New England Trip

The last 200 miles from Statesville, NC to Hartwell was an easy drive.  We got home about 12:30 PM and began the process of unpacking and cleaning the motor home.

The total miles traveled, not counting local trips with the Acura and ferry miles was 4,179.  Excluding the 284 miles from our last fill-up in Virginia to home, we used 487 gallons of gas at an average cost of $4.23 per gallon for a total gas cost of $2,059.  Our overall miles per gallon was 7.99.  While this was expensive, round trip airfare to Nova Scotia for the two of us could cost about $2,600.  Travel by car would have only cost about $800 in gas but meals and hotel rooms would have been much more expensive – and we would have had to board our cat and dog for a month (not an option). 

Steve went to his doctor in Hartwell this afternoon and the tentative diagnosis was Legionnaires Disease – most likely contracted on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls.  We went to a somewhat incomprehensible attraction called “Niagara’s Fury – The Creation of the Falls” that included man-made mist/fog in a dark room filled with people – a prime means of bacteria growth and transmission.  The doctor prescribed a 5 day course of antibiotics.  It seems that Steve has been walking around with a case of pneumonia for the last month.

We hope you enjoyed our blog.  We will now look for some way to save it off line for our own memories.

Steve and Margaret

This morning in the campground we hooked up the Acura for towing, and had a visit from another camper interested in the equipment for towing and asking questions.  We spent a few minutes explaining the rig to him.  He and his wife and son were camping in one of the KOA cabins, but were interested in buying an RV and traveling to some of the places we had been, especially Nova Scotia.

We set out around 9:00 a.m., and had a wonderful drive through the valley, with mountains on both sides of the highway.   We stopped at a rest area to fix sandwiches for lunch, and enjoyed looking at some very cute puppies.  Toward the end of the drive there were some interesting passages where we had to use low gear on some steep downgrades, and we landed in Statesville about mid-afternoon at the KOA.  We had hoped to top off our propane tank here, but the woman at the registration desk could not leave the desk, and when she tried to call the person who could fill our tank, the phone number had been disconnected.  Traveling does have its challenges.

We will get an early start tomorrow, to be sure to make Steve’s 4:00 appointment with Dr. Stone tomorrow afternoon in Hartwell.  We are eager to find out what weird disease he is battling, and to get some medication for it if possible.

We took a scenic drive south through the valley and entered the Shenandoah National Park at its southern entrance station, Rockfish Gap, where the Skyline Drive travels north up the ridge, and the Blue Ridge Parkway heads south.  The National Park consists of the Skyline Drive (which travels 105 miles along a continuous ridge) and the slopes on either side of the ridge.  The elevation ranges from 2,500 feet to about 3,200 feet.  Every mile or so, there is an overlook with great views.  Unfortunately, today was hazy so we could not see far into the distance. 

The speed limit on the drive is 35 mph so it is hard to travel the full distance.  There are only four entrance stations at the following mile markers: 0 (northern end at Front Royal), 30, 65, and 105 (southern end at Rockfish Gap).  Today we only covered 40 miles to Swift Run Gap but it took 3 hours counting frequent overlook stops and a stop for lunch.

A couple of pictures from the drive follow:

 

We looked at the campground at Loft Mountain, which was only 25% full.  There were some large class A motor homes as well as large 5^th wheel campers in the campground, so it looked like we could fit in as well.  The campground has no hookups at the individual sites, but there is water and a dump station available along with a bathhouse that one would have a short drive to.   We may come back and use the campground in the spring or fall when air conditioning would not be needed as much as it is now.  Temperatures today in the area were in the high 80’s to low 90’s.  Although we have experienced higher than usual temperatures at various locations throughout the trip, we felt like we were back to the hot South today.

Driving back from the Skyline Drive to our campsite, we took Highway 340 North to New Market, and enjoyed seeing beautiful farms in the valley between the Shenandoah National Park and the George Washington National Forest; then doubled back south down I-81 to the campground about halfway between New Market and Harrisonburg.  We always enjoy taking local scenic routes near the places where we camp, and the scenic routes here were really special.  Several times we saw breathtaking views of the mountains across the valley, and wished we could have captured the view in pictures, but the beautiful wide expanse of mountains and sky just can’t be captured in a photo.

For dinner, we had planned to go out, but we were tired enough to try the convection microwave feature on some frozen fish fillets for a quick supper.  The convection microwave worked really well.  We have a lot to learn about how to use it for various kinds of cooking, but tonight’s experience was a pleasant surprise.

Tomorrow we have a long drive to Statesville, NC, where we will have just a one-night stay.  We called Steve’s doctor in Hartwell for an appointment to figure out what is causing his persistent cough, stiff neck and headaches, and were able to get an appointment on Thursday afternoon at 4:00 (Doc. doesn’t work on Friday).  That means we will have a very early start from Statesville on Thursday to make it to Hartwell in time.  It will be good to find out what’s causing all this trouble for Steve and hopefully get some medicine to fix it.

It has been a good trip, with lots of wonderful experiences.  We wish that Steve had not felt so bad so much of the time, and would like to come back to many of the places we visited to enjoy them again.

As always, it will be good to be home.

Today’s drive was mostly easy and short, bringing us into Virginia early enough for a lunch stop at the Welcome Center where we got directions to a scenic drive along US Hwy 211 and a visit to Luray Caverns.  At the Caverns, we left Pumpkin and Wicket in the motor home in the parking lot, with the vents open and fans blowing, while we took a guided tour of the caverns.  We had a hard time hearing the Munchkin tour guide’s explanations over the voices of babies and young children along for the tour, but gathered some interesting information about the stalagmites and stalactites.  The caverns are beautiful, and must have been really spectacular to the explorers who discovered them by candlelight without all the electric lights and brick-paved walkways that had been provided for our enjoyment. 

Photos were a challenge in the dim light with spotlights placed on the scenic highlights.  Focus was difficult since the camera was handheld at 1/5 second shutter speed and the lens was wide open.  If we used the flash, the colors washed out.  The best picture follows.

 

We made it to our KOA campsite around 6:30 p.m., and fixed a dinner of leftover spaghetti in the motor home.  We have found that some very simple dinners, frozen or leftovers, that can be prepared easily, really help to make the travel days easier.  We have found that KOAs generally provide some minimum level of quality.  Some of the independent campgrounds permit permanent residents in old campers and provide more of a “trailer park” ambiance.  While you will find some semi-permanent trailer installations in some KOAs, these are “seasonal” arrangements and the owners have other homes.

Tomorrow we will explore the Shenandoah Valley.

Today was a long travel day from North Stonington, Connecticut to Abingdon, Maryland (just off I-95 about 30 miles north of Baltimore).  We had dreaded this day because it took us down I-95 through or near New London, CT.; New Haven, CT.; Stamford, CT.; New York City; Newark, NJ; Philadelphia, PA; and Wilmington, DE. 

We had planned the day so that it fell on a Sunday hoping for little traffic.  During a rainy day in North Stonington, we researched our planned route and found that RVs with large propane tanks such as ours are not allowed on the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River, so we planned an alternate route over the Tappan Zee Bridge farther north.  We left the campground about 30 minutes later than planned because of a downpour.  It rained on and off all the way through New Jersey, but the traffic flowed smoothly, and there were no significant traffic problems.  The Tappan Zee Bridge from New York into New Jersey was beautiful, though a bit narrow, as is almost everything from our perspective.  About 15 miles into New Jersey, we picked up the Garden State Parkway south to the New Jersey Turnpike (. . . they’ve all come to look for America . . .. ) and on to I-95 south toward Philadelphia.  We skirted the west side of Philadelphia to cross the Delaware River just south of Wilmington and into Maryland.  To our surprise, after an easy drive around and through New York City and Philadelphia, we came to a crummy halt at the Delaware border. 

 First we had to line up to pay a toll over the bridge into Delaware.  Then we had to wait in bumper-to-bumper traffic to pay more tolls on the JFK Memorial Highway through Delaware into Maryland.  The tolls were around $8.00 for our four axles, but the worst of the drive was the long delay of traffic lines feeding multiple lanes of traffic from I-95, I-295 and other feeder roads into I-95 South to Baltimore, MD.  We spent an hour getting through about 25 miles of Delaware after covering well over 100 miles from Connecticut to New York, and another 150 miles through New Jersey to Delaware.  It seems that the Delaware highways are not well designed to absorb the huge traffic flow from New York and New Jersey, and the tollbooths for the Delaware Bridge and the Delaware highways beyond it are totally inadequate for the traffic volume.  Of course, we were traveling on Sunday, and there were surely lots of people coming home from the New Jersey shore and other points east on Sunday afternoon.  Probably people have the same complaints about the traffic through Atlanta.  Anyway, if we come this way again, we will plan to avoid Delaware.

 According to Google Maps, Hartwell to Boston via I-95 through Delaware is 1,004 miles.  Taking I-81 through Pennsylvania and avoiding Delaware is 1,015 miles.  Delaware has now joined Louisiana on our list of states to avoid.

 We arrived at the campground in Maryland around 5 p.m., and found that our campsite had a nice view of a finger of the Chesapeake Bay.  It had rained heavily during the day before we arrived, and there was a lot of black mud throughout the campground.  There was not much good area for walking dogs, but Wicket made do, and also met another Shih Tzu with the same coloring, female, about three months younger.  We enjoyed a night there, then set out for Virginia, leaving mid-morning to miss the Monday morning traffic through Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

Today, we hoped to take the ferry to Block Island but we called to make reservations too late. Instead, we went back to Newport and took a scenic 10-mile drive around the island.

Our first stop was Fort Adams State Park. We had Wicket with us and could not find shaded parking so we did not take the tour of the fort. We found the “Sail Newport” facility, which is a public sailing center. The parking lot was filled with J/24s, many of which we remember from large regattas. The center will rent J/22s if you can document sailing skills. Sans Wicket, we might have rented one for an hour or so. Steve took a quick tour of the Museum of Yachting while Margaret walked Wicket. The Museum owns and operates the 12-Meter Courageous that Ted Turner helmed to two America’s Cup victories.

Our next stop was the Brenton Point State Park on the southern tip of Newport Island facing the Atlantic. The “beach” was rocky but dramatic with crashing waves. We saw at least 50 colorful kites being flown. Some were large and stationary; others were small and swooped like birds. We saw a kid expertly flying one of the swooping kites. The parking lot was packed, but that should be expected since it was a beautiful Saturday morning.

The drive took us through the mansion district of Bellevue Avenue where the most incredible mansions were built during the “Guilded Age.” A number of the most elaborate of these mansions are now owned by an historical preservation society and can be toured for a reasonable fee. Because of Wicket, we did not take tours but glimpsed the mansions through the gates.

There is a 3 and one half-mile cliff-side walk where one can walk between the ocean and the mansions. We walked about one-half mile out and back and the views were awesome. The area that we walked was along the campus of the Salve Regina University. Several of the mansions have been donated by owners looking to shed the heavy tax and upkeep burden, to expand the campus of the University. The university administration building is housed in a particularly ornate mansion, and a small brick three-story university building with a flat roof next door is a really ugly contrast to its elegant neighbor.

We returned to downtown Newport and had a late lunch at a harbor-side bar after finding a cool parking deck in which to leave Wicket.

If you want to really enjoy a visit to Newport, leave the dog at home!

Several pictures follow:

First, “Courageous” in Newport Harbor at Fort Adams State Park

Second, the "beach" at Brenton Point State Park.

Third, a view from the cliff-side walk

Finally, one of the mansions donated to the Salve Regina University, as viewed from the cliff-side walk

Today was a perfectly beautiful day – blue sky, just a few white wispy clouds, and temperatures in the upper 70’s. We got moving early enough to go to the US Submarine Force Museum just west of Mystic Seaport, in Groton, Ct., home of the USS Nautilus submarine, which is the premier exhibit of the museum. The USS Nautilus was the first nuclear powered submarine in the Navy, and it is permanently moored at the museum in Groton, CT, home of the Electric Boat Company, which builds submarines for the Navy. The museum’s location is adjacent to the US submarine base in Groton, which is the homeport for all of the Atlantic Fleet fast attack submarines. We took a self-guided tour of the sub, and then wandered around the museum, looking at pictures of old and recent submarines. The museum was hosting a Change of Command ceremony for the SSN Miami today, and we saw lots of seamen and officers making the arrangements for the festivities, setting up seating and audio systems. A peek behind a door in the museum revealed a seaman pouring ranch dressing from a 2 gallon bottle into a dipping dish for the veggie tray.

From the museum, we drove back through Mystic Seaport and had lunch at a little snack bar on the water on the way back to the campground. We then had a couple of hours to walk Wicket and do some repairs to our rain gutters. The campground here has an adjacent RV parts store that helped us find the parts we needed to fix the gutters.

Around 4 p.m. we set out for Newport, RI for our America’s Cup Cruise. We had made reservations, and were advised to get there early because of traffic and parking problems. As it turned out, we allowed more than enough time, though we did have some hunting to do to find the meeting place for the two-hour cruise.

The sail was absolutely spectacular. We were assigned to the Intrepid, which is the only 12-meter to win the America’s Cup twice (1967 and 1970). She is a beautiful wooden boat, and we both got to take the helm for a while under sail. While Steve had the helm, he passed the 12-meter Enterprise that had set sail with us (where there are two boats, there’s a race), and Margaret held the lead downwind. We were both coached by the skipper, Mike, who shared with us a history of sailing catamarans. The weather conditions were perfect – mid 70’s and 12 mph of wind. The Intrepid had a perfectly balanced helm, and was very easy to steer. We got to sail her under the Newport Bridge twice, downwind with Margaret at the helm, and back upwind under Steve’s hand. Upwind, she made 7.5 knots and reaching she made 9 knots. Because it was a charter, we only had the smallest jib (designed for 25 mph wind) and a mainsail that was smaller than used racing.

So far, this was the high point in the trip - but only because we are sailing nuts.

On the way back to the dock, we passed an absolutely beautiful boat on a mooring, hailing from the Marshall Islands. Steve asked a crewmember if he knew what type of boat it was and he replied “Swan 80.” Back to an Internet connection, we looked up the Swan 80. We found a 2000 model for sale in Europe for about $5.3 million US dollars. There is a huge amount of money floating in Newport harbor.

It only took about 35 minutes to drive back to the motorhome, where Wicket was thrilled to see us, and Pumpkin put up with his boisterousness generously, as she always does.

A few pictures follow:

First, the tall ship Spirit of South Carolina docked as we waited for our 12-Meter charter.

Second, the 12-Meter Enterprise (photo from Intrepid) as Steve passed her to leeward sailing downwind.

Third, Margaret at the helm of Intrepid sailing downwind with Enterprise in the background.

Finally, Steve at the helm of Intrepid sailing upwind with the Jamestown/Newport bridge in the background.

Wicket wakes up a little later now that we are a few degrees west, and for that we are thankful. This morning’s walk call was at 6:20 a.m. The skies were cloudy and threatening rain, so we took our time with showers and breakfast. We also discovered that we had left our umbrella at the restaurant last night, which gave us a great excuse to drive back down to Stonington and see the lighthouse. We picked up the umbrella, and explored Stonington.

The lighthouse was built in 1823, and although the light is no longer in service, the beautiful building is used as a museum with a very large collection of old stuff from the lighthouse era. Like many of the New England lighthouses, this one was moved to its present location from the edge of the point, now protected behind a man-made breakwater. Through a glass section of floor, we could see the cistern that had been dug and framed under the building for collecting rainwater after the water from the well, also visible through a glass floor, proved too salty for use. We were able to climb the steep spiral staircase and ladder to the top of the lighthouse tower, and had a great view of the shoreline and the village.

There was an eclectic collection of stuff in the museum – weapons and cannonballs from the war of 1812, whaling harpoons, ice harvesting equipment, old medical equipment, and other stuff connected mainly by being old and from around here.

The curator of the lighthouse museum, a delightful woman named Louise, was a fount of information about the history of the town of Stonington. She told us about the factory that employed Stonington’s residents through many generations and different product lines – silk weaving machines, plastic Coke bottles, guns – and finally burned to the ground in a spectacular fire (coincidentally) just before it was to be re-developed into condominiums. Apparently such fires are part of a common history of New England towns..

On the way back to the motor home, with a grocery stop en route, we drove through the side streets of Stonington and took several pictures of beautiful houses, one with a copper roof and gutters. The neighborhood reminded us of the old neighborhoods of Charleston, Savannah and other coastal towns, and some historic districts in inland Southern cities. There are beautifully kept old homes even in areas that seem to be of very limited financial means. When we get home, it will be interesting to try to look at our towns and neighborhoods with a tourist’s eye, and consider whether we may have overlooked some beauty in the familiar rural poverty of the South.

By the time we got back to the motor home, the rain was settling in for a long siege. It rained most of the afternoon and into the evening. The kids who ran for cover in their campers when the rain started finally came out and jumped on the “jumping pillow” in the pouring rain. They probably had been getting stir-crazy in their campers like Wicket, and their parents seemed to have shooed them out about the same time Wicket announced that he had to go NOW, whether it was pouring rain or not. (Margaret bundled up in Steve’s rain jacket and followed Wicket around through the puddles. When you gotta go, you gotta go.)

The rain is beautiful to watch. Some day, we will have this kind of rain again at home. We will try to remember never to complain about wet dog hair and muddy feet again. According to NOAA, Hartwell had about ¾ of an inch of rain in the past week, and we hope some of it fell on our plants.

We went to the town of Mystic for dinner at the S&P Oysters restaurant. The meals were delightful, as was the restaurant surrounded by gardens on one side and the Mystic River on the other.

The first picture below is one of the lighthouse, and the second is a picture of the house with the copper roof.

Today we had a short drive (just about 150 miles) to North Stonington, Connecticut, where we are staying at a KOA near Mystic Seaport and Newport, Rhode Island. Since we had plenty of time, we drove part of the way on (our friend) US 1, which continues to be a much better highway than it was just south of the Canada border. Most of the time the road was out of sight of the coast, but we took a wrong turn at Narragansett, RI and had a driving adventure out to the coast. The views were great, but the drive through narrow streets looking for a place to turn around a 50-foot rig was the kind of exciting we like to avoid. As it turned out, we made a successful rounding of a couple of city blocks, and got back on our route without even holding up traffic. We did get a lot of strange looks.

On the way, we called America’s Cup Charters, an organization that offers daily sunset cruises out of Newport on board their fleet of 12-meter America’s Cup yachts. Their yachts include seven 12-meters, including three that won the America’s Cup (Weatherly 1962; Intrepid in 1967 and 1970; Freedom in 1980; and also Ted Turner’s American Eagle. We reserved tickets for Friday night, which seems the least likely to be rainy.

We pulled into the KOA around 2:30 p.m., checked in, found our site, and started working on leveling the motorhome when the skies opened up with a spectacular thunderstorm. For about an hour it rained bullfrogs, and the lightning was so close we didn’t dare stand outside the motorhome under the trees. There were several short showers after the big storm rolled through, and there are more storms on radar headed this way. Wish we could send some of this rain to Hartwell. It was interesting watching the downpour and remembering what that looked like in Hartwell so long ago.

Our campsite has a full view through the front windshield of the swimming pool and a “jumping pillow,” a sort of convex trampoline that forms a big mound inside a fenced area. It’s full of kids most of the time, so we’ll have to go out early or late to try it out. The KOA at Niagara Falls had one of these too, but this one looks better. The campground also has a huge field just outside the gate with picnic tables and tent camping sites, which is perfectly empty. Wicket had a wonderful time running his Crazy Ivans there after the rain blew over. It has been about a week since he had a place to run off-leash, and he was thrilled. Since we will be here for several days, this will be one of his favorite places.

Pumpkin is such a trooper. She doesn’t mind the long rides, and when we set up camp, she takes up her viewing station on the dashboard where she can look out the windshield through almost 180 degrees. She especially likes to watch the birds. Unlike Spice (our previous cat), she seems to have little interest in getting outside the motorhome, so we have not had the constant anxiety about escape that we had on our trip out west. She has not hidden in the dashboard again recently, either. She and Wicket have a good time playing together. They are about the same size and weight, so they are a good match.

For dinner we went down to the village of Stonington, which is a charming little town of narrow streets, restaurants and small shops. We ate at the Skipper’s Dock restaurant, recommended by one of the KOA staff. Our table was on a covered pier with wind curtains. It was chilly, and the mist was pretty thick, so there wasn’t much view, but we had a wonderful dinner. We were able to admire a dark blue J/24, and a larger blue sprit boat with a white deck that we couldn’t identify, on moorings in the harbor near the restaurant.

Our GPS, Jack, routed us home expertly in the dark.

After sleeping late (to about 8 am after a 6 am walk of Wicket), we did some housekeeping.  Steve went to one of two known Laundromats within 50 miles to do several loads of laundry.  The small Laundromat (“Coin-O-Matic” in Orleans) was packed at 9 am with all 15-20 washers and dryers busy.  Steve waited his turn for a couple of washers and found that they were really only one-half washers.  After finding that some of the clothes in one of the washers were not getting wet, half of that load was transferred to a third washer.  The half-washers cost $2.50 per half load and the dryers cost $.25 per 5 minutes.  A sign in the laundry directed customers to the bowling alley next door for restrooms.  The bowling alley displayed a sign at its front door that restrooms were for its customers only.  After two and a half hours, Steve returned to the campground with half the desired laundry somewhat dry and went directly to the motor home bathroom.

We then drove down to the Cape Cod Canal and took a 2 hour cruise up the canal and back.  The 17-mile canal (7 cut through land) joins Buzzards Bay from the south to the Cape Cod Bay to the north, cutting the landmass of the cape at the juncture to the mainland.  The southern end, before the land cut, has many beautiful homes.  Except at slack tide, the canal has a current of about 4 knots flowing one way or the other.  The following picture shows where the two canal digs (north from Cape Cod and south from Buzzards Bay) joined upon completion of the canal in 1816.  The building is a replica of a structure called “Grey Gables.”

On the way back to our motor home, we went to Woods Hole and visited the Nobska light marking the entrance to Woods Hole.  Since most of the coastline is private or requires a parking fee, lighthouses are an opportunity to get a free glimpse of the ocean around here.  The view from the lighthouse was very nice and a picture of the light follows.