We left Tuesday (July 17, 2012) for yet another adventure. We left about 10am and made a fairly uneventful trip to Terre Haute, IN--about 400 miles. St. Louis was the worst as far as traffic goes. We were at a dead stop several times! Plus the heat was terrible! We stayed at the KOA in Terre Haute and went swimming. I realized that I had forgotten my swim suit, so I just watched everyone else swim. It was rather hot and muggy, but not too bad.
Wednesday, July 18, we left Indiana by 9am-ish and headed to Ohio. This was a little more eventful day. We stopped at Target in Akron to get swimsuits (Taylor needed one too), then we ran into some storms in Columbus that were a little scary. At one point a gust of wind had blown a bumper off a guy's car, right into our path and we ran over it. Thankfully no damage was done. Also, with that strong gust, it pushed all traffic over to the right. Again, no damage or injuries. We were in a severe thunderstorm watch as it rained really hard for quite awhile and thundered and had lots of lightning. At one point, we heard a huge crash and lightning had struck the grove of trees across the interstate right where we were passing. Yikes! We pressed on and got north of the storms. I'm assuming the storms kept heading East and didn't come north as we didn't have any more weather issues. We stayed at a
campground in Geneva on the Lake, Ohio right across the street from Lake Erie. Nathan took Taylor and Jack swimming while I put Charline to bed. Today's mileage for the day: 320 miles.
Thursday, July 19
The campground was rather large which made a great place to get in a good morning walk. Kenai and I walked briskly all ove the campground, then stopped to get Taylor and she walked with us as well. We noticed the ducks and swan at the ponds, and also noticed a feeder. So, we went back to the motorhome, got Charline (Jack sleeps in now) and we went to feed the ducks! We got a decent start again and headed out for New York with our goal being Albany. A rather un-eventful driving day which is good, because it allowed us to travel about 450 miles. We stayed just west of Albany at a little campground. We all went swimming (I at least put on my swimsuit and watched, all others got it). The temperature had dropped to probably 70 and there was a breeze and the pool was not heated. Not for me. The kids, as usual, had a blast swimming with their Dad! We got out and started a fire and dinner. It's nice to be able to have fires again. On our last vacation (3 weeks ago), I think we only had a fire once. There was a fire ban everywhere. Even the first couple of campgrounds on this trip banned fires. The girls and I did a load of laundry and noticed a super-cool bug. I looked it up later and learned it's a Dobsonfly. Very interesting creature! Total mileage for the day: about 450 miles.
Friday, July 20
My favorite driving day so far, I just wish we would've allowed more time to enjoy this drive! New York proved to be absolutely beautiful. I wasn't exactly expecting that :) We left our NY campground and decided to take Hwy 7 East and take 2-lane to Portland, ME. Hwy 7 turned into Hwy 9 in Vermont. Vermont is absolutely gorgeous as well. Not sure what I had in my head, but I wasn't exactly expecting that. The kids memorized various mountain ranges in New England this year, one of which was Green Mountains. Well, the Green Mountains make up 90% of Vermont, so it was neat to actually see the mountains they learned about. Heading further east into New Hampshire, we went through another set of mountains they learned about..the White Mountains. (Oh, and can't forget the Adirondacks, they learned those too). The only hold up today was our right taillight blinker quit working and of course it wasn't an easy fix. Nathan had to take it all apart and change out the fuse. A much bigger ordeal that just changing a lightbulb. I was thinking we didn't have quite as far to go today, so we didn't get going until 10:15am, then we added a 1.5 hour delay at Wal-Mart fixing a taillight--we didn't leave New York until 1:30. That's a late start to make it to Maine in decent time. Thus, we went through lots of cute towns with lots of antique shops! and even a couple of antique book shops!! but didn't stop. We only made one stop...at Dunkin' Donuts. Nathan was craving a donut and coffee and next-door happened to have a little nursery, so I got some maple syrup and cheese (we were in Vermont at this point, had to get syrup and cheese!). Our only other stop was at a pizza place in New Hampshire. And I loved New Hampshire as well! NY, VT and NH really exceeded any expectations I had. They are beautiful! We finally entered Maine and had about an hour to our campground in Scarborough--just outside of Portland. It''s a huge campground. No pool, but does have a large pond. It was nearing dark when we arrived, so we just had a quick campfire and are now getting ready for bed. Total mileage for today: 250 miles. Total for this trip so far: 1420 miles
So far, a great trip. Fairly uneventful (no major disasters at least) and we are truly enjoying the nice, cool weather. I definitely did not pack enough warm clothes!
Uploading of pictures at the WiFi campground hotspots doesn't always work great, so no pictures for now. Maybe later.
