Acadia

After the NASCAR finished up it got nice and quiet at the Cabela's! I heard nothing until I woke up! :-) We had another 200-ish miles to go to get to Bar Harbor & Acadia NP, so we were on the road by 8:30.

Maine is the best part of I-95. There are few cities and even those are small. It doesn't take long to be out with just trees, rocks, ponds and few other cars. This morning I was on 295 just outside of Portland when I saw a mamma duck and her babies (about 8 give or take) trying to cross the highway! The ducks were in the entrance ramp heading across the road, they'd made it to the right lane by the time I was approaching so I moved into the left lane to get around them. Then by the time the next car threatened they were all in the left lane so that car didn't have to move. I watched in the rearview mirror and saw all the ducks waddle safely into the median. Amazing!

Around noon we arrived at the Bar Harbor Campground. This campground is great because they don't take reservations. They say "there's always someone leaving"! On the Sunday after 4th of July there were a lot of folks leaving and arriving at noon gave us prime pickings for campsites. You get to pick your own site and they only take cash or check, no credit cards! It's a genius system and I feel like I always have a place in Bar Harbor!

We spent the afternoon getting ice cream, cooking food so we'd have it ready, and enjoying the breeze off the ocean!

This evening I wanted to go to a public yoga session with Yoga in the Park on top of Cadillac Mountain. It was from 6:30-7:30. Mom and Dad didn't want to do yoga but they came to the mountain - Dad went for a walk and Mom read her book. The yoga was fabulous! It was so neat to be doing yoga on the side if the mountain with an incredible view, even if it was incredibly windy! It was a small group - just the leader and I at first and then another man joined us late and he was clearly friends with the leader! She was very nice and lead an excellent yoga session! :-)

The view when we started yoga

The view by the end of yoga

After yoga we went to Jordan Pond House for dinner. It was fabulous! They had all kinds of fresh, local foods including lots of veggies on the menu!

 

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East Bay Bike Path

After we rode the Virginia Creeper Trail, I "liked" the Rails to Trails Association on Facebook and started seeing lots of posts about all the different Rails to Trails. One was about best Rails to Trails in New England and that's how I discovered the East Bay Bike Path. It was even in the Rails to Trails Hall of Fame! The bike path went from Bristol to Providence and it was about 15 miles long. I had figured we could ride it both ways and cover the whole thing.

Our drive yesterday was mostly along the route the bike path took and once I located the path on the map we were able to see what looked like the perfect place to park - only a few miles from the Walmart and in a State Park.

When Dad and I headed out from the Walmart we almost immediately made a navigational error and missed a turn. Now in most places this isn't a huge issue, you just turn around. Well in Rhode Island, turning around seems to be impossible. The roads are set up so you have to do a U-Turn at a cut in the median in order to access anything on the left side of the road. This system does cut down on stop lights, but otherwise it seems to be kind of a pain. We ended up touring a neighborhood to get to Squantum Woods State Park.

When we got there we discovered that what is marked on the map as a State Park is really a private club. Looked like a ritzy garden club type club. They had a parking lot right by the trail but it had "no trespassing" signs all over. We parked anyway.

The first part of the trail went toward downtown Providence and wasn't very scenic. There were some ponds with some egrets and herons in them, as well and views of city, and views of industrial stuff.

After the first three miles or so we were mostly riding through trees and passing through small towns. There were tons of road crossings and tons of other places to park! Lots of places to park the RV even!

Bristol Bay

Lighthouse near Providence

Towards Bristol the trees thinned and we could seen more marsh, with more frequent views of the bay. There were also more people! They have an interesting rule on this bike path - bikers go right and walkers go left. This makes a lot of sense! The walkers can see the bikers and the bikers can just go around without having to worry if the walker sees you or not. My only problem was that I kept expecting that since the walkers could see me they'd move out of my way and they didn't!

All told it was about 26 miles to ride both ways. The weather was almost perfect, sunny, no clouds, temps in the 70s, but it was very windy! Riding back into the wind helped increase the calorie burn!

On the way back to the Walmart we again had navigational trouble. We missed a turn and ended up on I-195 headed toward Providence! Away from where we wanted to be! Took a little while to get turned back the correct way and get back to Walmart.

Our next stop was Wegmans in Northbourough, MA. We had been here 2 years ago and knew it was a must stop! We spent about an hour or so at Wegmans. It was nice to get my favorite brand in stuff I'd already run out of!

After Wegmans we continued on into Maine to the Cabela's at exit 42. You aren't technically allowed to stay overnight, it's a town ordinance, but Cabela's allows it and no one has ever been removed. They have a nice big RV/Truck parking area, free dump station, and dog & horse kennels! Not only that but Cabele's is more fun to wander around in than Walmart! I never realized how many different types of camo there were!

When we came back to the RV we heard what sounded like a speedway. I was convinced it was just I-95 road noise, but I searched google maps for "speedway" and sure enough there was a speedway just on the other side of 95. AND, they were having a "NASCAR-Series" race this evening. Luckily, the race seemed to end around 10:00 and it got nice and quiet, even I-95 was quiet!

 

 

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Hurricane Arthur

Over the course of the day yesterday and last night the forecast for today went from "rain likely, about a 1/2 inch" to "heavy rain - 1-2 inches" to "tropical storm conditions possible". It was gonna be a nasty day.

It was nice when I got up, cloudy & cool. It had rained overnight, so everything was wet, but nothing was falling from the sky. I had a nice breakfast at the picnic table, then we decided to head over to the beach for an hour or so before we left the campground - check out was at 11 and we had nothing else to do.

As soon as we got in the car the rain began. By the time we got to the beach it was pouring. Both East Beach State Park and the local public beach wanted $20 to park. We thought that was excessive considering we were only going to stay for an hour or so and it was pouring rain. So we went back to the campground and got ready to go. We left the campground and drove to a Walmart in Seekonk, MA which is right over the border, very close to Providence, RI. The rain had stopped when we got back to the campground and it was dry the whole drive to Walmart.

After an early lunch we decided to head toward Newport because we thought there was a Ross (Dress for Less) where we could return something and we could check out the mansions. It started raining as soon as we left and just got nastier and nastier all day. The drive to Newport passed through some quaint little towns and it was a nice drive, even if it was raining buckets.

There was no Ross (Dress for Less) in Middletown like Google Maps had lead me to believe, so we continued on to Newport. There was a lot of traffic in downtown, but we worked our way through and drove past the mansions to Ocean Avenue. We got a few views of the ocean and the Cliff walk was closed for repairs so we couldn't have walked it even if it was sunny! We passed through Brenton Point State Park and went to Fort Adams State park. We got out at Ft. Adams to check out the visitor center and it was so windy and cold. It was just miserable.

 

After Ft. Adams we started back to the Walmart. We stopped for an early dinner at Warf Tavern in Warren! We all had yummy fish and tasty veggies! Back at the Walmart we are watching Jeopardy! and listening to the rain pour down! The storm should be moving off overnight and tomorrow promises to be sunny and cooler!

 

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Burlingame State Park

We finally made it to Rhode Island!!!!

We left the Wal-Mart around 9 and drove the remaining 80 miles to Burlingame State Park near Charlestown, RI. As we were preparing to leave Dad tried to pull the slides in and they wouldn't go in. He can't drive with the slides out, so this had the potential to be a big problem. He was able to get them in on the second try. He'd also discovered that the bedroom slide out had leaked during last night's rain and he needed to figure out why. It was his day for RV troubles!

When we arrived at the campground Dad began taking apart the slide out mechanism to see what parts he might need, since tomorrow is a holiday we'd need to pick up any needed parts today.

It was almost 1:00 before we headed out to Charlestown Famous Pizza for lunch. We had a Vicky's Veggie and it was very good! :-) After lunch we commenced our tour of boring places in South Kingston, RI. First up was that Napa Auto Parts store. Mom and I found an outdoor clothing store that was interesting, but we had to leave in a hurry when Dad was sent to a local garage to see if they had the part he needed. We met an interesting man who looked at the part Dad had and gave him some advice, but he did not have the part. He sent us to a third auto parts store in downtown South Kingston. There were some neat shops in South Kingston - a boutique, an ice cream store and a food co-op, so that was fun! On the way back to the campground Dad remembered that he needed some materials to fix the leaky slide out and we had to detour to another hardware store in Charleston.

When we got back to the campground Dad got busy on his projects and I went for a bike ride in the campground. This campground is huge! Over 700 sites! I was able to get in a good bike ride and explore all the loops and camping areas.

My one big activity that I'd planned to do in Rhode Island, and had been planning for months, is to ride the East Bay Bike path from Bristol to Providence and back. We had planned to do this tomorrow. At lunch they had the weather channel on and we saw the local on the 8s forecast for Providence for tomorrow: heavy rain. All day. WHAT!?!?? I think it is Hurricane Arthur making his way north. Saturday promises to be beautiful. The campground is full tomorrow night so we will head out (remember, we were supposed to arrive last night), probably to Wal-Mart near Providence and find something to do tomorrow, Newport maybe?, then ride bikes on Saturday. Luckily we do not have reservations anywhere else - in fact we are trying to get into a campground that doesn't take reservations in Bar Harbor and arriving on Sunday might be better.

 

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Mercedes of Ft. Washington

It was a nice, not too hot, quiet night at Walmart! Considering it was hotter last night than the other two nights and I didn't wake up sweating, I'm positive I made the right choice in replacing the mattress pad! The new one is much thicker than the old one and now the bed is so comfortable!

One of the challenges of owning a Sprinter van is finding service for it. You have to go to a Mercedes dealer and not all Mercedes dealers work on Sprinters. Yesterday we located the nearest Sprinter service center, it was about 30 mins away in Ft. Washington, PA. Since "turn the van off and back on again" seemed to solve the problem we decided that I would drive the van over 1st thing - planning to be there when they opened at 7:30.

I was up early and ready to roll. I got my directions and headed out. It was a very stressful drive - I had no idea where I was going and it was "city" driving, which I don't really like on a good day, and it had no idea when or if the RV might do it's "lose power" thing. Part of the route was highway, part was suburban big box store sprawl, part was small town, it was definitely a time when I would have liked to have a GPS other than google maps on my phone! Despite it being stressful, I did make to the Mercedes dealer with no issues from the RV!

When I arrived however, I learned that the Sprinter service is in a different location about three miles away in an industrial park. More navigating. It wasn't that hard and I made it over there easily.

After I'd been waiting about an hour I asked for some updates. It seems that it was giving a lot of codes and they weren't sure which ones to believe. One code was for some Turbo part that was in a case of some sort that took days to repair. But other codes seemed to imply that that RV needed a "regenerative test drive", which basically means drive it around for 2 hours and run out every drop of the owners fuel. He told me it would be about an hour, but 2 hours later he finally brought the RV back. When he typed up the paperwork he listed all the codes and everything in case I have a further problem with it. If the check engine light comes on again it's probably the turbo thing which takes days to repair. Fingers crossed.

So, at 1:00, I was finally back in the van ready to roll to RI. It was about 350 miles, so I wasn't sure I'd make it, but I was gonna try! Mom and Dad left at almost the same time I did from the Wal-Mart near my uncle's house. The first part of the drive up into NJ, into New York and over the Tappan Zee Bridge went smoothly and issue free!

Then I got back on 95 in CT. About a mile in I saw a sign "Delays 21 miles exit 4-28”. Did that mean delays *in* 21 miles or delays *for* 21 miles. Turns out it was *for* 21 miles. I pulled off at the Welcome Center in Darien and the truck area was full! I couldn't get in - so now I was sitting in traffic in a rest area. I got lucky and was able to get out of the truck area and into the car area. I was texting with mom and we made a plan to stop at the Wal-Mart at exit 40. At exit 27 the traffic just evaporated. One minute we were going 10 mph, the next 60!

As I was arriving at the Wal-Mart so was the thunder storm! It was a big one too! I parked and opened the windows and enjoyed the storm! It was probably the best part of the day! After the storm settled a bit, I ate dinner and Mom and Dad rolled in about an hour after me.

We made it about 80 miles shy of the campground we had reservations at! Pretty good, considering the circumstances, but frustrating! We had plans to go to Block Island tomorrow, but that's not going to happen now, trying to park the RVs at the ferry terminal and then the ferry schedule doesn't match up with our timeframe. So, we will head to the campground and find something to do there. I hope Rhode Island is nice, but not too nice because I'm probably never coming up here again. I see why I've never been!

 

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Visiting Family

After a nice quiet night in the campground I was up early for a hike on the AT! I'd wanted to do a loop with some of the trails in the park and the AT, however last night I had a very hard time following the trails in the park and I couldn't get a map of the park (they had plenty of maps to the nearest hospital but none of the park!) so I decided to stick to the AT since I knew that I could just follow the white blazes and not get lost! I walked the entire AT within the park and even a bit out of the park. It was mostly a green tunnel with not much to look at. I did encounter 9 thru-hikers! They all left a lingering odor on the trail as they past me!

After my hike I headed east on US30 toward Downingtown, PA to visit with my cousin, aunt & uncle and meet up with mom and dad. US30 was nice, but it was stop and go and I passed through several small towns and had to navigate several traffic circles. I stopped for lunch in York. I wanted to stop at Walmart and pick up a different non-waterproof mattress pad. Just before the trip I'd decided to get some real bedding for the RV, I'd been using what I was able to scrounge up from Mom and my collection of old sheets and it just wasn't working. The mattress pad I'd bought was waterproof and both nights I'd slept on it I'd woken up sweating, and it wasn't hot outside! The shopping center I pulled into so I could consult google maps to find the Walmart had a TJMax and a Ross - Ross had a nice queen size mattress pad and it was cheap!

After lunch I drove the rest of the way to Downingtown. I was a few miles from my Aunt & Uncle's house when I was driving up a hill and the RV lost power. The RPMs and the speed dropped, she was putzing along despite me having the fuel pedal all the way down. There were no lights telling me what might be wrong, she just wasn't going. At the top of the hill the van shifted into a different gear and picked up speed and was acting normal, until I got to the next hill, then it did it again. WTF?

When I arrived at Jeff & Susan's house, Jeff and my parents were still at lunch so I consulted the owner's manual for the RV - which wasn't helpful and got started trying to get the new mattress pad on the bed.

The mattress pad just would not go on the bed. It just wasn't big enough. I was baffled because the other queen size mattress pad and the queen size sheet fits. Finally after many frustrating attempts I realized that both the sheets and the other mattress pad were "deep pockets" made for pillow top mattresses and since the RV bed is bigger than a queen but smaller than a king it needed that extra size from the deep pockets. I needed a Walmart to get the mattress pan I knew would fit.

When my parents and Jeff came back my dad and I took the RV out for a test drive. At first it was just fine, then it lost power and the check engine light came on. When we turned it off, then back on again, it fixed the problem. However, the check engine light was still on. Rather than driving the RV back to Jeff and Susan's house we drove it over to Wal-Mart where mom and dad had parked. Luckily Jeff had picked them up so the Jeep was still there. Dad and I went into Wal-mart and I got a third mattress pad! We put it on the bed and it fit just fine! The key I think was that the Walmart mattress pad (and the sheets I bought and tie dyed, that's another post!) were made for thick pillow top matteresses and had deep pockets)

By the time we got back to Jeff & Susan's both Susan and my cousin Lauren were home! Lauren and I had a great time swimming in the pool and catching up! It's been way too long since we've seen each other! We had a fun evening chatting, laughing, and catching up! Susan & Lauren cooked a yummy dinner topped off by Amish Apple pie!

It was warm, but windy when we got back to Wal-mart. There's a car parked next to me and it appears that the occupants are sleeping in their car! That is of course what I'm doing, but somehow it's different when you have a RV!

This Walmart has a silo! Kinda makes it feel like Disney World!

 

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Camping World & Caledonia State Park

When we left off I was heading home from Southwest Virginia and having trouble with my LP/CO detector. I made several attempts to get an appointment at my local RV service center, Reines RV, but they have only one guy who can schedule appointments and he wouldn't call me back. I even showed up there one day trying to schedule an appointment and they wouldn't make the appointment. I finally gave up on them and scheduled an appointment at Camping World in Winchester. Winchester was on route for my summer trip so I scheduled my service for the first day of my trip. Of course my route changed several times between when I made the appointment and the actual trip, now it really wasn't as "on route" as it had been, but I needed to get the LP/CO detector looked at!

I made an appointment for first thing Monday morning, I was thinking I'd sleep at a nearby Wal-mart. The guy at Camping World told me that the Wal-mart wasn't safe and I should just sleep in his lot. He even had a plug! I spent the day Sunday packing and loading and sorting my stuff. I went to my regular Sunday yoga class then headed out to Winchester. After some minor navigational issues I arrived at Camping World at about 5:00 pm. It was totally deserted! No one in sight! I was a bit nervous planning to stay there because it was secluded and empty, but it looked like it was going to be quiet! Most of the plugs were locked shut, but I found one that was unlocked and got plugged in! There was a Gander Mountain right next door so I walked over there and then made dinner and settled in with some mindless iPad games & 1980s TV reruns!

A little before 8, I got a fun surprise! My friends Kathy & Jeff were at their nephew's birthday dinner a few miles away and were going to stop by! :-) I showed them the RV and we chatted for awhile. They offered to take me back to their house for the night, which sounded like a lovely offer, but I felt like I needed to be at CW in the morning to get them started and packing everything I'd need for the night felt like a big task when I already knew I had everything in the van. I knew I'd forget something!

After Kathy & Jeff left I crawled into bed with my book! Despite the breeze that had been blowing through all evening it was very warm when I went to bed so I turned the AC fan on. It created a wind tunnel in the aisle but didn't really blow much air on me! It wasn't the best nights sleep but by 6 am I was up and getting ready for the day.

I was one of the first customers in the door at 8 this morning. They took me right away and they were done by 9:15. They inspected the entire system and found nothing wrong. Nothing. This is good, but it's all maddening that that detector randomly goes off for no reason. They also blew the dust of out the fridge which was likely causing the flame to go out & not come on again.

So here it was 9:30 and I was done at Camping World! Kathy was coming back this morning and we had plans to meet another friend for lunch at 11:30. Since I now had 2 hours to kill, I went to Wal-Mart and got the things on my list. We were still early for lunch so we hit the store closing sale at Coldwater Creek.

It was great to have lunch with Denise! She and her husband used to work at the school Kathy & I work at but they retired 2 years ago. We talked about everything and then went to see Jack at the store where he works.

 

It was about 3:00 when Kathy brought me back to the van that we'd left at Wal-Mart and I headed up the road. The next stop on my agenda is my Aunt, Uncle & Cousin's house in Downingtown, PA. This was only about 200 miles from Winchester so I knew I had time to do something along the way.

I knew the AT passed through Caledonia State Park and when I looked it up I learned that it was directly on route! In fact, stopping at Caledonia meant I could very easily take US 30 through Gettysburg, York & Lancaster and avoid the PA Turnpike!

It's a big campground, a bit rough, small not level sites and very hilly, but it's quiet and scenic. There aren't many people here tonight, I walked the whole campground and there are maybe 20 sites occupied out of over 100! I also walked down to the main park area where the pool, picnic area and trails are. They don't seem to have maps of the park, just maps to the nearest hospital?!?!? It wasn't easy but I did locate the AT and a good parking area so I can get in a hike before I leave in the morning.

I didn't spring for a site with electric so I needed to run my generator to heat dinner. I felt a bit bad because of the whole empty campground the two sites right by me are occupied! The campground was so peaceful with the birds signing I hated to destroy the mood, but I only ran the generator long enough to nuke everything!

It was very warm & humid this afternoon, but now that the sun in sinking behind the mountain it is cooling off! I hope it continues too cool off so we have a nice night!

 

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