Our Wander Years

TTN Hop 8: Bristol CT to Plymouth MA

Posted on May 7, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 8

161 miles via CT 229, I-84, CT 2, I-395 (toward Worcester), US 6, I-295 (around Providence), I-95, I-495 (around Boston) and US 44. Cumulative tow miles: 1672. Cumulative truck miles: 2184.

This was a relatively short hop (3.5 hours, including a short rest stop) along some roads that we have traveled before, but also a few new ones (CT 2 and US 6). CT 2 was pleasant but US 6 (between I-395 and I-295) was a nightmare – arguably the worst road we have ever traveled. “Rough” doesn’t begin to describe it. The macadam surface was so cracked and pitted that a gravel road would have been more pleasant. Fortunately it was a fairly short segment – about 20 miles. But 20 miles of misery.

And it was all done in the rain. A constant, all-day rain that varied between drizzle and downpour. There were short periods when I could shut off the wipers, but not many.

We stayed 2 nights at the Bear Creek Campground at Lake Compounce in Bristol CT. Lake Compounce is an amusement park which I can’t describe because it was not yet open for the season while we were there. As the campground exists mostly to cater to amusement park customers, it was not surprising that it was mostly vacant. But it was a surprise when we looked out of our window after our first night there and found that we were alone – the only RV in the park. That was, in our four years of traveling, a unique experience.

Office

This is a relatively new park – not yet 3 years old. The facilities was modern, the sites were huge, the office store very large and well-stocked. In addition to the RV sites (all pull-throughs), the park has cabins, huts, tent sites and a few tipis.

Loneliness

Tipis

Cabins

Categories: CT, MA, Places, RI, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 7: White Haven PA to Bristol CT

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 7

198 miles via I-80, I-380, PA 423, PA 191, PA 507, I-84 and CT 229. 198 miles. Cumulative tow miles: 1511. Cumulative truck miles: 1920.

Sconce-less fixture

Broken sconce

This hop was 198 miles and 75% of those miles – 149 miles – were on I-84. Which meant a very bumpy ride. Although I-84 is constantly under construction (major work in Waterbury this year), it is always rough. This time the ride was so rough that one of the chairs – probably the dining room chair – jumped up and broke the glass globe on the wall sconce. I think if all of our travel was on I-84 the RV would shake itself apart.

Jett asked why we take I-84. Because it is better than I-95.

The sad fact is that most of the major roads in New England are in poor repair and not very RV-friendly.

The interesting miles on this hop were the 15 miles on PA 423, PA 191 and PA 507 through Tobyhanna and Newfoundland. These are interesting little towns that would be scenic any time of year. But in the spring, with flowering dogwood trees and various colorful bushes, they are beautiful. If I hadn’t been towing 8 tons of RV, I would have stopped and taken some photos.

The weather continued to be cool. The high was 65 and the day started with a little cold rain. We definitely aren’t in Florida anymore.

Our overnight stop was at the Lehigh Gorge Campground in White Haven PA. This park is conveniently located less than a mile from an I-80 exit. The park is basic, with many long-term residents in mostly very old trailers, but the owners have provided a row of pull-through sites for transient travelers. The site was gravel and not very level (the front landing gear was fully retracted to get level) but the utilities were very good. The big surprise was the cable: good reception and 75 channels. Jett loved that.

We didn’t care about the pool, the playground or the laundry, but the park has all of those. The pool is unique in that it is heated by a wood-burning furnace. The storage shed next to the furnace had a “bathing place permit” posted. I guess the local government licenses commercial swimming pools. But the posted permit was dated July 9, 1973 – almost 44 years ago! I guess you don’t need to renew the permit very often.

Wood furnace for the pool

Ancient permit

Lehigh Gorge sites

Categories: CT, NY, PA, Places, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 6: Lorton VA to White Haven PA

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 6

238 miles via I-95, I-495 (around DC), I-270, US 15, I-83, I-81 and I-80 with a refueling stop in MD. Cumulative tow miles: 1313. Cumulative truck miles: 1721.

Going through PA is the lesser of two evils: the other choice would be to go through NJ, which we will avoid at any cost due to the traffic and the tolls. But we don’t like PA much, either. The roads are rough and there are hills.

We had a lot of rough roads and hills on this hop. Plus a 5-mile section of stop-and-go (mostly stop) traffic on I-83 due to construction. We made it, but it wasn’t much fun. There were a few nice vistas on I-83 – a section of road which I don’t believe we ever traveled before. But mostly we listened to a book on tape and let the miles roll by.

The refueling stop was challenging. We stopped at a Sheetz station which was much smaller than a truck stop. I had to thread my way around the back of the building to get back on the road. But I am glad I chose that stop, in MD, because the diesel prices jumped about 50 cents per gallon after we crossed into Pennsylvania.

The biggest surprise on this hop was the change in the foliage. In VA the trees were pretty much in full foliage (with lots of pollen). By the time we approached White Haven the trees were just budding. It was almost as if we had traveled through summer into fall. The temperature also dropped – from about 75 when we left Lorton to about 60 when we arrived in White Haven. Windy, too. Jett immediately closed all the windows, put on a sweatshirt and turned on the heat.

The Pohick Bay Regional Park Campground was, as always, wonderful. Our site was large, with a nice table and fire ring. We had campfires two nights, with the requisite s’mores. There were a lot of children at Pohick over the weekend – more than I have ever seen there before – but they were, for the most part, well-behaved. We did our laundry and ate out with family many times. Too many times. I gained about 5 pounds during the week.

Categories: MD, PA, Places, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

“The Appeal” by John Grisham

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Sparky

Spoiler alert: I am going to give away the ending, so if you want to read the book you had better look away.

If you want a book in which the bad guys win – big time – and the good guys all get screwed – big time – I have just the book for you: The Appeal by John Grisham.

The story centers around a product liability case. A chemical company dumped carcinogenic chemicals illegally for 20 years. When the chemicals got into the aquifer and people began dying of cancer, they closed the plant and moved operations to Mexico. A mom-and-pop legal team sued them on behalf of a client who lost both her husband and her child to cancer. After a year of litigation that cost the lawyers everything they owned, plus $400K in debt, they won a huge ($42 million) verdict. But the chemical company – whose CEO was a billionaire – vowed to never pay a cent. To ensure this, they decided to buy a seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court, a cynical ploy that thrust a backwoods Bible-thumping lawyer into the election, funded with millions from the chemical company, all carefully laundered to keep any hint of the company’s backing away from the press.

Sadly, the cynical ploy worked. The pawn was elected and he dutifully overturned a series of product liability cases. The $42 million case finally appeared before the court. They ruled, 5-4 with the new guy casting the deciding vote, to overturn the case. Result: the rich CEO became even richer, the mom-and-pop lawyers declared bankruptcy and people continued to die because there was no money for a cleanup.

I think Grisham was trying to write a “realistic” story that highlighted the problem with elected judges. I guess he succeeded. But the result was a very depressing story that I can’t recommend. If it wasn’t so well written I would give it a 1.

2 out of 10.

Categories: Books | Leave a comment

Nationals Park

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Sparky

Nationals Park, game underway

Outfield and scoreboard

Stepson Devin sacrificed himself last Saturday when he arranged an outing to Nationals Park, to watch the Washington Nationals host the New York Mets. Devin is, to put it kindly, not a baseball fan. Three hours in the sun watching a baseball game was pretty much slow torture for him. But I appreciated the kind gesture and enjoyed the game a lot.

If it matters, New York beat Washington 5-4. It was a well-played game, with good pitching and just one error. Four home runs (two by Michael Conforto, who I really need to get on one of my fantasy league teams). But the big attraction for me was Nationals Park, one of the newer parks in the majors. While not as cozy as Fenway or as cute as Camden Yards, I found it to be a good stadium which offered obstruction-free views for nearly all the 46,000 seats (including the 10,000 that were empty).

The big surprise for me was the location of the park. I guess I had assumed that it was north of the city, near the Redskins Stadium on the Beltway. But it is in downtown DC, within walking distance of the Capitol. A nice, urban ballpark.

The other surprise was that, on the way home, Marine One, the President’s helicopter, flew about 100 feet over our heads as we crossed the Potomac. Devin said it was a common sight, but I had never seen it before. An interesting end to an interesting afternoon.

View from our parking spot

Categories: Adventures, DC, Places | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 5: Roanoke Rapids NC to Lorton VA

Posted on April 26, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 5

182 miles via I-95 and local roads. Cumulative tow miles: 1075.

This was a simple trip up I-95 – a route that we have traveled several times before – so there was nothing new on the route. But it was, again, mostly in the rain, which made it a little more challenging. No incidents, though. And, surprisingly, no significant delays on I-95. A pretty smooth trip.

Our overnight stay was a the RV Resort and Carolina Crossroads. This is a new park just a mile from an I-95 exit, so it was convenient. We didn’t walk around much because we were trying to survive a deluge (Raleigh, just 80 miles southwest, had over 8″ of rain and was in a state of emergency), but it has a nice pool. In good weather it is a very nice overnight option. But most of the roads and sites are gravel and they tend to puddle. The site we were given initially had a small concrete patio that was under 2″ of water. We requested another site and were given the adjacent one. Later I saw a sign on the office door that said that the park had “No Vacancy” – except for our first site which was “under water.” Good thing we arrived early.

The deluge continued in the morning. I felt sorry for those who had to leave early as the rain was heavy until 9:30am, then tapered off. I also felt sorry for those headed south because I-95 was closed due to flooding near where we had refueled the day before. But by the time we were ready to leave, around 11am, the rain was reduced to a drizzle. There were even a few sunny breaks, resulting in a nice rainbow as I was refueling.

As we arrived at our destination – the Pohick Bay Regional Park Campground – we did have a minor incident. I chose to park in the leftmost of three lanes at the office as I checked in, to give other vehicles ample room to get by my rig. But as I pulled out I realized that I was dangerously close to the back edge of the office as I made the left turn into the campground. I had to pull forward, very close to a small bush, to make it safely around the corner. As I was making the turn I felt a rumble. Jett checked out her side and said that I was “running over a rock wall” which sounded pretty alarming. Well, I was indeed running over some rocks, but just loosely place ones, not ones cemented into a wall. Because the ground was so soft I knocked most of them out of place. It was messy, but no real damage done. I stopped to replace the rocks.

Next time I will park in the middle lane.

RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads

Rainbow

Categories: NC, Places, Routes, RV Parks, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 4: Myrtle Beach SC to Roanoke Rapids NC

Posted on April 24, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 4

244 miles via SC 544, US Business 501, US 701, NC 410, US 74 and I-95 with a refueling stop. Cumulative tow miles: 893. Cumulative truck miles: 1104.

There were a number of events and conditions that made this hop interesting, starting with the rain. It rained all day – heavily at times. That alone made it one of the more difficult hops in our four years of travel. Second, I had to hitch up with the truck at an angle (see photo) and misjudged how much room I had with the tailgate down. I thought I could do it. I was wrong. The result was that the corner of the tailgate crunched a hole in the skin of the front basement. The first real ding of the trip. And hopefully the last.

Second, I decided that rather that top off the fuel in the morning I would stop for fuel on the way, after about 190 miles. As the hop exceeded our tank range of 240 miles there was a good chance that we would have had to stop anyway and use our 5-gallon reserve. Plus we now may be able to finish Hop 5 without refueling again. But I will probably top off in the morning, just to make tomorrow less stressful.

Third, the site given to us at our destination, The RV Resort at Carolina Crossroads, was under about 2 inches of water. We had to call the office and request another site.

Fourth, when I deployed the awning I discovered that a tree frog – presumably the same one we had seen in Ft Myers – was in the rail. It was alive, but if the thing has not eaten in 10 days he must be happy to be freed.

Finally, we had the usual disagreement between the GPS and our chosen Google map route. In this case we followed the Google map until the GPS seemed to be in agreement, then started following the GPS, about the time we crossed into North Carolina. It routed us onto US 74, which was expected. Except that it was actually old US 74 – a narrow road which arguably would cut off a mile. If we hadn’t encountered a detour. Getting back to NC 410 and then onto the new US 74 cost us about a mile. Not a big deal but yet another case where the “best” route was certainly not.

Door ding

Stowaway tree frog

Hitching up in the rain

Categories: NC, Places, Routes, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

Lakewood Camping Resort, Myrtle Beach SC

Posted on April 23, 2017 by Sparky

Beach

We are three days into our 4-day stay at the Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach SC. We paid a bit extra for an “oceanfront” site, meaning that we are the closest RV to the ocean. But it doesn’t mean that we can see the ocean; there is an 8-foot-high sand berm between us and the surf. We can hear it but we can’t see it. That is a bit disappointing. I thought we would be able to sit at our table and watch the surf.

Oh well. We get the salt spray, so it is a good thing that we are here for just a few days. Otherwise the truck might develop rust spots.

It is going to rain today and tomorrow, which will make the teardown tomorrow morning unpleasant. But it will wash the salt off.

Lakewood is about a quarter-mile north of Ocean Lakes Campground where we stayed after STS Hop 7. We liked Ocean Lakes a lot. Lakewood is very similar in many ways. Both are huge (1,800 sites at Lakewood) and have wonderful beaches and facilities, including water parks. Anyone with kids would have a great time at either place.

The big difference is service. Ocean Lakes has it; Lakewood doesn’t. Oh, check-in was fine and the staff is pleasant enough. But we are left scratching our heads at the inability of staff to answer simple questions:

“Where can we dispose of trash?” “Um, hold on, let me check.”
“Do you recycle?” “Um, hold on, let me check.” Then the answer (“no”) turns out to be incorrect – there are recycling bins at every bathhouse.
“Is the fish fry place open today?” “Um, hold on, let me check.”
(At the ice cream shop) “Can I mix flavors in the milk shake?” The answer – “no” – was both surprising and incorrect (verified by checking at the other ice cream shop near the office).

Does no one train these people?

The other difference is that Lakewood has very few pull-through sites while Ocean Lakes has very few that aren’t. Pull-through sites are better because they are easier to get in and out of.

Our back-in site was a bit of a challenge and was too small to fit the truck. But since we were oceanfront, I could simply back the truck up against the dune berm.

Out site at Lakewood

Truck parked

There are two pools – an indoor pool and an outdoor pool. Both look very nice. The food trucks, near the indoor pool, right on the beach, served tasty food. No complaints there. The fish fry – Pollock, with fries, slaw and iced tea for $10 – was both delicious and economical. It was all-you-can-eat, but one plate was plenty for me.

Fish fry

Indoor pool

Categories: Places, RV Parks, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

TTN Hop 3: Richmond Hill GA to Myrtle Beach SC

Posted on April 21, 2017 by Sparky

TTN Hop 3

211 miles via US 17, I-95, and US 17 again. Cumulative tow miles: 649. Cumulative truck miles: 819.

For the third straight hop Google and the GPS disagreed. In this case it was a pretty minor disagreement: whether to take I-526 around Charleston (Google) or follow US 17 all the way through (GPS). US 17 is shorter but generally slower so, again, I am puzzled why the GPS chose it at the faster route. But I was familiar with both routes and didn’t have a strong preference, so I took the GPS/US 17 option.

The route was familiar as we have done it southbound previously. Besides several construction sites – the worst one being a short section where I-95 was inexplicably reduced to a single lane when there was no active construction – it was an uneventful trip.

Perhaps the most significant event occurred as we were exiting the Savannah South KOA. The RV tires hit a huge pothole as I was pulling onto US 17. It was a hard, jolting hit and I feared a blowout. But the tires held. Whew!

Our home for 4 nights will be the Lakewood Camping Resort in Myrtle Beach SC. I paid a little extra for the privilege of an “oceanfront” site. I guess I had visions of looking out my window and watching the surf. But all we see is a huge dune barrier. Disappointing.

I will provide a full campground review in a few days.

Categories: GA, Places, Routes, SC, TTN | Leave a comment

Savannah South KOA

Posted on April 20, 2017 by Sparky

Swimming swan

Our home for the past four days has been the Savannah South KOA in Richmond Hill GA. Our primary concern in getting a place near Savannah is to be near Savannah, so we really didn’t look closely at the amenities of this park before we booked it. But it was a surprise. We love this place!

Some of our joy may be the result of 2 nights at a place that we really disliked. But we would have liked this park even if we had come here directly from Gulf Waters. It is clean, clean, clean. The staff is wonderful and our site had a great patio, with nice furniture, including a glider and a table with umbrella, a firepit and – most surprising of all – a propane grill. Perhaps we paid extra for these amenities – there are only 4 sites with patios on the premises – but whatever we paid, it was worth it. We loved the site.

We also loved the pond and the many swans and geese that populated it. Rusty didn’t quite know what to make of birds larger than he, but he had the good sense to keep his distance. If he had gotten close I am sure they would have kicked his ass.

The campground is very wooded and is completely serene. I loved walking Rusty along the pond. Or to the dog park. Rusty loved it, too.

This is probably one of the 10 best parks we have ever been in. Maybe top 5.