Holiday Weekends

The first of three big summer holidays is upon us. RVers know it is necessary to get reservations far in advance for these weekends. Knowing we wanted to be in a Colorado State Park over Labor Day, in January I made our reservations at Ridgway State Park. Planning ahead, I was so proud of myself. So why didn't I make reservations then for Memorial Day and July 4? I knew we would be staying in commercial RV parks over those weekends. We will be in Colorado Springs for the 4th and planned to stay in the KOA there. It is huge. Was I ever surprised to find last week that the only had 1 or 2 nights with 50 amp hookups available during the last week of June and first week of July. And they won't allow 50 amp units with 2 air conditioners to stay in a 30 amp site.  I was a little panicked as I made call after call before I found a spot to stay. Whew!  That was close.

But Memorial Day was even closer. Where would we go? We finished our visit to Doug in New Hampshire and moved on to a park outside Boston for a few days. But where would we stay this weekend? I had made a one-day reservation in Rhode Island to check this state off our bucket list. So I tried several locations in Pennsylvania and all were full for the weekend.  What do you suppose people do in Stroudsburg, PA, over Memorial Day?  A number of calls later, I called the park in Ashaway, RI, and was able to extend our reservations till Memorial Day. That was really too close to call. Walmart parking lots don't appeal to us at all. Glad we are here.

So, where is here? Ashaway is certainly a town we had never heard of. We know nothing about Rhode Island, in fact. But as we set up and looked around we found the setting somewhat familiar. We spend our winters in Gold Canyon, AZ, and know what seasonal parks are like. People come to see their friends, returning year after year. This park has lots of seasonal residents. But here the majority of the RVs are travel trailers, not 5th wheels or motorhomes. Obviously, this is the first big weekend of the season and people are just setting up all their outside equipment, which will probably stay in place all summer. The families will come on weekends and whenever else they can get away from work. The park is full of younger families with children. It truly is a resort, not just an RV park. Everywhere yesterday we saw people giving hugs to friends they probably haven't seen since the fall. There were a number of communal meals around us.

We saw parks like this when we traveled in New Brunswick several years ago, as well as in the Midwest. They are the mobile version of a summer cabin community. We stayed in one New Brunswick park where one family had created a large fire ring and benches all around it. Every evening people gathered for a campfire and laughed and joked together--right across the road from our RV.

Up until this weekend, we have seen RV parks with very few campers. We even stayed in a Yogi Bear Jellystone campground and resorts in Hagerstown, NJ, Massey's Landing, DE,  and Littleton, MA, with numerous activities and facilities for both children and adults. We enjoyed those places especially because the children were still in school and the parks weren't crowded. This weekend brings that circumstance to an end, I imagine.


These photos will give you an idea of what this resort I like.  It is has raining here a lot, so their are puddles around but this track for radio controlled cars will probably get lots of use when it dries out.

I wonder if the people in this RV intend to have a campfire 24 hours a day all summer or if they will share it with their neighbors?  (Barbara--we aren't parked close to this RV, thankfully).

This is the train that takes young children around the park.  The driver looks like he is having a good time.  The speedbumps here are those yellow metal strips that really make RVs slow down.  But the train takes them at full speed.  The kids really enjoy that part of the ride.

This is a view from a hill that overlooks about half of the park with a very wet bocce ball court in the foreground.  They also have a tennis court, basketball court, volley ball, horseshoes, a soccer field and shuffleboard. We also saw a game room with arcade machines and a large pool.  Lots of fun.

What a Trip!

Normally, we drive about 200 miles a day and only travel every 2nd or 3rd day so we can relax and enjoy each location.  Earlier this trip we stayed 5 days in Tulsa and 5 days near St. Louis.  But in the last week we have driven 4 days in a row, covering 797 miles.  We parked in 4 states and crossed part of another.  Whew! 

There wasn't anything on our route through Illinois, Indiana and Ohio we wanted to see.  We will be back in Pennsylvania and Ohio as we return west next month.  We have checked off one item on our bucket list: we spent 2 nights in Hagerstown, Maryland .  We have now slept in 45 of the 49 continental states.  Only 4 more to go--Delaware, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey.

Our home is in Colorado and the Continental Divide runs through the middle of the state.  To cross it, you often have to go over a 11,000 foot or higher mountain pass.  We didn't realize there is an Eastern Continental Divide until Wednesday when we crossed the 2,670 foot divide.

When was the last time you saw an operating drive-in theater?  It has been a long time for us.  We spotted this one on our trip across Ohio.

Trail Ridge Road between Grand Lake and Estes Park, Colorado, crosses the Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain National Park.  From the top you can see into 4 states.  There are other places you feel you can see forever, like the Youghiogheny Overlook in a Pennsylvania highway rest stop.  (Does anyone have any idea how to pronounce that word?)

This is another view from the same area.

I think this view was in West Virginia.  Obviously it is early spring here.  Many of the trees hadn't leafed out.

The limestone (?) hills in West Virginia are also great.

We haven't seen dogwood trees for years.  We found this one in our Hagerstown RV park.

Where we spend our winters in Arizona people refer to it as summer camp for geezers. Maybe we now have regressed to childhood. The best option we could find to park in Hagerstown was the Jellystone Park. It really was nice--since school is still in session and we were there mid-week. It must be wonderful for families with children. They had everything from a zip line to laser tag to water parks and mini golf. 

Blessings and Curses

Blessings:

Last night I went out of the trailer at dusk and saw one of the magical things about lower altitudes in the summer: lightning bugs or fireflies. We don't see those in Colorado. Is it the humidity? I don't know. But I love seeing those little flashes of light and remembering my granddaughter, Kylie, chasing them in Iowa four years ago.

Last night we were in an RV park in Winchester, VA. The sites were fairly close together, but there were huge areas of green grass throughout the park. It reminded me of RV parks we stayed in during our first-ever RV trip in 1988.

Today we drove from Virginia through a corner of West Virginia and a slice of Maryland before entering Pennsylvania. To touch that many states in such a short time in the West, we would have to drive in circles around the area where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona meet at the Four Corners. The scenery was beautiful. We are no longer driving through just tunnels of trees. We also saw large open fields and farms, limestone outcroppings, and vast vistas.

Tonight we are parked in a destination KOA in Pennsylvania. They have side-by-side hookups for the 50-amp pull-through sites. But the electric is reliable, the restrooms spotless and the location attractive.

On a Friday night in summer, we share the park with a field of tents and lots of families with young, bike-riding children. Not our favorite thing, but we are glad families are having such wholesome fun.

Curses:

Yesterday morning at about 10 we talked to the mobile RV repair tech who was supposed to install our new air conditioner. We had been waiting in Ashland since June 1 for the unit to be shipped from Indiana to Virginia. On Wednesday Roadway trucking told the tech the unit was in Richmond but they didn't have anyone to unload the truck until Thursday. He told them it had to be delivered onThursday. When he called them Thursday morning they still couldn't tell him exactly when it would be delivered, but it would be on Friday. His father had been hospitalized in Florida and he couldn't wait any longer. At 10:45 we began preparations to drive north. As we drove, I studied Trailer Life and found a place to stay about three hours up the road.

Both yesterday and today I spent a lot of time on the phone, trying to work out a location where we could have the unit shipped and installed further along our route. Maybe, just maybe, that will happen in a couple of weeks in Syracuse, NY. Tammy at Camping World RV Sales there was very helpful, as was Dawn at Dometic, the company honoring our warranty on the A/C. We will keep our fingers crossed.

John says any time we have a warranty claim, it is a crap-shoot.