6/5/21

 

We traveled today to Niantic, CT and we are staying at the Niantic KOA. This is a nice park and the sites are long enough for us to park the truck behind the rig.

 

The traffic here is something else! The 95 is a toll road and it’s not a bad road, but it’s only two lanes, so it’s bumper to bumper for miles and miles. Sad thing is that there is absolutely no place that can be widened, civilization has built right up to the roads. It’s a problem every city is facing though!

 

6/6/21

 

Today we drove up to Essex, CT to catch a ride on the Essex Steam Train. This is a real steam train with a guy shoveling coal into the engine just like back in the day.

 

We opted for first class seating which gave us comfortable easy chairs that swiveled so that we could turn to look out the window, or to the right or left to talk to our neighbors, we even had our own Porter who was happy to serve us whatever we wanted to drink.

The train followed the Connecticut River to Deep River Landing, about 8 miles, but it took about ½ hour to travel. At Deep River we boarded the riverboat and went up river about 4.5 miles, then turned around and headed back to Deep River to get back onboard the train. We had packed our own lunch and ate that on the boat. We are still caught in the extreme heat wave the mid Atlantic States are getting hit with. Temps are still in the high 80’s during the day.

 

The boat took us past lots of big houses with views of the river. Up on a hill overlooking the river is Gillett Castle, built by an actor from the 40’s (?) who had it built to look like an old stone castle that he had seen on his travels, complete with missing walls.

Rick & Jenn on one of the locomotives on display

These are rail bikes, people actually pay money to pedal these things down the tracks

This rail truck goes along with the rail bikes to supervise the ride

Our engineer checks things over before we leave

Our first class car, the Porter taking orders, I'm behind the door on the left, Jenn on right, Rick is the only one you can see, on the right.

We eventually moved more to the center, one to have a better view and two, to be able to get more of the breeze coming in through the windows.

Our menu in first class

Rick & Jenn

The river views

Deep River Station where we got off of the train and boarded the boat.

We have our seats on the boat

The Gillett Castle

No poor folks here

An Osprey nest

 

6/1/21

 

Phil and I traveled alone today, as Rick & Jennifer left yesterday so that Rick could travel today.

 We had sunny weather and temps were in the low 70’s when we arrived, Traffic was horrid all the way up.

 We are now in an area where we have to be really careful of what kind of road we are on. If we aren’t on a turnpike or interstate, then we had better be on an Express Way!  Anything else and we would be in danger of running into a low overpass…literally! When out in the truck we took a parkway back to the campground and found that most of the overpasses are made of stone and in the shape of half circles. The low end of that half circle was anywhere between 10’ and 12’, with the middle between 12’ & 14’, our rig is 13’ 4

The campsites here are deep enough for the length of our rig, but there are so many trees that aren’t trimmed enough and hang down so that we really had to maneuver to miss some big limbs hanging low. But, we got it in there. Rick and Jenn’s site was two down. We didn’t really have any plans while here other than to just visit the little towns close by.

 Rain kept us in the first couple of days, then Phil, Jenn and I went for a drive around the area for a bit. Ended up having lunch at one of those little diners like you see on TV. Food was good though. After lunch we went to the grocery store and ran a couple of other errands. No supercenters here, you want groceries, you go to the grocery store, you want hardware or tools, you go to the hardware store.

Phil did manage to find an old run down lighthouse to take some pictures of, there is a bunch of construction around it, and it appears that they are building right up to where the lighthouse is and then making it a green area or common for the condo’s that are being built all over the area.

 

 

Edit…

Back to Philly for a moment…

 

On one of Phil’s walks he happened upon this little trailer. What caught his eye is that it is practically sitting on the ground, below where it’s wheels should be. A very different pain job as well, just white with black painted fish on the side.

 

While he was standing there taking pictures, a couple of other guys walked up, one of them had talked to the owners, who were not at home at the time Phil was there. Anyway, the other guy had the explanation Phil needed. This trailer is made to sit on the ice in the winter so the owners can ice fish in the comforts of home. We have never seen anything like it, or even heard of it before. You learn something new every day uh??

 

Rained out of Philly, but Rick met his family

 

May 28, 2021

 

Left Cowen’s Gap about 9:15 this morning, an early day for us! Only made a couple of comfort stops along the way, ate lunch in the campground after we got there. We are at the Clarksboro/Philly KOA in New Jersey. It started raining shortly after we got into the campground and the sun didn’t come out again until the morning we were getting ready to leave.

 So, we never made it into Philadelphia, or much of anywhere else for that matter! We did make a trip into a small town close by the campground where there was a wonderful Amish Market! OMG!!! There were lines to pay for stuff all over the store (it’s kind of like a flea market, each department is a different owner, thus the lines). The line for the donut shop was the longest, but by the time we got there it was manageable. Everything looked sooo good!!

 This is where I have to put in a short story about Rick. Some of you know his adoption story. I have been working on his tree for a couple of years, with a little help along the way, but wasn’t really making any headway. So, I found a search Angel (someone who has the experience to know what to do with the DNA evidence to make all the right connections and name the birth parents). Rick’s search Angel is Andria, and it took her a week to put it all together, she found his birth parents! Rick was so excited! I contacted Rick’s half-sister, Stephanie, she called me back while we were driving to New Jersey. When we got in I had quite a story to tell Rick. He made contact with Stephanie and found out that he had a 97-year-old grandfather who was still alive and living with Stephanie. Rick immediately started looking for an opportunity to fly down to Alexandria, LA to visit with Stephanie and Bob, the grandfather. Phil came up with the next campground, Croton-on-Hudson, where we would be for four days with nothing planned that we had pre-paid for. So, jumping through airline hoops, Rick made reservations to fly out of an airport near Croton, left Philly a day early and had two full days to spend in Alexandria, and two full days for travel.

 Rick spent one full day with Stephanie and Bob and talked to some of his other half siblings and his nephew (who happens to live in Arkansas, near Little Rock). On the second day, he drove from Alexandria to McGee, MS to see his birth Mom, Frances Lynn. It was a very successful visit for Rick and he is so glad he did it. We are all very happy for him.

 

May 26, 2021 (continued)

 

Here are the pictures Phil took of the campground

Another storm brewing!

Look straight down the middle of the picture and you can see the road ahead of us!

 

Thank goodness for 4 wheel drive or Phil would have never got the rig up that hill!

Rick & Jenn had a large level spot!

See how high the front jacks are compared to the back jacks?

Phil leveled the humps out of the site backing it up the hill, but then the truck box had a dent or two.

Finally, we are in, no sewer, no wifi, no cell signal...that's roughing it for us!!