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The Famous Cherry Blossoms
March 22, 2024 – Day 7 Cherry Hill Park, College Park MD We stopped in DC to visit with our friend Ann who lives nearby. On the docket were DC tourist traps. Paul really wanted to see the cherry blossoms, Susan had already seen them, Anne sighed and put up with us (Paul). Locals don’t go there because even in off times it’s too crowded. We had also hoped to see some of the museums in downtown DC, maybe National Gallery, Smithsonia, Air & Space or even the International Spy Museum. It turns out that these museums are just like the big National Parks. They’re over crowded and you need…
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Starting Off With Bleach
March 21, 2024 – Day 6 Lums Pond State Park Campground, Bear DE – Cherry Hill Park, College Park MD Before we went to bed Paul started the process of sanitizing the fresh water tank. It’s a once or twice a year thing and it’s very important to do. You start off by putting 1/4 cup of bleach into the tank for every 16 gallons of capacity and fill it. Then we ran all the taps for a few minutes and waited 12 hours. The only reasonable time to do it is at night because you won’t have water for 12 hours. (susan here: 9 p.m. is a very unreasonable…
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It’s Alive!
March 20, 2024 – Day 5 Lums Pond State Park Campground We woke up around quarter past 5 to make sure that we had the coach ready by 6AM. There wasn’t a knock on the door at 6 am so we waited a few minutes. Paul went into the office to ask what the game plan was. Nicole greeted him—they must have caffiene in their veins—and told us that the mechanic who was going to work on our coach wasn’t in yet. Arghh…. Then Paul got to deal with the joy of having his LinkedIn account hacked. Despite having a quality password Paul isn’t sure how they did it. But…
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It’s a Choice
March 19, 2024 – Day 4 Bayshore Ford Truck Center, New Castle, Delaware I’ll bet that section heading got your attention, didn’t it? Heh, you’ll just have to read on. We woke to a beautiful sunrise. The birds were singing, the squirrels were cavorting all over the Jeep. (susan here: ACTUALLY, Snow White was dancing. And birds were singing. And they were all jockeying with each other to land on Snow as she sang to them.) We had risen early so we didn’t have to scramble to make our 9:30AM oil change appointment. Susan had her coffee so all was right in Chez Cezanne. We were all buttoned up by…
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The Not Dogwoods
March 18, 2024 – Day 3 Lums Pond State Park, Bear, Delaware Today was a settling in day. We hung out in the morning. Susan went looking for my mom’s favorite diner, she couldn’t find it. Not on Yelp. Not on Google Maps. So we texted my brother, who called right back. It turns out her favorite diner was demolished a few years. That’s why we couldn’t find it. It’s a shame because it was a great place. We found another one, the Route 40 diner, and headed out for lunch. It wasn’t much to look at outside since it was in a strip mall. However, it was all diner…
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Not the Best Day
March 17, 2024 – Day 2 Cairo, New York to Lums Pond State Park, Bear Delaware We woke up to an empty parking lot and looked forward to an easy 4 1/2 drive to Lums Pond in Bear, Delaware. We’ve stayed there a few times before. We know the roads. We know the campground. It was going to be easy. Paul walked the parking lot exit since it looked like it might be steep or rutted, looking back you can see just how empty the parking lot was. The front of Old Factory Brewery was also charming, especially with the sun rising behind it. That’s probably the last time we’ll…
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Steep Hills, Good Mac & Cheese & Beer
March 16, 2024 – Day 1 Keene NH to Cairo NY – Old Factory Brewery We had originally planned on leaving on Sunday the 17th and making a long days drive to Lums Pond State Park Campground in Bear, DE. We found out we could possibly have an RV tech look at our battery bay, prepping for the upcoming battery upgrade, so we found a Harvest Host in Cairo NY. We could stop by the RV shop on Saturday morning and then make a short drive to just south of Albany. The RV tech didn’t work Saturdays but we liked the idea of leaving on Saturday anyhow, so we just…
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Short Trip Home
November 17, 2023 – Day 49 We both love the banjo player Bela Fleck. We’ve seen him live twice and would gladly see him again if he plays anywhere in a drivable distance from us. Now banjo, you may thinking of Deliverance… But Bela plays differently than that. He teamed up with Edgar Myers and made the wonderful modern bluegrass album Short Trip Home. Stop the presses. Bela Fleck had nothing to do with that album! Both Susan and Paul would have fought you on this but we were wrong. (To be fair, Meyers and Fleck have a long history of collaboration. But it wasn’t this album or that song.…
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Penultimate Day
November 16, 2023 – Day 48 We pulled out of French Creek State Park in Elverson PA to make it halfway home. We’re on the second to last day. The “penultimate” day. Paul had that word as a vocabulary word in High School and has always been amused by it, it is certainly a $20 word when a 50¢ word will do. This is completely unlike his other favorite weird-word, which is “defenestrate.” Paul always wondered why such a word was needed, “To throw out a window” is pretty specific. And Wikipedia comes to the rescue. Defenestration is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. The…
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It’s a blast, blast, blast.
November 15, 2023 – Day 47 French Creek State Park is located next the Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site. Paul’s brother has visited this in the past and spoke highly of it. After a lazy morning we headed over to visit it and stamp our National Parks Passport book. Hopewell Furnace showcases an early American landscape of industrial operations from 1771-1883, Hopewell and other “iron plantations” laid the foundation for the transformation of the United States into an industrial giant for the time. The park’s 848 acres and historic structures illustrate the business, technology and lifestyle of our growing nation. There were two furnaces there, the newer, anthracite furnace, which…