Factoids

Days we were gone - 200

Miles traveled in the motorhome - 10,700

Additional miles traveled in the Jeep - 10,200

States visited - 28
Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Washington DC, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri

Canadian provinces visited - 5
Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island

Photographs taken - 1,477

Bugs who hit the windshield & survived - 1
Bugs who did not survive - many, many more

Number of times Barb ran out of Tab - 0
(not only is it still made, it is also surprisingly available across the country)

October 17-24 - heading home!

Western Maryland & Pennsylvania showed us a last burst of Fall colors as we left Washington DC. We have seen so many amazing places but it's time to get home & we are now moving pretty quickly across country. We stopped in St. Louis to tour the Gateway Arch & the Budweiser brewery. Our RV park was directly across the Mississippi River & we had a fantastic view. The "pods" that take you to the top of the arch & the viewing area could definitely use updating, but they did the job. We leaned across a carpeted ledge to look out the tiny windows, but the views from 630 feet up were amazing. We got some great pictures & were even able to see our RV in the park across the Mississippi River. Pretty cool! The brewery was beautiful & much more ornate than we expected. We have heard the "how beer is made" story many times so it was more of a treat to see the Clydesdales & marvel at the sheer size of this factory. We even saw one of the dalmations! Our final "vacation stop" was a visit to Gayle's new home in Tulsa. We enjoyed seeing her huge apartment & the school she loves attending. We celebrated the day before her birthday with dinner where our waitress was one of her classmates & a very nice girl. Dennis was happy to see for himself how well his little sis is doing! After that, it was just a run for home with quick overnight stays. Everything was in great shape when we arrived. Thank you to Mom & our wonderful neighbors Elaine & Tom, who all kept an eye on things while we were gone. We never worried once about the house & that made our dream trip even more enjoyable. It was so much fun to be gone & it's so nice to be home. Can't ask for more than that!

October 12-16 - Washington DC

Greenbelt National Park in Maryland was a great base for exploring Washington DC. The park was beautiful & filled with deer, grey squirrels & black squirrels. They were an interesting sight. Walnut trees surrounded our RV & kept our adrenaline pumping each time walnuts dropped onto our roof. We hardly felt like we were just 10 miles away from our nation's capitol. The Metro station was a couple miles from us & we became quite adept at navigating the train system. We took a double decker bus tour the first 2 days in town. This allowed us an overview of the city & the opportunity to hop on & off as we pleased. DC was much more spread out than we expected, so we were glad to be able to see all the major sights for one low fare & not having to drive or park. The monuments & buildings were awe-inspiring & beautiful. It really made us even more proud of our country to be standing in the middle of so much history & importance. We even saw a motorcade on day one! Also saw a diplomatic license plate but didn't take a picture since we thought we'd see more. We didn't, but we did see a "Member of Congress" plate & quickly snapped away. Lesson learned! Once we knew where we wanted to go, we again took the Metro & then walked to the museums we wanted to explore further. We stood in line at the National Archives to see the Declaration of Independence & the Constitution & are very glad we did, but we were surprised that they were more faded than we thought they would be. The main guard on duty cracked us up - he was power mad & very thorough in giving everyone very detailed instructions about where they should stand & how they should move through the line. Oh well, it was pretty good unintended comic relief. We had a great Maryland crab cake dinner near the park with friends Darcy & Bobbie. Well, Darcy had the salmon but we let him sit with us anyway. They were kind enough to drive about an hour from their home to meet up with us. As always, we had lots of fun & laughs with them.

October 6-11 - Pennsylvania & New Jersey

We stopped near Easton, PA to visit Barb's friend Sandra & her husband Curt. Barb & Sandra worked together years ago & it's always fun to catch up. Curt & Sandra moved to Pennsylvania in February & seem very happy in their beautiful home. We went to dinner at a Portugese restaurant, which we'd never had but it was really good. After our nice visit, we moved to a park in New Jersey that is just 10 miles from Philadelphia. We took a double decker bus tour to get an overview & re-learn some history. Philadelphia is a beautiful old city but we were told most of the skyscrapers were built during a 1980's boom & they are quite bland. After the bus tour, we walked around our favorite neighborhoods. We loved seeing the townhouses in Society Hill & Elfreth's Alley. Elfreth's Alley has been a residential neighborhood for over 300 years & has just a carriage road running through it. Very beautiful & peaceful. We had Philly cheesesteaks for lunch in the building where Larry of the Three Stooges was born. Don't fear; it has since been converted to a restaurant. Philadelphia sightseeing highlights included Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, Ben Franklin's grave, an open air market & the Rocky statue. We didn't run up the steps of the art museum, nor do we feel guilty after learning that Sylvester Stallone only ran up 3 steps while his stunt double ran the other 69! Oh...Barb got the senior rate on her bus tour ticket. Hopefully the ticket seller was just being a nice guy & passing along the $2 savings. Alas, that was not the only irritation of the day. Barb remembers seeing Pod restaurant on TV years & years ago. She thought at the time she'd definitely go there if she was ever in Philadelphia & was thrilled to learn it is still in business. It has all-white round booth-rooms with colored lighting that the occupants can change. Seems like a must-see, right? Well, we were there early in the evening & the bratty hostess would not allow us to even have a quick drink in a pod since you "must" have a party of 6. The place was nearly empty! Guess we should have either recruited everyone there to sit with us or bribed her. Despite all this trauma, we still had a fun day. Our trip to Atlantic City let us know that we don't need to return to Atlantic City. It was fun to see & Dennis enjoyed reminiscing about his family trip to the Democratic National Convention there when he was 14 years old. We donated a little to Mr. Trump, had a corn dog on the boardwalk & Dennis dropped Barb off at the outlet mall while he circled the block. Luckily, Barb was only interested in running into H&M where she scored a very cute top. If you've been reading the blog, you may remember the H&M obsession from the Chicago leg of the trip. We're sure she'll lose interest once they finally come to Phoenix.

Sept 23-Oct 5 - New Hampshire

New Hampshire was a mix of beautiful Fall colors & rainy, cloudy weather. Luckily, our RV park was great & we had the place to ourselves most the time. Plenty of books & news of the crashing economy helped us pass time when we couldn't sightsee. We visited Mt. Washington on the advice of our new Florida friends Stuart & Nola, who we met on the Oshkosh trip. It is the highest point in the Eastern U.S. at over 6,000 feet. The weather was beautiful at the base & then we drove through the clouds ("undercast") before reaching sunny skies at the top. The weather observatory clocked a 231 MPH wind in 1934. The building now has chains running over the top of the roof! We drove along small country roads & the very scenic Kancagamus Highway. We stopped at the pond where you're most likely to see moose, but none appeared. We visited several covered bridges. Seems like they were big targets for arsonists back in the day, as many were rebuilt several times. Took a couple hikes to waterfalls. Dennis may not appreciate the waterfalls as much as Barb does, but he's a good sport about it. The Wolfeboro, N.H. scarecrow festival was fun. We saw scarecrows fishing, stomping grapes, enjoying wine on the porch, riding a unicycle & going on vacation. We even met Michael Phelps. Chowderfest reminded us of the fun chili cookoff we attended last winter with Marc & Marcie but the long tasting/voting line did not look fun without M&M to entertain us. We considered calling Marcie to pass the time but gave up & toured instead. We found where "On Golden Pond" was filmed. Both of us have seen the movie but could only remember that it starred the Fondas & everyone worked out their differences. Hmm, guess we'll look for it on the TV listings. Chinese food took the place of chowder & we found a bookstore selling VERY cheap books - 22 books for $5! Barb had a "vision" of photos of a lake reflecting the Fall colors. Barb's visions usually drive Dennis quite crazy because of the work involved in making them reality. We searched nearly 2 weeks, gave up & then stumbled upon the perfect little pond 3 miles from our campsite. Enjoy the realized vision & join us as we envy the people living in that house.

September 16-22 - Boston area

We love the East Coast! It's so easy to jump from state to state & feel like we're making progress. We headed toward Boston for a week to let the leaves start changing color up north. Maybe they'll feel less pressure if we aren't staring at them all day, every day. We stopped at the Battle Road visitor center which had a great presentation on the running battle between Lexington & Concord that began the Revolutionary War. Lit maps showing troop movement supplemented the video. Walking on the Battle Road was beautiful, but eerie. Our RV park was 30 miles south of Boston & offered limo service to the commuter rail station. A real limo! The train & subway worked wonderfully. We walked the Freedom Trail; 2.5 miles each way following a line of bricks set in the sidewalk. We saw many historic sights including Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere's home, Old North Church, Bunker Hill & USS Constitution. The route led us thru the North End, Boston's Italian neighborhood. We ate pastries in the morning & pasta in the afternoon. Hey, we walked 5 miles! It really struck us that this large city was so quiet. No honking horns, yelling people, car alarms. It was downright peaceful & totally unexpected. We drove to Boston for more sightseeing & can offer this recommendation - use public transit! We couldn't park so we had to "drive-by tourist" Beacon Hill, Harvard, Fenway Park & the Cheers bar. We think we drove through the Big Dig. Rhode Island is closer to our campground than downtown Phoenix is to our home. We toured The Breakers 70 room Vanderbilt mansion on our visit to Newport. Barb thought the 5 mansion tour sounded fun, Dennis not so much. Oh well, the others might look like shacks after The Breakers. Gold & platinum (!!) leaf everywhere, plus ornate moldings, mosaic tile ceilings & library walls that looked like the spines of leather bound books. Completely over the top, but incredible! No pictures were allowed indoors. Mystic, CT was our next stop. We skipped Mystic Pizza after learning it wasn't used in the film. We walked along the river & waited for the drawbridge to raise but no boats were around. The drawbridge has two 230-ton counter weights & opens 2,200 times a year, just not for us. We capped the day off with a pilgrimage to Foxwoods casino, of World Poker Tour fame. Too smoky so we headed to the much prettier Mohegan Sun, where Dennis made $2 & Barb did not. Saturday found us trekking all 15 miles back to Rhode Island for Waterfire in Providence. The town is beautiful to start with but then they line the river with wood fires after sundown. People dressed in black float down the river in black boats to restock the huge fires. It looked & smelled wonderful. We walked the whole riverwalk & found candlelit chandeliers under all the bridges & in gazebos. We drove around Brown University before sunset & it is the prettiest school. Newport has a Catholic university that is completely housed in mansions. If Barb wins the lottery, she'll consider paying the $40,000 annual tuition just so she can flunk out of each gorgeous school. Cape Cod was more of a place to sit for a week than see in a day. We drove to Provincetown at the end of the road, a lively place. Everything else is pretty sleepy. We saw the site where Marconi sent the first transatlantic wireless message from Theodore Roosevelt to King Edward VII. Dennis says "Teddy to Eddy". We toured Plimoth Plantation & Mayflower II where people dressed in period costumes gave us a flavor of Pilgrim & Native life. The work of the day included preparing a large fire pit to make charcoal for the iron forge. The Mayflower crossing took 3 attempts & landed at the tip of Cape Cod but moved to Plymouth when scouts determined it was a better location. We saw Plymouth Rock, which looked nothing like our history books depicted. It's a small rock near the edge of the cove & the myth of stepping on the rock didn't come to fruition until 120 years later. Jeez, we would have been better off at recess than spending time in history class that day! Our Boston swing has been busy & fun but now we're off in search of Fall colors!

September 11-15 - Maine

Bar Harbor was a beautiful town but tormented Barb as she had to look at yet another cruise ship. After the pouting, we wandered around town & continued on to Acadia National Park. We drove along the rugged coastline. We stopped to view "Thunder Hole" & wandered out the path. This entailed climbing over several rocks until we heard the thundering sound of the waves crashing into a rock cove. Then we found the overlook & paved path that led to it. We jumped the fence to where we should have been. Oops! This time it really was a mistake. 57 miles of gravel carriage roads & stone bridges that criss-cross the park were donated by John D. Rockefeller Jr. because he preferred horse travel to motor travel. We also came across the most stunning garden near Acadia. It appears to be a private garden, not a park. We headed south to the land of very large objects. The Big Indian must have been in front of a gift shop, Eartha is a 42 foot rotating globe in a map store, the LL Bean boot is to celebrate their 90th anniversary, Lenny the 1700 lb chocolate moose was in a candy store & the boulders in front of a house in Kennebunkport put Dale's boulder to shame. Speaking of Kennebunkport, we "visited" former President & Mrs. Bush. Their compound is beautiful but not super-fancy & has an amazing location on its own peninsula. Lots of little outbuildings around the property for their Secret Service detail. There is a pullout on the road across the cove & we stopped to stare for a little while. Just happened to have the binoculars in the Jeep so that was a bonus. Boy weren't we surprised when Barbara Bush herself came outside to walk the dog! That's Mrs. Bush in the hot pink top. While we weren't invited in, we did get a secondhand hot dining tip. Apparently, President & Mrs. Bush are fans of the peanut butter ice cream pie at Mabel's Lobster Claw. What we didn't realize til this glorious creation was in front of us was that it is topped by hot fudge! YUM!!! (Did you know you can click on each picture to see a larger version?)