Ah, Summer and Fall in New England...

This time of the year finds us in southern New Hampshire visiting our two favorite little girls, my nieces daughters. We had the usual amount of fun and interesting places to take the children such as the butterfly farm and the New England Aquarium but we also enjoyed just spending time with the kids and building memories.

I do need to note that we attended David and Janets annual Labor Day cookout. Although it did rain most of the day David had crafted awninggs made out of tarp and everything was nice and dry. I would be remiss if I didn’t post a picture of Janet’s creation. You just can’t believe how talented she is. At first glance you would think this was what we were dining on but closer inspection will tell you this is one of her signature cakes!   I can barely sew a button and look what she is doing.

And to wind up our Fall our niece Liz and her friend Hannah ran a Half Marathon (they ran the full in May).  We were busting at the seams with pride for their accomplishment.  It has motivated me to think about training for a 5K next year, baby steps, lol.  Here is a photo of Liz immediately aftercrossing the finish line, hummmm barely broke a sweat!  We end with a family photo.

New Hampshire, Maine (Acadia NP), Campobello Island

So after the race we came down to Hampton Beach NH and stayed at the State Park which is directly on the beach.  We were so lucky that we were able to get in before the crowd.  This is a wonderful place and we had a chance to walk the beach almost every day, had Lyla over for an overnight and just generally enjoyed the beach area.  The weather was chilly and certainly not lay out on the beach weather but it's still very nice.  Here is the view from our bedroom window!

After a week we moved to Schoodic Campground which is located in Winter Harbor, Maine.  It is a National Park Campground although it is about a 45 minute drive over to the main entrance to the National Park in Acadia.  This park was fantastic!  The sites were about 100 foot pull through, all gravel with 20/30/50 AMP and water.  We had a great site and had excellent reception on the satellite system.  The rangers were very friendly and the camp hosts were also great.  We landed there on opening day.  Although it was still chilly we did have sunshine most days.  If you have a chance visit this one, it's a gem.  We toured the peninsula several times but one of the times stopped to take a photo of this couple lobster-fishing.  She stopped her day to wave and say hi! That's just what Maine folks do. 

Here is a side chuckle....we had been to Acadia before on the Cadillac Mountain side.  I had asked Les if we could go to the other section of the park in Winter Park.  We were both quite excited to check this out and up for a new adventure.  Well, after we arrived he recognized the peninsula and we decided that we had, in fact, been here before.  Apparently we will need to write down where we go now!  We still enjoyed it very much.

Decided to go to Campobello Island and see the family and childhood "cottage" of FDR.  It is located in New Brunswick, Canada and is the only National Park that is run jointly between the United States and Canada.  It was about a 2 hour drive from Acadia so we decided to make a day of it.  It was very interesting and a lovely Island.  Breezed through Customs in Canada, after all it's an Island and we were only going to be on it for a couple of hours.  I put "cottage" in quotes because it is a 34 room house overlooking the Bay of Fundy.  It was really neat to see it and we were glad we did.

The "Cottage"

Main dining room, note Megaphone on left.  This was how the children were called to dinner.

FDR's kitchen, note the name of the stove is President and was purchased by FDR's mother.

FDR's bedroom

Lubec, Maine view from Bridge

Lighthouse located in Canada on waterway with USA

Maine Marathon for Mothers Day

My niece Liz (mother to Lyla and Makynlee) and her friend Hannah have been training for months to run the Maine Marathon.  We agreed that we would drive up to the Red Apple Campground in Arundel, Maine and be their support team for the race.  By the way that camp is very nice, owners are super.  We drove from Florida to arrive in time to prepare for the race.  The girls came up on Saturday and spent the afternoon relaxing and having some homemade pizza for dinner before retiring for the night.  We were all up by 5:00 am and let me tell you it was an old fashion Nor'Easter in Maine with driving rain, 40 mph winds and temperatures that barely reached 45!  We felt so bad for them to have these conditions to run in (it was Liz's 2nd and Hannah's 1st marathon).  They both had run the 1/2 at Disney in February and conditions were beautiful.

Anyway, Les helped them with their "raincoats" which were black trash bags (always the fashion for this type of weather for runners).  Off we went to the start line and off they went!  We saw them at the 8.7 mile marker in Kennebunk and they were looking strong, wet but strong.

We next saw them at the 18 mile mark and the winds were very strong as they were running the coastal portion of the Marathon.  They looked like they were ready to drop but we cheered them on and told them they were in the homestretch!  They both perked up knowing that it was close.  And before you knew it here they came through the Finish Line!  We take our hats off to both of them for their fortitude and strength in teamwork.  Bravo!

Oklahoma Rally to Florida Wedding!

We met our friends Tommy & Sheila and headed to Oklahoma caravan style.  We arrived safely at the Windstar Casino RV Park for a rally with 150 other friends, lol.  The weather was okay, not perfect as it was a little cold and rainy at times but we all had a great time together, as always.  Plenty of laughs and food, oh the food!  They were going to head to Branson, MO and we were heading to Clearwater FL for a wedding so we parted company early Sunday morning.  Les and I drove for a couple of hours and came upon a terrible scene.  It took us a few minutes literally to realize we had driven through the area of Canton Texas which only hours before had been struck with a deadly tornado.  We saw cars in trees and roofs and houses gone with debris everything.  It was horrible to see and we could only imagine how devastating it was for those involved.

We made it to Florida fairly quickly, through rain, tornadoes (Mississippi) and smoke from Florida wildfires. The wedding was the first Saturday of May and the weather that day was perfect, cool, sunny, comfortable. We enjoyed ourselves and were happy that we made the jaunt.  Of course had the chance to see some friends, Joshua, and get some dental work done.

Trek to Yuma, Tennessee by way of Rising Sun, Indiana

Off to Cave Creek Arizona from San Diego where we met up with our friends Peter and Jeanne for lunch and laughs.  After an overnight there we started to make our way to Carl & Jane's neck of the wood in Kentucky (outside Cincinnati).  We all decided to camp together at a nearby camp located in Rising Sun, Indiana.  We spent a week in side splitting laughter and for those of you who know Jane, full to the gills with food.  A few games of dominoes, snacks, meals and just a little gambling (oh who am I kidding, we went every day!) gave all of us a nice break from our regular schedules. We were scheduled to attend a rally in Oklahoma and since we were meeting our other friends Tommy and Sheila in Yuma, Tennessee it made sense to stop up and visit with Carl & Jane before we headed to Tennessee.  We were so very lucky with the weather, weaving and ducking all the bad weather.  We did have a little rain one day but were cozy and warm in our RV's by the river.  Bonus, we had the chance to see the "grand babies", Ashlyn and Colton, Ashlyn had her first soccer game and we all went, so darn cute to see those 4 year olds running around.  The parents were more involved in the game than the kids but that's always the way.

Off to Yuma, TN via Nashville.  Of course that included a stop at the Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, KY.  It was very neat and the exhibit as a result of the sinkhole damage was really something.

We also stopped at the Mammoth Cave National Park.  Although generally speaking caves are not on our bucket list, the National Parks are so what the heck we were in the neighborhood.  It was actually very interesting, self-guided and about 1.5 hours, just enough of a taste.

In Nashville we caught up on laundry, hair cuts and groceries, squeezing in a visit to the Parthenon.  One of the photos is of solid bronze doors, amazing!  The statue of Athena is the largest in the world.  This building is a recreation of the one located in Greece.

San Diego, California (here we come!)

Every time we come to California we sing the theme song from the "The Beverly Hillbillies" since we have been called "the Clampetts" a time or two in the past.  We love to come to Santee Lakes Recreation Area in Santee, California because, well it's lovely, it has 2 pools, lots of birds, and it's very reasonable.  But most of all we love to come here because it signals the beginning of another fabulous visit with our "outlaw" Bill.  No only does this mean our sides will be hurt from laughing, but Les will have a golf buddy, and I get to use Bill's newly renovated kitchen (oh and that's a long funny story too).  He claims he doesn't mind if I take over his space since he doesn't cook that much and I am grateful  for his hospitality.  And so it goes, we over ate brownies, pie, pasta, corned beef, chicken and then we went out to lunch!  Bill took us to the Beach, photos posted below and we enjoyed a surf side lunch.  We love the Ocean (not to swim in however there are "things in there!) but there is nothing more calming than the ocean waves.  One week went by way too quickly and we were reluctant to leave but had a lunch appointment with our friends Peter & Jeanne in Cave Creek Arizona so off we went!  And here's a funny story...on our way to Phoenix somewhere near Yuma AZ Les looked over the westbound side of the road and said "hey there goes Vic and Willy".  Sure enough I wrote to her later and she confirmed they were westbound and we were eastbound, safe travels, small world!

Lake Havasu, Arizona

This is one of our favorite places to stay, our site looks on to the Lake and although we don't pay for "waterfront" we are pretty darn close.  Our friends, Ron, Alison and their baby Oliver camp a few sites away on the waterfront so we are always able to have a direct view from their campsite.  They arrived a day later than we did and this enabled us to spend almost 2 weeks with one another, enjoying meals and outings. Alison is super knowledgeable about birds and flowers so we learn something every day from tapping her brain.  Ron is the go-to guy for car knowledge and also follows IRV2 closely so we can still be up to date on issues without having to glean the information ourselves off the website.  We love their 3-legged baby Oliver and other than Gracie (Tommy & Sheila's little baby) Oliver is the only animal to come inside the coach with our two cats.  They were fine together and when the cats were getting annoyed they just got up and went into the bedroom.

Here is our view from our site.

There are several choices for putting in boats with some new ramps constructed recently with very large parking lots.  Lucky for us Ron & Alison have a beautiful pontoon boat and invited us out a few times.  Les & Ron worked together to get it ready and unloaded while Alison & I made some lunch and snacks so they didn't faint!  Ron expertly maneuvered the boat under the London Bridge and down the River so we could watch a few knuckleheads (spring breakers!) jump off a large tall (maybe 40-50 feet) rock.  Ah to be young and foolish again!  We also went up and down the Colorado, south of our location to the Indian Casino but just looked around that day.  Another time we geared up for a day long trip that was started at the Park and heading north up to Needles CA to where Route 40 crosses the river.  A stop for fuel at the local marina and a trip thought another marina resort found us beaching the boat for lunch break.  We had a blast every single time we "sailed" but I think that Oliver enjoyed it the most, sun, wind in his hair and a comfortable place to sleep! It so happened that the weather was unusually warm, okay it was HOT, most days in the low to mid 90's. Being in the boat with the beautiful breeze was really the best place we could be other than in air conditioning and heck that's no fun!  As we were going up the River we saw a huge rock with a side view of an "Indian in Headdress", photo attached as well as Petroglyph on the rocks in an area that few people can get to.  What a treat for us.  Click on the photo to enlarge to see detail.

So our time came to an end and we were sad to part but we already made our reservations to connect next year! You know the saying, "you meet the nicest people RVing", this we can attest to.

Our trek to Arizona begins...

Here we go!  After our trip up North we headed back to Florida and picked up our new Jeep. Finally we have a 4-door vehicle back behind us and I surely wasn't sorry to see that 2-door Jeep go.  I'll post a couple of photos for you.

Off we went to meet Tommy, Sheila, Randy & Tanya at Belle Terra RV Resort in Foley, Alabama. What a fun time and although it was very cold there we were happy that our site had a gas fireplace that we could all gather around and swap stories.  As always we lined up by year of Entegra Cornerstone's, 15-16-17.  After a week we left with Tommy & Sheila and headed to Arizona, our final destination for a while.  We stopped in Kerrville, Texas (my folks used to live there) and stayed at Buckhorn RV Resort, the place where many a rally is held although we were just a rally of 2 coaches this time.  We had met Chuck and Charlotte at Big Sky in July and since they live in the area we trekked up to their "ponderosa" and had a nice visit with them.

We followed one another until we reached the Casa Grande AZ area, where Tommy & Sheila continued to their RV resort on the west side of Phoenix and we split off to our State Park destination near Apache Junction at Lost Dutchman.  It was a wonderful park (water and electric only) and we stayed there for 2 weeks.  Here is our view from our front windshield.  Unfortunately we didn't get too much time to hike as we were busy with regular maintenance, both of the coach and us!  They were visiting a friend near Phoenix and then planned on continuing onto Indio Motor Coach Resort in Indio, CA while we hung around in the Apache Junction/Gold Canyon area. 

We did meet up with them for a tour of the Penske Museum in Scottsdale and of course lunch!

We met up again in Tucson for a few days before they headed home and we headed to Lake Havasu State Park.  We stayed at the state park (Catalina) in Tucson but we did get to visit Old Tucson and had some laughs.  Here's our goofy, fun photos of our visit to the movie set!

January 2017

Here we go!  We spent the beginning of January delivering our RV to the factory in Indiana to have some paint work done. What to do for a week?  Interestingly enough the fares are fairly inexpensive to fly direct from Midway (Chicago) to Boston!  We drove to Midway and caught a direct to Boston for a week, round trip for two was $281 and you just can't beat that!  So off we went to spend a few days with the "girls" Lyla and Kynlee. Gosh we really missed those little angels.  Bonus weekend!  Our friend David was hosting a surprise birthday party for his wife that Saturday so we jumped on the chance to go.  The number on her birthday will remain a secret to those who read this but her name is Janet and she is older that me!! Haha. We took the opportunity to spend an overnight with our friend Patti that we often visit in Lakeville Mass. How convenient to her (as she recovers from surgery) that there was a snowstorm of 18" while we were there and Les was biting at the bit to shovel!  His wish came true!  The party ended up being postponed until Sunday which really made sense given the conditions so we had a PJ party with Pat on Saturday night. Very fun!