Alaska 2014. Week 1

We left home May 27, 2014 and headed for Clarksburg, WVa.  We spent the night at the Clarksburg Walmart and visited Jim's sister, Sandra and her husband, Ronnie.  Of course we had to stop and get some WVa TLC hotdogs and some pepperoni rolls.  So needless to say, we had hotdogs and pepperoni rolls for lunch and dinner for a few days while on the road.

From Clarksburg we continued on to Indianapolis, Indiana to meet up with Mem and Larry Halstead who are going to Alaska with us.  They were visiting their daughter and her family before they left on
their big trip.  Their daughter invited Jim and I over for dinner and we had a nice evening visiting with their family.  We were all camped at the Indianapolis Fairgrounds which was very convenient to their daughter's house.

The next day we headed out to Elkheart, Indiana to visit the RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame Museum.  It was very interesting to see how the motor homes evolved over the years.  It also made me appreciate the Motorhome I have now versus having gone in 1816 haha!  We camped in the parking lot at the museum.

From Elkhart we went to Amana, Iowa.  This is a quaint German community and we stayed at the Amana RV Campground and went to the Amana village and had a delicious German dinner.  Jim surprised me and even he ate German food.

The next stop was Mitchel, SD.  There we visited the famous Corn Palace.  The Corn Palace gets a new design every year designed entirely of corn cobbs.  Unfortunately for Mem and Larry they were in the process of scraping all the corn off the building and getting the building reading for the new design.   We went inside and watched the movie to learn the story of how and why the Corn Palace was built.

We left Mitchel and were riding along when Larry calls Jim on the CB to tell us we lost the canoe we were carrying.  Jim looks in the RV camera and sure enough there was no canoe on the top of our truck.  We pull off the highway and here comes Mem and Larry dragging the canoe along the shoulder of the road.  The rack we were carrying it on was broke all to hell from the high winds.  We were thankful it did not hit the Halstead's RV or anyone else for that matter.  With the rack being broken we had no way of taking the canoe with us so Jim and Larry carried down the embankment and left it there.  It was dented up in the back and Larry saw a place on the front that could possibly be a small leake but it still would be a could canoe for someone going by with a pickup.  We continued on to a campground in a little town of Presho, SD.  Jim and Larry took our truck to get our tail lights welded that broke when the canoe rack broke and other than that we had a nice evening

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.