annapolis Brewing Co. The Acadian Honey Brown Ale was excellent, and April’s Peach Cider was spectacular.

Digby is down the road and will be our embarkation point for the ferry back to St. John, New Brunswick. Digby is yet another quaint, historic town bigger and busier than others we’ve visited. On the way, at the Moose River in Clementsport, we passed an intriguing roadside marker. This was the trip hammer from an iron mining/foundry of the Annapolis Iron Mining Company, which operated from 1825-63. History everywhere!

Continuing down Digby Neck, there are surprisingly few houses or towns, even with water on both sides. We ended at Sandy Cove Beach, which gave Enzo and especially Chai, a rare chance to frolic on the beach (at ~14 years old and deaf, neither frolics much any more!). It’s also the location of a fascinating 19th century story (worth reading THIS link) about the Mysterious Man of Sandy Cove.

Back to Annapolis Royal and nearby sites, and this town rivals nearby Wolfville as our new favorite. It’s a small town, but amazing that the population is only 566 – that will likely change, and this place should be on everyone’s must-visit list! After coffee for the 3rd time at Sissaboo (there are other choices) we walked Lower St. George Street – just about every building is from the 17th or 18th century. Stopped at the O’Dell House Museum and if you have any ancestral link to the Acadians, these folks will help. The oldest Acadian building in Canada and first Masonic Lodge, the Sinclair Inn Museum is also unusual in that it is a deconstruction – they’ve exposed much of the old structure revealing some fascinating, typically-hidden details of the evolution of the building. Some examples are the original fireplace, and a mysterious full-room mural upstairs.

At low tide (still Bay of Fundy, so it’s about 25′ of tide) on both the Annapolis Royal and Port Royal sides of the harbor, remnants of wharves appear – reminders of how this was the capital of the province and an active shipping port.

Asked for lunch recommendations at Fort Charles and ended up at the Lazy Daisy Café for some fantastic squash soup and sandwiches – and blueberry pie!

Looking at the commanding view, it’s clear why Charles Fort National Historic Site is at that spot, where Scottish colonists arrived in 1629. (Bar trivia factoid: Though the Scots were only there 3 years, the name, flag and crest have Scottish roots.)

Capped off the day with a short and scenic walk on the Behaker Cove Trail, part of the Delaps Cove Wilderness Trail. Surprise! Yet more fascinating history as it turns out this area was a thriving Black settlement though very little remains today. Besides the stunning rocky shoreline, there’s a 40′ waterfall and stunning views from Meier Point.

On the Annapolis River side of the peninsula is Port Royal National Historic Site, a reconstruction of the Habitation, with period actors. This is where Champlain first landed, and the location of the first French settlement in North America, in 1605. Too late for an inside look, but the site and fort are spectacular.

Today we leave via a 2-hour ferry from Digby, Nova Scotia, to St. John, New Brunswick then to St. Andrews, NB. Hoping to see whales from the ferry and hoping the traffic from the annual Wharf Rat Motorcycle Rally in Digby is interesting and not a problem…!

Halifax, Peggy’s Cove, and more!

Not sure how this panorama will turn out but it’s a view of about 270 deg from directly behind our site (one corner of the trailer is on the left):

Kinda spectacular even in the fog and dull lighting and by far the best site in the campground (not sure what I did or said to deserve it!). We’re close to neighbors and the rest of the place is packed tightly but we’re parked at an angle to have the view out both sides. The pups have no clue.

Got in early enough to check out the main attraction in the area, Peggy’s Cove and the Peggy’s Point Lighthouse. Clearly on all the 10-best lists – for good reason – and a bit of culture shock for us to be back with crowds of tourists. The lighthouse is the most photographed in all of Atlantic Canada…it certainly is iconic (and close to Halifax).

Nearby is a memorial to the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111, an MD-11 from JFK to Geneva. The crash occurred five miles from Peggy’s Cove which became central to the recovery effort – faulty wiring ignited flammable insulation above the cockpit. The memorial is simple and impactful.

Much to see in Halifax, the big city in these parts and a central figure in naval history, and we started at The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Halifax was the closest major port to the 1912 Titanic disaster and where most of the rescued and recovered bodies were taken. It’s the home of Samuel Cunard, of Cunard Lines fame and there is some fascinating drama around both the development of the steamship and cruise line industry, and the competition among top players, notably Cunard and White Star Line – owners of the Titanic. Part of that drama is, as they say, history. An interesting factoid in one of the displays is that Canadian scientists have determined the steel used in the Titanic had high levels of sulfur, making it more brittle in cold temperatures. Ugh.

On the recommendation of the museum entry staffperson, we ate at The Old Triangle Irish Alehouse. Tasted the local brews (Alexander Keith’s Red Ale was my favorite by far) and had a scrumptious jambalaya – recommended over the Irish stew – while April had clam pizza. Yum.

Lunenburg, about 45 minutes southwest from our campground, was where most/much of the shipbuilding took place in North America during the “Age of Sailing” in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the town still has enough boat-building infrastructure to keep it real. Still touristy, but a nice blend and with enough historical significance to be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995.

The Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic on the wharf has some fascinating displays about the rugged and very dangerous work in the fishing industry through the centuries. In the August Gales of 1926 and 1927, 126 men were lost from the schooner fishing fleet, mostly at one of two areas called The Graveyard of the Atlantic, Sable Island on the Grand Banks (the other is off the Outer Banks of NC). As with other disasters, a root cause was the lack of ship-to-shore radio, so this became a requirement. Another fun display at the museum explained the term and history of the “Rum Runner” – fishermen of (mostly) Nova Scotia who illegally loaded their boats with rum for the US market (Boston, etc.). They could earn a year’s wages with one run but it was, of course, also dangerous work.

The museum just happened to be in the same building as a restaurant, Old Fish Factory, owned by Shipwright Brewing of Lunenburg, so it was another delicious lunch of a lobster roll, and bbq pork paired with a smooth stout. No poutine.

Another day in Halifax took us to the Art Museum of Nova Scotia and a wonderful exhibit about an artist April likes with a fascinating life story, Maud Lewis.

A prominent landmark in Halifax, for obvious good reasons, is The Citadel, a large fort with a commanding view from the top of the main hill in the city, the current structure completed by the British in 1856.

After lunch, a stroll through part of the Halifax Public Gardens, which are not only gorgeous and old (1841) but also boast a number of “firsts for Canada”: first indoor skating rink, first public lawn tennis court, first public concert.

Finishing up this entry with a string of photos from our campsite #24 at King Neptune near Peggy’s Cove. It seemed like every day brought a new scene as the weather and lighting changed…

Today we head across Nova Scotia, back on the Bay of Fundy but on the eastern shore…

Back on Cape Breton Island…for a night

We’ll be in the Halifax area for 4 nights – a lengthy stay in our travels – so this journal entry will include some random topics. But first, our waypoint stop between the Newfoundland ferry and Halifax.

The crossing was exhausting but pleasant – nice for the pups (and their handlers) that it was nighttime though their schedule was a bit off. Boarded around 11pm, cast off at midnight and landed North Sydney, Nova Scotia (on CBI) at about 7am. We again splurged for a “pet-friendly cabin” and were again very glad we did. Took this shot at dawn from our cabin as we came into harbor.

Spent the day napping and doing pretty much nothing…which was fine given the view from our site was one of the best ever.

Battery Provincial Park is small but perfect for this waypoint, with its own interesting past. It’s located in St. Peter’s at the south end of Bras d’Or Lake, which is the massive body of water that defines the rugged interior shape of Cape Breton Island, close enough to open ocean to merit a canal completed in 1869. This is the only canal in North America that is tidal – double gates at either end open and close based on the tide, no pumping needed!

Through steady light rain (better than full sun for long drives), April again found what turned out to be a perfect combination of full-on bakery and spectacular lunch spot, with a great name: Hurricane Heidi’s. How many places have homemade Mulligatawny soup – with a pesto, goat cheese and tomoato panini and egg salad, delish!! Couldn’t resist, so picked up two bags of pastries for dessert and breakfast.

They did not have poutine. After an active discussion with TU friends recently about the dish, I decided to dig into its history. As with many popular dishes, it turns out to have murky origins but most claims point to rural Quebec snack bars in the ’50’s rising quickly in popularity near and far in the ’90’s.

For the energy geeks, I guessed that with all the water and elevation in Newfoundland most of their electric power would come from hydroelectric plants and that’s true – in fact the island has the 2nd largest hydro plant in Canada and exports a lot of electricity to Quebec. Only 4% of the island’s total electric generation comes from thermal. We saw very few EVs, probably because of range decay through the long, cold winter…that’ll change.

In Newfoundland, there was plenty of quiet evidence that oil production has helped the economy recover from the 1992 cod moratorium, and it is understandably controversial. The Hibernia Oil Field was discovered in the Grand Banks in 1979 and now hosts the largest oil rig in the world as part of the growing petroleum industry.

We’re near Halifax now with a view that’s even better than the one we had at Battery Park….more on this part of our voyage later!

Across “The Rock” in two+ days

Our original plan was to take the short (7 hrs) ferry from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, aka “The Rock“, wander our way to the other end and take the long (17 hrs) ferry back. Then we learned pets must stay in the vehicle during ferry crossings or go into a kennel area (not an option) so the plan changed to wandering east then scooting back. “Scooting” is relative…the Raleigh friends we had dinner with in St. John’s made it to Raleigh in 4 days, and full-timer friends R&C roll their eyes at our fast pace. Everyone finds their own rhythm in the RV world!

Because there’s only one road bridging east to west, we’re seeing the same gorgeous views from the other direction. Tons of lakes, hills, forest, bays, cliffs, etc.

As with many (not all!) of our waypoint stops, we could’ve used at least another day at each. First was in Grand Falls-Windsor, with one of the best and most appropriate city slogans we’ve ever heard: “Perfectly Centered”. Grand Falls was established in 1905 along the Newfoundland Railway in order to provide pulp and paper to a publisher – this location had the railway, a grand falls for power, plenty of trees and a nearby port so, voilà, a company town was built. Little of that infrastructure remains along the river so it’s now a gorgeous gorge downstream of the hydro dam with what looks like some great fly-fishing spots (look closely!).

A short morning run from our campsite was Nonosabuset Rock, named after a Beothuk chief who struggled, unsuccessfully, to save his wife and baby. With some imagination, his face is memorialized on the left side of this island. The wires criss-crossing the scene from this angle are from a brand new set of zip-lines that didn’t look open yet but will be an exhilarating way to see the rapids! Next time.

Our campsite at Sanger Memorial RV Park was the best in the campground, woods on one side with a view out the back, and a path down to a small riverside park. Nice!

Next stop was back on the west coast at Kinsmen Prince Edward RV Park in Corner Brook. We were able to change from our assigned open-field site to one with woods all around, another lucky catch!

Similar to Grand Falls, Corner Brook grew quickly around a paper mill which is still in operation. It’s an interesting mix of a college town, large hospital, the paper mill and other industry like a concrete plant, also rich in history. The Bay of Islands was originally mapped in 1767 by James Cook (who was murdered in 1778 by Hawaiians who were pissed that he wasn’t, in fact, a god). It also has two fantastic breweries – Boomstick turned out to serve fantastic Newfie blue mussels and an equally fine panini. Newfoundland is 2nd to PEI for mussel production and this bowl, with a spicy curry broth, was spectacular. Paired nicely with the IPA, I must add.

Both Boomstick and nearby Bootleg Brew Co had very inviting taprooms – got a couple cans from Bootleg for later but didn’t get to sit and sip at either one. Next time.

A short walk – and morning run – from the campsite led to a nice view of the harbor and town. Saw a bald eagle in the bright sun at the top of a nearby tree but too far for a good photo.

We booked a midnight ferry so drove past the terminal (remember, for much of the island, there’s one road) to check out Rose Blanch-Harbour le Cou about 40 km miles further east and into mostly-empty rolling, rocky, treeless coastline with the occasional Disney-perfect tiny “outport” town.

Along the way we stopped at the nondescript Seashore Restaurant in Margaree, which turned out to have some excellent seafood chowder (deluxe!), cod and…poutine! And the scenery from the table was a bonus.

The views along the road are worth the drive, but the main attraction is a lighthouse at the end of an increasingly narrow and steep road, The Rose Blanche Lighthouse. There was some debate on the last hill about trying, but you-know-who prevailed this time and we made it!

Highly recommended by friends R&C, the place has an amazing story (many stories!), and the reconstruction is incredible. First, you might wonder who Rose Blanche was…well, it’s actually a warped Anglicization of the French roche blanche, describing the white rock that defines this part of the coast! One of many lighthouses built in the latter half of the 19th century in response to too many shipwrecks (cod, lumber, seals, etc.), this one literally fell apart after it closed in the 1940 ‘sand was rebuilt in 1999. Imagine using the outhouse in mid-January…and at one point there were tow families – 18 people – living here!

Extra bonus, the first time either of us has seen a mink in the wild, crossing the path about 6′ in front of us!

By the time you get this, we’ll have arrived bleary-eyed in North Sydney on Cape Breton Island, sorry to leave Newfoundland in our wake and ready to continue our explorations of Nova Scotia!

St. John’s – the big city

What should we do in a “big” city after weeks of tiny towns? Hike some gorgeous trails, eat out, find craft breweries, visit museums…wait, that’s not much different! But we did have to contend with “traffic” and got the oil changed for the Jeep (and CEL codes read). The drive to St. John’s from the Bonavista Peninsula was more of the same – we’re joking with each other at every turn that it’s just another gorgeous water / rocky shore / wooded mountain / … scene!

We did find out the friends from Raleigh we met by chance at Hopewell Rocks, NB, were on the same road also heading to St. John’s. We met for dinner at YellowBelly Brewery where I had to try the moose nachos and followed Rick’s lead with a flavorful stout. The place is on Water Street, which is clearly a lively party scene at times, closed to traffic with restaurants and bars on both sides and nearby blocks. Quite a few empty storefronts, however, so there’s some good growth potential. And there’s Shamoose!

Our site at Pippy Park Campground turned out to be one of the best yet – wooded and far from our neighbors on both sides. Not bad for an in-city park!

Next day we headed to the Quidi Vidi neighborhood in St. John’s for a walk around Quidi Vidi Lake, which is, like the city/region/province, overflowing with history. Because this part of Newfoundland is closest to Europe and was developed early, it’s been part of many firsts. The first transatlantic flight took off from there, with four teams competing for the London Daily Mail’s prize money. The lake hosts the annual Royal St. John’s Regatta which is the longest-running organized sporting event in North America (!!!). Several military installations were established for WW-I and WW-II with a very large American presence at and near the lake. That 2.5 mile loop wasn’t enough so took the trail (tons of trails in the area!) to Signal Hill, first passing Cuckold Cove.

Signal Hill is so named because of its prominence for signaling ships at sea, and it’s been the location of a series of forts and navigation stations since the 17th century. Being there with a low overcast and rolling fog made the history that much more dramatic though tougher to photograph. Besides its role in the fishing and sealing days of sailing ships, it was where Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless message in 1901. (Fun story – the lighthouse keeper’s house in that picture is an AirBnb. When at YellowBelly, some fun strangers who’d been sitting at the bar overheard us talking and asked us to settle a bet: which Carolina were the 4 of us from, North or South. They were from Virginia and staying at that house.)

After all that hiking it was time for an IPA and some cider, and spiced cauliflower bites at Quidi Vidi Brewery. Oh, and the setting in Quidi Vidi harbor was pretty spectacular.

As a large city park, Pippy Park has several attractions, like the Fluvarium. They built it on a small stream and diverted the stream to flow through the building to create some living exhibits with trout, eel, and the endangered Eastern River Pearl Mussel, which can live to…280 years old! We timed our visit to catch the daily feeding.

Next morning after Jeep service and wandering some cute shops downtown, we had a spectacular veggie sandwich, salad and tomato soup from the well-known Rocket Bakery on Water Street. (Note the cookie, half-eaten before lunch arrived…)

Most of the afternoon was at The Rooms, an interesting cultural center that combines history museum space with art galleries. Many fascinating current exhibitions including one on Newfoundland’s role in WW-I, notably their participation – and slaughter – at Beaumont Hamel on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. One of the exhibits explained the current slogan “Come Home” that’s on all new license plates and numerous other spots. Given NFLD’s rise-and-fall history with cod fishing, lumber, sealing, etc., there’s been a campaign since 1966 to periodically encourage folks to move back. The current campaign was launched to encourage visitors and former residents to travel again. There was a section that described in detail the immigration of many Irish in the 18th and 19th centuries, many coming from just a few regions of Ireland, including Waterford. In 1783, George Penrose used profits from the provisions trade with Newfoundland to start a glass factory that become Waterford Crystal. I vaguely recall the turmoil from the cod fishing moratorium in 1992 but one exhibit chronicled how devastating this was to the economy, including the immediate loss of 30,000 jobs in Newfoundland. “I didn’t take the fish from the GD water!” The cod stocks have never recovered. There was also a great view of the harbor, capped by low clouds with a ship heading to the Atlantic.

Today we spend a couple days working our way back across Newfoundland to catch the midnight ferry from Port aux Basques. There’s only one road from end to end on the island, so much of this will be retracing our steps – gorgeous views from the opposite direction!

Bonavista Peninsula – more history, and more puffins!

I’ve heard the coast of Maine, if straightened out, is longer than the coast of California. True or not it makes a point, and the Newfoundland coast might be twice as long. There are stunning water views everywhere with the rocky shore, cliffs, and islands, and inland from the coast there are the ponds, lakes, streams and bogs. Our mostly-interior route on this leg took us past any number of these scenes.

Gander is a large town because of the airport, and its recent role hosting 38 commercial jets suddenly grounded on 9/11 is a story worth reviewing. Amazing what this town of 11,000 did for the 6,700 people who arrived unexpectedly in a few hours and stayed a few days. The huge airport was built in 2 years in the middle of nowhere – the only access was by railroad – to serve the aircraft ferrying effort in WWII. Almost overnight it was a city, with all the necessary support services. After the war, commercial air travel via prop plane needed Gander as a refueling stop so it continued to be a very lively spot. Then jets took over and its purpose faded forever…  This might be a stretch, but seems similar to many aspects of Newfoundland’s boom-and-bust history: herring and cod fishing, logging, coal mining, and seal hunting (more on this later!) for example.

Along our route, we stopped at the North Atlantic Aviation Museum which had a bunch of fascinating displays about Gander’s history, including the fun tale that when the airport was built the planned town (first in Canada) was laid out is in the shape of a gander’s head…coincidence??

Lunch of poutine (of course!) and salad was at Dunrovin’ then on to Lockston Path Provisional Park and a pond-side campground with a great view!

After setting up, a short drive took us to coffee at Two Whales and a flight at Port Rexton Brewing Company. Perfect. This town has it all… coffee, beer and (nearby), puffins.

Remember Bird Island Boat Tours near North Sydney, Cape Breton Island and all the puffins we saw? A foggy morning gave us an hour of near-solitude at the puffin viewing site in nearby Elliston, the self-declared “Root Cellar Capital of the World“!!

The setting was gorgeous, the island across a narrow channel was about 100 yards away (note my foot in the picture) and packed with puffins, and the puffins were, well, puffins.

There was also plenty of circle-of-life drama, with the seagulls feasting on puffin eggs, baby puffins and the food brought to the babies, many too young to fly.

Newfoundland and Labrador was the main stage for the sealing industry of the 19^th century – especially around here – and a visit to the small but informative Sealers Interpretive Center told many a story. Sealing, for good reason, evokes the tragedy of the hunts’ devastating (and recognized) impact on seal populations. Its peak coincided with the age of sailing ships, and it’s staggering to hear and see what the sealers were doing. The two largest harp seal herds whelp off the coast here, and seals were caught on sea ice in early spring – which meant the hunt took place on floating, rolling chunks of sea ice. The men (only men on the larger ships) were taken out on ships built for sailing through the ice-filled waters and jumped onto the sea ice when they found a pack of seals. Crazy stuff, and easy to imagine how dangerous. The meat was important as local food, the pelts became very popular in England and the seal oil especially good for lamps. Sealing complemented the summer fishing industry at the time and made year-round settlement possible. It also provided direct income, in contrast to fishing which operated under the “truck system” with merchants controlling the fishermen’s (meager) income.

Found another great spot for lunch in Bonavista, The Quintal Café, for delicious veggie wrap and turkey soup with potatoes and carrots – yum!

An afternoon hike along The Coastal Trail up to Bonavista Lighthouse took us past yet more amazing rocky cliffs over crashing waves. There was also a remnant of the active cod fishing industry here – a platform called a flake, where they dried the cod before salting it.

The lighthouse was completed in 1842 and had an unusual lighting apparatus. Assistance for design and construction came from renowned lighthouse engineer Robert Stevenson of Scotland (grandfather of Robert Louis Stevenson). The current lighting apparatus is 2nd generation and both came from lighthouses in Scotland. Each of these copper reflectors had an oil lamp which had to be filled and maintained (first seal oil, then kerosene), on top of winding up the weight every 2 hours to turn them. Another historical tidbit, this spot is where John Cabot made landfall, allowing Britain to subsequently lay claim to, well, everything.

I’ve saved the best puffin pictures for last. This one landed at their nest about 6’ away from where we sat…pretty cute.

Today we head to St. John’s, largest city in Newfoundland with plenty of history of its own!

Toulingeuet / Twillingate and Dildo Run

First up, let’s dispense with the discomfort about the name…“The origin of Dildo’s name is uncertain. As early as 1711, it was being used for a tiny offshore island there, but the island’s connection with any kind of sex toy is uncertain at best. At the time, ‘dildo’ was a word used for any cylindrical object, from nautical pins to test tubes. It was also a type of tree and a nonsense syllable used in song refrains, so the island’s name could have referred to any of these.” The actual town of Dildo is closer to St. John’s, and a “run” is apparently something like a cove (true?). Of course, the name has been a hot topic for years, including a feature by Jimmy Kimmel, who subsequently ran for mayor of Dildo and “won”. Anyway, Dildo Run Provincial Park was highly recommended by friends R&C, and we had to visit. So glad we did!!

The drive across Newfoundland showed yet again how much of this island is undeveloped. Bedrock is never far from the surface which allows for bogs, ponds and lakes everywhere, and the mix of plateaus with little and big hills keeps things interesting. We were concerned about the wildfires but nothing more serious than a very faint smokey smell near Grand Falls-Windsor.

Most of the Island was logged starting in the early 1800’s, with large old-growth trees (mostly pine) used for timbers – our guide at Lobster Cove Head saw a picture showing 4 men laying across one of the stumps. There is still some logging, and it’s interesting to see tons of birch trees – something I don’t see as much of in the US anymore.

Very few options for lunch until we approached the coast. Nick’s Place is another nondescript building with a simple menu…but they had mussels, and poutine! Most of the time the steamed mussels come with a broth that makes for some great bread-dipping. These didn’t, and they were so tasty that didn’t matter!

The Newfoundland east coast is amazing…imagine coastal Maine on steroids. There are bays and channels and islands and harbors (harbours) everywhere, surrounded by rocks and low (or not-so-low) cliffs with the occasional picturesque fishing village. This is, of course, over-simplifying but it seemed like every turn of the road brought more gorgeous scenery.

Dildo Run Provincial Park is gorgeous, and a great location for exploring both in and around the park. Our site has a stunning view of the cove just down the hill from us.

At the end of a nondescript trailer storage lot in the park is some amazing history – a 1 mile, manually-operated tramway was installed in 1901 to transport logs across a narrow strip separating Dildo Run from Virgin Arm (I’m not making this up!). It was used for 50 years to transport logs, boats, mail and people until the road was put in.

A late afternoon hike at the park to Black Head (yes, another fun name!) provided a stunning 240 degree view of the bay and nearby islands. This is a panorama triptych so I’m not sure how it’ll turn out on various platforms. Looks great on the computer…

Then a perfect finish for the long day was a visit to Split Rock Brewing on the harbor in nearby Twillingate for a pint of Red Sky Red Rye Nitro. Yum

So much to see and do in this area, and so much history, it was tough to choose…on the drive to Twillingate, this turned out to be one of my favorite shots of the day.

Started at the Long Point Lighthouse on the northern tip of Twillingate North Island. Built in 1876, it’s got a unique square shape (the bricks were chamfered at the top) and survived a magnitude 7.2 earthquake off the Grand Banks in 1929! The views from the 300 foot cliffs are incredible and, while we missed this, there are almost-daily whale sightings – understandable, given the span of visible ocean. Inside the former lightkeeper’s house was a well-organized museum with a wide variety of historical exhibits. The Great Northern Copper Mine had a short but significant impact on the area, and of course the arc of fishing in the area (and depletion of stocks) is an ongoing story.

We stopped for coffee and some incredible yellow pea soup at Crow’s Nest Cafe just down from the lighthouse – coffee with a view!! (and a cute dog named Crosby)

The afternoon hike we chose on a portion of the French Beach Trail took us up and around some of the many cliffs, bays and plateau bogs in the area with yet more gorgeous scenery. Note the angle of the picture taken of the fishing boat…steep cliff over a little cove!

At the very end of the trail near some homes was this root cellar – it was not that long ago when the area got electricity so these are tucked away here and there…

Then to the Twillingate Museum. We love smaller, local museums with all the local history and character, and this one was all of that. Turns out Twillingate was hometown to a famous opera singer from the late 19th and early 20th century, with a classic tragic life story. Georgina Ann Stirling became Marie Toulinquet and was known during her career as the “Nightingale of the North”. Toulinquet was the original name for Twillingate, given by French fishermen due to the similarity to a region in Brest, France.

When checking in at the campground we overheard another visitor raving about a nearby seafood restaurant so decided to check it out. Samsone’s had some great seafood pasta and lobster roll, and the view was spectacular.

Today we head to the Bonavista Peninsula further southeast along the coast….

More Great Northern Peninsula, More Gros Morne

On the way back south, we decided to take the road less traveled from the northern tip of the Peninsula to Gros Morne, and it was as empty and beautiful as one might expect.

Before we left, got a few more pix of Noddy Bay. The constantly-changing lighting makes for constantly-changing views of the same scene…(look familiar, R&C?)

All along the Trans Canada Highway on this route – mostly devoid of human anything – we saw large, neatly-stacked piles of firewood and lobster pots, like these. Also, most peculiar, roadside gardens with log fences. The gardens are taking advantage of turned earth from past road construction and, we were told, infrequently tended. Underscores (a) how honest the locals are and, (b) how hard it is to find even tiny plots of arable land!

The landscape was similarly different from anything in the USA and from other landscapes we’ve seen in the Maritimes. A bit of Scotland, perhaps, and maybe some areas of the north-central States.

Our day back in Gros Morne National Park was filled with fascinating short hikes. First up was a walk along the Coastal Trail from Baker’s Brook up to near Green Point. This was the route for mail service between the string of small fishing villages long before there was a road. Crazy to walk this path knowing someone walked or used a dog-sled to travel the same route every day of the year for many years. And the road wasn’t completed until the 1960’s.

The trail passes through a “tuckamore” which is a Newfoundland word for the dense stunted forests all along the coast. These are fascinating for their dense canopy nearer the shore. As we learned on our Tablelands walk, the tree ring density for these wind-beaten conifers reveals that many of them, though short, are hundreds of years old. Wow.

This trail also had many great examples of “weathervane trees”, shaped by the constant onshore winds. These are found in many places around the world, with perfect examples all along the coast here.

Remember what we said about Tablelands in Gros Morne NP, as an internationally significant geologic site? Well, that isn’t the only one here! Went to Green Point, which turns out to be the defining place for establishing the boundary between Cambrian and Ordovician Periods in geologic history – literally. Very cool that this is the real deal – and for uninformed novices like us, the visible rock layers along the cliff including the transition to what is clearly a sea bed, are amazing.

As though that wasn’t enough fascinating history for one day, we went to a guided walk at Lobster Cove Head. We had yet another guide who grew up in the area (Norris Point, just south of there) and had an endless stream of local stories. His parents were married in 1959 well before the road was completed to link all the little villages, and their house was the first in the area to be wired for electricity. His aunt, further up the coast, didn’t have electricity at her home until….1973! This place was remote. In recent decades they’ve seen a serious decline in population – he graduated with 37 others, last year the 1st grade class had 5 students.

Today we head across Newfoundland to the northeast coast, near Twillingate. There are some serious out-of-control wildfires just south of our route so we could run into smoke. The area we’re heading to sounds gorgeous…and the drive takes us again through some pretty desolate territory. Fun!!

The Great Northern Peninsula: Viking country

Our drive up the northwestern coast of Newfoundland was the same as most everywhere else on this island – stunning. The rocky shore, the mountains, the wildflowers, the boggy plateaus, the colorful, cute seaside towns all paint an endless and priceless landscape portrait. No single picture does it justice…

We made a few stops along the way, first at the site of the SS Ethie which ran aground in a violent storm in December, 1919, with tons of wreckage still very visible. All 92 passengers were rescued, including a baby passed ashore in a mailbag…it’s quite a story (that involves a dog).

Then there’s the appropriately-named Arches Provincial Park:

It ain’t called the Great Northern Peninsula for nuthin’ – after 4+ hours of driving, we arrived at Viking RV Park near Quirpon (pronounced, roughly, car’-pon), one of the many picturesque tiny towns tucked into one of the many picturesque rocky harbors. The RV park is basically a gravel lot but the view and location are perfect – and the owners are typical Newfie friendly.

We drove around a bit, through Quirpon and other nearby bays and coves.

For good reason (there’s a story) I avoid ordering fish unless 100% sure it’s local and/or sustainably caught. When checking in at our campground, I chatted with the owner about her sign for fish ‘n chips as the special for dinner in their tiny café. She motioned toward the harbour and said her brother caught it – can’t get much more local than that! So we indulged ourselves that evening, and the taste of the fish was, well, like fresh off the boat!

I actually remember the excitement when it was determined that Leif Erikson was the first European, not Columbus, to land in North America. Visiting the site of that Nordic settlement at l’Anse aux Meadows was quite cool. Parks Canada has done a fantastic job with research, preservation and re-creation to tell the story and it became the first ever UNESCO World Heritage Site. This was also the first time, ever, that human migration encircled the globe: indigenous peoples having arrived millenia before from the west across Asia and Alaska, and Europeans from Scandinavia to the east via Iceland and Greenland. Conducting four expeditions they only stayed about 10 years before giving up, and there are still plenty of unanswered questions…

We were lucky to have a 4th-generation local as the tour guide, a fascinating character on top of all the fascinating history he told. He’s 4th generation in that area, grew up and lives in one of the houses in the background of this picture. He joined Parks Canada in his early 20’s and participated in the archaeological digs of the early ’70’s. Wow. (His house is one of those in the background.)

We had one of our first creative, almost gourmet meals for lunch at the most unlikely-looking spot on Médée Bay close to l’Anse aux Meadows, The Norsemen. It was tough choosing from a menu full of great-sounding options, but I ended up with the cod taco and April had the squash-and-ginger soup and a salad. No poutine. Delish.

Some nearby scenery at Noddy Bay…

St. Anthony is the big town around these parts, and one of its historical claims is Sir Wilfed Grenfell, who was a medical missionary with a very colorful life history who, with his wife, established an extensive medical services network in the northern Maritimes. We went through the small but comprehensive museum with a dense flower garden that amazed April…all different varieties in full bloom that never appear at the same time at home.

Then up to Fishing Point Park for a walk around spectacular Moores Point with a 270 degree view. (Sorry CB, no good angle for a lighthouse shot…:()

Had to stop at what turned out to be a lucky find in town…a craft brewery hidden in plain sight along the main road. Unusual to get a flight where every one of the four beers was excellent, but this was it: a cream ale, brown ale, stout and a not-sweet tangerine ale. Next time you’re in the area, RagnaRock Northern Brewing Company is well worth a stop!

Today we return to Gros Morne…so much to see!!

Gros Morne Rocks (and more!)

Looking at a map, it’s amazing how much undeveloped land there is in Newfoundland, how much history, unique geology, and a stunning, rugged coastline. The blend of cultures and languages in a relatively isolated corner of the continent makes things even more interesting. If you haven’t been here yet, it should be on your bucket list. If you have, I’ll bet you hope to return…

Our drive north to Gros Morne National Park gave us a taste of the variety and majesty of the island.

We’re slowly learning that weather forecasts here are worthless, but with rain expected the next day, we lucked into the next boat tour on Western Brook Pond. (Rep on the phone, “You sure you can get to the trailhead and walk 2km to the boat in time?” Me, “No problem!”) This is a lot more than a pond – a fjord through soaring cliffs to the end of a canyon.

Described as one of the purest lakes in the world, it has ultra-oliogrotropic water (very low nutrient content) and therefor supports only a few slow-growing plants and animals. And the views are stunning of the cliffs, surrounding pre-Cambrian gneiss mountains and waterfalls up to 2000′ high.

Most of the falls have names, of course, and this one is appropriately called Pissing Mare Falls:

If you look closely at the very end of the lake you can see a small white dot, which is a dock where the park service drops off and picks up hikers heading further into the valley…maybe next time.

Next day we drove to a guided geology hike at Tablelands, which includes some of the most unusual rocks on the planet. This is one of four places where rock at the surface originated in the Earth’s mantle – called ophiolite – and is therefore rich in nickel and iron. Called peridotite, it oxidizes to a rust color but is black or greenish when split open.

The harsh soil conditions make for some interesting plant life, including the Provincial flower of Newfoundland, the pitcher plant. You can see the liquid in one of the leaf cups, ready to digest its next victim. Another fascinating and unique factoid is the abundance of hyperaccumulator plants like the serpentine sandwort that have adapted to high concentrations of heavy metals in the soil. They’re being studied for toxic waste removal – bioremediation. The Tablelands has also been studied for exploration of Mars, to see how life survives in such harsh environments!

Besides having literally the oldest rocks on the planet, Tablelands has some of the youngest rocks on the planet, travertine, being formed along the stream at the end of the trail.

That fascinating hike was followed by lunch in Woody Point at The Merchant Warehouse, on the water. Another great view, fish sandwich, cold beer and cider, and….poutine!

Yet more amazing scenery on the way back to Rocky Harbour, including a stop at Southeast Brook Falls – a short walk to see a tall waterfall!

From our site at Gros Morne RV Park we next headed up the coast to the northern tip of Newfoundland, and we’ll be back to this same park later!

Bells and Birds – CBI East

This map gets you caught up:

Driving the southern segment of the Cabot Trail loop on Cape Breton Island turned out to be an adventure. Previously on the Cabot Trail we’d come across several major road repair projects (we’re in Canada, so these are prō-jects) due to a bad storm they had last winter, but we’ve never before had to detour while on a major detour. No problem, and we got to Baddeck in time for a late lunch from Stand & Stuff Your Face, with food as creative as their name. We enjoyed a haddock sandwich, a unique wrap with donair (local meat, like gyro meat) and – wait for it – poutine (massive!) while watching the sailboats in the postcard-perfect harbor.

Baddeck was home to Alexander and Mabel Bell for most of their lives, and the National Historic Site provides an extensive and fascinating look at how much more he/they were than inventor(s) of the telephone. Much of his life’s passion was devoted to improving the lives of the deaf, along with a zillion lesser (??) creative interests. Mabel was deaf from the age of 5 and one of his students, and she was as accomplished as her hubby. Another of his passions was flight, so one of the larger exhibits is a recreation of the Silver Dart airplane he and a few other famous folks of the time built and set several records with, under their umbrella organization the Aerial Experimental Association. 

At the museum we learned a lot about the surrounding Bras d’Or region which includes Sydney and North Sydney, as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. It covers some fascinating geography, with deep bays and lakes – water views everywhere. Not much further was our next stop, North Sydney/Cabot Trail KOA with a spectacular view of the Great Bras d’Or.

Plenty to see and do in the area, of course, and the main event for us was Bird Island Boat Tours to see puffins. Well, we saw plenty of puffins – they are very cute – seals, great blue heron, two species of cormorant and bald eagles, many of them scoping out their cormorant lunch. The juvenile cormorants had not yet learned to fly so they hang out on ledges waiting to be fed…and some end up feeding the eagles, as we saw.

So far this trip we haven’t had much luck finding cool breweries or coffee shops, but that luck changed at this stop. Dr. Luke’s Respectable Coffee House (near the Cape Breton Centre for Craft & Design, which was, to us, underwhelming) in Sydney was more than respectable, and Breton Brewing turned out to have a very cool tasting room – got some flavorful Brown Ale and Irish Red for the fridge.

You may recall we took a big ferry to Vancouver Island in 2018, and this crossing from Nova Scotia to Newfoundland was much longer (7 hours) and equally exciting. Fun seeing our little trailer mixed in with semis and big RV rigs loading onto the massive freight deck of a huge ferry. We splurged for a “pet-friendly” cabin, which turned out to be priceless. I’ll spare you the details, but traveling with two very old (14 1/2 and 13) mutts can be challenging at times… 🙂

It’s always exciting pulling into port on a big ship, particularly a port as scenic and promising as Port aux Basques, Newfoundland..

We arrived in the evening so our first stop was merely a convenient waypoint, but turned out to be much better. The 30 minute drive gave us a perfect introduction to what one thinks weather on Newfoundland should be (not entirely true!) and some of what one thinks much of the landscape should look like (not at all true!).

The campground we’d picked turned out to be a former Provincial Park, with a spectacular setting, some of the best features yet, and a fun history. Grand Codroy Campground goes back 4 generations, where the original settler family gave land for the Provincial Park, then when the province privatized many parks in 1997, got it back into the family. They even had free entertainment, with a local duo that was quite good, singing a variety of old tunes.

From here next stop was Gros Morne National Park, one of many crown jewels on Newfoundland!

Waypoints and Whales – Cape Breton Island

Our drive from Prince Edward Island to Cape Breton Island took us into the rolling, wooded hills of Nova Scotia and included a waypoint stop to break up the drive. When planning a waypoint stop, we put a higher priority on location – not too far off the route -and it’s a bonus if we don’t have to unhitch for the night. Sometimes we get lucky and there are other features…like our stay at Linwood Harbor Campground in Linwood not too far from the bridge to CBI.

This scene was 100 yards from the trailer, our dog-walking route. Besides being a gorgeous setting, it struck me as Wyeth-esque…but which of these four do you like best?

Then, on a ride up the road, I came across this scene…channeling more Wyeth, don’t you think?

Plenty of other amazing scenes on the drive up the northern/western coast of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island.

On CBI, we took a short detour to check out Brook Village Grocery which was featured in a copy of Edible Magazine we picked up in Alma. Didn’t get a picture but the stop was well worth it – various sundries, some local cheese and beef from a farm across the street, pretty local!

A bonus feature of our site at Chéticamp Campground was a very short path to the Chéticamp River, anda nice setting for happy hour.

This is our first whale watching tour on the East Coast and it did not disappoint, with sightings of 3 of the 17 species of whale in the Atlantic, the Minke, Finback, and Humpback. We also had a large pod of dolphins that put on a show around the boat (and, for me, seeing one jump about 10′).

At one point, one of the humpbacks was between our Zodiac boat and the other from Captain Zodiac, and it was, well, really close. So cool to see….

Hard to pick out the best photos to portray the majesty of these beasts, and one always wonders what they’re thinking….!

First sighting of the day was of this minke whale.

After lunch in town, next up was a moderate hike on the Acadian Trail from the campground.

One of the top ten scenic roads in the world is The Cabot Trail around the top part of Cape Breton Island, and it’s filled with views of the water (Bay of St. Lawrence and Atlantic) and the adjacent cliffs.

Also amazing is the varied geology, topography, and flora and fauna in the massive interior, dominated by the highlands plateau. This is an extension of the Appalachian Mountains, so we’ve felt right at home…! The park is 366 square miles and total wilderness area is about double that, consisting of Boreal (fir and spruce), Acadian (mixed trees), taiga (tundra-like) forest. The plateau provides plenty of waterfalls, and rushing streams and rivers for all sorts of hikes, but we started with a fascinating short loop around a slope fen. Bar trivia: what’s the difference between a bog and a fen? A bog gets all its moisture from above, a fen has at least one underground or surface water source. This one had a fascinating array of plants, many flowering, including the carniverous pitcher plant, and dwarf trees – mostly about 3′ high – that can be 100 years old!

Another short hike was along MacIntosh Brook to a gorgeous waterfall. More beautiful scenery that doesn’t get the ‘gram-ers particularly excited – just what we like!

The Cabot Trail brought us to Ingonish and one of the few open spots for lunch there, the Seagull Restaurant. As you can see, the mussels and scallop sandwich filled us up with the local catch, and the view from our table was spectacular.

Stopped on the way back at Lakies Head, with amazing pink granite and lots of warnings about rogue waves…

Finished the day with a guided sunset hike along the Skyline Trail, which is definitely on many Top-10 lists on the web. Fortunately the massive parking lot wasn’t full and the walk filled with good info. The clouds thwarted the plan for a spectacular sunset but it was well worth it.

Today we head to the other side of Cape Breton Island, North Sydney, where we’ll be getting the ferry to Newfoundland!

Canada’s Food Island – PEI

Amazing how different the landscape, views and even the clouds look in Prince Edward Island vs Fundy National Park, NB, only about 100 km away. First, one more shot from Fundy NP, of the early morning mist off the bay at Alma.

Compare that to a typical shot during our wanderings on Prince Edward Island.

But first…our plan was to stay on the New Brunswick side of Northumberland Strait (the water between NB and PEI). Plans – especially when retired, when traveling (with an RV), and when retired and traveling by RV – are open to revision, and revise we did (R&C would be proud!). For a host of reasons, we stayed one night instead of three at Murray Beach Provisional Park on the NB side of the bridge at this campsite:

The upside (for us) at this park – the sunset was stunning.

Our raîson d’être at this stop was, of course, Prince Edward Island, and we absolutely love the place. It’s far too big to get to know properly in 3 days so we’ll be back to get more of the amazing coastline, red sandstone cliffs, the incredibly friendly people, and a varied palette of farmland. Mostly potatoes, but every shade of green, amber (waves of grain!), and a rainbow of wildflowers. 43% of the island is farmland so it’s no wonder one of their slogans is “Canada’s Food Island“.

We drove again across the 8-mile Confederation Bridge ($US 40 toll going off-island) to move to what turned out to be the perfect campground, Tranquility by the Sea, near Cavendish. This is not a place for a 40′ bus but it’s near all the bike trails around PEI National Park, roughly mid-island and on the coast, with cozy wooded sites – our favorite, and good for keeping the dogs cooler when we’re gone.

The campground owner/manager couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful and told us that the dead-end road they’re on continues to the park bike trail. Turning left or right, it’s a 3k ride to either Cavendish or North Rustico for her lunch recommendations. The Lost Anchor is named after an anchor found in 1960, from the Marco Polo, a famous tallship that sank in an 1883 hurricane off the shores of Cavendish. This was a good chance for PEI mussels and they have 5 flavors (broth and spices). Between Islander and Drunken Sailor, the server immediately suggested Islander and they were incredible.

There’s a story about the iced tea: Coming from NC and the South in general, “real” iced tea is, of course, sweet – the sweeter the better (right, Kayla?). Most places will now ask which you prefer. Who woulda thought that here, on Prince Edward Island, Canada, not only did they automatically bring out sweet tea, they didn’t even have unsweet! (However, IMO, it was pretty good sweet tea, and we had a good laugh with the server about it.) The local red ale was excellent.

We stopped on the bike ride back home at a string of gorgeous views.

Woke the next day to rain which fit into our plans well – off to Charlottetown to the Confederation Centre of the Arts for a fascinating exhibition called RE:visting, about the growth and recent rapid growth of tourism and its impact. They also have the only original first printing copy of Anne of Green Gables; the entry docent was adamant about taking pictures of it, so here you go. One of the smaller exhibits displayed three artists’ work in Mi’kmaw porcupine quillwork art – a fascinating process. (Road kill is better, but they have a humane (and risky??) method for getting the quills, all part of First Nation heritage.)

After lunch at Receiver Coffee on Victoria Row and some shopping, headed back for a bike ride on the PEI NP bike path, turning right toward North Rustico. More great scenery and a true fishing harbour.

We imagine all those delicious PEI mussels clinging to rocky shores, but it looks like a good number are farmed…nothing at all wrong with that (IMHO) for these little water-cleaning bivalves…

Lastly, this is the view across the dead-end dirt road from the campground entrance and it typifies much of what we’ve seen of PEI: potato farming and a farmhouse out of, well, Anne of Green Gables.

We looked into taking the ferry from Wood Islands, PEI to Caribou, Nova Scotia but they recently had a fire on the boat and it was out of service for a week, re-starting service Wednesday. Tried, but no way we’d get a reservation so we’ll drive…something else to look forward to.

Next, it’s a waypoint stop in Linwood, Nova Sccotia, then on to Cape Breton!

FunDay…the tides roll in, the tides roll out

Another short drive from New River Beach Provincial Park to Fundy National Park took us back through St. John, then Sussex and many km’s of rolling forested hills.

April got back into her groove of finding spectacular small-town local lunch spots, with a stop at The Country Home Bakery in Sussex. They’re a combination bakery, chocolatier and small restaurant, so after an incredible meal of spinach lasagne (I know, lasagne at lunch?? – the flavor was incredible) and salads that were amazing, we got some unique grain bread, chocolate almonds and a jar of local haskap jelly (sort of like blueberries, but different). The red tint is from the bright red umbrella on a bright sunny day…

Our end point was Headquarters Campground at Fundy National Park, near the top of the Bay of Fundy. The main attraction here is, of course, the amazing tides and it’s as amazing as its reputation. Just a few of the scenes in Alma, the small town just north of the campground:

But of course this area is much more, with a fascinating history of “salt and fir”. First, though, was a mixed grill dinner on a warm evening with sausage (Morning Glory), sliced potatoes and grilled romaine – delish!

Alma is a tiny lobstering and tourist town, with its beginnings in the logging boom of the late 19th century. The first woman in North America to become a deep-sea captain, Molly Kool, was from Alma and has quite a story. It has a small but full set of shops and seafood restaurants and its own brewery

Our hike that day was on one section of the Coastal Trail, part of the Trans Canada Trail, between Cannontown Beach and Herring Cove Beach. There’s some fascinating geology throughout the area with uplifted sedimentary and metamorphic rock which, along this trail, included a ridge with ravines on both sides, all covered in moss and fir trees.

European settlers came to the beach and cove in the 1850’s, and it became the thriving farm of Tom and Ellen Matthews. When the railway came to Alma in 1892, their trade stopped, and the farm was turned into a popular boy’s camp from the ’30’s-’50’s. You can still see apple trees along the parking lot.

We next drove to the end of the road at Point Wolfe, which also has a fascinating history. The region was logged heavily in the latter part of the 19th century, and this area provided a good combination of steep hills with good timber and water to ship lumber to eager markets in Britain or down the East Coast. As was the habit at the time, the logging, sawdust and debris was devastating for the ecology, including shad and salmon. It was an interesting cycle of winter logging, spring transport downriver, and summer milling and shipping but once the hills were logged out, they were done. Hundreds of thousands of logs were floated down the Point Wolfe River in a typical season. Similar to the US National Park story, this eventually led to establishing Fundy National Park and recovery efforts are ongoing.

We capped off the day with a visit to the Holy Whale Brewery in Alma, a tiny place with an incredible milk stout, Irish red ale (and others), and a fun selection of pickled eggs.

The place to go, apparently, if you want to check the box of having seen “the tides” is Hopewell Rocks, which lives up to the marketing. This is where the tour buses come so it was pretty crowded. Then, standing in one of the overlooks shoulder-to-shoulder with the crowd, I hear “Jack Connell??” and it’s some friends from Raleigh. Crazy, and crazier that they’re touring The Maritimes in an RV, staying in the same park 30 miles away.

Hopewell Rocks is near the end of The Bay so has one of the highest tides, over 50′, and some gorgeous sandstone rock formations that highlight the change in water level. The low tide photo here is only about half-way to low but was still pretty dramatic for us.

Caught two of three peregrine falcons riding the updraft off the cliff and making all sorts of noise – very cool.

Ended a great day with another milk stout at Holy Whale, and a spectacular dinner at the Alma Lobster House with Lisa and Rick. The lobster, scallops and clams are locally caught, so I went for the scallops with a poutine side (jealous yet, Evan?) and everyone else had lobster rolls or seafood chowder. Yum!

Today we head to Murray Beach Provincial Park, one of many on or near Prince Edward Island, another relatively short 2 hour drive.

p.s. For those who noted my previous comment about Enzo, his wrist is doing much better. I’m still lifting him down from the trailer but he can now walk ok. (Muchas gracias, Eliana!)

Until you see/hear/smell/feel it

Our travels for these first legs of the trip:

Fun that our introduction to Canada has been the Bay of Fundy. We’ve all heard about the dramatic tides but, like many sights, sounds and smells in this early part of our trip, the experience is far beyond the expectation. First stop, at New River Beach Provincial Park, is near the mouth of the bay but still has some amazing tidal swings. (You’ll see plenty of these tide photos!)

Our drive from Orland, ME, took us through wilderness that is probably typical of this neck of the woods – endless vistas of conifers on rolling hills, with the frequent lake or coastal view.  A pleasant surprise was a batch of wind turbines spinning away.

Lunch was at S’Huckins Lobstah, what appeared to be a local takeout place where 9 meets US 1, about 30 minutes from the border. Being so close to Canada, I had to have poutine, April hadda have haddock but the blueberry shake was the highlight.

Getting through Canadian Customs was a breeze – when asked what we were bringing across the border I pointed behind us and said, “Well, our lives are back there…” and she let us through. The campground at New River Beach Provincial Park is a bit tight for driving with a big rig but perfect for us. Plenty of woods, quiet at night and directly across from the beach.

Hiked the trails at Barnaby Head, a short bike ride from the campground, which was the primary inspiration for the title of this post. Walking through dense conifer forest where the ground cover is moss and ferns of every shade of green, there’s no way to capture this in a photo. The breadth and depth of view, the rich smells of forest and sea, the way sound is dampened by the vegetation with the occasional far-off fog horn or buoy bell.

Then we got to the bog…if you’ve never experienced a real bog, it’s very strange. What looks like a meadow is actually a spongy peat mat with grasses and small bushes where you’ll sink a few inches into water if you step on it. I’ve seen this before, but it’s been many decades.

Of course, there’s the coast – and this trail had numerous views out into the foggy bay.

Not far from the point of the peninsula in a small bay, was a plaque about the Chiddick family, who fled the potato famine in Ireland in 1845 to live in a cabin here. Amazing to think what they must have gone through…

The next day we woke up to a bit of a scare with Enzo, our 12 1/2 year-old Black Lab mutt. He’s had progressive weakness in his hindquarters but couldn’t put any weight on his right front paw – not a good combination. We’re heading further from civilization and planned to go to St. John anyway, so off we went to doggie urgent care. Turned out to be a sprain but he’s still limping a lot so I’m lifting him in and out of car and trailer.

St. John is Canada’s first incorporated city (1785), getting a boost from migrating Colonial Loyalists…none other than Benedict Arnold made it his home from 1787-91.

We had lunch at City Market, completed in 1876 and one of the few buildings to escape the fire of 1877. Picked Korean out of many ethnic options, with a combo-plate from Kim’s Korean Food – some great spicy bulgogi!

There are many interesting downtown buildings from the late 19th century, and the city felt like it’s not sure if it’s industrial, artsy, commercial or touristy with some fun examples of all of these.

One unique attraction is the Reversing Falls. There are rapids at a narrowing of the St. John River as it flows into the Bay of Fundy, and the heavy tidal flow reverses those rapids with the tide. While we were at a pet store near there buying a ramp, the staff-person had fun telling us the First Nation legend of the falls, starring a big beaver.

Next stop was Irving Nature Park, a huge mostly-wooded peninsula on the west side of St. John. A bit too hot to leave the pups in the car and neither of them is in shape to walk far, so we mostly drove the perimeter roadway.

Gotta include one of the many cute squirrels we’ve seen everywhere – this one on the Barnaby Head hike.

…and someone at New River Beach Prov Park has a sense of humour:

Today, it’s off to the upper end of the Bay of Fundy, with 50+ foot tides…!!!

On the road again, again….

Five years ago this month we returned home from our first long trip with our new Rockwood MiniLite 2104S travel trailer – the link is to the 2022 model, not ours. I started this blog in 2017 in response to a few friends asking me to send pictures of our trip, and as a way to keep a journal of the places, people and eateries we’d enjoy along the way. My lazy side looked for an alternative to a long “To” list or sending separate emails so this blog was born. I only write about our trailer trips, I try to keep it focused on the travel and our RV experience, and enjoy hearing if you’re still interested! (Guidance has included more pictures, shorter length, good food reviews, how we survive extended travel in a 21′ box, etc.)

Some get this via an email that’s sent when I post, some view it on the website. There are formatting differences with the two platforms, and other differences when viewed on a phone vs. laptop but overall from what I see and hear, it’s working out ok. I’m still taking the lazy route vs. learning more about layout, graphics editing, etc. so if anything looks too funky, let me know!

After a 2-month pause in this year’s trailer travels for some incredible time with family and friends, we’re off again with “the rig”. The trips we’ve taken out west have conditioned us to long distances, and it’s always fun traveling in the Northeast, traversing multiple states in hours. Day one, for example, took us from Rousseau’s RV Center in Lakeville MA, south of Boston, to the Bucksport/Fort Knox KOA in Orland, ME. For the geographically challenged, that’s 3 states in about 4.5 hours. And our next stop is….Canada!

Not a coincidence, the campground is a mile from a cousin now living full-time in Orland so we had some great meals and guided tours together. This was a better-than-average KOA with a bunch of mostly-empty cabins and glamping cabins, like this one next to us. Our site was nice – it’s a KOA, and we didn’t stay here for the view – quiet and surrounded by trees.

On the drive up, we stopped at the Freeport Café, which had some fantastic clam chowder and salads that hit the spot. Some of you know that my Mom’s quahog chowder recipe is a tradition during our stays on Martha’s Vineyard, always made with fresh quahogs from nearby Sengekontacket Pond – this was thicker with tons of clam bits.

Orland is very small-town Maine and my cousin’s house is almost on the Orland River. During a morning run, I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the river near her place, complete with a classic church steeple. There are countless similar gorgeous water scenes around every turn on much of the Maine coast, including the other shot of a river on the way to Brewer, where we got a new bike tire for April’s bike. (Tread was worn out to where cord was showing in a 3″ stripe…just like track tires on a BMW I used to know!)

Spent much of today in Castine, home of the Maine Maritime Academy, a gorgeous waterfront with sailboats of all sizes, some great haddock (soup and a sandwich), and the fascinating Wilson Museum. John Wilson was a geologist who loved collecting stuff, and his wife told him he had to get all these collections out of the house. So in 1921 he built a museum to hold an eclectic mix from around the world – problem solved.

After a delightful dinner including beans from her garden, the rest of the blueberry pie we started the previous night and great conversation about everything, we bade farewell to Caroline.

Today we cross the border at St. Stephen and make our way into Canada!!

Oh, and we saw this bumper sticker in a parking lot in Brewer, near the bike shop:

Another adventure begins! (sort of…)

It’s been a while but we’ve again launched from home for what will eventually be a trip through the Canadian Maritimes! Similar to our 2019 adventure through New England, this trip will include long periods where we’re not trailering, so the blog will again go silent for a couple months.

Left home 2 days ago heading north, with our first stop at the campground at Cosca Regional Park in Clinton, MD. We started wondering what we were getting into as neither Google nor the park staff pointed us to the right entrance, but we eventually found it and ended up in a perfect site. Level (much preferred for 1-night waypoint stops), with an incredible view of woods out the back. And we’re 12 miles or 33 minutes from Capitol Hill in DC (though no visit this time).

Yeah, that’s me with the pups, overlooking a pretty incredible woodsy view, typing this part of the blog post, enjoying Day One. You can’t see the IPA to my right.

Those who have been with us on these adventures know how amazing April is at finding local lunch spots, frequently in the middle of nowhere in some tiny town and often with incredible food. She’s one-for-one this trip, picking The Corner Store in Bowling Green, VA, another of the zillion towns that have seen better days and are trying – or making – a comeback. I couldn’t pass up the pimiento cheese sandwich (right, Ron??) and April went for chicken salad that might have been the chunkiest ever.

Final stop this leg was Croton Point Park, very close to family (and near where I grew up) just north of New York City. The journey up was another day with a bit more driving than we like (preference is about 3-4 hours but we’ve done much longer), and quite pleasant on Rte 301 to bypass DC-Baltimore traffic. We drove through a light rain all day, through farm fields ringed by trees that were all in the early stages of spring growth. Arrived to heavier rain, noting that with all our trailer travels we’ve rarely had to unhitch and set up in a moderate downpour (no, it’s not as much fun, especially while we’re still getting back into the routine…). We’ve stayed at Croton Point Park before and it’s perfect for us: great location with decent trails to run or walk and full hookups – important for these longer stays.

We’ll be here a few days, then store the trailer for a couple months before setting off on the “real” trailer trip. At some point I’ll get the stops listed on the website (if you view this via the email only, the site itself has other sidebar info). We’ll head up from eastern MA to Prince Edward Island then Nova Scotia, ferry over to Newfoundland, ferry back and wander Nova Scotia a bit more, ferry to New Brunswick, then head back through Maine and eventually home.

Here’s the route to this point – the detour around DC didn’t add much drive time but it sure drove Google Maps nuts when I refused the constant nagging to head to I-495.

The next leg of this summer’s trek starts in mid-July from an RV storage spot near Taunton in eastern Mass. Then it’s off to Canada!

9,620 miles, 62 days, 20 states

Here’s where we’ve been (those viewing this on the website (vs. email) already have this in a sidebar): Major Trip #6 July 28-Sept 28, 2021: W Asheville KOA…Nashville…Lakeside Park St. Louis…Milford SP KS…Cherry Creek SP CO…Mountaindale RV Colorado Springs…Leadville CO…Black Canyon of the Gunnison CO…Dead Horse Point SP UT…Yuba SP UT…Great Basin NP NV…Cold Spring Stn UT…Clear Lake SP CA…Giant Redwoods RV CA…Del Norte Coast SP OR…Diamond Lake Theilsen View CG OR…William Tugman SP OR…Portland OR…Grande Hot Springs RV OR…Boise KOA…Craters of the Moon KOA ID…Riverside RV Kemmerer WY…Laramie KOA WY…Lake Ogallala SP NE…Kimmel Orchard NE…St. Louis…Ft Massac SP IL…Nolin Lake SP KY…East Fork SP OH…Union Ridge Wildlife Ctr OH…Shenandoah R SP VA…Sherando Lk RA VA…Smith Mtn Lake SP VA…HOME!!!

A short 2 1/2 hour drive home, and it took us only about 2 hours to fully unpack on Monday. After a good washing I had the trailer back at its covered storage by 5pm. An F-1 pit crew could be this good…(and without the pressure!)

This trip was different from previous in several important respects, some self-imposed and some out of our control; some pleasant and some challenging. Overall, another fantastic experience seeing large swaths of this wonderful country with some amazing stops along the way.

Our favorite? That’s a favorite question and my answer always is there isn’t one – except perhaps the surprise of a stunning landscape or fascinating history. We both especially like the less-crowded and unexpected….so if it’s listed on some Top-10 list we’ll go, but take the paths less traveled. A recent example is the Green River Bluff Trail near the Visitor Center at Mammoth Cave. Or the hike around Broken Top at Craters of the Moon. Or the taste of a Belica Brau brew at Produce Row in Portland. Or the Leadville Boom Days Pack Burro Race – those people are nuts! And, of course, the list goes on and on…

When and where to next? That’s also a long list. This trip showed us how much fun it can be to revisit spots we’ve trailered to or through before and confirmed our expectations that there are many, many places left to explore even close to where we’ve been. Possible areas include the Canadian Maritimes, desert Southwest, Appalachian Mountains (GA to ME – that and the next one are higher on my list than April’s), Alaska, or any combination of states.

Until next time, happy travels!

As a footnote, every time we get home after being away a while – even when “home” is the trailer or somewhere other than the house in Raleigh, our goofball 12 year-old Black Lab mutt goes through a crazy routine. Certainly other pups do this but Enzo is quite energetic…this catches a few seconds of his gyrations.

One final stop…

Writing this from our house in Raleigh – “home” has now shifted from our house on wheels to something a bit larger. But stationary. Here, again, are the last few stops, all in the western Virginia mountains:

Smith Mountain Lake State Park and the surrounding area was about what we’d expected – gorgeous scenery at and around the lake, lots of rolling and steep hills, forests and farmland. The campground had an interesting setup (some RVers detail here) where we made reservations with the site to be assigned when we got there. That’s not particularly unusual, but there were only about 12 sites to choose from and many were already taken. Not a problem since all were well spaced and woodsy – and no neighbor on one side for our one night.

They wouldn’t let us set up until mid-afternoon but we still got a nice bike ride and short hike out to Turtle Island. Took the Beechwood Trail circumscribing the campground for my morning run and passed an old tobacco barn in the middle of the woods. Amazing to stumble across silent history like that – if those walls could talk. And to imagine the area devoid of trees, planted with tobacco, now a dense woods.

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My last post of the trip will be a wrap-up…stay tuned!

Below and Above the Shenandoah

What better activities for a rainy Wednesday than to visit a cave and drive the wooded turns of Virginia’s Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park? But first, a morning run in the warm rain through the woods and along the banks of the Shenandoah River…

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Seems like this trip has brought us to more campgrounds without cell service and therefore, without internet. Yes, this is a wonderful respite from the onslaught of junk email and the news cycle, but makes it challenging to plan the next day’s adventures, talk with family and friends, etc. So first stop was at what turned out to be a wonderful brunch spot, Main Street Bakery in Luray, VA.

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Then, on to Luray Caverns, a US Natural Landmark and privately owned cave. I think my last visit here was when I was about 10 and my impression over the years has been the place is oversold and a mix of Myrtle Beach and Disney. Wrong! It helped that there were few people walking through, but the cave is stunning. Completely different from dry Mammoth Cave – big, wet, and packed with amazing stalactites, stalagmites, columns and other features. They’re set up to handle huge crowds (lots of kid-friendly activities outside the cave) so best to find a day like we had with no lines.

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Our favorite was Dream Lake, a reflecting pool that really played with your perspective.

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In the late ‘50’s an engineer from Springfield, VA, created an organ in a large room called the Cathedral, that uses little rubber hammers and electronic pickups (like an electric guitar) to gently tap stalactites and create tones. It’s a bit bizarre and something we’d never do today, but obviously The Great Stalacpipe Organ has been a unique draw for more tourists.

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After our tour, we thought we’d take a leisurely drive north along the Skyline Drive. The low clouds, strong winds and light rain had other ideas – much of the time we could literally not see 50’ ahead, there were several spots with large branches or trees blocking one side or the other, and the views off most “overlooks” were, well, not views. This was at a lower elevation, and it’s easy to see how scenic it was higher up behind the clouds!

My morning run Thursday before leaving turned up some fun surprises…another cute Bambi and some fantastic views of the valley below. Throughout the Virginia mountains, we’ve seen many scenes that highlight the north-south linear nature of wooded mountains and open fields. Kinda like Great Basin but with water, trees, green and on a smaller scale.

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Back up on the Skyline Drive but with some clear air and incredible views.

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Lunch was at Early Mountain Vineyard, for what turned out to be a spectacular gourmet meal in a spectacular setting. Tons of money went into this place, owned by ex-AOL exec Steve Case. And the wine flights were, not surprisingly, equally spectacular (Catherine C – you’d love this place!).

Next stop was Sherando Lake Recreation Area and our small site provided the opportunity to get a bit creative with our setup, nestled among and between trees (R&C – not for Class A’s!). We were the only RV on the entire loop with all 21 sites filled on the weekend.

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Plenty of great hiking and trail running along the ridges and around the lake.

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Continuing our brief tour of Virginia vineyards, Friday’s lunch was at Veritas Vineyard (cool website) with an equally beautiful setting but completely different approach. They have multiple sitting areas inside and out, including one where you can bring your own picnic food (while enjoying their wines, of course!). Both of these, and certainly most others, are also in the wedding venue business…

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Up along the Blue Ridge Parkway Friday and Saturday for more views. This looks back across the valley at our campground. The rockslide is on Torrey Ridge, and is where I took the selfie above during my trail run.

Near the north end of the Parkway, MP6, we toured the Humpback Rocks Mountain Farm then I finished the climb up to Humpback Rocks for an amazing panoramic view of the valley about 1200’ below (Chai was panting pretty hard so April waited part-way up with the pups).

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On the way to Natural Bridge State Park, our lunch ended up yet another back-country surprise, The Natty B Café. (Natty B, as in Natural Bridge – clever! Zoom in to see the huge bee on the chimney.) Had never heard of a vegetarian Reuben before, and I’ll be working to perfect my version when we get home. Yes, that’s blueberry pie for dessert – everything homemade, of course.

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Based on all the advertising we’d seen over the years and as we got closer, my expectations for Natural Bridge were pretty low, even though it’s a state park. The visitor center building didn’t do much to raise them but it turns out the 215’ tall rock formation itself is pretty amazing – definitely worth the stop.

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Fun sightings:

Message sign at a Bethlehem UMC in Roseland, VA: “Tweet others as you would have others tweet you”

Name of a small road in the VA countryside: Off The Beaten Path

Next stop is the last of this trip: Smith Mountain Lake, about 2 1/2 hour’s drive from Raleigh.

OH, WV, MD, VA – oh, my!

East Fork State Park is Ohio’s largest at 4,870 acres, and the campground is proportionately huge. Getting there on a Saturday, we got to experience the place teeming with kids and families then, as happens with parks near cities on school-year weekends, it was almost empty as of Sunday afternoon. Our spur of H Loop, site #336, was all ours for the last day and night, and the bike trails through woods around the lake were similarly quiet.

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Sunday’s main activity, and the reason for this stop, was a visit to The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in downtown Cincinnati. What we hadn’t planned on was that next door to the museum was the Red’s stadium with a game against the LA Dodgers starting at 1:10. Parking wasn’t cheap but the timing worked out as we arrived mid-morning. But the other thing we hadn’t planned on was this was the last day of Oktoberfest Zinzinnati, – the big comeback after being canceled last year. The museum was another of the many racial-justice and human-rights museums we’ve visited on our travels (e.g., Winnipeg, Montgomery, Memphis) and we always learn something or many things from history we weren’t aware of. For example, in 1820 77% of non-indigenous people in the Americas were enslaved Africans. You’ve probably heard of the Three-Fifths Clause in the Constitution, but it and its impact on the course of the nation is usually misunderstood. One of the galleries was focused on implicit bias – I did an exercise (“Race IAT”, available HERE) and caught onto the tricks early….but it still showed the unintentional bias we all carry. Tons more – well worth a visit if you ever get a chance.

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The drive across southern Ohio took us from rolling farmland into the foothills of the Appalachians, a near-continuous string of bucolic scenery. Brunch was in Sardinia – one of many towns in that part of the country named after Euro-Asian towns and countries. (But my favorite, seen the next day, was Coolsville, West Virginia – how great an answer to the most common stranger’s question: “So, where are you from?” “Coolsville.”)

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I’d been looking forward to Monday’s overnight stop at Union Ridge Wildlife Center, found through Harvest Hosts (and also, it turns out via Airbnb). The description and reviews sounded intriguing: sleeping at a private wild animal rehab facility in the middle of the woods in the southwestern Ohio hills. After some logistical hiccups, in spite of some rain, and after coming perilously close to putting the Jeep into a washed-out creek, it was pretty cool. Yes, we slept right next to Noah and Nora, a couple of Bengal Tigers (photo taken from our trailer roof).

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We were escorted around the facility by the resident cute mutt – chatting with various primates, and seeing a crotchety bald eagle, turkens, a friendly turkey who followed us everywhere, white pelicans who clearly didn’t like the pup, a type of curious ungulate (sorry, don’t recall the name – not a common one), etc.

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Best of all was the friendly wildebeest who had a great time playing with the resident dog (you gotta watch the video).

Tuesday we drove an almost-straight 5-hour path from eastern Ohio, through W Virginia, a few miles in Maryland, back to W Virginia then into Virginia to Shenandoah River State Park. This is another rare overlap – we stayed here the first stop in our 3-month 2018 trip – and we snagged site #14 adjacent to trails and the river. More gorgeous wooded rolling hills and green fields – you can tell this area has gotten the rain the west has not.

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Lunch on the road was possibly the best hidden lunch-stop gem of the trip, at a dairy farm on a country road nowhere close to even a tiny hamlet. Along with obvious things like bus your own dishes, the list of notes posted on the door of Heidi’s Baker and Café included the comment that they use plenty of butter. Needless to say, the grilled cheese was spectacular as was the vegetable soup, sweet potato fries and, purchased later, slice of blueberry pie.

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Today’s plan is a tour of Luray Caverns and a bit of the Skyline Drive…should be gorgeous with spotty light rain and wispy clouds.

Superman and Super Caves

You might notice that our pace has slowed considerably…no waypoint stops after long drives. Left St. Louis and picked out a spectacular site at Ft. Massac State Park, which was almost empty (it’s mid-September and mid-week). Look closely and that’s the Ohio River through the trees though it’s a bit of a walk to the water.

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Ft. Massac, on the Lewis & Clark Trail, was the very first state park in Illinois, formed to preserve the site of an outpost fort on the Ohio that was occupied by (following centuries of Native American history) the Spanish, French, British and Americans. Among other things, this place was pivotal during the Revolution when George Rogers Clark (brother to William Clark as in Lewis & Clark) won Illinois Territory from the Brits. Great bike trails, a reconstruction of the 1802 fort built by the Americans, and a massive Frisbee golf course are just some of the attractions…

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But the main draw for this stop was the National Quilt Museum in nearby Paducah, KY. Many dozens of spectacular works of art – April was in heaven.

We ended up at an amazing lunch spot – amazing for anywhere, nestled in the arts district of Paducah. Who woulda thunk! The sweet potato and ginger soup was to die for, and the salad and Italian-esque sandwich made for a delicious and filling lunch. Yum!

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Quilts might have been the draw for some, but Ft. Massac is in Metropolis, IL, the only town in the entire country – probably the only town on the (Daily) planet – that is called Metropolis. So….after a reportedly prolonged negotiation with DC Comics, in 1972 the Illinois State Legislature officially declared Metropolis the “Hometown of Superman”!! In June, 2010, Lois Lane also got her own statue, embraced and promoted by Noel Neill herself. Lots of fun – and real – history here!

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Then, onward to Nolin River State Park near Mammoth Cave NP. Fun story how the Nolin River (thus, Nolin Lake) in Kentucky got its name: during the Revolutionary War, Benjamin Lynn was camping in the area and disappeared. Search parties went out and returned, but “No Lynn”. Yeah, I’m not sure I believe it either but it makes for good campfire talk.  Our site #3 was near the entrance but very private, especially with the distant adjacent sites empty. Great walking trails nearby, one making for an adventurous trail run the second morning.

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The big draw near here is Mammoth Cave National Park and everything about the place is, well, mammoth. We took the Historic Tour in the afternoon, which gave us time to take the ranger-recommended hike on the Green Bluffs Trail. Ranger advice is always good advice, and this trail was gorgeous – and deserted. For the entire two-mile walkabout close to the crowded Visitor Center, we saw a grand total of two people but also saw some stunning views of the Green River, a long-collapsed back entrance to the caves (Dixon Cave, not a great photo), some fascinating bright-white lichen on several rocks, and an under-appreciated but poetic stump with new growth popping up.

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New party word: Karst is an topography that results from the dissolution of limestone etc, in which you’ll find caves and sinkholes. This map shows US land areas with various types of karst topography – all over the place!

What makes Mammoth Cave unique and what allows it to have 420 MILES of explored passageways (8 miles were added this week), is primarily the broad sandstone layer overlaying layers of limestone. This cap allows for the massive – and extensive – caverns below. There are 27 entrances to the cave and the large natural entrance used by Native Americans and early white explorers has been a major tourist attraction since the 1870’s. “Historical graffiti” is everywhere with dates clearly visible back to the early 19^th century – 1838 in one of these pictures. There were huge guano deposits that provided saltpeter to make gunpowder for the War of 1812, mined by slaves who later provided guide services for tourists. It didn’t officially become a National Park until 1941 and at that point only had 40 miles of mapped passageway.

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The next two nights will be at East Fork State Park near Cincinnati, OH. This park is massive – the largest in Ohio – and between bikes and hikes around the park, and maybe an excursion to the big city, it’ll be a fun stop!

So many surprises along the way…

Yes, it’s been a few days…between long driving days, limited cell/wifi and limited time, that happens. The drive from Portland to St. Louis was a bit of a sprint. I forgot to mention in the last post that the tiny town of Arco, Idaho, is world renowned as the very first town on the planet to be powered by a nuclear electric generator!! On the way out we passed what is now part of the Idaho National Laboratory where all this was going on (still is!) and which, unfortunately was also the site of the world’s first fatal nuclear accident in 1061. The EBR-1 Atomic Museum was, unfortunately, closed due to covid (“Getting here is part of the adventure“).

Yet more travel along the general route of The Oregon Trail, with only a few miles on I-15 and with many miles of very, very remote terrain and little traffic. Beautiful, fascinating, and fun.

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The segment on I-15 took us through the bustling town of Pocatello, Idaho, home to both Idaho State University and, best of all, The Museum of Clean. April wouldn’t let me stop and spend a few hours. You’ve got to check out the link…

Lunch was in Soda Spring, Idaho – the meal was not particularly inspiring but it turns out the town has a wild history. It was an oasis stop for pioneers along a cutoff of The Oregon Trail due to its hot springs. In 1937, the town fathers (town mothers never would have done this) got the bright idea of drilling down into wherever all that fizzy mineral water was bubbling from to build a town pool. They poked into the source and got an uncontrolled jet of steamy water shooting 100′ into the air. Within weeks, the Sec’y of the Interior sent them a telegram telling them to “turn off the geyser because it’s throwing off the schedule of Old Faithful”. Seems a bit far-fetched but they capped it, put a valve on it with a timer and now have the world’s only captive geyser. We barely caught the end of its hourly eruption as we walked out of the diner.

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The next waypoint stop was in Kemmerer, Wyoming, home of the very first JC Penney store opened in 1902 – and the “Mother Store” is still open! Riverside RV Park was on the Ham’s Fork River and a dear deer family with mama, poppa and 3 little ones grazing nearby then bolting when they saw our pups.

Wyoming has plenty of oil wells, and it was fun to see the juxtaposition of oil and fracking wells against the crop of wind turbines, sometimes (later) a lot of wind turbines with more on wide-load trucks.

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As our route continues to track the broad path of The Oregon Trail, it’s both amazing and inspiring to see the sort of terrain those families dealt with in all sorts of weather.

As we’ve seen many times before, the smallest prairie towns in the middle of nowhere on the flatland prairie of southern Wyoming can have a funky coffee shop. What a great name, Buckin’ Coffee, leading them to advertise “The Best Buckin’ Bagel Sandwich Around” (one of the signs on the windows). Forget that it’s probably the only bagel sandwich within 200 miles…it makes for great marketing. And it was a pretty darn good bagel sandwich.

The campsite at Lake Ogallala, which is a smaller lake just below the dam for Lake McConaughy, had a pretty spectacular view. We also learned something…as they periodically release water from the base of the reservoir it was spectacular but the decaying organics at the bottom generate hydrogen sulfide gas. Fortunately this didn’t happen often and didn’t last long – so didn’t detract from the gorgeous lakeside views and wildlife.

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Similar to some miles along “The Loneliest Road in America” aka US-50 through Nevada and Utah, it’s been fun starting to repeat or cross over sections of the country we’ve seen in previous trailer trips since 2017. One of these was the Great Platte River Road Archway across I-80 in Kearney, NE. It’s a bit touristy but was a place we road our bikes to when we went to see the spectacular (and noisy!) sandhill crane migration in March, 2019.

Our homesite that night was our first stay at a Harvest Hosts site. This is an organization that arranges with vineyards, breweries, farms and other similar spots to allow free overnight RV parking. The folks we met next to us at Kimmel Orchard and Vineyard have been doing this a lot and love it. We’ve got one more later this trip..stay tuned! As you can see, the site was a few feet from some of the full and fully ripened apple trees and the scent was wonderful to sleep by, serenaded by a bunch of coyote packs howling somewhere nearby.

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Driving this last long leg of our sprint to St. Louis, April once again found a wonderful lunch spot in….The Home of Sliced Bread! Yep, the Boji Café had some great soup, an interesting pimento cheese sandwich with a fruity jam spread, and taco salad.

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Our home has been happily parked 6 nights in a friend’s driveway in St. Louis and I imagine her neighbors have been wondering when these gypsies will be moving on. Thank you, Angèle!

Tomorrow we continue eastward at a somewhat more leisurely pace, next stop Ft. Massac State Park in southern Illinois. This will be a rare stop living on the edge (for us) – no reserved spot. The website shows it’s almost completely empty, it’s mid-September and we will hopefully get the chance to drive the campground to pick out the best spot.

Along the Oregon Trail

Seen on my morning walk the morning we left Portland…

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That’s the top of Chai’s head looking intently at her cousin sauntering up the hill to check us out. While I’m sure it was mere curiosity, I hustled us back into the trailer and took that 2nd shot from the door. Very cool and apparently not unusual for that woodsy neighborhood.

My friend gave me “The Oregon Trail” by Rinker Buck, which has been a fascinating (and hilarious) read as we’ve headed eastward – by chance – along that famous westward migration route, much of it now I-84. The Columbia river valley is stunning and several large gatherings of small fishing boats told us the salmon are running.

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From there, the terrain becomes dryer with more rolling hills through eastern Oregon and into Nevada. We chose to make one of several spontaneous itinerary changes this trip – unfortunately cutting out a 2+ hour detour to Wallowa Lake SP in northeastern Oregon. Next time. Instead, it was Grande Hot Springs RV Resort – with its own hot springs pool! From there it was onward through more hill country, more long stretches of very straight road and more wide-open space. We kept commenting to each other how amazing it was that many thousands of families in covered wagons traveled this way in the mid-nineteenth century. Yikes. In many spots you can still see the wagon ruts.

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Our next stop, Boise, gave us a chance to visit the World Center for Birds of Prey (and a fantastic brewery). We got to meet Oliver, the gray owl, and Penny, the kestrel falcon up close and personal. The Peregrine Fund – based here and the root of this organization – was the first to prove a species could be brought back from the brink of extinction. At one point there were only 22 peregrine falcons but now there are many around the country and it’s off the Endangered Species List. Similar efforts now for many other species around the world – like the California Condor (in the background). We saw one of those in the wild a couple trips ago near Vermillion Cliffs.

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While our site at the Boise KOA was a bit crowded, the beer (and setting) at Payette Brewing Company was wonderful. What we saw of Boise was interesting – most everything looked clean, new and hipsterish.

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Next stop in our plan was at Craters of the Moon National Monument, with more driving along The Oregon Trail. There were many routes – it wasn’t just a single wagon road – and this section was part of Goodale’s Cutoff. We started getting into serious smoke country on the drive to our site at the Arco KOA but it fortunately mostly cleared later.

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Craters of the Moon is as bizarre a landscape as its name implies. The extreme variation in texture, color and terrain is crazy.

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More waypoint stops as we make our way to St. Louis, and more fascinating sights to see!

Portland, Oregon!

This was another fun stop visiting with friends – a childhood friend of mine and his wife, who moved to Portland years ago in part (large part) because of their nascent craft beer scene. Since Dan probably won’t read this, I’ll put some statistics on the table:

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Take note of the Barrels of Craft Beer Produced per year. Just sayin’… (Explanation: Dan is very proud of Oregon’s and Portland’s beer scene and I’ve had fun with him over the years about North Carolina’s growth as another craft beer mecca.)

The drive up from Wiliam Tugman State Park showed us a nice cross-section of Oregon, with golden hillsides, vineyards, and the occasional cool town.

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Had lunch in one of those cool towns, Grain Station Brew Works in Monmouth. Phenomenal stout which was apparently their signature brew (unusual to have a stout vs IPA as the claim to fame – love it!). Also passed by one “interesting” place in a different town along the way…we didn’t stop for the pizza or the other stuff, but it makes for an interesting marketing angle.

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Our “campsite” was in Dan and Mercedes’ driveway, and you can see the trailer fit perfectly.

We had a fantastic three days there, starting with a visit to the world-famous Portland Japanese Garden, followed with a cold glass of Belica Brau beer. Dan has built on his love of craft beer to open a brewing business (on top of his day job) and we were able to enjoy one of his brews at one of the 22 taprooms carrying his beer. Pretty cool for a guy I’ve known since I was 8 years old.

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Drove to Sauvie Island on Monday, with a nice walk around Virginia Lake (now a marsh), a drive along the beaches and lunch, followed by a delicious dinner at a dockside restaurant at Lake Oswego.

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The dogs were thoroughly spoiled by our friends and their house. Treats were a hit, and Enzo absolutely loved the sloped, sunny front yard where he could chew his tennis ball, roll down the hill, and snooze. Loved it to the point it was tough to get him to come into the trailer at night.

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Dan’l brought me running through Tryon Creek State Natural Area at the end of their street so I had a great place for long morning runs – gorgeous terrain and perfect runing trails.

Tuesday brought more adventures with trips to fabric stores for April and lunch at Noho’s Hawaiian Cafe in Northeast Portland. April got good fabric and we all got a nice lunch! The visit was capped by an amazing dinner – quality and quantity – at Gino’s Restaurant & Bar in the Sellwood district.

Today we start stepping our way to the next long stop in St. Louis. Wallowa Lake SP in northwestern Oregon mountains, then Boise, and on from there. Not sure when I’ll have good cell service / wifi again but the changes in scenery are sure to be spectacular!

As far west as we’re gonna get

Our westerly tack through southern Oregon to the coast took us through a nice variety of terrain: rolling golden hillsides reminiscent of our adventures in central California on our first trip, wine country, winding rivers and plenty of steep forested hillsides. But also with plenty of skeleton trees from recent (some very recent) wildfires. The smoke and haze was with us half the drive, then magically cleared within a few miles. (One fire footnote: April just read that Grass Valley, CA, where we stopped for lunch 9 days ago between Cold Springs, NV, (in the desert) and Clear Lake, CA, just received an evacuation order for a nearby fire. This wasn’t a small hamlet!)

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William M. Tugman State Park is in terrain similar to much of this stretch of the Oregon coast: gorgeous freshwater lakes nestled in hilly wooded terrain right next to the world famous Oregon Dunes (ok, we didn’t know about them either, but they’re massive) along the always-roaring, sometimes-rocky Pacific shore. The park is on Eel Lake, which has a beautiful, rugged, narrow 3-mile walking and mountain biking path along much of its shoreline. I got my living-on-the-edge biking thrills out of the way on day one…(this view is from that trail). And our site for 2 of the 3 nights was about as wooded as they get here – not a lot of spacing throughout the busy park.

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There’s a lot to see along this stretch of the coast, and we went north one day and south the next. The Oregon Dunes stretches for about 40 miles and is the largest expanse of coastal sand dune in North America – tons of overlooks, hikes, parks and cute towns along the 101. We stopped first to hike the Oregon Dunes across the sand to the crashing Pacific.

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Through the vibrant town of Florence (JVS, nice spot!) our next stop was Haceta Head Lighthouse, which has a B&B in one of the keeper’s building that was prepping for a wedding – quite the setting!

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A bit further north is Cape Perpetua, with several trails we didn’t take (April’s nursing a bad back) and one we did take to the shoreline to see some fascinating “tidepools, churns and spouting horns“…in other words, some crazy volcanic rock carved by the ocean to channel incoming waves for quite the show. It’s more spectacular in winter storms at high tide but we we’ll have to come back for that performance.

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Just south of there on the way back, we got to see a common – and magical – occurrence of low clouds or fog rolling up the hillside. It’s no surprise everything is so lush, with many “flag trees” pointing away from the shore and the prevailing winds.

At an overlook maybe a few miles further miles south, you can see how quickly the coastline changes from rocky cliffs to massive dunes. Amazing vistas…

A rare dinner out for April’s bday was in Florence at 1285 Restobar (tried for Waterfront Depot but the 90 minute wait scared us off), a pizza and Italian place with just enough seafood on the menu. Had a large app with small steamed clams and the garlic clam broth was spectacular, as was the spinach manicotti.

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For those who feel sorry for us suffering in our tiny kitchen on wheels, the from-scratch hummingbird birthday cake I made – with cream cheese icing – came out delish, as did the cinnamon nut scones the next morning. I had tons of extra icing to use up, a perfect substitute for butter in the scones!

After chores in nearby Reedsport, our southern trek on Friday on the 101 got us to North Bend and a loop along the coast to Shore Acres State Park. This is a West Coast version of a Gilded Era property, originally developed by the timber baron Simpson family. The mansions burned then fell into disrepair but the setting and gardens are spectacular.

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Saw this gorgeous and unusual (to us) bird in the gardens – a couple was dive-bombing us to move out of their territory. April thinks it’s a Cedar Waxwing (and I agree)…any other guesses?

Saw this sign in one of the rose gardens…porcupines?? And why were only some of the rose beds fenced – are the porcupines picky eaters?

Last stop was at Simpson Reef, with a zillion sea lions and seals at what’s considered the best location on the west coast to observe sea mammals. They “haul out” on the rocks to feed, rest, breed, and, from all the honking sounds, have a good time at it. Very cool.

This part of the country is known for logging and it’s clearly big business. Not pretty to see the clear-cutting, but as I kept reminding April, a lot better than seeing tons of oil wells. Coos Bay, a town we drove through on the 101 is, among many things, an active shipping port for wood chips to Asia. Nearby, the massive stacks of logs along the docks went on forever.

Today, Saturday, we head up to Portland and will be parked in a friend’s driveway for 4 nights of craft beer and exploring the area. Further inland so this begins our return trip eastward…

This smoke ain’t nothin’ compared to 7,700 years ago!

North from redwood country into Oregon, we passed back into areas impacted by the many, many wildfires – including, of course, the massive Dixie Fire that burned up much of Lassen Volcanic NP, where we had reservations. But it could be much worse…like it was when Mount Mazuma had its big blow-up that created Crater Lake.

And before we get into what we’ve seen the past couple days, the really big news is this stop marks our 48th state of the lower 48 that we’ve camped in with the trailer since our first trek in 2017. (Plus 5 Canadian provinces.) Woohoo!

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The drive from Mill Creek Campground in Del Norte Coast Redwoods SP included a long mid-day stop in Grant’s Pass for some household chores…all within 100 yards. Laundry, shopping and lunch at what turned out to be a spectacular Mexican takeout spot – with a massive chile relleno burrito that was not pretty, but as tasty as it was huge.

After the smoky drive, our site at Thielsen View Campground in National Forest Service land turned out to be spectacular – directly across from the lake with a great view out our dining room / living room (and every other room) window. Incredible sunrise views, more brilliant through the smoke. (Thought that boat at sunrise might be our neighbor…it was, and he liked the shot.) The jagged mountain in the haze is Mt Thielsen so yes, there is a (smoky) Thielsen view!

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The big draw in these parts is, of course, Crater Lake which is high on many lists to visit for a reason. Even with the reduced visibility through the smoke, it was amazing and we got a taste of its unique beauty. With clear air, the scenery and color of the clear water must be stunning. At almost 2,000′ deep, Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the USA and 9th deepest on the planet, with unusually clear water since most comes from snow and rainfall.

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The area gets an average of 42 feet of snow a year, which is why the snowplow guide-poles along many of the roads are about 20′ tall.

As you might expect, there are a number of named features – here are just a few: Pumice Castle, The Phantom Ship, and Wizard Island which was a smaller volcano that erupted around 7,300 years ago, 400 years after the big blow.

Got to see and hear a Clark’s Nutcracker (hey, Cheryl!) feast on whitebark pine seeds while we were enjoying one of the many views. The epitome of symbiotic relationships, these birds bury up to 100,000 seeds each summer to feast on the rest of the year. Those they forget about can grow into trees – and the trees don’t have other effective ways of spreading around. Nice partnership!

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Back at the campsite, Chai and Enzo rested between exciting encounters with the many very active chipmunks we had scurrying everywhere. They had a large stump to hang out on directly in front of the door, and one got bold enough to climb up the trailer steps to check out their furry “friends” on the other side of the screen door (the 2nd picture is a bit hard to figure out, but it’s looking down at the pups’ heads, then the chipmunk on the steps).

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Today we’re exercising our ability to change plans on the fly and will move to the next stop a day early, hoping to get west of the smoke. Haven’t decided yet if we’ll take the high road or the low road…they both look interesting and an extra 30 minutes or so makes no difference since we’re not on a schedule!

Took a crisp morning ride (43F when we woke up) on the John Dellenback Trail that loops around Diamond Lake, 11 miles of mostly-flat paved trail on the shore and through the woods. No other riders the entire time…a great start to the day!

There can’t be too many redwood parks…

Of course, the coverage of redwood forests used to be much, much larger than the 40 mile wide, 450 mile long patchwork strip along (mostly) the NoCal coast today, and we can’t get enough. This leg took us from Giant Redwoods RV Park in Myers Flats to Mill Creek Campground in Del Norte Coast State Park, from tightly-packed (reasonable, with some great neighbors!) sites to woodsy surrounds in the state park.

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The drive up the Pacific Coast Highway, aka the 101 in these parts (yes we’re in Cali, so all highways are prefaced with “the”) was, of course, peppered with stunning views of the Pacific. We had to wait about an hour to get through one of the many landslide repair zones along the coast but timed it pretty well as it opened at noon.

We took more great hikes through various redwood groves, but the highlight of this stop was meeting up with April’s brother and (part of) his family. Their rental in Crescent City had an incredible view of the Battery Point Lighthouse, which we were able to tour while it’s not cut off from the mainland by high tide. Built in 1856, this was the 10^th lighthouse on the west coast and still operates as a private aid to navigation, on 3.5 secs and off 26.5 secs 24 hours a day.

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Dinner near the marina (and some honkin’ sea lions) was at one of those surprise restaurants that sounds and looks like a dive, yet tastes incredible – Schmidt’s House of Jambalaya. The Port ‘o Pints stout was fantastic and even better was the shrimp bisque and jambalaya. Like the rest of us, Chai enjoyed the sunset from the front deck…

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Saturday we headed into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Forest for a walk over the river and through the woods, through more incredible redwood groves. At the strong recommendation of friend Dan’l (more on him later in the trip!), we tried to get in here but it was full – sorry we didn’t. The river was crystal clear with great swimming, and there were numerous hikes we could’ve taken. Next time.

There was yet another fire nearby, in the crown of some redwoods far enough away to not impact us.  We were hiking alongside and over the river when the helicopters were refilling their buckets – it’s a long video but pretty interesting…turn up the sound for the full effect. (Eagle-eye Tom, who was with me when I shot this video, pointed out if you zoom in at about the 1 minute mark, the pilot waves at us!)

Lunch was at the Port o’ Pints brewery in Crescent City and of course I tasted more of their stout to go with my Brewben sandwich. Great food, great beer, fun time.

We hosted the crew for dinner at our home with some pomegranate cosmos to start (thank you, Pedro!), homemade lasagna and April’s world-famous Caesar salad. How did I not get any pictures of that family feast at the picnic table at our campsite??

Our last full day started with a hike on the Ossagon Trail in Redwoods SP from the Drury Scenic Parkway out to the ocean. More incredible variety of scenery as we climbed up a bit, then down through the redwood groves and out onto the fog-shrouded beach. Fun fact: Redwoods get half their moisture intake from fog.

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Today, Monday, Aug 23, we headed inland a bit to a campground just north of Crater Lake National Park in Oregon. More on that later. (Good news – we have decent cell service at a campsite so I can do this blog – woohoo!)

Another 3 nights of boondocking (no electric, water or sewer hookups) following the 3 boondocked nights at Mill Creek. To the uninitiated, this is not that big a deal if you manage electric and water use. We’ve gotten pretty good at electricity management (thanks to Ron’s priceless suggestion of our Trimetric battery monitor and a few other tricks) and have a generator if we need it. We fill our 40 gal fresh water tank at the campground and have 30 gal gray- and black-water tanks so no issues there either.

When “tree” seems inadequate.

Driving and walking through an old-growth redwood forest is one of those experiences where all we could say was, “Wow”. Did you know that “The greatest concentration of plant mass ever recorded on earth was a redwood stand in Humboldt Redwoods State Park? This temperate rainforest has seven times the biomass of a typical tropical rainforest.” Humboldt Redwoods SP contains the largest contiguous old-growth redwood forest in the world.

We drove part of the Avenue of the Giants, where the roadway is surrounded, overshadowed and edged by these amazing ancient living monuments.

Our first stop was at The Garden Club of America Grove for a short walk through the woods with no one else around. The scale of the living and fallen trees and, the size of the uplifted root balls is incredible. This grove was the result of a partnership between the Garden Club of America and Save the Redwoods League, with the first 2,552 acres acquired in 1931. The history of preservation of this old-growth area is fascinating and like so many historical narratives, has a much more complex past – many of those involved were leaders and participants in the eugenics movement. It was nice to see the displays explaining this. Note in some of the pictures I’ve included our car or April to give some sense of scale. Incredible.

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Next stop was Founders Grove, with more amazing sights.

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Lunch and the afternoon was spent in Eureka. Had a delicious Bahn Mi and veggie panini – and tater tots! – at Chuchi’s Old Town Eats paired with a great conversation with the owner. We’d been wondering about Eureka…the Old Town section where we were near the waterfront has a bunch of great-looking restaurants, funky shops and all the makings of a vibrant big town. But too many of the storefronts are empty but not run-down, yet. The story we heard (unconfirmed) is that there was a ton of black market money rolling in from pot growers that completely dried up with legalization. Perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. Lots of cool murals throughout downtown, which apparently is a thing there, and a gorgeous harbor.

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Since we were so close and not dragging the trailer, we headed over to the beach to dip our toes in the frigid Pacific surf.

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Today it’s northward to Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park and several days with April’s brother and family who are staying in nearby Crescent City.

Waypoint drives can be amazing…

Yes, this trip has a number of waypoint stops – but as we’ve already seen, the stops and the drives often bring some incredible scenery, experiences and food. We’re now on the Pacific Coast – yay! – and the last couple of days were all of that.

The huge Dixie Fire forced the closure of Lassen Volcanic National Park, so we changed our route to get us into northern California along the coast. We’ll pick up our original itinerary at the next stop, Del Norte Coast State Park just south of Crescent City. That fire and others also shrouded much or our drive from Cold Springs Station, Nevada, to not far west of the California state line. The section through Reno was particularly bad – eerie, with the sky darkened to where many cars had headlights on. The strong smoky smell had us thinking about how everyone there and closer to the fire are dealing with it. Rough.

Then we got to the state line and it was coincidence (or was it?) that within an hour the air had cleared. Which also meant all that beautiful mountain scenery became visible.

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Clear Lake State Park, west and a little north of Sacramento, was virtually empty…a bit strange because we thought it was quite nice. On a large lake – one that actually had water in it – with hilly terrain in the park that made for a good morning run.

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After a hearty pancake breakfast, topped with some of the fresh blackberries we’d bought at a farm stand the day before, we headed toward a winery.

Not just any winery. Turned out we were very close to Yorkville Cellars, that was discovered by our son-in-law and the featured wine at their wedding. I’ve been ordering a case each year since. Looking at the map, April realized it would be a short detour that would add about 45 minutes to the trip and get us on some more interesting (smaller) highways. I called late the afternoon before and left a message that we’d be there at opening for an 11am tasting. Well….got there as they were closing the gate after PG&E shut off their power – and not long before they saw 4 fire engines rushing up the road. But the route that put us on turned out to be incredible. We had more variety in scenery in one day than we’ve ever had. Part of this is the reality of Northern California, and part is taking those deep-blue highways that are way off the beaten track. Most of the roads we were on today had signs prohibiting vehicles with a hitch-axle length greater than 30′. The Jeep, trailer and I had a great time – April, not so much. (R&C, this was not a route for 40′ motor homes…)

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Better than the twists and turns was the variety – from rolling golden hills, to steep inclines, some scarred by fire next to thick green woods. Suddenly we were in deep redwood forest, then it was fragrant eucalyptus and around a bend we came out onto the sights, scenes and smells of this part of the Pacific Coast Highway.

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We landed at Giant Redwoods RV & Cabins at the southern edge of Humboldt Redwoods State Park. Tomorrow we’ll explore the area before continuing north on Friday.

Imagine this in a covered wagon…

This segment of our 2-month trip took us through a dry, hot, barren part of the country but each leg and most every stop brought some fascinating discoveries. We try to keep the drives to about 3-4 hours, which gives us a relaxed morning to exercise and read, a chance to experience a steady stream of fun lunch spots (thanks to April’s on-the-road research skills), and a few hours at our next destination before a home-cooked meal and bed.

Our route from Dead Horse Point SP to Yuba SP in Utah had plenty of long climbs and descents, with plenty of interesting geology along much of I-70. A rare stretch of interstate with those “scenic route” green dots.

After several days of limited or zero cell/wifi, we needed a stop to catch up on things (including these posts) and there were very, very few towns of any size along the route. One of these is Green River, Utah, and April found Green River Coffee Co, about the right time for late coffee or early lunch. The town doesn’t have much in it, but this coffee shop was perfect, with a steady stream of customers, huge breakfast burritos and great coffee. And it’s for sale! Seriously, it’d be a fun lifestyle change if you know anybody wanting escape the rat race in the big city….

Our overnight stop was at a mostly-empty state park campground at a mostly empty (as in 91% empty) reservoir with cows now grazing in it. But for an overnight, no problem – made for interesting running and bike riding in the morning! (For the RVers reading this, we had a big scare with our absorption fridge…stopped cooling when we got here in 98F temps with the fridge facing the sun. Had me panicked but overnight it cooled back down.)

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I’m drafting this segment in Great Basin NP at our campsite #10, 30 feet from gurgling Lower Lehman Creek, with Enzo resting at my feet. One of the prettiest sites we’ve ever been to, and one of those somewhat rare times we regret not having more time here – but, as always, there are more gorgeous sites and settings ahead.

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The drive here took us through mile after mile of high plains-type country. Beautiful vistas or barren wasteland, depending on your point of view.

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This stop and much of Hwy 50 on this part of the trip are a throwback to our first long trailer trip in 2017, at that time traveling west to east. Fun to go back to the old blog posts – there were three; this one was about the park and restaurant in Baker, NV. We hiked the same alpine lakes loop to Stella and Teresa Lakes, and noted the differences from both the pervasive wildfire smoke/haze and the drier conditions later in the summer. Still gorgeous, with an added bonus of sighting a deer family grazing off the trail.

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When we were here in 2017, we stumbled on a newly-opened restaurant in tiny Baker, NV, at the entrance to the park, Kerourac’s. It was a fun story then, with a couple who had tired of the rat race of the New York City restaurant business and bought a hotel/restaurant here. Their business has survived, and we returned for yet another incredible meal. I was so excited I forgot to take pictures, but trust me – if you’re in the area it’s well worth the stop. This was the view driving back after dinner.

And if you haven’t figured out what the view is hour after hour along western Utah and much of central Nevada (i.e., The Loneliest Road in America), here’s a picture of our drive Monday, from Great Basin to Cold Springs Station near Fallon, Nevada. Note the haze from the wildfires far west of here.

Our next waypoint stop couldn’t be a better fit with that term…Cold Springs Station is an oasis along a particularly lonely stretch of highway. This map gives a good idea…the clip spans about 150 miles west to east and we’re at the red dot.

The site is perfect for an overnight and an interesting counterpoint to the babbling stream in the woods of last night’s stay. Had a pretty fierce duststorm kick up in the evening – Enzo got very nervous with the trailer shaking a bit. Nice sunrise over the mountains!

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Today (Tue, Aug 17), we head due west instead of northwest due to the Dixie Fire, which has closed Lassen Volcanic National Park. It’ll be a long drive to the next stop at Clear Lake State Park, but that will hopefully put us far enough south and west of the bigger fires to clear the air a bit. Flexibility is a good thing!

Canyons, Cliffs, Arches, Buttes and Mesas (SE Utah)

The Colorado River and its tributaries (e.g., the Green River) have done some amazing sculpting over the millenia, and this part of Utah is a nice gallery. Our drive from Black Canyon to Dead Horse Point State Park carried us past the San Juan Mountains and through the La Sal range. Along the way, we passed through a few endless dry valleys and challenging mountain passes that always remind us how varied and vast the landscape is. Just outside Montrose, there was a large field of hops – nice to see the beer industry is keeping at least one farmer in business.

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When we made reservations at Dead Horse Point SP, we did just enough research to know it was going to be high on a very dry mesa, not far from Arches NP and Moab, and close to Canyonlands NP.  Our style, partly by choice and partly by laziness, is to know enough to find interesting places but not so much that we aren’t surprised – and this place is one of those stunning surprises. Like many expansive views, it’s tough to capture in pictures, but the first picture is the view from our front door. (Well, ok, it’s our only door.) The Colorado River, Green River and adjacent canyons are 2000’ almost straight down from the Visitor Center.

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Our first night we drove out to the Dead Horse Point that the park is named after, to watch the sun set. The story is typical of wild west history, interesting but not pleasant. There is a 30-yard-wide pathway to a wider section at one end of the mesa, with tall cliffs on each side. They used to round up wild mustangs for sale by herding them over the narrow section and blocking off the narrow section. They’d pick the ones for sale in town and leave the rest to die, thus the name. A gorgeous setting with a tragic history.

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Given the 104F afternoon temps we were up early to visit Arches NP, hoping to beat the heat and the crowds. While the surrounding landscape in this region is also impressive, the wind- and water-shaped sandstone features – not just the arches! – make this park another must-see spot. And the tour buses show we aren’t the only ones who think that way. Another benefit of our early arrival was the morning “Golden Hour”, when the angled sunlight provided wonderful contrast. (Let me know if this slide show works…Wordpress changed things in the past two years (imagine that!) and I haven’t taken the time to get familiar with new formatting. And I got feedback to not skimp on the pictures…right Cath?)

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Our siesta-day plan worked well…lunch at the trailer of grilled turkey burgers, tater tots in the toaster oven outside and microwaved corn kept the heat down inside. (Thanks to R&C for the microwave corn idea – just toss the ears in and cook 8 mins per ear, chop off the stem end, squeeze the corn from the husk and enjoy!) After some reading and a nap, it was off to Canyonlands NP with picnic dinner in hand. There is much more to The Island in the Sky, as this large park is known, than the drive and short walks we took, but 103F temps make it tough to do more. Next time! Most of the cliffs in these pictures are 1000-2000’ straight down. The best summary is this video, taken from Grand View Point Overlook roughly in the center of the 527 sq mi park.

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Incredible that it wasn’t until 1964 that this area was declared a national park. Our picnic dinner was at a table with a pretty good view, near Grand View Point.

My run before we left this morning was on part of one of those trails, West Rim Trail starting at our campground with spur trails out to overlooks. Here’s one of them…I wasn’t perilously close to the edge, but it would’ve been nice to have someone take the picture from an adjacent sheer-drop cliff edge.

Then it was off to Yuba, Utah, a waypoint stop on our way to northern California and the coast.

Black Canyon of the Gunnison (or…how the stars aligned)

Back on US-50 (getting to really like that highway!) for the trek from Leadville to Gunnison, we had been told about construction and timed our departure to be in line for a 12:30-1:30 opening of the highway. This is the mountains and there are no good options. Well, turns out they weren’t working that Monday for some reason so we sailed through. Passed through more of the stunning scenery in this region as we worked our way west to Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP.

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Enzo, the younger of our two aging Black Lab mutts has a habit of rolling in the dirt or on rugs when we first arrive somewhere…and this time he found a nice patch of dust at our first campsite. He’s a black lab, not a chocolate lab!

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We love the big and famous national parks but love more those that aren’t on everyone’s top-10 list. This one should be…an absolutely stunning gorge carved by the Gunnison River, and not overly crowded. We spent most of the first day stepping our way along the 5-mile South Rim road from overlook to overlook. As with any grand and spectacularly beautiful scenery, pictures are the best descriptor but still don’t do it justice.

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This video gives a pretty good perspective on the scale of this canyon.

At one of the overlooks, April noticed this peregrine falcon soaring on the thermals. Majestic. But wait, there’s more (peregrine falcons)!

Since the rocks get most of the attention, thought I’d give some airtime to this magnificent Utah Juniper near one of the overlooks.

The description in Wikipedia about Black Canyon is fascinating. The Gunnison River descends at 34 feet per mile through the canyon vs 7.5 fpm for the Colorado in the Grand Canyon, with the greatest descent at 240 feet per mile in the park. There was a plan to build a railroad through the canyon but that was wisely scrapped. Another crazy plan, also was to build a tunnel to divert water into the adjacent Uncompahgre Valley. As with all of the places we visit, popular or less-so, there are so many stories…

The next day we headed off-campus to Ouray to check out another Colorado mountain town and stumbled (well, not exactly stumbled) onto some gems. Ouray is definitely a destination for the outdoorsy crowd, as one of the gateways to the majestic San Juan Mountains. Took the pups for a short hike near town to Lower Cascade Falls, and turned a corner to find a stunning 200′ waterfall.

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Passed by a small, quaint building with a sign that said Ouray County Museum out front so decided to stop in…this might be the best collection of local history anywhere. Every cubic inch is filled with artifacts, dioramas, and succinct explanations of a very deep and rich history – all well organized. And it’s all been donated, according to the front desk person. Plenty of mining-related displays but many other topics as well.

Lunch was a challenge as many of the interesting-looking restaurants were either closed or without dog-friendly dining options but we ended up at Thai Chili – great food and a perfect setting in the shade along the main street.

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On my run the last morning, I happened upon two peregrine falcons circling on the thermals. Stopped for about 5 minutes to watch the show – awesome.

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That was Thursday, Aug 12th…which took us from Black Canyon to Dead Horse Point SP near Moab, Utah.

Highest City in the USA

Our route from Colorado Springs to Leadville took us along the Arkansas River, along one of those “Blue Highways” (thank you, Jean!) on the map with little dots. I know it’s old school, but this is another reason we use AAA maps – Google Maps doesn’t have little dots. Gorge-ous views and many dozens of bright rafts running the rapids on the Arkansas. US-50 has a lot going for it…we’ll be seeing a lot of that route on this trip.

Stopped for lunch in Salida which is one of those mountain ski towns that seems to have figured out how to feed itself year-round. Lucked into a perfect trailer parking spot in a lot across the river that filled up by the time we left. A pair of small dams in town have created a little water-sports mecca and it was fun watching the young and old practice flipping these tiny kayak-like things upside down in the waves.

Turns out Salida has a strict no-dog policy in restaurant outdoor seating so we ended up at a – wait for it – BBQ food truck right in town. (They had delicious pulled pork and an interesting cilantro-heavy slaw, but I figured you’ve seen enough pictures of bbq.) They clearly had a connection with Monarch Ski Resort so I got talking to the guy serving us…he’s the Food & Beverage Manager for Monarch and the food truck comes from some quick pivoting they did last season during covid.

Our visit to Leadville was inspired by close friends from soon after college, when we moved to Minneapolis. R&C had a full – and relaxing – itinerary planned out for our 2½ days there, starting and ending with delicious home-cooked meals in their 40’ home, The Mingo Motel. They’ve been full-time RVers for over 20 years and were the primary inspiration for us launching into this (very part-time) vagabond lifestyle.

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The RV park we were at, Sugar Loafin’, has probably seen better days and has clearly been around a while, if the sign downtown is any indication. Still, it was quiet at night and safe which is all we need. And, there was a 5^th-wheel nearby with a hummingbird feeder attracting flocks of hummingbirds every morning.

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Saturday morning we headed off to the Leadville Fish Hatchery, where our friends had worked 3 summers as volunteers doing trail maintenance and a ton of other large and small projects. This was another of those hidden gems that are just everywhere. Wild raspberries at the start of the trail, fascinating history of the terraced fish ponds used to grow seed fish until the onset of whirling disease, when a series of tanks was built to use treated stream water, and site of the large Evergreen Lakes Hotel, a tourist attraction and retreat for the nouveau riche of Leadville for a few short years until it burned down in 1894. The views of nearby “14-ers” (aka, mountains over 14,000’ elevation) were a bit dampened by the hazy skies – a persistent reality due to all the wildfires west of here…see Mt. Elbert in the picture?

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Back to our respective domiciles for lunch then a visit to the National Mining Museum. Overlooking the more blatant propaganda, this was an amazing collection of local, national, and international history about minerals and mining in general. Many of the displays dealt with silver and gold mining since that was what built Leadville to a town of about 30,000 in a few short years – population is now about 3000. Fun fact: Did you know that North Carolina was the leading producer of gold in the US until 1848??

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We wandered the main street, past some of the many shops and restaurants – it’s the perfect blend of historical, outdoorsy, funky and a bit chic, with tons of great-looking places to eat. That weekend would ordinarily have been their Boom Days festival with all sorts of contests (like rock-drilling) and festival-ly stuff, but there were very few special events this year.  Dinner was at The Treeline, with a well-deserved reputation as the best place in Leadville. We each got some interesting and tasty dishes, mine a honey-glazed tofu with spring roll and seaweed salad.

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After breakfast at The Mingo Motel, we hustled to see the start of the Leadville Boom Days Pack Burro Race. This seemed uniquely Leadville but it turns out to be a race series through the summer where people “run their asses off” over long distances and brutal elevation changes. The Leadville race was either 15 or 21 miles starting at about 10,000 feet and going up a couple thousand from there. Clearly some take it seriously but most are simply having fun, with their burro.

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Of course the big story is mining. Gold started things off around 1859 but silver became the money-maker. Then the government shifted from the silver standard to the gold standard which caused a big recession. The Climax Mine, biggest in town and over 120 years old, has a rich history including Baby Doe Tabor, the owner’s young wife during that recession when they lost everything. There are the remnants of mines everywhere, every one of them with many stories to tell.

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Closed out the visit with another great meal at The Mingo Motel…shrimp on the barbie. We would’ve loved staying another 2 months, but we also are expecting great things on the route ahead, starting with Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Ron made a compelling pitch for us to continue the string of fun times with them in Leadville…can’t wait to see them again, wherever that will be!

(We’re actually at Black Canyon of the Gunnison now…life with no wifi or cell service is a life with fewer distractions, but it also makes it very difficult to get these written and out to you.)

Colorado Springs

Drove down from Denver Tuesday on Hwy 83 through smoky haze, and the skies cleared for a few hours during our 3 days here – hey, there are mountains over there! Our site at Mountaindale Campground was between two huge, new big rigs, with a nice view overlooking a field and stream. Saw deer and wild turkeys on my runs but none of the black bear supposedly around.

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Our first full day covered just a few of the must-see places. Top of that list, recommended by many, was Garden of the Gods. Met up with Raleigh friends now living here and took one of the many dog-friendly trails winding through the incredible rock formations.

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The adjacent town, Manitou Springs, (like many around here) has an old-West history, now with tons of great eateries, coffee shops, outdoorsy stores and some touristy shops. Found a just-opened place to eat with a perfect outdoor dining deck overlooking Fountain Creek. The Manitou Café doesn’t have a website or show up on Google but does have fresh veggie sandwiches and great bison burgers! And some cute carvings on the top of each deck post – so artsy and so clever!

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We walked off lunch with a couple of short hikes in Cheyenne Mountain State Park, then a delicious dinner at Christie and Nick’s.

Thursday after a nice pancake breakfast,

we headed up Pike’s Peak. Long line to get in but an exciting drive to the top. (EV and race geeks, watch this video of a Tesla S at the Hill Climb this year. Drive starts at the 3rd minute, it gets exciting at the 8th as he gets to the tree line. Lots of bumps at the end – I was wondering what that must be like driving at speed…) The view at the top was amazing in spite of the haze!

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We had to check out Old Colorado Springs and it’s an area that’s clearly trying – and succeeding – to make a comeback. Found another great lunch spot – who would’ve guessed there’d be a spectacular El Salvadorian food in this place…but there is. Had the best chorizo-stuffed chile relleno ever at Monse’s Pupuseria.

Another short hike after lunch took us through more gorgeous scenery – seeing a fraction of what’s in North Cheyenne Cañon Park. We’re beginning to realize we won’t be taking the dogs on long hikes this trip…long story, but Chai’s breathing sounds awful on good days, and worse when it’s warm, at altitude. It is what it is. Notice in the picture how the fallen tree has created a perfect dam across much of North Cheyenne Creek….

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Dinner last night was another special treat…with Christie and kiddos joining us for homemade pizza (Savannah was a master cheese- and topping spreader!) and goodies from the cafe at the campground.

Today it’s on to Leadville and a rendezvous with the close friends partly responsible for getting us into this RV thing….can’t wait! I’m sure there will be some interesting driving through the mountains and traveling from 6600 to 11000 feet elevation – Pike’s Peak was a good practice run!

postscript: Denver Botantic Gardens

We looked forward to a relaxed day, the only planned activity a visit to the Denver Botantic Gardens. We shouldn’t have been surprised that there would be some shareable pictures, but..wow! It was a bit crowded and a bit hot, but is now high up on our list of gorgeous gardens. Best catch was a video of a hummingbird feasting on a bright red penstemon buffet. We watched this for at least a minute before s/he moved on.

Of course there was much more to see.

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I wondered…why is it the Denver Botantic Garden and not the Denver Botantical Garden? From The Grammarist, it turns out they’re interchangeable, “botantic” faded from use in the 20th century and is mostly preserved in institutions founded over a century ago.

Continuing the string of surprise nature sightings, on my run this morning, I watched a coyote run across the road I was on across the Cherry Creek Reservoir dam, down the stone bank onto the path, chase down and catch a gopher (or something) for breakfast.

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This is sunrise over our home, and the view of Cherry Creek Reservoir from that road along the dam.

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How we go “directly” to Colorado…

This is not our preferred RV lifestyle but as with most everything in life, there are silver linings galore. Given our time constraints and the goal to see more of Colorado and the NoCal / Oregon region, we are hopping our way to Denver in 5 days of driving. Our preference, when we need 1-night waypoints, is to mix the longer days with extended 2- to 5-night stays. Even that is a busier itinerary than many RV types (right R&C??) but it’s the way we like it, mostly driven (pun intended) by our desire to see more. And there is so much to see!

We also normally avoid interstates and to drive a max of about 4 hours (~200 miles). This time, it’s been I-40 and I-70 pretty much the whole way, driving between 4 and 7 hours. Mileage for each of the 5 legs has been 255, 286, 340, 362 and 479 – yikes. But let’s talk about those silver linings.

The last post was from Asheville, and our next stop was in Nashville. It was hot, but the stop gave us a chance to see almost all of my cousins who live there (thank, you Beth, for arranging that!). We’ve parked in B&R’s driveway before, and it’s always hilarious to see how their tiny dog, Bunny, lords over our much-bigger labs. It’s her house, after all!

On the way to St. Louis, April dusted off her skills at finding amazing lunch spots in random places, with a stop at J Mack BBQ in Gilbertsville, KY. One clue as to the quality of the place is they don’t have a website (though that’s not a good indicator any more.) Another is that it’s about a mile off I-24 east of Paducah, way past the cluster of gas stations at the interchange. We ate early, a good thing as the place filled up, and they baked a fresh batch of cookies when I asked if they had any to match the sample in the little display. Pulled pork, brisket, slaw and mac-and-cheese. Delish.

Fun sighting near Columbia, MO: “Bed and Biscuit”, a kennel.

Our 3rd stop was a surprise treat – got the best site in a large open-field campground at 370 Lakeside Park in St. Peters, northwest of St. Louis. It’s only 10 years old, with perfectly level parking pads (so we don’t have to unhitch – and great for big rigs), a 3.2 mile loop around the lake and a bunch of other features.

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The next day it was off to Kansas, and once again we’re commenting to ourselves how often the plains states get brushed off as too flat or too boring. April picked our next lunch spot in the middle of Kansas City, which I was a bit nervous about. Turned out to be easy on/off, wide open street-side parking and a long line out the door for another great spot, Slap’s BBQ. Who woulda thunk we’d be in a trendy, eclectic area with a brewery next door and hip coffee shop across the street. And some peculiar street art (yes, those are toilet valve floats).

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We were well into the state before we came over a rise on I-70 to see the flatter view, even then with rolling hills and patches of forest or low cliffs.

Our fourth and final waypoint stop was about 1/3 of the way across Kansas, at Milford State Park. We were able to position the Jeep and trailer to be level, completing our perfect record of not needing to unhitch – nice! Another perimeter spot gave us a great view down an open field, and all was good.

It was a long final leg of this sprint, and the drive took us through classic prairie country. In recognition of the infrastructure bill that keeps getting compared to Eisenhower’s project, we drove on I-70 across 8 miles of the very first section of interstate, near Topeka! Further along, it was nice to see crops of wind turbines sprouting up in many expansive ranches.

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We’re now in Aurora just outside Denver at Cherry Creek State Park. Huge lake, big campground and quiet site with an unbroken view of a big field. Nice for being so close to a big city! The slope behind us gave me a drone’s-eye view, with Chai and Enzo chilling out front.

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For dinner last night we experimented with a fun Chilean side dish: grilled peppers with goat cheese and an egg…delish! (thank you, Felipe!)

Today we tour some sights and share some wine (and seltzer) with friends, then tomorrow it’s on to Colorado Springs!

…and we’re off! (where, how, why)

Wrapped up an uneventful Day 1 of this 2-month adventure with a waypoint stop at the West Asheville KOA

I’ve got a nifty GPS gizmo that let’s me plot out our course without being online – here’s the first leg, a rather boring westward tack down I-40. (I’m not sure I like how this comes out…not very clear.)

To prepare for the trip, we were able to get the trailer level on the sloped street in front of our house, which then allows us to turn on the refrigerator (it’s runs on LP/electric so has to be level) and pack, without parking somewhere else. All you RV types will notice the front trailer jack is about as extended as it’ll get – not the most comfortable setup but it worked.

To those unfamiliar with our rig, it’s a 2017 Rockwood MiniLite 2104S, by Forest River. The link is to the current model – ours has a bit different layout inside, but it’s close. It’s the perfect size for the two of us and our two older black lab mutts, Enzo and Chai, and has all of the comforts of home. Really! One of the many features we like is a variety of seating options: dinette, Murphy bed couch, chairs outside or the omnipresent picnic table.

Yesterday’s routine was typical, with a spectacular lunch in Black Mountain, NC, at La Guinguette (translates to “open-air cafè…so à propos!). Some of you know that I’ve been going to Montreat, up the road from Black Mountain, since I was 8 years old, with 4 generations of connection to the place. Seems like Black Mountain keeps getting more great restaurants so there were many options – once again, April picked a great one. Not new but we’ve never been there. The lentil sausage soup was spectacular, and our crèpes and empanadas were also amazing.

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Our site at the KOA is perfect for what we need: level so we don’t have to unhitch, nice separation from our neighbors, very easy on/off of I-40, and reasonably quiet. It’s hot (like most places) so I cooked our twice-baked potatoes outside; first-time use of a single-burner gas grill (to sautée the garlic, onion and broccoli). Delish.

So that’s the where and how…now why do we travel so much? I’ll get a bit philosophical here since a friend who blogs about her worldly travels raised that question in a recent post. I think that with most people and with us, there isn’t a succinct answer. For us, we have always enjoyed seeing new and different places. Our trailer trips have taken this to a new level, which seems counter-intuitive (vs. exotic international travel). Almost every place we’ve been has been interesting / noteworthy / gorgeous / thought-provoking / enriching. The best of these are the surprises: the phenomenal Thai lunch from a food truck in Bismark, ND; the hipster coffee shop with great live music on a Sunday morning in Tulsa; crossing the US-Canada border on the hike along Waterton Lake. So many more. These new experiences are good for the soul (oh, and fun!).

Today it’s westward to Nashville, staying once again in my cousin’s driveway and seeing a bunch of other first cousins. Yay!

What’s old is new again!

No need to explain why it’s been 641 days since our last post…but very soon we’ll be on the road heading from Raleigh to the West Coast with many stops in between. If you’ve been along with us on our travels you know that each trip has been a blast – there are so many incredible places to see and discover, and we’re excited to see what this journey will bring. Skim the old posts if you want a refresher!

Much is the same but much has changed for us over the past 21 months. Our last trailer trip – mostly in the Northeast – included time with grandchild #1, and we now have four (5 soon after we return in Sept). Let me know if you want grandbaby news – while I could write books about how much fun that is, I’ll stick to the travel stuff here. Our 2017 21′ Rockwood MiniLite travel trailer and 2014 diesel Jeep Grand Cherokee are the same, and both are getting a thorough checkout before launch. We did take a vaccine-celebration trip to Yellowstone in early June, photos here, if you’re interested.

As with any travel, there are goals and constraints that have influenced our planning: (a) You might recall we’ve camped in all of the lower 48 states but one, Oregon, so there are several stops in The Beaver State. (Fun Fact: The official motto is “She Flies With Her Own Wings”. Really!). (b) We need to be in St. Louis for specific dates (more on that later). (c) We want to get to several areas we’ve missed such as central and western Colorado. And for very good reasons, (d) we’re giving ourselves exactly 2 months to do all this, leaving Raleigh July 28th and returning Sept 28th.

The basic route takes us quickly across to Colorado, as there are several parks we’d like to see and a couple fun visits with friends planned. We touched on the southwest corner of Colorado on our first trip but there is, of course, a lot more to see. We then step our way to northern California and Oregon and back east with a long stop in St. Louis. The last segment will take us through Ohio and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia – an area we’ve been to enough in the pre-trailer past to know it’s gorgeous.

Here are most of the spots where we’re planning to stay:

So watch for our first post from the road coming at you in less than two weeks! (As in the past, comments and feedback are what keeps me going.)

With apologies to John Muir, “The road is calling and we must go….”

6,000 miles, 56+ days, 13 states

Our next-to-last homeward leg brought us from the Atlantic coast of Delaware back to Pohick Bay Regional Park south of DC, third time we’ve stayed there. Lots of families with little kids for the “Park in the Dark” weekend. Another fun weekend with Heather and Felipe, including dinner at Pizzeria Paradiso, a visit to The Renwick Gallery, an IPA at Aslin Beer Company and dinner at Bastille Brasserie. Haven’t been to the Renwick in several years, and the current exhibits provide a wonderful array of art forms without being overwhelming. For example, David Best’s Temple (for reflection) and Michael Sherrill‘s pottery (he’s from North Carolina!).

Always fun getting the doggies together with their cousins…caught crazy Dilla in a quiet cozy moment with Chai and Enzo. And on one of several runs near the Potomac.

Back home, what’s the answer to the question of which was our favorite? There is no single “favorite” but so much great scenery, so many fun visits, so many wonderful meals, so much history – it’s impossible to pick just one. We were very fortunate, again, to have great weather on most days. The view from Mt. Washington on a rare clear day, and the view from Cadillac Mountain and St. Regis Mountain (and more!) would obviously not have been as spectacular with an “average” weather day.

It was different – and kinda fun – to have so much to see in such a compact space. That’s New England! Our 4+ hour drive home from DC was the longest this time, and that was a normal travel day on most of our other trips. We got used to that routine so not sure which we prefer…they both work, with a different approach.

We didn’t set this as a goal when we started, but in about 2 1/2 years (spring 2017 to fall 2019) we have now spent at least one night in the trailer in 47 of the 48 states in the continental US. Pretty cool, huh? No firm dates, but our next big trip will obviously head west to fill in Oregon, the remaining holdout. There is much to see in so many other states but we’d like to explore more of Colorado and Utah on the way.

I’ll post again when we start our next trip – since we’re not sure when that will be (next summer?), You should click the “Follow” button if you want to get an email when that next post goes up. And, as always, it’s nice getting your comments or feedback.

Until next time!

PA and DE: History, Scenery, Homes, Gardens, Beaches

This next-to-last segment of our journey took us through New Jersey to Bucks County, PA then on to two stops in Delaware. Our stop in Hatfield, PA, was at Oak Grove Park & Sales, an in-town RV park (which we try to avoid). While very noisy next to a big intersection with dump trucks roaring by early (5am?), it was actually better than I expected. Friendly staff, good sites and a decent “neighborhood”.

We’re starting to get used to this new routine of short hops between stops, very different than the trips out west. Helped Lauren with a major chore and enjoyed some pancakes before a late start Sunday, so Monday was our touring day, the primary stop being Fonthill Castle, the very unusual home of Henry Mercer in Doylestown, PA. I had never heard of it either, but it’s weird, eclectic and well worth a visit. Mercer inherited a small fortune and was founder and brains behind the Moravian Pottery & Tile Works, which became famous during the Arts and Crafts Movement in the early 20th century. Many unique features to this place, completely designed and built (with help) by Mercer who had no formal architectural or construction experience. He liked castles from boyhood, and that’s what he built, using reinforced concrete which had not often been used for residential construction. And he liked (and had a business making) art tiles, so they are everywhere. Fun. Note the stairs that include tiles spelling out “Rollo’s Stairs”, an homage to his dog. Adjacent is the Tile Works, still a working factory (at reduced volume).

After a delicious lunch at the dog very-friendly Penn Taproom in Doylestown, we headed to nearby New Hope for a walk along the towpath that’s part of the 60-mile (!!) Delaware Canal State Park along the Delaware River starting in Easton, PA. The canal wasn’t particularly pretty on this stretch, but old trains of the New Hope Railroad on one side (hey train aficionados (e.g., MRA), there’s an interesting history) and the Delaware River on the other made for a nice walk. The view downstream toward the spot where Washington crossed the Delaware is from the bridge to Lambertsville, NJ.

Everywhere in this area there are stone houses and stone buildings. Led us to think about how distinctive architecture and construction methods define a region. Same general time period as other older homes and buildings throughout this trip but around here many, large and small, are of this beautiful and durable all-stone construction. There’s a history thesis waiting to be written (or discovered) about this, I’m sure.

On the way south to Lums Pond State Park in Delaware, we stopped at Valley Forge National Historic Park. So much to learn about the web of events during the Revolutionary War – so many opportunities to win party trivia games! In fact, there were no significant battles at Valley Forge, but this is where, during the winter of 1777-78, the rag-tag assemblage of colonies’ volunteer soldiers were turned into a more cohesive Continental Army. Many things contributed to this, including von Steuben from Prussia, the unfortunate culling due to disease, the introduction of French support, and fixing a broken supply chain (Nathanael Green), among others. Pretty cool that Washington’s headquarters building, the Isaac Potts house, is so well preserved.

After setting up at our site (with no reservation – crazy, right Cathy?) at Lums Pond SP, we finished the day Tuesday driving back north to Winterthur, one of the more famous du Pont homes in the area. Billed as one of the premier collections of American decorative arts, the place is much more museum than fancy 175-room house – an actual genre called housemuseum. Endless fascinating pieces displayed at and built into the place, including the 1790 silver set – one of the first using a rolled-metal method rather than hand-hammered, allowing for much thinner and lighter works. (They also had a full set of hammered silver steins by Paul Revere.) The famous spiral Montmorenci Staircase (from a house in North Carolina) was a surprise for du Pont’s wife and daughters, installed in 1935 while they were in Europe.

Wednesday took us back to Pennsylvania for a visit to Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford. Big museums are great, but finding a smaller museum with amazing art (and I’m no art aficionado) is particularly exciting. In this trip we ended up doing the point and counterpoint of the Wyeth family – N.C., Andrew, Jamie and all the others – from the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, to the Brandywine. Plenty of Wyeth paintings, but also an exhibit on the illustrations of famous fairy tales. And the repurposed building and setting on the Brandywine River made for a gorgeous setting. Fun!

On the recommendation of a local in the parking lot of the museum, lunch was at Hank’s Place across US 1. After a unique and delicious Kennet Mushroom Strudel and Beet Salad, we couldn’t resist the rich chocolate cake. Great recommendations, all!!

The afternoon took us to yet another amazing estate of a mega-rich, multi-generational family – Longwood Gardens of the Peirce and Pierre du Pont families. Once again, the history is fascinating, and the variety of spectacular gardens, woodlands and other features of the grounds sets this place apart from any other. We’ve been to a lot of humungous rich-guy’s gardens and commented to each other as we were leaving that any one of the areas on these grounds could be a visit on its own. Check out the video (with sound!) of the Main Fountain Garden – mesmerizing. And that’s without the nighttime LED light show!

 

Our stay at Lums Pond was, as is all too common with so many places to see and so little time (retired, huh?), too short to take advantage of all the trails and in-park sights. It was not at all full but would be a great spot for rigs large and small. With all we didn’t see around here, good chance we’ll be back. Did get some great runs and walks in on the trails near the lake, over marshland and through the woods.

Off-season in uncrowded parks (our kind of travel!) we have more flexibility, and almost ditched the drive to Cape Henlopen State Park on the southern entrance to Delaware Bay. So glad we didn’t. Wonderful campground with paved, level spaces – another one great for large or smaller rigs. It’s not right on the beach but a reasonable walk and easy bike ride to several access points to the long, wide, sandy Atlantic shore. The park is on a former Army base (Fort Miles) that was built from scratch in two years at the start of WW II, with many structures left to see and walk through. Bunkers, artillery, observation towers (the photo of the light houses is from the top of one) and the only remaining example of basic concrete barracks from that time. Nearby Lewes (pronounced Loo-iss, not Lose!), which we might drive through on the way out, is apparently worth a visit on its own so we should come back. Lewes was the first town in the first state in the Union, and the Cape Henlopen area was the first land set aside by colonists around 1682 as “public lands”, so plenty of history to check out next time.

Today we head to our last (and it was the first) stop…Pohick Bay Regional Park just south of Heather & Felipe in Alexandria, VA.

CT and NY: new fun in old haunts

Traveling with trailer in New England is different from much of the rest of the country. Distances are shorter, Google can take us on some crazy backroads (which means we only trust numbered highways on our paper map) and city or town streets can be more challenging. But challenges can be fun, and the temptation of great pizza in New Haven on our way from Rhode Island to east of Danbury was just too much. Fortunately, parking was good and the eggplant-and-sausage pizza at Modern Apizza was even better than the recommendation from Cheryl. As a bonus, winding our way out of the city took us right through Yale’s campus.

 

Backed into yet another driveway of close friends Paul and Cheryl, this one a bit longer than any of the others but perfectly level all around. We didn’t even have to unhitch for our one-night stay! They took us on a gorgeous hike through nearby Huntington State Park – arriving just as the rain transitioned to occasional sunshine. There is something very special visually and olfactorily about hikes in the woods with damp autumn leaves.

 

Thursday we got our long-awaited dose of grandson Owen – it’s been a whole month and he’s cuter and smarter than ever. Of course. In the evening, we’d gotten tickets to see one of the many, many Halloween-related seasonal attractions in this area around Sleepy Hollow – The Great Jack O’Lantern Blaze. Held at Van Cortlandt Manor in Croton very near our Croton Point Park campground, it’s a bit sensational but overall very well done. Absolutely amazing what they’ve done with real carved pumpkins (over 7.000!), including the Statue of Liberty which reportedly contains 114 pumpkins. Many of the exhibits are with plastic pumpkins (and well done), but this one is real.

 

Friday we headed north to visit FDR’s Hyde Park home, with fascinating history about the family, the man, the President and the region – beautiful in its fall splendor. In the era when Roosevelt contracted polio, in 1921 at age 39, many believed that any physical handicap meant there was also a mental handicap. As FDR was still rising politically, he went to great lengths to publicly appear fit, effectively hiding that he was paralyzed from the waist down. Throughout his very public life the press respected, and were accomplices in his desire to keep this secret. Incredible how much positive change he brought to the country and how much turmoil he presided over, including the recovery from the Great Depression and WW II. He was born at Hyde Park, maintained his home there and is buried on the grounds, a gorgeous setting on the banks of the Hudson River. The elevator is noteworthy as he insisted throughout his life to pull himself up using the rope and pulley – as a way to gain upper body strength.

 

Some of you know I worked for Honeywell much of my career….couldn’t resist a photo of this original thermostat on the main floor. I believe it’s from the 1915 renovation, and note that the words at the top, “Quiet May” is some of the earliest co-branding I’ve seen, from a company called the May Oil Burner Company out of Baltimore. Anyone know what that glass thing is – I never got a chance to ask the ranger at the house. There were several mounted in various rooms. [Update! Thank you to Jean and Tom who both had these in older homes of their childhoods (MN and CT) for figuring this out. They are “fire bombs” which were either filled with water, salt water or carbon tetrachoride (CTC) and could be thrown at a fire or would burst if exposed to heat. CTC produces phosgene gas when burned so not a good idea, and the volume of liquid is so small they probably didn’t do much anyway. Interesting!!!!]

 

Lunch Thursday was on the lovely CIA campus – Culinary Institute of America, with some delicious cafeteria-style potato curry and mac-and-cheese. They had a long series of quite fun slogans along the streets…even serious chefs have a sense of humor! Friday night, we went to another local Halloween event, this one in Sleepy Hollow at Philipsburg Manor: Horseman’s Hollow. It was a haunted house with actors jumping out and all manner of scary stuff – quite well done (and no pictures, of course!). Followed this on Saturday with a stroll through the Old Dutch Church and Old Dutch Burial Ground, final resting place for Washington Irving, and the adjacent Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Fun to visit all these places and events so close to where I grew up – typical that we never experience the fun stuff in the towns we live in!

 

Next stop is Bucks County, Pennsylvania!

Rhode Island: small state, big views

While we did not  start out with this goal, with this stay in the smallest state we have been to 46 of the lower 48 states in the 2 1/2 years of trailer trips. (The rule is we have to spend the night in the trailer in the state.) Fun to put the tiny Rhode Island sticker on our map.

Our campsite at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park was on the corner of a nicely-treed slot-style campground that is clearly set up for the high volume of beachgoers that must keep the place packed in the summer. Our corner site was a bit noisy with road traffic (to the Block Island ferry) through the trees but made for a nice setting. We’re across the bay from Newport, just south of Narragansett so convenient to many sites to sea/see.

Spent Monday morning on a 3 mile shore hike at Beavertail State Park, on the southern section of Conanicut Island. Easy to see how the big money fell in love with this area at the turn of the last century, and there’s still plenty of big money in the big shoreline houses today. Lots of picture-worthy views of rocky shoreline and crashing waves, with a tidal zone that is perfect for rock-hopping and exploring the pools. Beavertail Lighthouse is third-oldest in the country with a fascinating history – including some adventures in the 1938 hurricane. One of the last lightkeepers until it was decommissioned in 1972 was George Light, who would famously answer the phone: “Beavertail Light, Light speaking.”

We must have stumbled on a migration of Monarch Butterflies because they were everywhere. Very cool. Last time we saw this was at Lake Powell a couple years ago in very different surroundings!

After a delicious sandwich at Slice of Heaven Bakery and Cafe in Jamestown, we headed to Black Point Trail just south of Narragansett. The drive took us past one of the (many) landmark buildings in the area, The Towers of the former Narragansett Pier Casino, center of social activity in the Gay ’90’s.

Black Point Trail had gorgeous rocky-coast views similar to Beavertail, but with even more interesting rocks and tidal pools. The doggies loved exploring and munching on all sorts of unidentifiable sea detritus. At the end of the trail, at the north end of Scarborough State Beach is ruins of a mansion called Windswept. Turns out this huge estate house was built in 1895 by the Davis family who made their fortune selling an addictive painkiller called “Perry Davis’s Vegetable Pain Killer”, a mix of opium and alcohol. Hmmm.

A visit to this area would be incomplete without touring some of the mega-mansions – aka “cottages” of the Gilded Age in Newport along The Cliff Walk. (“Gilded Age” was coined by Mark Twain in an 1873 novel, and was not meant to be a compliment.) First stop was at one of the most famous and largest, The Breakers, which is one of many Vanderbilt mansions around the country. The history, family drama and art/architecture of this house has filled volumes, and the audio tour did a wonderful job of describing some of it. This was shipping and railroad money, lots of gold leaf everywhere, one room is finished with platinum leaf, and much of the interior (and furnishings) was crafted in Europe and assembled on site – so I suppose you could call it a manufactured home. Not!

Our plan was to take a stroll along the Cliff Walk from The Breakers but, as you can see from the photos, there were some ocean breakers splashing onto the path so we chickened out.

Next stop was Marble House, another in the collection of mansions fortunately owned and maintained by the Preservation Society of Newport County. Conspicuous consumption was another expression coined in the late 19th century, and this is another perfect example. Inspired by the Petit Trianon of Versailles, this place is built with over 500,000 cubic feet of marble. One of many amazing factoids and stories. I’ve driven past this area dozens of times – glad we made the stop to finally see some of what’s here.

Lunch was in the cute harborfront district near Thames Street – it’s clear this area is overrun in the summer season and whenever cruise ships drop in. Had a wonderful lunch at Brick Alley Pub – great food and fun decor.

Next stop will be with friends in their driveway in Newtown, CT, for a night. Looking forward to the challenge of a long reverse entry. They were hit hard by a tornado or macroburst in 2018 so apparently no concern of overhanging branches. Here’s our approximate path over the previous couple of stops and the next two.

Boston…and more connections

On the way from Scarborough near Portland to Waban near Boston we made a quick diversion through Ogonquit on the recommendation of my cousin Chuck, stopping for coffee and a perfect blueberry-lemon scone at Bread & Roses Bakery. Not a great town for parking a trailer but we lucked out and got to walk past a few blocks of cute shops and eateries. Seems up to all the rave reviews from many friends who have visited.

Pulled into our friends’ driveway in Waban, a nice challenge for my parking skills but not a problem. Perfectly level (side-to-side, which is more important) so it’ll get 5 stars on the RV Park Reviews site! Always fun to park at someone’s house even though we probably drop the property values. Wonderful staying with Peter & Suzanne, and they helped us pack a lot into the 3 days we were there.

Spent the day Friday with Jean, another Tufts friend, visiting Salem which is a fascinating town any time but especially as we approach Halloween. Started at the Salem Witch Museum, which was a bit touristy but gives a thorough account of the events of 1692. (Trivia fact: No witches have ever been burned at the stake in America.) Lunch was on the gorgeous harborside deck of the Sea Level Oyster Bar – the mussels and view were spectacular. Friday night we continued our series of fun friend connections with a dinner with Kate and Dan at Gustazo Cuban Cafe in Waltham. Forgot (again!!) to get some pictures but it was a wonderful time with delicious eats.

It’s been a long time since we’ve had a chance to wander around Beantown, so we did lots of walking on a gorgeous day Saturday. Walked to the T so no car involved and walked Boston Public Garden, Beacon Hill, past the Capitol Building, down to Fanueil Hall and the Government Center, then along the Greenway with a string of art installations, beer and wine gardens, etc. There’s something magical about Boston – vibrancy, depth of history, harbor and hills, crazy street patterns, fun accents, and more…it’s a wonderful mix with endless possibilities for exploration.

Had lunch at Time Out Market, then walked to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum with its eclectic collection of art and artifacts, spending most of the short time we had in the Palace section. You might be familiar with the still-unsolved theft of works of Rembrandt, Manet, Degas and others worth over $500 million, the single largest property theft in the world. $10 million reward if you help them solve the case.

Sunday was our travel day but we broke from routine and packed in more fun before heading out later in the afternoon. This included coffee and conversation with another cousin, Chuck, in Bedford then a short drive to Manchester. Peter (who we were staying with) is in the process of helping his siblings sell one of five Frank Lloyd Wright homes in New England, that his uncle owned. As you might recall, we’ve visited many Wright houses and buildings across the country and have known about this from Peter for the 45 years we’ve been friends. Amazing what the family is doing to prep and upgrade for the sale, and we were very fortunate to be able to walk the house and grounds before it’s sold. If you’re interested, HERE is the website with all the details and some great photos of the interior and exterior.

Arrived at Fishermen’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett in time to set up and fix dinner with plans to explore Newport and the area over the next couple of days!

Portland, ME – two days of surprises and adventures!

The drive from Lobster Buoy Campsites in S. Thomaston to Wild Duck Campground in Scarborough included several planned stops: DEF for the Jeep, the Maine State Prison Showroom (Great recommendation, Ed, with lots of wood everything from Shaker furniture to bowls to whatever – including many sailboat models. Too bad it’s only in-store sales and we’re on a long trip!) and, best stop of all, Maine Beer Company in Freeport. That stop was to fill a request from Seth for “Dinner”, a special brew that is not distributed. Don’t tell him, but we now have 3 bottles in the fridge. Got a flight with our amazing pizza-and-salad lunch and all 4 beers were some of the best I’ve had. Worth a detour!

The RV park was a pleasant surprise – tucked away in a neighborhood and surrounded by the tidal marsh of the Nonesuch River. Far enough to be quiet but close enough for easy access to Portland. Our site turned out to be ideal – which is not always the case for Site #1. Shaded by trees and adjacent to a cute duck pond – look closely for the heron.

Dinner after we arrived was with one of my first cousins and his wife, Dave and Ellie, who have lived on Sebago Lake for many years. A fantastic fried haddock meal on their deck overlooking the lake, and lots of great conversation.

Wednesday took us into downtown Portland and a visit to the Portland Museum of Art. It’s just the right size and has numerous spectacular collections of art icons of international fame and/or with Maine connections. It’s also fascinating when art meets history (which it usually does). The Paddle Steamer Portland was one of the largest and most luxurious steamships at the time and sank in 1898 in the infamous Portland Gale that claimed over 400 lives and 150 ships. It’s also called “The Titanic of New England”.

Portland is also plagued by crowds from cruise ships – the NCL Escape was nearby and holds 4,266 passengers. Ironic name. So finding a place for lunch in the cute Old Portland district could have been a challenge. Had homemade pickles, a Bahn Mi sandwich and brisket roll (all delish) paired with a smooth local porter at The Thirsty Pig – uncrowded, very dog-friendly and spectacular food.

Took a walk along the Eastern Promenade and East End Beach, which has a very cute narrow-gage railroad ride that we passed on. Saw some spectacular harbor views and barely made it back to the car before a passing shower drenched everything.

On the way home, passed just one of the many examples of the fall colors making their appearance. Maybe a bit dryer but funny how we’ve come south and now the fall colors are approaching peak – gorgeous.

The next day we first wandered over to Prouts Neck looking for a good park to walk around with the dogs – this wasn’t it, but it sure had some spectacular homes. No surprise the small enclave had a full-blown Wall Street Journal article written about it a couple years ago.

Eventually we ended up at Fort Williams State Park, after a stop for coffee, pastries and a couple bagels for tomorrow (normal bagels, not….well, never mind) at Scratch Bakery in Willard Square in South Portland. Munching and sipping, we talked about how this place is the ideal local everything: great baked goods including breads and bagels, coffee and tea, sandwiches, a decent wine selection, etc.

Fort Williams Park had some of the best iconic Maine scenery for us so far, along with different threads of its own fascinating history. Definitely a great stop for a nice variety of sights. The Portland Head Light is the main feature, but tucked in a corner is the ruins of the formerly-grand Goddard Mansion. And we couldn’t pass up the chance for a last Maine lobster roll, this time at what turned out to be a famous food truck, Bite Into Maine. Yes, it was delicious and the setting for our picnic was another post-card scene. First, the quintessential Maine shot of the lighthouse, then all the rest.

[One footnote from our Ft. Williams Park visit – a wild and crazy small-world story. We were admiring one of the views near the lighthouse and a woman asked if I’d take a picture of her group of four, two couples about our age. One of the guys notices the shirt I happen to be wearing and asks if I’d worked for Honeywell. Turns out he was a guy I worked very closely with about 12 years ago (both of us hard to recognize under hats and sunglasses). Fun stuff.]

If the lobster roll wasn’t enough Maine food, we had to make one more stop. We’d been passing this place on our trips to/from Portland, fascinated by the concept of a “potato donut”. They’re actually quite good – got an apple potato donut, which means it was pure health food. Keeping with our eat-and-drink-local theme, it turns out The Holy Donut only has 3 locations, all in the Portland area.

In the late afternoon we did something totally out of character and perfect for this vagabond lifestyle – went to a movie. For various good personal reasons I have been a huge fan of Garth Stein’s book The Art of Racing in the Rain so we finally caught the movie version, and we were literally the only ones in the theatre. It’s a tear-jerker and well worth seeing. “There is no dishonor in losing the race. There is only dishonor in not racing because you are afraid to lose.”

Today we head to the ‘burbs of Boston – another stay in the driveway of another close friend.

More Maine Coast: Rockland, Camden, Vinalhaven

As I mentioned at the end of the last post, the campsite we lucked into at Lobster Buoy Campsites is the best in the park and one of the best we’ve ever had (site #10). This pair of photos was taken when we first arrived, showing both directions.

Pretty cool, huh? One big advantage of these short East Coast traveling days is we get to explore the afternoon we arrive, and we headed into Rockland to see the Farnworth Museum which houses one of the best Andrew Wyeth collections.

Saturday was a chore day (something you might not think about but necessary when you’re on the road for weeks and weeks). The trip back to Rockland for laundry and shopping included lunch at Claw’s with an even better lobster roll.

The main event, though, was a hike and dinner with my best friend from about 5th-8th grade, Phil, and his wife. Long story how this happened but we haven’t communicated for about 45 years and this was what gives the expression BFF real meaning. Short drive from their uber-cool passive solar home that they built in Camden, they took us on a short hike up a nearby mountain with some incredible views. The dogs loved it, and Enzo particularly liked the sheepskin-covered pad at floor level – what a diva!

Sunday dawned with an incredible sunrise. Took many great shots and this is one of the better ones, which I took from the rocky beach directly in front of the trailer, in my pajamas. Spectacular.

We abandoned the pups for the day and took our bikes on the ferry from Rockland to Vinalhaven. When we stopped in on Friday, I asked about taking the car and the ticket agent warned us it might be tough getting a car back off the island, so we took his advice. Fun place to ride around, not too big and enough elevation to keep things interesting. April has relatives there who she visited when she was 14, so we biked to near that house, with lunch at a former mill site on Mill’s Farm Road, complete with tidal flow rushing by. Very cool.

Phil recommended trying out one of the quarries for a swim, and this was one of April’s memories from that visit long ago, so I had to give it a try at Lawson’s Quarry, which turned out to be the right one. Not too cold, very refreshing! (I’m not crying or blowing my nose, just debating whether I really want to do this.)

One of the most prominent buildings along Main Street in Vinalhaven is this one, that we figured would be a perfect Halloween fun-house venue. Turns out it’s got a fascinating history as the “Star of Hope” building!

Topping off the day and our stay in this area was a visit to Waterman Beach Brewery. There’s a story here…passed this place on the way in and, with a quick look while driving by, it looked like a local dive gone bad. Friday night we’re hearing some pretty good music in the distance and a neighbor camper went to check it out, giving good reviews. They reported that it was a re-do of a long-time local lobster bar that had just (2 weeks go) started serving their own brew. Done! Then we hear that the place had won a James Beard award for local food. Done x2!!! Stopped in and got some great beer and fantastic oysters from a very local oyster farm.

Today we head to Wild Duck Campground in Scarborough, just south of Portland. More reconnections and adventures to come!

15 miles as the seagull flies; 50 by car

This is the Maine coast and we’re stepping our way southwestward. Left Seawall Campground for the drive up and around to the Blue Hill Peninsula, near Deer Island and many other cool spots. Easy to understand how people fall in love with Maine and the coast here. So many incredible views of the rocks, the trees, the islands, the picturesque houses and villages. This area was similar but singularly different from Mount Desert Island, even better with the almost-complete lack of tourists. Check out the full review on this Fromers site, the best quote being: “Better still, this peninsula is largely overlooked (or even unknown) by the majority of Maine’s tourists, especially those hell-bent for Bar Harbor.”

Didn’t get a photo of our site at Ocean View Camping at Reach Knolls which is too bad because it was wonderful. Very private site and the best/friendliest staff we’ve seen anywhere. I know it’s going to be a good experience when I’m greeted with a big hug on checking in. We immediately headed off to check out Stonington, which is where we were planning to catch the ferry to Isle au Haut the next day. We’re here at the start of fall color season, and many trees were starting to show their colors.

Stonington is on Deer Isle, which you get to by first passing over a narrow and very tall suspension bridge completed in 1936 to Little Deer Isle, then to Deer Isle itself. Right there you know it’s a pretty cool (and isolated) spot. Compared to MDI and Bar Harbor, the town was empty; mostly working folks coming off the lobster boats we watched unloading at one of the commercial docks. Not many tourists walking the sidewalks – but it had a wonderful ice cream shop and equally wonderful coffee shop we visited the next day, so all good! And the scenery around the harbor was spectacular. The nearby granite quarry clearly played a big part in building the town, literally and figuratively, along with lobstering.

Thursday, Sept 19th, turned into another big hiking day, coupled with a fun adventure taking the ferry over to Isle au Haut which is part of Acadia National Park. Of course, we took the pups along for some exercise. How hard could the climbing be on trails that top out along a ridge that’s only 300 feet elevation? Well….this turned out to have some of the steepest ascents of any we’ve seen so far, rivaling the climb at Chaco Canyon. This time there were several spots I had to boost both dogs up the vertical face, but they did great. Chai again earned her title of “mountain goat” and Enzo was not far behind. This view is from where we stopped for lunch. Note that there was equally stunning scenery through the coastal woods, along the shore and from the peaks.

The ferry ride out and back was a big part of this spectacular day, passing the old granite quarry that has produced world-famous Deer Island Granite since the 1870s, used in places like the JFK Memorial and new Yankee Stadium. Another fun landmark was the Isle au Haut lighthouse at Robeson Point.

Obviously lobstering is the big industry here, and the numbers are astonishing. A license is capped at 800 traps per boat, and the experienced boats will check 300 traps a day on a rotating basis. Do the math for how many traps per hour they have to check. Wow. This also makes for a zillion lobster pot buoys in the waters along the coast, and the ferry boat captain said that yes, sailboats and power boats do frequently get tangled. It’d be hard not to.

Our next stop is basically the next peninsula over from this one with another loop up and around to get there. Cell service was lousy at Ocean Front so this is being sent at that next stop, Lobster Buoy Campsites in South Thomaston. More on that later, but here’s a sneak preview of one of our best views ever, and the map of these three spots. Fun!

 

Acadia National Park – one of the Top 10

But first we had to get there. Those who have followed or read through our previous adventures know we’ve had a few surprise flat or could-get-flat tires.  New Orleans. Garner State Park in south-central Texas, etc. Well….Sunday, Sept 15, as I headed out for the morning run with the doggies at Christie’s RV Park along I-95 20 minutes west of Bangor, what should be staring at me in the left rear Jeep tire but the head of a nail, straight into the middle of the tread. Things could not have worked out better for a potentially bad day. Called a tire place in Bangor 400 yards off our route and we were in and out in 30 minutes. Still made it to the Hulls Cover Visitor Center on Mount Desert Island by our target time of 11am. Amazing.

Mount Desert Island, or MDI in the vernacular, is described as shaped like a lobster claw (clever, eh?) pointed roughly southward with the larger section to the east. That’s where Bar Harbor, Cadillac Mountain and all the best-known sites are. We like seeing the best sites, of course, but much prefer the less-beaten path and stayed on the other (western) claw, at Seawall Campground. Beautiful national park campground with lots of space between sites on the A-loop and many empty sites.

After we set up Sunday afternoon, we drove to three short nearby hikes along the shore , Bass Harbor Head Light, Ship Harbor Nature Trail and the Wonderland Trail.  The Maine coast is incredible, with iconic scene around every corner. Sailboats, wooded islands, even the tidal pools are stunning.

Finished the day by walking across the street to a picnic area and enjoying cocktail hour with gulls flying overhead and waves lapping the rocks in front of us.

Monday was a hiking day, still in West Acadia. Parked at Long Pond and climbed up Beech Mountain along the West Ridge, Beech Mountain Loop and Valley Trails. Then up the Mansell Mountain Trail to the top and back on Great Notch Trail. Chai and Enzo did incredibly well up some long, rocky, steep spots, though I did need to give each a boost up one particularly tall step.  We think Chai is part mountain goat, but Enzo didn’t need much encouragement this time. Of course, the views were stunning, including the bald we picked near the top of Mansell to have lunch. The video is so typical of the views here…this time from the top of Beech Mtn.

Of course the pups get thirsty on these walks but we (usually) bring plenty of water. Fun that they work out how to get their big heads and long tongues into one water bowl. (Lauren gave us 2 bowls but it’s easier to carry one.)

For dinner, at the strong recommendation of Paul & Cheryl, we tried Beal’s Lobster Pier in Southwest Harbor and it was everything one could hope for, for what we like. Casual, good prices (though nobody sells a lobster roll that’s “cheap”) and lobster rolls that rival those we get at the Menemsha Fish Market, maybe better. This is a working harbor, and the views from the dockside restaurant (actually, it is one of the fishing docks!) were spectacular.

One can’t visit Acadia NP and not climb Cadillac Mountain, so that was first on the itinerary for Tuesday. Again with ChEnzo in tow (of course reality is they tow me!), we headed up and back on the North Ridge Trail. As expected, the east side of the island is much more crowded, and with a road to the top, Cadillac was the start of a more people-intensive day. Easy to see where many of these folks are coming from looking at the view of the harbor with two very large and one medium-size cruise ship anchored. Still, the 360 degree views are worth it no matter how you get there. Almost as good as our day on Mt. Washington, the visibility was amazing.

Next was lunch at Project Social and some walking around Bar Harbor – lots of cute shops and great looking eating/drinking places, but too many people.

We drove most of the famous Park Loop Road, stopping at several of the sights along the way: Sand Beach (yep, it was a sand beach!), Thunder Hole (which only thunders near high tide – but that doesn’t stop everyone from looking at it), Jordan Pond (the clearest lake in Maine; though we didn’t wait 35 minutes to get a table to eat the famous popovers) then back through Southwest Harbor to home, with one last picture of the many sailboats at their moorings. The scenery everywhere is iconic rocky Maine coast and it’ll be fun to see how things differ at the four stops we’ve got planned before Boston.

Today we’re heading only about an hour away, to a place called Oceanfront Camping at Reach Knolls – should be some good views there, too!

Best name seen for a (Chinese) restaurant on our drive to MDI, along US-1: Chow Maine

Into the White Mountains…

If you’ve ever wondered why New Hampshire is called “The Granite State“, you probably haven’t been here. Everything is granite: the obvious things like steps, curbs, sidewalks, driveway markers, and some more unusual things like fenceposts and fences (slabs on end, not just stacked rocks!). We saw lots of granite in the mountains and in rocks and boulders everywhere, as you can tell from most of these photos.

The drive from near White River Junction, Vermont, took us on some beautiful mountain roads, including “The Kanc”, or The Kancamagus Highway, which is a famous stretch of road in these parts for its winding turns and overall scenery – for good reason. We’re maybe a week or two early for peak leaf-viewing which is not a bad thing since the traffic gets crazy then, but we’re seeing some trees starting to turn. A beautiful misty morning drive to Conway and North Conway. (If you’ve been here, you know this, but North Conway is a broad mix of ski/hiker places, outlet shops, some honky-tonk (e.g., Story Land), and many B&Bs, inns, Swiss chalet-styled hotels, restaurants and brewpubs.)

Our site was riverside at Glen Ellis Family Campground, which is one of the better private campgrounds we’ve stayed at. (And, I just learned, was sold two days before we arrived!) Large but spread out at the confluence of the Ellis and Saco Rivers. Nice when we were one of few here; a bit crazy by Saturday morning as more rolled in.

After setting up, we took advantage of a sunny 81F day and drove back to what looked like a fantastic swimming hole along The Kanc, on the Swift River. You’ll have to believe me that the water was surprisingly warm – refreshing and comfortable.

There is an endless variety of short, long and longer hikes in this huge mostly-unspoiled area, and we ended up walking the 7.2 mile Champney Falls Trail, named after Benjamin Champney, a landscape painter in the late 19th century. Even with lower flow than other times of the year, it was very impressive.

Lunch was at Moat Mountain Smokehouse and Brewery which just happens to be right outside the entrance to the campground. One of the best stouts, and some of the best nachos (smoked brisket) ever!

After stuffing ourselves (well, I did, anyway!), another shorter hike was in order so we headed to what sounded like a cutesy close-to-town spot, Diana’s Baths. This was an amazing surprise, with a long series of stunning smaller waterfalls connected by long stretches of solid granite that has been carved into small pools. Similar to Champney Falls, it would look quite different with higher flow rates (and if more crowded), but less water meant we could see the pools and swirl-pots (my word) carved into the granite. Diana’s Baths has a long, interesting history as well, as the site of an early sawmill and tourist attraction. from the 19th century until present.

Friday was a stunning day of crystal clear skies and little wind, a perfect day to make the climb – via the auto road – up Mt. Washington. We now have the bumper sticker! We’ve all heard of the severe weather and amazing views, and if you haven’t yet been here, don’t put it off any more (talking to you, Ed!). We heard there are only about 60 days that aren’t fogged in or cloudy, and we lucked into one of those. Visibility was unlimited so we could see 110 miles away. Think about how far that is…stunning. Since it’s such a popular hike among experts and novices alike and quite dangerous weather, they make a point of the importance of being prepared and what happens if you’re not. The landscape and view is incredible with a bonus of some fascinating history – one of the first tourist destinations in the country, etc. The Tip-Top House, still there, was built in 1853 to compete with another hotel at the top, The Summit House.

Since we hadn’t scaled Mt Washington by foot, we had to fit in another hike, getting most of the way along Imp Face Trail, though not quite to the view. After a 1600′ elevation gain over 1.8 miles (3.6 total), it was back through some gorgeous woods.

Today we move into Maine – a waypoint stop near Bangor on our way to the coast and the furthest north we’ll get this trip. Then onward to Acadia National Park!

p.s. Fun sign at a pub near Conway: “Beer is important. Education is importanter.”