9/30/08 - Cape Cod & Martha' Vineyard, Massachusetts

We have been hanging around Cap Cod 4 days now, first waiting for hurricane Kyle to pass by, and then to let the no-name storm that followed to clear. We kept a very close watch on where Kyle was as it appoached and it passed 130 miles off the coast which left us with lots of rain but very little wind. We have had well over 6 inches wet over the past few days.

Cap Cod is very busy, even during the week and in this off season (and, yes, even with a hurricane off shore). But, it is also beautiful, or maybe it is more charming than beautiful. Naturally, most of the homes are "Cap Cod" style (go figure!). The beaches at the end of the pennisula are wide and white with great grassy dunes.

We have seen so many wild turkeys in the eastern portion of this trip, but this is the first time that we managed to get a picture. These guys better be careful with Thanksgiving coming.

On our trip to Martha's Vineyard we walked onto the morning ferry then moved around the island using the local buses. The above is the Martha's Vineyard Religious campground which started out as a tent city used for revival meetings. In the early 1800 the "campers" started building these little, highly stylized, colorful cabins. Most of them are fully renovated and sell for about $450,000.

One of the towns on the island (Edgartown) is the original home of the wealthy whale boat captains from the 1800's. At its peak there were more ship captains living in this town than anywhere else on the east coast. These are now either private residences or have been converted to inns, art studios or restaurants.

Millie found her dream home while we wandered around; and Lee found a little something parked in the back yard. This may be harder to park than the motorhome.

Next, we will drive through Rhode Island and than on to Connecticut.

9/25/2008 - Vermont

We "took the day off" today and drove around central Vermont. We are at a campground that has pretty good TV and internet connections so we decided to waitout whatever Washington figures out they are going to do about the economy. Like everyone else, we are nervous about the unknown but plan to keep a positive attitude and react to changing facts rather than the opinions of the talking heads on TV news. In the meantime, we are out enjoying this beautiful country, filled with wonderful people, and amazing sights.


The first floating bridge in the US. It is closed due to a sinking problem, but what the heck!

Vermont has over 100 covered bridges; many have been restored and made into tourist destinations; this one is a working bridge built in 1883 that leads to a family farm.

We are just getting some real color in the hills.

Soon this whole hillside will be bright with reds and yellows.

We toured the Rock of Ages granite quarry and moument factory in Barre, VT. At the present rate of extraction they have enought granite to last 4500 years.

Coastal Maine

We have had beautiful weather during our stay along the Maine coast and we have taken advantage of it by driving down some side roads that have led us to some amazing places.

We found this lighthouse at the end of one of our roads and it turned out to be the lighthouse that was used to film the "Forest Gump" scene where Forest finished his cross country run.

This is typical of many of the homes on this coast. Beautifully restored and maintained from the 1700s and early 1800s. Many of the churchs proudly state that they were established in 1610, 1635, 1642 etc. Something we don't see in Seattle.

This is a typical Downeast coast community. Most of the peninsula homes like these are B & B or artist communities.

We drove across this bridge built in 1926. We had to stop and see how it was build. Sort of wish we hadn't since we had to cross back. It is designed to let the tide wash through the bridge without washing out. It seems to be working.

Not really typical....but still very nice.

Lobster fleet in a small harbor.

End of a Maine coastal road.....back to Vermont for fall colors.

Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park, up by Bangor, Maine, was the first National Park east of the Mississippi and is also one of the most visited. Their "season" is only 9 weeks long and so everyone on the east coast comes here during that time. We are here off season but it is still very crowded.

The shoreline of Maine is absolutely beautiful. As expected, it is very rocky with no sandy beaches anywhere. Everywhere you look there is a picture perfect little fishing village with its white churches and lobster boats.

We took a few trails up into the "mountains" in the Park. They are really rock scrambles amost straight up granite rock to the top of glacier rounded treeless domes from which we got some beautiful views.

Adirondacks, Lake Champlain and The Green Mountains

We fell in love with the beauty of upstate NY. We drove through the Adirondack Mountains and one village after another. Neither one of us can pronounce Adirondack so we now just refer to them as the "Chair" Mountains after the Adirondack chair that is so popular around beach communities. These mountains are filled with hundreds of lakes like this.
We stopped for the night just outside Ausable, NY and the next morning drove out to the Ausable Chasm which has been an organized tourist attraction for 138 years (the oldest in the US). We decided that we didn't need to take the tour down to the bottom but got some great views from the highway bridge.
Our route out of NY took us out to Lake Champlain which is a large lake between NY and VT. We are taking lots of back roads, even with the motorhome, and this one took us out onto several islands in the north end of the lake. You can just barely see some of the fall reds coming out on some of the trees. In just a few weeks these shores will be vibrate red and yellow.
We had to stop at the Ben & Jerry Ice Cream factory in Waterbury, VT. These are the happy, hormone free raw material that they start with. Great corporate story of successfully creating a company that is both profitable and socially aware.
We are currently in the White Mountains of New Hampshire on our way to Maine before we get frozen out of that area. The weather report calls for the first freeze tonight but then it will warm up again. It looks like we will hit the fall colors just right over the next couple of weeks on our way south. We will come back into VT, NH, and PA on our way so we can see more than just one area of each of these beautiful states.

1000 Island Area of the St. Lawrence River

We had the remains of hurricane Ike pass through last night. We we got blown around a bit but no damage. It was still very wet with 35 mph winds when it got to us in up state NY. It is hard to imagine what it was like at full strength.

We stopped in this area of the St. Lawrence because 1) is beautiful; 2) we found a campground that gave us 50% off. We have the campground to ourselves right now since the season is over up here. Everyone just seems to be waiting for the first freeze which should come shortly. There are over 1000 islands in this area of the river and many are individually owned. The salad dressing was named after this place.

Early in the 1800 this area was the place for millionaires to build extravagant castles and hunting lodges. There are also many modern mansions around the island and mainland shores but the real attraction for us was the older homes.

We headed out in the car for a look around and found this beautiful little community of about 300 homes on Wellesley Island. We talked to one of the locals for awhile and found out that only 3 of these homes are occupied year round due to 20 below temperatures and high winds. Their vacation season is only about 2 - 3 months long but they really enjoy there old homes and riverfront living.

Niagara Falls, NY

We decided to head directly for Niagara Falls, NY rather than spend any amount of time in Pennsylvania right now. We will pick PA up again on our way south a little later in the trip. We did go through the Ohio Amish country and saw some beautiful old farms and got stuck behind an Amish buggy or two.

Niagara Falls is spectacular, althougth overly "touristy". The State of NY has done an excellent job of providing safe access to view the falls but on the other side of the street it looks like carnival is in town. It was rainy and very humid but well worth the trip. It is hard to imagine that 10,000 years ago these falls were 6 miles away from their present position...and they are still moving.

Cayahoga Valley National Park

The Cayahoga Valley is just outside of Cleveland, OH and this national park is really in an urban setting. It is comprised of a large segment of the old canal system that was built in the mid 1800 to industrialize Ohio prior to the introduction of the railroad.

The park winds around and through residential neighborhoods, shopping centers and freeway right-of-ways. There is a maze of trails and bike paths but the rivers and canals are too polluted to be used for human travel.

Not our favorite park right now but perhaps someday, when they have completed all the clean up and land acquisitions, this will be as wonderful as all the other parks.

On to Ohio's Amish country and then to Pennsylvania.

Halsey Family Fun - Adrian, MI

We crossed the 5 mile long Mackinaw Bridge and made our way around the "thumb" of Michigan to the wonderful town of Adrian, MI. There, we were welcomed by Millie's brother, Dick, his wife Jackie and their wonderful family. We were lucky enough to spend about 4 days with them and got the chance to see all the nieces, nephews and grand nieces and nephews, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds. It was great fun to share a few days with these delightful people who have their deep family roots in this town and the surrounding area. The love and closeness of family that they shared with us will be remembered far beyond this trip. Millie was having family withdrawal symptoms just a few hours after leaving.

Here are Ethan, Hayley and Taylor on the open railcar that we took between Tecumseh and Clinton, MI. .....

...and a special thanks to Lori and Don for letting us spend the night in your beautiful "campsite". We know your lawn will never be the same but we really appreciated your hospitality.

Michigan & Isle Royale National Park

Michigan has been beautiful and very enjoyable for us as we got through the busy Labor Day weekend and tried to get ourselves to Isle Royale National Park. Our first attempt on the park was from Minnesota since the island is closest to that shore. However, since we arrived so late in the season they had already discontinued their day trips out to the Park. Not to be denied, we headed off to Copper Harbor, MI for another try.

Stopped in MN and took a hike back to these falls. Note the upper fork of the river that disappears into a pothole.

Arrived in Copper Harbor and caught this sunrise view of some of the cabins round the little harbor. Our ferry to Isle Royale National park took 3 hours, each way, and was very rough. It was really surprising to us that a "lake" could get so rough but this is like no other lake in the world. Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world. It was amazing to be out of sight of land but still on a lake.

Isle Royale National Park is simply beautiful. It is a kayakers and hikers paradise. There are no roads and no vehicles (including bicycles) and lots of trails and camps. There are two packs of wolves and over 500 moose on the island. We walked some of the back trails for our three hour visit and then back to the boat. It was well worth the trip.

Our next stop was Pictured Rocks National Shoreline which is also best seen from the water. We were again on a boat ride, taking pictue after picture of beautiful formations. This one is called "Indian Head" for some reason.

Lots and lots of colors, caves and formations. It would have been fun to get a closer look at some of the formations in a kayak or canoe but then that sounds alot like work.

Our last stop in the upper pennisula of Michigan was to Palm Book State Park were we took a self powered raft (yes, another boat) out onto an absolutely crystal clear pond to observer the underwater formations formed by the 10,000 gallon per minute springs feeding the pond. Again, another beautiful spot that makes this country so wonderful to travel around.

Heading south along the western shore of Lake Huron and then on to Adrian, MI to visit Millie's brother and family.