2011 Summer Trip to New England #13

We arrived at Strawberry Park Campground in Preston, Connecticut on Thursday. My cousin, Nini and her husband, Kevin have very busy schedules with their kids, Peyton and Mia. They still managed to come by on Thursday evening for Pizza and catching up on family news. I can't believe how much Mia and Peyton have grown. They are so cute and so nice too. Peyton is involved with football practice and Mia is involved with soccer. Friday Jim and I took the opportunity to ride around Preston and check out my Aunt's (Nini's mom) old house in Preston where we had many fun times over the years. My Aunt and Uncle now live in Florida. Later, I went to the Foxwood Casino for a little donation to the Indians and Jim and the dogs went goecaching. Jim came back to the casino after awhile and we had lunch at the Hard Rock restaurant. That evening after Mia's and Peyton's sports practices, we went over to Nini and Kevin's for dinner. They have built an in ground pool with pool house and we had a lovely evening eating at their bar in the pool house. We also had entertainment watching their two lab puppies, a black lab and a yellow lab. They enjoyed a dip in the pool and chasing balls that Mia and Nini were throwing to them. They were having the time of their lives and we were enjoying their antics. Saturday, Nini and I took the kids to the Mall for some school clothes shopping. And you guessed it, Jim and the dogs went geocaching. They were the nicest kids on the whole shopping trip and a real joy to be around. That evening Nini and Kevin had an event to go to and Jim and I went out to dinner. Sunday Nini and Kevin had a birthday pool party for Mia. My cousin, Sherry and her family were there as well as Kevin's family. It was raining cats and dogs though so our pool party was mostly indoors. My two third cousins, Mia and Rene didn't care if it was raining they decided they were going in the pool rain or shine. Must be nice to be young!!

Anyway we all had a really nice time and it was good to see everyone again. The pictures above are Nini and her family, the three cousins (Nini, Sherry and myself), Mia and Rene swimming in the rain, and of course the two dogs, Maggie and Bailey swimming. We leave for home on Monday. I would have to say our Summer Trip to New England was a resounding success. Jim and I had a wonderful time.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #12

Tuesday we started off having a lazy day. I did some laundry and then we watched a movie. After the movie we decided to take a ride to Kittery, Maine to check out a diner our friends Chuck and Donna Tolson from our Good Sam Camping club told us about, Bob's Clam Hut. This diner was featured on Guy Fieri's food show but it is not in my book, but since we were so close we had to check it out. The place was packed and I know why. The food was delicious. I'm not a big fan of fried clams, but since we were at Bob's Clam Hut, I figured I better try some of his clams. They were the best clams I have ever had. After eating we stopped at a few outlets. Kittery is Outlet mecca for sure. For our ride back to the RV we decided to take A1A home starting from Kittery Point. What a beautiful ride. We stopped at several coves and watched people fishing and talking with some of the locals. Jim can't believe how friendly people in Maine are. He said its hard to believe Maine is part of New England because these folks are just plain nice and not abrupt when talking. We discovered all kinds of out of the way vacation meccas along the coast. The first picture doesn't do it justice but the waves were crashing up to the top of this rock wall. Surfers were also out there surfing. Wednesday, we did some more shopping (or should I say I did more shopping) and Jim did some geocaching (He has picked up quite a few new Geocaches on this trip in several states). We discovered a really neat place called Perkins Cove. There were lots of restaurants, and shops, people were fishing and lobster boats were bringing in their catch. We had a great time watching all the activities and of course I checked out the little shops. Jim's geocaching hobby has caused us to discover areas we wouldn't have known about otherwise. Thursday we head to Connecticut to visit with more family.

2011 Summere Trip to New England #11

Monday we took a trip over to New Hampshire to The Mount Washington COG Railway. We took the back roads through New Hampshire and the ride was just beautiful. This COG railway is the first mountain-climbing cog railway in the world. Believe it or not the building of this railway was started in 1869. A man by the name of Sylvester Marsh of Littleton, NH designed and built the railway. He got the idea after almost dying on the mountain while climbing with a friend. The weather changes so drastically after a certain elevation that it actually snows on any day of the year. A cog railway is a railroad that is so steep that the engine can't gain traction to pull the grades (this one is a 37.5 % grade! For comparison purposes the max grade for any interstate mountain is 7%!). A third rail is laid between the outer rails that has holes in it that a gear on the locomotive engages thereby preventing any wheel slippage. The railroad runs diesel and steam locomotives, ours was a 600 horspower hydrostatically driven one. The speed up and down varies from 1 to 3 mph. The first pic above was the first engine to pull up the mountain. The second pic does not really do the depth of this mountain justice, but it does show how this railway goes straight up the mountain. The excursion begins at the Marshfield Base Station which is located 2700' above sea level. It takes the train about 40 minutes to climb to an elevation of 6,288'. Once at the top there you can visit a gift shop, snack bar, the Tip Top House and the Mount Washington Observatory and Summit Museum. You can even mail cards postmarked from Mt. Washington. They say on a clear day the view extends all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The day we went up, it was sunny and about 77 degrees at the base station. By the time we got to the top, it was quite cold 52 degrees. Jim and I had brought our rain jackets just in case of rain and we were sure glad we had them. We saw other people who obviously had taken the trip before whip out their winter coats and ski pants. When we got to the snack bar we could smell the aroma of homemade soup. Jim and I were glad to have soup and hot chocolate for our lunch that day to warm us up. We went out to the Observatory but we were enclosed in clouds and could not see anything. The wind was unbelievable. On the way down, it started off cold and by the time we got to the base it was sunny and warm again. It was pretty amazing. The third pic above is of the Omni Mount Washington Resort Hotel. It was beautiful. It too was built in the 1800's. On the ride home, we stopped off at several scenic road spots and Jim did some geocaching. At one of the stops we saw a house out in the middle of a lake built on its own island. It was really neat.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #10

We are still having a wonderful time in Maine. The weather here has been perfect. Mostly 77 degree days and 65 degrees at night.

On Sunday, we drove to Rockland, Maine to attend the 64th Annual Maine Lobster Festival. The traffic getting there was unbelievable. Bumper to bumper for 30 miles at one point. One thing we've learned is that you do not want to take Rt 1 or the Interstate on Saturdays or Sundays. But since we purchased these tickets ahead of time, we had no choice but to tough it out. Back to the Lobster Festival; it is a week long festival with all kinds of activities going on to include live entertainment, arts and crafts, carnival rides, parade, 10K Road Race and a 5Kwalk, beauty pagents, and the Navy and Coast Guard gave tours aboard their various ships. It is located right on the waterfront and there is a 2 mile boardwalk along the water that was just wonderful. Since Rockland was 93 miles away from where we are staying, we brought our dogs, Charlie and Baxter with us. We thought they would really enjoy spending the day with us. NOT. Baxter was scared to death of all the people and noise. He wouldn't walk, he just sat down and wouldn't budge. So we decided to take them on the boardwalk where it was quieter. About one tenth of the way, Charlie starts panting and snorting like he is going to drop dead so I had to carry his heavy little butt til he calmed down. Then Baxter decided he was going to take on any dog that passed us, barking and charging like a little fool. We found some benches and thought well we'll sit here and enjoy the sailboats and scenery while they calmed down, drank some water and adjusted to this new environment. While sitting there watching the Navy transport people out to the ship they were giving tours on, I spotted a really neat lighthouse quite near where the ship was anchored. (pic above). It looked like the lighthouse and the keeper house took up the whole rock it was on. I can't imagine living in that house with all that water around me. After a little while Jim and I started down the boardwalk again and Charlie starts his panting and snorting again. This time I saw a faucet along the path and Jim soaked Charlie down. He didn't like it one bit, but we were sitting in a shady spot and I think it wasn't long before he felt really comfortable. He was all stretched out on the grass watching the boats with us. Meanwhile Baxter, the dog from hell that day, decided he's going to take on other the other dogs again. It was quite embarrassing. Jim also found a geocache near where we were sitting so he was a happy camper about that.

After walking the boardwalk we went to the Lobster Dinner Tent. Oh my goodness, lobsters everywhere. They used what is known as the World's Greatest Lobster Cooker which cooks 1,600 pounds of lobser in 15 minutes. Since they cook over 26,000 pounds of lobster over the week long festival, that is a lot of lobster. You could get from 1-3 lobsters at a time for dinner. I got the one lobster dinner and it came with corn on the cob and a biscuit. My non-fish eating husband had 2 pieces of pizzas and was totally content with his pizza. He just doesn't know what he is missing.

After dinner, I checked out the arts and crafts tents and Jim sat on the boardwalk with the dogs. It was such a lovely evening. We had signed up for the concert that evening so about 7pm we put the dogs in the car and they both jumped into their beds like FINALLY they are doing what we want. It was pretty cool by that time so they were quite comfortable and Jim and I enjoyed our time without them. The concert we saw that night was Uncle Kracker. He's best known for touring with Kid Rock and Kenny Chesney. He has 10 top hits such as Follow Me and Drift Away, and It Feels Good to be Me. We really enjoyed the concert. The concert ended at 10:30pm and then we had our long drive back to the camp ground. Since there was no traffic at that time of day, we cruised right on down the road.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #9

We arrived at OutDoor World Moody Beach, Maine RV Resort on Tuesday. The park is attractive with lots of trees, but the RV spots here are really tight. The park seems to run at near capacity much of the time. I would not want to be a first time camper trying to get into one of these camp site. Due to horrible I 95 traffic (what else is new!) we got here late in the afternoon so we just set up camp and chilled out the rest of the evening. Wednesday, after exploring around, we discovered that there are beaches all around us and no further away than a mile. We spent the afternoon riding along Ocean Road and enjoyed all the neat scenery. We stopped for awhile at Wells Beach and sat on bleaches and watched the people swimming in 50 degree water. The temperature here has been 72/73 and drops down to 60 at night. But it doesn't stop people from swimming. From Wells Beach we drove another 2 miles to Kenneybunk Port and road along the coastal roads there. We stopped to take pictures of the Bush summer home (pic 2 above). There were lots of cars parked on the side of the house so we figured the Bushes might be there. I'm sure they would prefer this beautiful weather compared to the 100+ degree temperatures in TX. I was surprised that the home is so visible to the public. I thought it would be more secluded. It definitely was beautiful. From there we continued on down the coast for awhile and then made our way back to the campground. We did stop for dinner on the way back and you guessed it, more clam chowder for me and a hamburger for Jim. Thursday, Jim and I ventured out on our bikes and rode back out to Wells Beach. We had lunch (yes, more clam chowder) and sat on the benches watching the crazy people swimming again in ice water. After awhile I browsed the little shops there and Jim looked for geocaches. It was so cold there I ended up buying a sweatshirt. I have so many sweatshirts I really did not need another one, but it was cold and people were actually swimming. Jim thinks they must be from Canada and they think this is warm. After spending most of the day here we finally headed back to the RV. I decided to cook Jim dinner that didn't involve fish haha. We grilled chicken and corn on the grill. Friday we decided to take a trip to the LL Bean store in Freeport, ME. It was about 40 miles from us. We decided to take the scenic route and along the way we stopped at a Shoe Outlet. Jim bought me a really nice pair of sandals (such a good hubby).

Next on our way, we stopped at the Cold River Vodka Brewery at Freeport Me and got a tour of how they make their vodka using potatoes. It was pretty amazing to hear about the process. They start off making a potato soup in this huge vat using 15,000 pounds of potatoes. Then the soup mixture is cooled to a room temperature and the yeast is added to make the alcohol. It's about a week long process to make a batch of vodka (about 10,000 bottles). It was a very clean operation and the young man that gave the tour was so knowledgeable thank goodness because Jim hit him up with about 50,000 questions. After the tour, we did a vodka tasting and Jim bought a souvenir bottle and a shot glass. Another interesting tidbit, they decided to start making the vodka with potatoes after the Atkins Diet almost put the potato farmers out of business in Maine. To some Vodka connosieurs (we are not!) potato vodka is smoother particularly that from small scale refiners like Cold River (they use a triple distillation process resulting in 96.5% purity). We found out that Vodka is nothing more than highly purified alchohol mixed with water to the familiar 80 proof. Cold River uses highly purified mountain creek water and considers them selves as compitition to Grey Goose and Ketel 1(their price is also comparable).

From there we finally made our way to the LL Bean Store also at Freeport, Me. My goodness was that place huge. It was several times larger than the largest Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World! Another thing we learned was that the store is open 365 days a year 24 hours a day. We walked all over one of the stores all afternoon and never did see the whole store. There were several other stores that we did not get to like the Outdoor Living, the Home store, etc. etc. There were blocks and blocks of parking. In addition to LL Bean there was lots of other name brand stores there in this town. The picture above does not give the size of this store justice (the complex covers several city blocks). I did manage to find a few things there but the majority of their clothes were for winter wear. Since we haven't experienced a winter in Virginia since we retired, my shopping was limited to their summer selections. They had rooms and rooms of sports clothes and two whole sections for kids. I would have loved to check out the Home store but it was a block away and I had walked and walked all over the main retail store and needless to say I didn't have it in me to go any further. Maybe the next time we come this way. Tomorrow we are going to Rockland, ME for their 64th Annual Lobster Festival. Looking forward to that.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #8

Friday Jim and I decided to take a bike ride along the Cape Cod Canal. It was a beautiful day and we rode 10 miles. I know for you "real bikers" this does not seem like a long ride but it was plenty long for us. We ended the day with you guessed it, more seafood. We found this wonderful restaurant that offered steamers and clam chowder. Jim got his usual hamburger. He just doesn't know what he's missing. Saturday we took a ride along the coast above Cape Cod. We learned early on, you don't want to go to the Cape on the weekend. The traffic is horrendous. Sunday we decided to just have a laid back day and spent the day at the pool right there at the camp ground. It is a really nice big pool with plenty of chairs. We enjoyed reading and watching the kids play volley ball in the pool. It was the only time we used the pool since we've been here. By 4:00 it gets cool here so we headed back to the camper and cooked some hamburgers. Monday, we set out to another of Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. This time we went to Kelly's Diner in Somerville, Ma. which is near Cambridge, MA where Harvard University is. As usual the food was really really good. We have now visited 10 of the diners noted in this book. Going through Harvard Square was like going through a tourist area. Lots of shops, and restaurants. If we weren't going to Kelly's we would have stopped there. Neither one of us has ever seen Harvard before so we were both awed and impressed. Time sure flys when you are having fun. We leave for Maine on Tuesday. Looking forward to exploring more sea coastal towns.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #7

Tuesday, we headed back to Boston to go to Mike's City Diner that is in Guy Fieri's book, Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. This time we made it just fine with no traffic. However, parking wasn't easy. The diner is one block from Massachusetts General Hospital and there was few parking spaces on the street. After driving around the block a few times we finally got a parking spot right in front of the hospital and had to walk one block to the diner. The streets there are full of these old row houses (1st pic) that I'm sure doctors, nurses and interns live-in. Some of them were very very nice. Must be nice to be able to walk to work. Wednesday, Jim and I took the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. It was a wonderful day. We ate lunch at a little deli (I was feeling guilty about eating fish constantly since I've been in New England so Jim got to pick lunch today). After lunch I had a wonderful time visiting all the little shops, and Jim found a few geochaches. I loved the little cottages there and lots of gingerbread looking houses. It was so quaint. (3rd pic). We topped the afternoon off with another Dell's Lemonade before board the ferry back to Falmouth. Thursday, we thought it would be fun to take the dogs to a dog friendly beach. We located one in Marshfield, Ma. It was a really nice beach. Jim and I brought our chairs and I brought a blanket for the dogs. They spent the whole time digging in the sand, getting sand in their noses and eyes. After a few minutes of being there they looked at me as if to say, can we go home now? They were not impressed with the beach or the water. I thought after swimming in the pond and seeming to enjoy themselves in R.I. I thought they might like the water this time but no way. We were entertained by a seagull at the beach all afternoon. He was the fattest seagull on the beach and he would watch people leave their blankets and food baskets to go to the water and he would swoop in and grab a bag of chips. Some of the bags were already opened so he would just shake it and then eat up all the chips. When other seagulls would try to get in on the feed it would chase them off. One time he grabbed a bag that was not opened and no problem. He knew exactly what to do. He stood on it and then popped it with his beek and shake it all over the place and ate it up. So if you ever wanted to know what too many carbs do, you should of seen the size difference in this seagull versus his friends. I tried to get a picture of him but he was too fast for me to get up close and too far to get a picture from where I was sitting. Darn. It would have made a great video clip.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #6

Monday was a walk down memory lane for me. We started off by going to the Onlyville New York System Hot Wiener Diner in Providence, RI. We can't come to New England with getting one of these. They are the best anywhere. Even my picky husband, said they were the best wieners he has ever had. The guy in the restaurant was a hoot. When Jim told him he had never been there before, he announced to the other diners he had a virgin in the house. They also serve coffee milk. He gave us a glass free because he says you can't come there without getting the wieners and the coffee milk. We had a great time there and met some other "virgins" there too. This diner is going to be shown on the TV program Food vs Man on August 10th. I've never watched the show but we will try to watch it next month. Next we took a ride to the downtown area of Providence. It really has changed so much. They've added lots of parks, a river walk, and shopping areas. Next we went to the first house I ever lived in on California Avenue. It is the brown two story house below. (For some reason, I can't put these pictures in the right order. ) It doesn't look like it but it is a 2 family home. My grandparents owned this house and they lived on the first floor with my aunts, and we lived on the second floor. I think when I was 7, we moved to Dorchester, Mass for about a year, and when we moved back, my grandparents had moved to another house closer to the city and we lived on the first floor. My grandfather's sister and her husband lived on the 2nd floor. When I was about 10, we moved to Cranston, RI and lived in the white two story house below. That was my favorite house. I loved the neighborhood; we lived on a dead end street and knew all the neighbors; we could walk to school, to the library and to church. I used to sit on the roof of this house outside my bedroom window on the upper right at night and shine a flashlight at the boy across the street. We thought we were doing moss code or something but really we were just copying each other with how many times we flashed the light. When I was about 13, we moved to Warwick, RI to the yellow ranch house. My mom was tired of cleaning two floors of house and wanted a ranch style house. This was the last house I lived in before moving to VA at the age of 15. We ended our journey with a Dell's Lemonade which was just down the street from our Warwick house. We will be exploring more of Cape Cod this week. By the way, the weather has been beautiful here, between 74 and 78 degrees. Hottest day was 85. Hope you all are staying cool.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #5

This was a crazy weekend. Nothing went as planned. Friday we decided to just hang out at the motorhome. It was very relaxing, watching movies, reading and just hanging out with our dogs. They were very happy campers to say the least. On Saturday, we decided to go to the beach. We picked one nearest the campground but it was still 30 minutes away. When we got there the line into the parking lot was a mile long. People were actually sitting on the side of the road, waiting for people to leave the parking lot so they could get a spot. We decided that we would come back on a week day and took a drive through the sea side. I loved looking at all the beautiful homes with all their beautiful gardens. Flowers in bloom everywhere. We ended up going to dinner and then stopped at Walmart for provisions and back to the campground. On Sunday we were going to take a trip to Boston. Jim and I have been following Guy Fiero's Dives, Drive-ins, and Diners throughout the United States. We have his book and have been visiting the various diners noted in the book as we visit the various states. Well it just so happens there are two in Mass; one being in Boston. It's called Mike's City Diner. So before we left, we called to make sure they were open and they were. So off we go. We no sooner got on I495 at exit 2, and immediately came to a stand still. We literally were stopped for 2 1/2 hours. Apparently there was an accident at Exit 3. They had to medivac someone by helicopter and we kept seeing all kinds of big rig tow trucks passing on the shoulder to get to the accident. We figured it must be a tractor trailer to two tractor trailers they way the big rig tow trucks kept arriving. By the time we got to the accident scene we were shocked to see it was a Safari Motorhome. It had run off the highway, down an embankment and rested at the base of some trees. The motorhome didn't looked wrecked from the side that we could see but we don't know what the other side looked like. It didn't look like it rolled so we figured either someone cut them off or the driver had a medical condition that forced him/her off the road. In all our years of Rving, that was only the 2nd wreck we have ever seen. The first one probably really didn't count because it didn't look like any damage done but it did run off the road without damage. So anyways, 2 1/2 hours later we continue on to Boston. We drive up to the restaurant, park the truck, and start into the restaurant, when a guy comes out wheeling a trash can. He goes, sorry folks we close at 3:00. It was 3:45. So there was a restaurant next door. We go in and the waiter says, sorry folks we are only serving drinks until 5:00. Since we were hungry, we decided to leave and look for another place. We took the back roads back toward the camp ground and we came upon Plymouth. So we decided, what the heck, lets go touring. We first had our late lunch at the Lobster Hut. Naturally, I got a lobster dinner. Jim, being true to his not eating fish self, got a chicken salad. We then walked along the coastal walk way and visited Plymouth Rock, as well as the reproduced Mayflower. So we ended up having a nice evening afterall.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #4

Thursday, Jim and I went to Chatham, Cape Cod to visit the Chatham Marconi Maritime Center. The building Jim is standing in front of in the first pic above was built in 1914 by Guglielmo Marconi. It is still in excellent condition as well as the house were all the Morse Code technicians lived while working at this station. I'm not a technical person, but I did find this place quite interesting. Jim of course loved it. After visiting Wellfleet yesterday and seeing the sight of Marconi's first experimental station this was a nice follow up visit. At Wellfleet, Marconi proved for the first time that long distance from America to Europe communications were technically viable. Now at Chatham commercial Maritime radio became a reality on a very large scale. RCA (Radio Corporation of America) acquired the station in 1920. These early stations including one in Nova Scotia communicated with ships and averted many disasters. The stations are credited with sending the Ship Carpathia to save the Titanic survivors. It is interesting to note that David Sarnoff, a young Marconi telegrapher and the man who would later start RCA, took credit for receiving the Titanic SOS, but was found out later to be off duty at that time! Apparently, among his many other talents, Mr Sarnoff was excellent at self promotion! The station was used to great advantage during the war years to warn of German U-boat activity. Jim remembered some of the Morse Code characters and actually saw some test equipment and an early radio that he had personal experience with--I knew he was getting a little wrinkled, but didn't realize he was THAT old! Arrrgh! From there we went to Main Street in Chatham and had lunch at the Captain's Table. Again, I enjoyed some clam chowder and a salad and Jim stuck to his usual BLT. There were lots of little shops along Main Street and we both enjoyed browsing. Jim also found a geocache in town. From there we drove to Hyannis. We found a really nice beach and from there we could see the Kennedy compound. We were about a block away but as you can see, the main house is so big we did get a glimpse of it. On our way home we decided to explore the Cape Cod Potato Chip Factory. It was pretty cool and we did buy enough potato chips to get us through our trip this summer.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #3

For the next two weeks we are staying at the Gateway to Cape Cod Outdoor World RV Resort located in Rochester, Ma. Today we drove to Provincetown, Cape Cod. Along the way we stopped in Yarmouthport, Ma. to eat lunch at Hallet's Store. This store was established in 1889 and has been in business for 123 years. It's a

very small store with all the original fixtures, a marble soda fountain, oak cabinets and a tin ceiling. Their ice cream is home made and they sell a variety of old-fashioned soda, frappes, root beer floats and malts. They also make sandwiches. They are known for their Clam Chowder and malts. So of course, I had to have their clam chowder and a chocolate malt. Not being a fish eater of any kind, Jim had a BLT and a chocolate malt. It was definitely a nice treat along our journey today. Our next stop was in Wellfleet to see the site of the very first wireless radio transmission from America to England by President Roosevelt and King Edward VII. Jim being an electrical engineer by trade was very interested in seeing this site. Guglielmo Marconi built this wireless transmission site in January 1903 on the sea cliffs of Wellfleet. When it was built, it consisted of 4 wooden towers 210 feet in height. The power requirements were tremendous. Kerosene-burning engines produced 2,200 volts. When fed to a Tesla transformer, the voltege was stepped up to 25,000 volts-the energy needed to transmit long-wave signals so far. The local residents had to endure the sounds of the crashing spark which could be heard for four miles downwind of the station. The sea cliff was eroding three feet each year threatening the eastern-most towers with collapse. The station was closed in 1917 and in 1920 it was scrapped. From Wellfleet we continued to Provincetown and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon going to all the little shops and watching the street performers. Looking forward to another day on the Cape tomorrow.

2011 Summer Trip to New England #2

Our next stop was Burlingame State Park, Charlestown, RI. There we met up with my cousin, Sherry and her family. My mother and sister also flew in to spend Friday and Saturday nights with us. We really had a good time. We had camp fires and cooked somemores at night. The weather was beautiful. My cousin Dusty and her husband Scott were also camping there. We all went down to the pond and some of the cousins did kayaking and some of us played with our dogs. I had 2 dogs, Sherry had one dog and Dusty had 3 dogs. All the dogs loved the water. But Sherry's dog, Ben was the star of the show. He went out the furthest, chased balls, followed the kayaks around. It was great fun. The second picture shows the difference in the size of dogs we had there. The big beautiful one is Ben and the littlest one was my Yorkie, Baxter. All the rest of the dogs were sized in between these two. It was definitely a family affair

2011 Summer Trip to New England

We are enjoying our RV trip to New England this summer; especially the cooler weather. Our first stop was in Hershey, PA. We stayed at a Thousand Trails RV Resort. It was a very nice resort. We spent our first day at the pool, reading and swimming. Very stressful NOT! One day we took a ride through the country side and I loved seeing all the Amish farms and horses and buggies. Those horse and buggys really clip along. I'd hate to pull out or step out in front on one because they are really fast.

We took a tour to the Hershey Museum. It was really interesting learning how Milton Hershey started the Hershey chocolate company as well as the town. The street lights on Chocolate Ave look like candy kisses. It is really cool. That same day we also toured the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Jim stocked up on lots of chocolate. So to say the least, Jim is in chocolate heaven on this trip. Our friends, Rita and Joe from our Winnebago club, also were camping at this same resort. We had lunch together at the Hershy Hotel restaurant. The hotel is a 5 star hotel and the restaurant was wonderful. After we ate, the guys sat in the lobby (girl watching) and Rita and I enjoyed shopping the wonderful shops in the hotel. Rita found a lovely Vera Bradly laptop cover and I found a wonderful beach hat for the pool. We really had fun shopping. We enjoyed happy hour visits with Rita and Joe and I cooked dinner for them one night. On our last day, Jim and I got pedicures and spent the afternoon at the pool. Life is good.