Houston, We Have a Problem...

So we were on our way to NYC via Dobbs Ferry, NY where Tom's sister and her family live. Everything was going according to plan until Andrew runs up and shouts, "Mommy, come quick! Sissy has a bad scratch on her foot!"

Well, that "bad scratch" was a deep gouge and skin tear on the arch of Kait's foot. Apparently, as we were navigating the crappy Connecticut highways, Kait lost her balance and came down on the floor lock that keeps the bedroom door from sliding shut while we drive.

After a trip to the urgent care, stitches, antibiotics and some crutches, she's all set.

Needless to say, we aren't going to attempt to go into NYC. We are heading home until Kait is off the injured reserve. Then we will swing back around and catch NYC, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh before we head to the Mid Atlantic states.

We'll keep you posted...

Newport, RI

While we are parked in Mystic, CT, we decided to drive over to Newport, Rhode Island and check out how the other half lives.

There are several mansions you can tour in Newport. We choose to go through a mansion called The Breakers. It was actually a summer cottage owned by the Vanderbilt family. It was impressive enough to wow Andrew a few times (and after Plymouth Rock, we know how he calls it like he sees it).

Front gate of The Breakers

View from the back lawn.

I would have loved to show you more but we couldn't take any pictures inside. Bummer. Something about protecting the artifacts from the flash. Or could it be the need to sell all of those pretty picture books in their gift shop? Just a thought. A cynical one but a thought nonetheless.

Mystic, CT

After leaving Boston, we headed south to Mystic, Connecticut. In just over an hour, we were already checked in and set up at our next camp. Sweet.

There are two funny thing about this site. First, we couldn't get our RV completely level so when you walk back to the bedroom it feels like you are walking uphill. Also, we are parked under an Oak tree that drops acorns continuously. Not only does it sound like we are getting bombarded so hard I swear there are dents in the roof but when they hit on the back section of the RV, they roll all the way to the front!

Our first outing was to the Mystic Seaport, a living history museum of a 19th century whaling village.

Kaitlyn and Tom acting out at the Mystic Seaport

We explored several types of ships from the early 1800's and we were able to tour the whaling ship, the John W. Morgan, which is getting restored in the shipyard. The kids got a little grossed out when we read that we were standing in the blubber room where they used to cut up and render all of the whale blubber. Tom suddenly had a craving for pork rinds. (OK, that last part isn't true but it would have been really funny if he did.)

The John W. Morgan whaling ship from 1841.

Kaitlyn and Andrew's favorite part of the day was the tug boat exhibit. They had fun learning all about tug boats, driving a remote control tug boat and operating a tug boat simulator.

Andrew driving the tug boat dangerously close to the side of the pool (again). Go figure.

All in all a good day.

Do you think Andrew is getting tired of posing for pictures?

School Daze

Everyone keeps asking us, "How is school going?" Depending on the time of day and the day of the week, the answer varies. I would have to say, it is getting better every day. Well, maybe every day is a stretch but you get the idea.

Tom and Andrew working on history together.

I have learned a lot about my kids since school started. I am not sure if the kids are behind academically or if the Ohio Virtual Academy (OHVA) curriculum is that much harder than what they were learning last year. Let's just say, I have some concerns regarding the investment we have been making in tuition at a private school. Since OHVA is a Ohio public school, there's no tuition this year (except for all the gas, camping fees and souvenirs)!

Having said that, now that we have this year together and although it has been challenging, I think the one-on-one attention they are getting will be beneficial for all of us.

It's Just a Rock

Yesterday, we did a little school and decided to head over to Plymouth, MA to see Plymouth Rock. When we got there, we hurried over to the shelter that covers this famous rock and looked down into the hole.

Andrew said, "You're kidding me! It's just a rock with sand around it." Yep, that's pretty much it. I guess he has a point.

We also toured the Mayflower II, a replica of the original ship that the Pilgrims came to America on.

It was interesting but in Andrew's eyes it will always be just a rock in a hole.

My East Coast Family

One of the best things about visiting the Boston area is seeing some of my family that still lives in the area. We spent Tuesday down in Cape Cod visiting my Aunt Rita and Uncle Danny.

Every summer when I was growing up, my mom would take me and my brother home to Somerville, MA to stay a few weeks with my grandparents. During those trips, we would always go down to Aunt Rita and Uncle Danny's house. I loved going to their house because they had a pool and I could swim all the time. Rita and Danny have four sons and it was fun to play with my cousins. Since Aunt Rita only had boys, she would spoil me rotten!

Yesterday, we drove through my grandparents' old neighborhood. Everything looked a lot smaller than I remember but pretty much the same too. We also stopped at Lyndell's bakery to pick up some frosted raisin bread something my grandfather would always get for me!

Too bad they don't ship!

Our Home Away from Home

This post is for Christine who wanted to see a picture of the RV. RV + car = 54 feet of mobile goodness.

Acadia National Park

Rated "absolutely beautiful" by Tom LeFevre. Ha.

Located in Bar Harbor, ME, you really need a couple weeks to really explore Acadia National Park. We dove into the visitor's center and got the lay of the land. Oh yeah, you pay $20 to get into the park for 7 days. I was relieved on the 5th day when they actually asked to see our entrance pass. I thought Tom was going to have kittens when no one asked for it the first few times we continued on our journey through the park. But yes, eventually they did ask for proof that we paid to enter (thank goodness) because I never would have heard the end of it.

We climbed (as in climbed I mean we drove and walked over to the path) Cadillac Mountain. You get great views of the park. I also tried to explain the whole glacier thing to Kaitlyn and Andrew but I'm not sure they really get it. Here are some pics of the view:

We also decided to get up at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to see the sunrise from atop the mountain. Yes, it was beautiful but man was it cold and windy! As you can see, Andrew was there but under protest and under cover:

Andrew and his pretty pink blanket on top of Cadillac Mountain.

Once the sun came up it was beautiful:

Sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

One more picture and we can go home!

Moose Watch Update: Turkeys 3, Moose 0, Porcupines -1

We did not see any moose while we were in Maine unless you count the various carvings and stuffed animals for sale. Either they were hiding in the woods mocking me as we wandered by or perhaps there are no moose in Maine. Could it be a ploy of some ingenious travel & tourism marketing executive? Think Loche Ness Monster only with moose...  Hmmm.

We did see another wild turkey and unfortunately a dead porcupine on the side of the road.  I almost asked Tom to stop and take a picture of it for the blog but then I thought better of it. :-)

Bar Harbor, ME

We spent the last five days in Bar Harbor, ME (or what the locals call it, "Ba Ha Baa"). If you have ever wanted to go to Maine - do it! What a beautiful place! Especially if you like hiking, kayaking, nature and lobster!

Tom caught this kayak and the beautiful sunset from the view at our campsite!

There were so many great things about Bar Harbor but here are just a few of the things we liked the best:

The Mount Desert Oceanarium Lobster Museum & Hatchery

Ok, when we pulled up the place didn't look like much but man were we surprised when it turned out to be everyone's favorite stop of the week. This place raises baby lobsters and then releases them back into the ocean. It was really neat to see thousands of baby lobsters swirling around in these huge beaker-like columns of ocean water. Here's a pic of one of the momma lobsters:

Laura and a visiting mommy lobster. Thousands of her babies are floating in those tubes in the background.

The Oceanarium also gave a presentation about lobster fishing, the life of a lobster and they had a touch tank with some local sea creatures. Did you know a mother lobster carries her eggs for 22 months before she hatches them? And, when we eat a 1 1/4 lb. lobster, it's probably around 6 years old!

What made this place so special were the people - you could tell they love what they do and loved sharing the information. Thanks, David, Audrey and Laura!

The Great Maine Lumberjack Show

This was another pleasant surprise. It looked a little hokey but we thought the kids would enjoy it so what the heck, right? It turned out to be really cool!  There were 4 lumberjacks and lumberjills competing in chopping, sawing, axe throwing, timber climbing and log rolling. This show was created by a woman called Timber Tina (who incidentally was on Survivor - Panama). She has been competing since she was 7! Kaitlyn even got up on stage to see what sawing was all about:

Lazy Man's Lobster

Did I mention the lobster? Yum. However, in Bar Harbor, I discovered the best way to order it at a restaurant. It's call the Lazy Man's Lobster. The chef does all the hard work by cracking the shell and removing all of the meat and then her puts it into a serving dish filled with lemon butter. Could their be anything better? No more wasting time trying to extricate the lobster delicacy from his shell fortress for me! (And I don't have to see any of that green stuff either...yuck!)

Another highlight is Acadia National Park but that deserves its own post...more to come later.

Turkeys 2, Moose 0

We have traded in the Ohio deer for the Vermont/New Hampshire/Maine moose.  So far, we have only spotted 2 flocks of wild turkeys on the side of the road. (Are they flocks of turkeys? Gaggles? Do you know?)

Anyway, no moose yet. Hopefully, when we do see one, it will be from a safe distance and not crashing into the RV.

Peace, Love and Ice Cream

As soon as we landed in Vermont, we headed to the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, VT.

The factory tour goes over the history of the company (very inspiring), the mission of the company and how they make their ice cream.  They even have a graveyard for their retired ice cream flavors (the bottom 5 sellers each year are retired).

Miz Jelena's Sweet Potato Pie ice cream grave marker. Yuck! No surprise there.

The best part of course was the free sample at the end of the tour!  The flavor of the day was Triple Carmel Chunk. YUM!

The first thing I noticed on the drive through Vermont was the pure beauty of the state and its funky vibe.

Dash Cam View - Driving through Vermont

Vermont will definitely be a place we'll come back to!

Don't Forget to Pay the Ferry Man!

On Labor Day, we loaded up the RV and drove down the road about a mile to hop on the Port Kent-Burlington Ferry. We took the one-hour ferry ride on the M/V Valcour over to Burlington, Vermont. It was smooth as glass, sunny but breezy and cool.  Here are me and the kids waving to Tom after we pulled onto the deck of the boat.

If you look closely, you can see some of the Harley's that took the ferry with us.  There was a ton of motorcycle groups touring all over the area. I wanted to take a picture of them but I didn't have the nerve to ask them. Yes, they looked kinda scary.

I did get a chuckle listening to them talk outside the window of the RV. Here was a group of 15 or so really tough looking dudes on Harley motorcycles, drinking a beer (at 10 a.m.) and wearing leather jackets with skulls on the back, most had ponytails and a few had Mohawks. Guess where they were driving to?  The Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory just like us! LOL

Once we rolled off the ferry, we were dumped into the city of Burlington who just happened to be hosting a major bicycle race that day so many of the streets we needed to drive on were closed.  We almost had a repeat of what I'm now calling "The Cooperstown Fiasco" (see the Cooperstown, NY post for the details).  But between me and Betty (the GPS) we were able to find our way out of Burlington.

And for the record, if Tom had listened to me instead of Betty, we would have made it out sooner, but whatever. ;-)

Lake Placid, NY & Plattsburgh, NY

On Sunday, it was rainy, cool and gloomy so we jumped in the car and drove around.  First we drove up to Lake Placid, NY, home of the 1932 and 1980 Winter Olympics. On the way, we stopped at Mel's Diner for lunch. I have to say, I was disappointed that there was no Flo telling anyone to "Kiss my grits!"

Mel's Diner in Wilmington, NY

Downtown Lake Placid was packed with people going to lots of little shops. It looked like a neat place to poke around but we weren't dressed for the drop in temperature.  It literally dropped 12 degrees from our campsite in Keeseville to downtown Lake Placid!  Everyone we meet already thinks we are crazy because they are bundled up and we're still in shorts and t-shirts.  But even I thought Lake Placid was chilly.  So we just drove around and then headed home.

We also drove over to Plattsburgh, NY.  I had some family who lived there for years.  We never got to visit them because it's so far away from Ohio and now they have moved to the Cape Cod area and we will be visiting them in a few weeks!

The funny thing we noticed about Plattsburgh and Lake Champlain is for a holiday weekend there was hardly anyone around.  We expected lots of people to be boating on the Lake and people to be out and about for the holiday.  Most of the towns around here seemed almost deserted. Weird. 

Maybe they all get out of town before it gets too cold...?  I know I would!

Au Sable Chasm, NY

On Saturday, September 4, 2010, we toured the Au Sable Chasm. Apparently, the Chasm is also known as the "Grand Canyon of the East."  Who knew? I hadn't even heard of this place before. LOL  It was pretty.  We hiked a mile or so and then took a raft ride down the river.

Cooperstown, NY

On Wednesday, we left Niagara Falls and headed to Cooperstown, NY.  We stayed overnight in the Cooperstown KOA and then broke camp and traveled in the RV into Cooperstown on Thursday morning with the intention of seeing the Fly Creek Cider Mill and Orchard and the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Let me set the scene, we are traveling in a motor home towing a car so altogether our traveling circus is about 54 feet long or so. We can't back up without unhooking the car (which is not that easy to do) and we can't make sharp turns easily...

Tom called the mill and made sure there was bus parking and we both assumed that the Baseball HOF would have tour buses coming through there all the time so we didn't bother calling there to check out the parking situation.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

We went to the mill first. No problems. It was fun and there was lots of food to sample and wine to taste (who cares that it was only 10:00 am the tasting cups were really tiny so it doesn't count!) The cider press doesn't start up until after Labor Day so we didn't get to see it running but we watched the movie and learned all about it. Here is a pic of what it looks like:

The original Fly Creek Cider Press is still used today.

Flash ahead to the Baseball HOF.  We saw a few park and ride trolley stops on the way to the HOF. Did it occur to us that they were there for a reason? Nope. I'll spare you the details of the actual trip in the RV through the little town of Cooperstown.  Let's just say it was tense. With a capital T! Unfortunately, it didn't get much better even after we made it to the HOF either.

So here is what we learned from our trip to the HOF:

1. Call ahead about parking even if you think you know that it will be ok. Duh.
2. If you see trolley park and rides, they are probably there because they don't have any parking. Duh.
3. If your kids hate baseball, the Baseball Hall of Fame is probably not the venue to drag them to. Duh. (Yeah, that probably deserves a double duh.)

Tom and I enjoyed the Baseball HOF. Maybe we'll come back someday without the kids. (But I think we'll fly here and rent a taxi to drop us off at the front door!)

Anyway, after everything was said an done, we ate lunch in the RV at the park and ride and took off for a few days at Lake Champlain.

More to come...

Niagara Falls, NY

OK, so the theory is we want to post everyday...but the reality is that's probably not going to happen.  LOL Anyone who knows us isn't really surprised but I thought I'd just put that out there. Full disclosure and all.

So yesterday we went to Niagara Falls, NY. It was a lot of fun. Here is a photo of Kaitlyn and Andrew on the Hurricane Deck at the Cave of the Winds tour.  Andrew didn't really want to wear the poncho because he prefers to get totally drenched whenever possible. He also fell in love with the very ugly water sandles they provide you so your shoes don't get soaked.  He insisted on wearing them all afternoon.  (All he needed were black socks and I would swear he was channeling my late grandfather!) Not to worry though, I have tucked them away so he forgets to put them on at our next stop. Out of sight, out of mind is a wonderful thing.

We stayed on the American side of the Falls. Tom said I conveniently forgot our passports so we couldn't go across the border. I just like to stay in my own country unless I have a really good reason to cross the border like an amzing beach, sun, 85 degrees and fabulous unbrella drinks. I could clearly see over to the Canadian side of the Falls and there was none of that so why leave the homeland? That's all I'm saying.

For years I have heard about how ugly the American side is and how beautiful the Canadian side is. Well, in my humble opinion, the American side looked really nice. Very clean and well-kept. The kids had fun and might have even learned something.

Today we traveled to Cooperstown, NY. We plan on touring the Baseball Hall of Fame in the morning. Ironically, our campsite is located at Pete Rose Way. I don't suppose we'll be seeing much of him tomorrow.

And We're Off!

We woke up this morning at the Niagara Falls KOA! 

Yesterday went pretty well considering the worst part of the trip is loading the RV. We worked all day on Monday loading our home away from home with clothes, food and the essentials (we think) we'll need on the road. We had the car hooked up too and everything was fine but one turn light on the car. Ugh. So out to RCD to have them check the connections and then we headed east.

Tom loves his new GPS. I've named the lady's voice Betty. However, she made us take a wrong turn in Buffalo so I may take against her.

After some school work this morning, we are off to see the Falls!

More later...