Our Wander Years

A visit from Liliani

Posted on July 26, 2017 by Sparky

Liliani

I finally got to spend some time with my granddaughter, Liliani, on Saturday. It has been 10 months since I last saw her, which is certainly not because I didn’t want to see her; it was a negative consequence of our decision to wander around New England this summer. It wasn’t until we got to Littleton that we were within an hour of her and the timing for that stay just didn’t work. But Oakham is just 30 minutes from her home, so we finally got together.

I just about didn’t recognize her. She has grown about 6 inches in those 10 months. And cut her hair. She is now a young woman. But still very sweet, very shy. She is always a pleasure to have around. Which is more than can be said for many 11-year-olds.

We didn’t do anything super exciting. We went to the pool, played miniature golf, wandered around the campground, had a chicken tender lunch, dinner at the Black & White Grille and a McDonald’s breakfast. Jett taught her a new card game. Quiet pleasures.

Playing mini golf

With Rusty

In a super-sized chair

Swimming

Categories: Family, MA, NET, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

NET Hop 7: Littleton MA to Oakham MA

Posted on July 21, 2017 by Sparky

NET Hop 7

40 miles via MA 2A, MA 2, I-190, MA 31, MA 122A and MA 148. Cumulative tow miles: 471. Truck miles: 461. Cumulative truck miles: 3036.

We have been to Pine Acres Family Campground several times. We have stayed at Boston Minuteman Campground many times. But we have never traveled directly from Minuteman to Pine Acres, so the route was new. And even though it was a short trip – just 40 miles – it was long enough to have a disagreement between Google and our GPS. Worse, Google and GPS had completely different names for the street we were supposed to turn on after exiting I-190. I was confused but remembered that it was a quick left, so I took the one that seemed right and, fortunately, was correct. Jett was following in the Yaris, so I couldn’t blame a navigation error on her. It was all on me. Pressure.

Reinforced strut

This is the last hop in the New England Tour (NET). But I will defer a wrapup until the “tour” is truly over – when we leave on August 1.

We spent 9 days at Minuteman and it remains one of our favorite places. We regret not booking a longer stay. One of the regrets was that we got to Kimball Farm just once for ice cream and not at all for dinner. I had a special flavor – Peanut Butter Butterfinger. Yes, it was as good as it sounds. But their seafood is always a treat and we didn’t get any this time around. Sad.

Jett’s sisters once again came for a visit and the highlight (other than the cutthroat Hand, Knee and Foot card games) was a Sunday brunch at the Westford Regency. Their brunch isn’t cheap but it is first-rate. I had some very fresh lox and a couple of slices of to-die-for ham. I won’t mention all the other items, but I will say that it was not a good day for my weight loss goals.

Our site (80) was great, except for backing in. The large rock claimed both caps on our sewer line storage pipe. No major problem, but a “ding” for sure. I will have to figure out a good way to repair the damage.

Speaking of damage, I applied my engineering intellect to the problem of the “map basement” support strut, the problem being that the top end of the strut was pulling out of the relatively soft door panel. I decided that I needed to reinforce what the screws were going into, so I got a metal plate, drilled 3 holes, screwed the plate into the door, then screwed the strut into the plate. Works like a charm. So far.

Site 80

Categories: MA, Places, Routes, RV Parks | 2 Comments

The 4th with family

Posted on July 16, 2017 by Sparky

Lucas Pond

The New England weather this summer has been… mixed. No, that is too kind. It has been crappy. It has been wet and it has been cold. The days with no rain at all have been scarce. We set a “record low high” on July 14 with a high of 66. Crappy.

But, between the raindrops, we managed to have a pretty good 4th of July at Lucas Pond, Northwood NH, with Jett’s family. We ate a lot a good food. And a fair amount of other food, too. The grills were running Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (the 4th). Hamburgers, hot dogs, steak tips, marinated chicken breasts. Cole slaw, potato salad, potato chips and a variety of potluck side dishes. No one went hungry.

Coming all the way from VA were Jett’s sons, Joshua and Devin, plus their boys, Patrick (visiting from CA) and Zachary. Joining them were cousins Chance (with Emily and their newborn daughter), Riley and Jacob. Jett’s sisters and her nieces. A full house.

Apparently concerned that we hadn’t eaten enough, Devin treated us all to a lobster fest on the 4th, followed by a trip to Johnson’s for ice cream (where the kiddie size would feed a classroom).

While there, niece Allison was notified of the birth of her first grandchild in GA. I got a picture of her getting her first ever (with many to follow) photos of her grandchild. Sweet moment.

Allie’s first photo of first grandchild

Sybil, Christine and Zachary

Jimmy with Briella

Jett with Rusty

Devin expounding

Zachary

Lobsterfest toast

Joshua, Patrick and Zachary at Johnson’s

Categories: Family, NH, Places | Leave a comment

NET Hop 6: Northwood NH to Littleton MA

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Sparky

NET Hop 6

69 miles via NH 43, NH 101, I-93, I-495 (around Boston) and MA 3A. Cumulative tow miles: 431. Truck miles: 545. Cumulative truck miles: 2575.

This was a very easy, quick hop. I actually expected the traffic to be brutal as I thought many people would have been ending a week-long 4th of July vacation on Sunday. But traffic was, if anything, light. No stop-and-go stretches at all. I barely had to use the brakes. A pleasure.

Our home for 9 nights in NH was the Saddleback Campground – the campground where we started our RV lifestyle 5 years ago in the summer of 2012. Then, as now, we chose the campground because it was very near the summer cottage of Jett’s sister. It was a very adequate first campground, but we had nothing to compare it to. We now can compare it to dozens of other campgrounds.

It has changed very little in 5 years. The things we liked then – the solitude, the cute pond, the friendly hosts (even though the hosts are different now than they were then) – are still the things we like now. The things we didn’t like much then – the difficult, sometimes cramped, sites, the lack of sewer service on most sites and very limited TV antenna reception – are still the things we don’t like much now. In 2012 we paid for cable TV, but that wasn’t an option this time, so we survived mostly by watching DVDs.

Unlike our 2012 site which had limited a sewer hookup (gray water only), we had no sewer hookup at all this time. We survived quite well without it, getting a pumpout just before we departed. The pumpout extracted over 100 gallons of sewage, but as our total tank capacity is 200 gallons, we weren’t pushing it. This was a surprise as I really thought a week would be our limit, but we made it 9 days without difficulty.

The weather, while not perfect, was better than we have seen for any week so far this summer. Several downpours and thunder interrupted the otherwise sunny and warm weather (though I still had to don a jacket most mornings). Spending time with Jett’s family on Lucas Pond was a joy, as always. I will post those photos separately.

As usual, the campground put on a private fireworks show on July 2. We didn’t see it because Rusty is not much of a fan (he just about jumps out of his skin, like most dogs), so we left. But I am sure it was a very nice show.

They also showed Ice Age on the beach at dusk another night. With free popcorn. I am a sucker for free movies and free popcorn.

The campground, in association with other NH campgrounds, sponsored a Make-a-Wish event on the day we arrived. The Make-a-Wish Foundation bought a small trailer for a mother and her two children, the younger one having a terminal illness. The camper is welcome, free of charge, at a number of campgrounds in southern NH this summer, to satisfy the mother’s wish of giving her daughter a summer of camping. It was a touching ceremony and a great opportunity to meet the hosts, the mother and her family and the other campers.

Our site, across the pond

Ice Age showing on the beach

The pond

The donated trailer

Cutting the Make-a-Wish cake

Categories: NET, NH, Places, Routes, RV Parks | Leave a comment

Wells ME and the Maine coast

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Sparky

Sunset along Wells Beach

Cape Neddick Light

One of the main (Maine?) reasons for staying in Wells was to explore the area and, possibly, actually get to the beach. Unfortunately, Jett was a bit under the weather during our stay so we didn’t do as much exploring as we had hoped. I did get to a couple of cemeteries and wandered about a bit on my own, but, fortunately, we were treated to a 2-hour guided tour by campground neighbors Tom and Lynda who had lived in the area their entire lives. It was a sunset tour, so while I got a very nice sunset shot near Wells Beach (the sun sets in the west, of course, so the beach was in the other direction but, trust me, it was there), most of the shots were fairly dark. But it was a wonderful tour nonetheless, featuring Ogunquit, Wells Beach, Cape Neddick Light and Dunne’s Ice Cream.

So while we didn’t see as much as we planned, I saw enough to say that I like the area. It would be a good place to spend some time in the summer. Except for the water, which is friggin’ frigid. If you want warm water, stick to the Gulf of Mexico.

Dunne’s Ice Cream

Rocky shore at Wells

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NET Hop 5: Wells ME to Northwood NH

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Sparky

NET Hop 5

47 miles via US-1, I-95, US 4 and NH 43. Cumulative tow miles: 362. Truck miles: 426. Cumulative truck miles: 2030.

This wasn’t the shortest route, but it was the easiest route. The other routes involved some sharp turns and traversing dense residential areas. The chosen route was mostly 4-lane highway. An easy trip, except for the 5-minute downpour and the tight quarter-mile through downtown Ogunquit. Traffic was light which was a surprise considering that it was the Friday before the 4th. I guess we got out ahead of the pack.

Our home for the 8 nights in Wells was the Sea-Vu West Premier RV Resort. This is one of at least 3 Sea-Vu campgrounds in Wells. The original, on US 1 in Wells, looked cramped. Sea-Vu South, just south of West, was newer and looked – as far as I could see from the road – about the same as West. West was my choice primarily because of the high ratings in Good Sam.

We would rate the park a bit lower.

Our site

First the good things:

Our site was large, shaded and backed onto greenery.
The park was very clean and well-maintained.
The pool was large with plenty of chairs.

The bad things:

The office staff was unfriendly and not very helpful.
The small dog park was at the other end of the facility, past all the park models.
The park was about 75% park models with seasonal residents who were not very friendly to transient campers such as us.
The WiFi connectivity – both on the park’s free WiFi and my own Verizon router – was terrible. Among the worst we have seen in 5 years of travel. I couldn’t upload pictures and finally gave up on trying to do anything on the internet. Just too frustrating.
The electricity went out for over 4 hours one day. While this was not the campground’s fault, they were not very proactive about informing campers of the status. I had to contact the utility directly to find out what was going on.

The seasonal/transient tension is something we saw last year at Apple Island. Somehow the seasonal residents view transients as second-class citizens and tend to either ignore them or, worse, be rude to them. In my case I was walking Rusty to the dog park one morning and a seasonal resident was out watering his little patch of grass. Mind you, I was in the street, but Rusty was near the edge of the grass. The resident said to me “I hope your dog isn’t going to piss on my grass.” I swore at him under my breath and walked on. No sense getting into a physical altercation with a man armed with a water hose.

Speaking of grass, the park seems to have some odd rules about what residents can do to their property. Patios and walkways made with brick pavers were everywhere and apparently are okay. But no concrete walks and, oddly, no driveways of any kind – everyone parked on their precious grass. That struck me as very odd.

The bottom line is that I would rate this park at about 5 on a 10 scale. We won’t be returning.

Maybe others feel the same. I was surprised that the transient area was only about 40% occupied on the weekend – the last weekend in June when most kids were out of school. I think most parks would expect to be booked solid on that weekend.

The surprisingly empty transient area

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The hidden cost of headstone hunting

Posted on July 2, 2017 by Sparky

I enjoy headstone hunting for several reasons:

It is a bit of a treasure hunt – I always feel great when I find an old headstone marking an ancestor’s gravesite.
It is esthetically pleasing – most of the old cemeteries are quite scenic.
It is free.

Well, almost free. As I discovered a couple of weeks ago, there is a hidden cost to headstone hunting.

On a sunny day I wear my sunglasses which are just clip-ons for my prescription glasses. When I need to look closely at a headstone I take them off and hang them in the collar of my shirt. They are pretty secure there and if for some reason they slip out, I feel and/or hear them fall.

So I spent about 90 minutes at the Highland Cemetery in Ipswich recently. And while the day was sunny the cemetery was mostly shaded. I took my glasses off at the start and didn’t put them on until I had finished walking the cemetery, which covered over an acre. Or, more to the point, I tried to put them on but they weren’t there. I had lost my glasses somewhere in the acre of headstones.

I spent an additional 30 minutes retracing my route, carefully scanning the grass. Nothing.

The cost of replacing the glasses: about $400.

I will henceforth leave the glasses in the truck and use cheap non-prescription sunglasses if it is sunny.

Some lessons are learned the hard way.

Categories: Adventures, Genealogy, MA, Places | Leave a comment

Finding the Oldfields Cemetery

Posted on June 25, 2017 by Sparky

Oldfields cemetery

I tried to find the Oldfields Cemetery in South Berwick ME on Friday. I did find it, but the “adventure” I had in locating it was a cautionary tale on the use of GPS.

My first thought was to simply Google it. Yes, Google knew of its existence (though there was some dispute over whether it was “Oldfields” or “Old Fields”) and graciously offered a map showing its location, plus a route to get there. I got in my truck, map in hand, and set the GPS. It, too, knew of its existence and offered a route to it. So off I went.

The problem arose when I got to Brattle St in South Berwick. Both the GPS and Google Maps treated the long driveway leading to the private home at 21 Brattle St as a piece of the public way. Well, I hope the people who lived there didn’t mind me using their driveway to turn around. Lesson: the GPS can be wrong. I have learned this lesson before, but apparently need a refresher lesson from time to time.

So I wandered around the neighborhood for a while, assuming that it must be nearby (similar to what I did in Beverly last week – which I now think was a mistake). Failing to find it through visual means, I parked and thought about it for a minute. I recalled that findagrave.com offers GPS coordinates for most cemeteries. I looked up the cemetery on my phone, then figured out how to enter the coordinates on my GPS (a first for me). The GPS calculated a route and told me that the cemetery was about a half mile away. As I was already about a half mile from where the GPS first said I would find the cemetery (and in the opposite direction), the net error was about a mile.

The coordinates are (43.21721, -70.80926) if you want to find it for yourself.

The cemetery was actually about a tenth of a mile down a narrow road that ended at a brook where the bridge was out. Vine Road – not Brattle St. I could find it again now, but I probably won’t be going back.

It is actually a pretty spooky old cemetery. Not in great shape – lots of broken headstones and long grass. And I found only one of the 7 headstones of Jett’s ancestors who are reportedly buried there (Eunice Curtis Cutts, a 5th great-grandmother) . But I felt a sense of accomplishment anyway.

Somewhat unexpected was a memorial stone at the entrance paying tribute to William Chadbourne, one of Jett’s 9th great-grandfathers.

Chadbourne memorial

Eunice Cutts headstone

Weird tree

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NET Hop 4: Bridgewater NH to Wells ME

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Sparky

NET Hop 4

84 miles via NH 3A, NH 104, NH 106, NH 11, NH 108, NH 236, ME 9 and ME 109. Cumulative tow miles: 315. Truck miles: 117. Cumulative truck miles: 1604.

On paper this should have been a quick, easy trip. Google said it would take 2 hours and the roads, while secondary, were well-traveled state routes.

First problem: one thing you can absolutely take to the bank is that secondary roads, in New Hampshire, in June, will be pretty broken up due to the winter frost heaves. That was the case for most of this route. The 10 miles on NH 11 northwest of Alton Bay were particularly nasty. That road produced a tossed salad in our refrigerator’s vegetable bin.

Second problem: the route picked by Google was almost identical in time to two other wildly different routes. There was no dominant route. When we set the destination in the GPS it violently disagreed with Google on how best to get there. Navigating by map is much more difficult than navigating by GPS. I tried. I endured the countless recriminating “recalculating” notices but even after 15 miles down the Google route the GPS disagreed. I eventually missed a turn, gave up on the map and followed the GPS. It matched about 80% of my expected route but inexplicably took me through the heart of Rochester, one of the larger cities in NH, when it seemed that a shorter route would have avoided it. Bottom line: the route I traveled was about 6 miles and 25 minutes longer than the route I intended to take.

Despite all that, it was a fairly pleasant ride with nice scenery much of the way. And it was a beautiful June day – low 70s, puffy clouds dotting the sky. Better than a day in the office.

Our site

Our home for the 3-day Escapees Chapter 3 rally was the Newfound RV Park in Bridgewater NH. This park is quite small – only about 50 sites. But most are pull-thrus and each has a picnic table and a fire ring. There is some shade, a dog park, a small playground and a short walk through the woods along a babbling brook. It also has a small recreation center with a pool table, a ping-pong table and a give-and-take library. No pool, but Newfound Lake is nearby.

The pull-thru sites are short. We had to park the truck across the front of the RV. But it was adequate.

The most surprising thing about the park was the cable TV. You had to get a decoder box from the office and attach it to one TV. Some people couldn’t do it, either because their RV television connectors were not accessible or because they were technically challenged. We got ours attached and were surprised to find that we had over 70 channels, most being digital and crystal clear. And there was an on-screen program directory and program information. It was, for three days, like having a satellite dish. Jett was in TV heaven.

Even more surprising was that I was handed the box with the cable gear with no deposit required. Those boxes can’t be cheap, but the office didn’t even ask which site I was on.

Trust. You don’t get that very often on the road.

Musical entertainment

The rally was a lot of fun. It was low-key and smaller than we expected – just 8 rigs. There was a breakfast each morning and a pot-luck supper the second night which featured pork roast and slow-cooked chicken pot pie (without the crust, of course). As pot-luck dinners go, this one was near the top.

Frankly, the best thing about the rally was the people, which is a tribute to the quality of the people who are brave enough to RV in the northeast. I heard many interesting stories and got quite a few recommendations on places to visit on our trip west this fall. We even got some free musical entertainment from two very accomplished guitarists/singers.

Two more things that made this hop a pleasure: doing laundry at the Wizards of Wash laundromat and having pizza at Pat’s Pizza, both in Bristol NH. The laundromat wasn’t fancy but the machines were great, the staff was friendly and helpful and, best of all from my perspective, there was a community 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I put 24 pieces in place and before I knew it the laundry was dry and ready to be folded. We went to Pat’s afterward, on the recommendation of the laundromat staff. I had calzone and Jett had pizza. Jett’s assessment: “best pizza crust EVER.” And we hit the happy hour window so I had two beers for the price of one. That is what I call a perfect laundromat date night.

Meeting/game room

Pat’s pizza and calzone

Not-very-full park

Categories: ME, NET, NH, Places, Routes, RV Parks | Leave a comment

NET Hop 3: Salisbury MA to Bridgewater NH

Posted on June 20, 2017 by Sparky

NET Hop 3

102 miles via US 1, NH 101, I-93.HN 104 and NH 3A. Cumulative tow miles: 231. Truck miles: 368. Cumulative truck miles: 1487.

This was an easy hop that took just under 2 hours. The most difficult part was US 1 which we took simply to avoid the toll (and the traffic) on I-95 entering NH. But there was a lot of construction on US 1 which made for some tight lanes in a couple of places. But we didn’t hit anything.

The other difficult section was on I-93 north of the I-89 intersection. The road was fine, but we ran into an intense thunderstorm. We had to cut our speed to 50 mph and watch very carefully for traffic slowing in front of us. It was about 20 minutes of white-knuckle driving.

Our home for 10 days in Salisbury MA was the Beach Rose RV Park. We were given the one-and-only pull-through (out of about 50 sites), which was great – it gave us a picnic area without a neighbor and certainly eased the job of getting in and getting out again. The park was adequate for our purposes. It had 2 dog parks, which Rusty enjoyed. The pool was nice but, as usual, we didn’t use it. There was a basic laundry which we also didn’t use. Mostly we used the park as a base of operations to visit places on the North Shore of MA – mostly cemeteries but also beaches (Salisbury Beach and Hampton Beach) – and to visit with family. Jett’s siblings came by on our final Saturday and we broke out the tequila which we have carried with us for years and have never touched. A bunch of seniors sitting around, doing tequila shots. A sight to behold.

Then we went out to dinner at the Black Cow in Newburyport. An excellent dinner in a nice restaurant right on the water. Very nice.

Pool

Laundry

Sybil and Rusty

Large dog park

Newburyport is a very scenic small town. Very colonial, of course, but it has managed to retain its colonial character better than most. The downtown area is thriving and is filled with interesting small businesses. There is a great toy store and some wonderful, aromatic bakeries. If you are in the area, definitely stop by.