The truck was packed. The trailer was packed. The cooler and frig were packed. Carl backed up the truck and after a few tries he connected perfectly with the trailer. The antenna caught on the tree tops as we went to pull out of the driveway. Carl had to get out, lift the antenna, move the tree branch, lower the antenna and try again. Success this time, we were on our way. We had discovered earlier that the TV instructions were in Korean, obviously just a foreign language to us. Carl finally got the language changed after some tinkering.
Odessa en route was our first stop. We used the facilities there but ate our lunch that we brought at our table in the trailer. I was even able to heat up some water to make a tea that I sipped on for the rest of the afternoon.
We arrived at the Kinek building in Massenna, NY just at 4 o'clock. Unfortunately, it closed at three o'clock so, it was time to reevaluate. Luckily, fate was with us in the form of a Walmart across the street. I checked with them and they have no problem with RVer's using their parking lot overnight. This was we can grab our stuff in the morning and carry on to New Hampshire.
The Walmart is huge, open 24 hours and carries a massive assortment of stuff. My best discovery was a rotisserie chicken for $4.99. The chicken, corn on the cob and leaf lettuce made us a great dinner. After a visit to Home Depot, we passed the remaining hours of our day on our devices; me reading and Carl listening to podcasts.
MONDAY, JUNE 8
We slept pretty well. My CPAP machine made it through the night until 6:30am before it lost partial power and started beeping at me. I found the mattress a bit hard but I will likely get used to it. It was raining pretty heavily when we woke up so we put everything away, pulled up stakes, went to Kinek and then to McDonald's for breakfast.
After my usual Egg White Delight McMuffin at McDonald's we set off for part two of our journey to Cannon Mountain RV Park.
The GPS sent us in a direction with a bridge that was closed and this goof cost us over an hour. Back we went to McDonald's to verify the driving directions with Google. It should be noted that as we started out on this route I stated that" I didn't feel good about this route."
It gets better! On the drive through New York we were stopped twice by state troopers looking for two escaped cons. They had both killed people and the state troopers felt they might be headed for Canada.
The hits kept coming! We stopped at McDonald's for a pee and upon returning to the truck we noticed that one of our hoses had come loose and escaped somewhere into the wild. I guess we will have to buy another one somewhere.
Somewhere turned out to be an RV dealer just as we entered Vermont. Here a new sewer hose was acquired.
St Albans provided us with a decent chinese food lunch.
We were driving along about 1 1/2 hours from the campground and the tire pressure light went on. The front right tire was very low. We drove a few more miles to Morrisville and stopped at a collision repair shop. It turned out to be a hole in the sidewall; the tire was toast. The gentlemen here helped us out by using his air gun to take the old tire off and put the spare one on. After checking the tire pressure, we hooked up the trailer and were off again. We were very lucky that the tire did not blow out on us.
Twenty miles on we got stuck behind a school bus but it wasn't for too long. When we got to Franconia we were not sure where the RV park was located and just as we were trying to figure out what to do, there it was. It took about 1/2 hour to back up the trailer, level it, connect the sewer, hook up the water and electrcity (all done by Carl with me looking on).
Dinner was chili from at home with corn and a salad. All was delish.The weather is quite cool and windy but the furnace is keeping us toasty warm inside. We even have some TV stations including METV which was showing Gilligan's Island and Hogans Heroes. Some original Star Trek helped pass the time this evening.
TUESDAY, JUNE 9It was still drizzling when we woke up so we spent a leisurely few hours showering, reading and eating breakfast. After my shower, the grey water holding tank was full so Carl had to go outside to drain it.
Around 10, we drove to Franconia to talk to the tourism people (actually 1 person in a booth). Here, we took advantage of her wifi and the agent's knowledge of the area.
It was decided that Littleon would be our destination today since there are some box stores, grocery stores and even a movie theatre in town.
Driving the 8 miles to Littleton went very quickly and we were able to find the Walmart, Shaw's (groceries) and downtown. At Walmart we found a great little table and 2 chairs that should work well for the trailer but more importantly, we found a wine called "Oak Leaf" for $4.00 a bottle. My friend, Lynne-Marie had told me about this wine as she was drinking it when in Florida. At Shaw's we picked up a few vegies and then we headed back downtown to grab some lunch. Isn't it always the way that after you've just eaten, you find someplace else that looks a lot neater; crap! I guess we will have to come back to experience the Schilling Brewery & Tap House where Carl sampled a flight of beers.
We stayed in town until later so we could catch a movie at the theatre downtown.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10
Wednesday turned out to be a mostly sunny, partly cloudy day and we decided to explore the sights closest to us.
Franconia Notch Basin was our first stop.The Basin is a large granite pothole that was created by a glacier more than 15,000 years ago.
The Flume Gorge and Gilman Visitor Center were the next stop. The visitor center has a free 20 minute video about the area and then you buy tickets for a two mile self guided nature walk with waterfalls, vistas and covered bridges.
It was a short ride back to our trailer where we used our new bbq to make burgers for lunch. I was missing my vegetables so it was served with a side order of coloured peppers with french onion dip.
The ticket we bought this morning was a combo with the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway so we drove over there after lunch.
In the evening we drove to back to Littleton and had dinner at 99 (a restaurant and sports bar). Carl wanted to watch the hockey game so we stayed here until the end of the second period and then went back to our trailer.
THURSDAY, JUNE 11
What a gorgeous day! Todays agenda started with a scenic drive along the Kancamagus Highway. This area has lots of mountain vistas that can be seen from scenic outlooks.
When we reached North Conway, we went first to the outlet stores. I picked up a few clothing items at Eddie Bauer and a new pair of walking shoes at New Balance.
For lunch, we boarded the Conway Scenic Railroad train to tour the area up to Bartlett. The tour included a 3 course lunch which consisited of soup, a chicken caesar for me and a roast beef BLT for Carl followed by a strawberry shortcake. The tour took 2 hours.
Earlier I did not have time to go into the Timberland outlet so we drove back there. It was disappointing as there were only 2 styles of hiking boots and, they were not really a bargain.
We left North Conway going an alternative route back the trailer so that we could see a little more of the area. In Bretton Woods, we decided to stop in at the Omni Mount Washington Hotel. Wow, what a place. The view is incredible but I guess it should be, for what they charge to stay there. We walked through and pretended to belong for about 10 minutes.
It was home made food for dinner; a chicken stir fry that was delicious.
Above is a picture of our camping site.
FRIDAY, JUNE 12
Today we started off in Franconia at the Chamber of Commerce mooching their free wife to download the newspaper, update my blog and check our email.
From here it was a short drive to the Iron Furnace Interpretive Center. This park is on the Gale River and features historical exhibits centered on Franconia's early iron history. Remains of the original stone stack across the river can be viewed from the park.
A scenic drive through the rural roads and small towns kept us busy until late afternoon. In Bath, we saw and drove through a covered bridge. That was quite cool.
On the way back to the trailer, we spotted a field of lupines (flowers) which were blooming and very pretty.
SATURDAY, JUNE 13
Yay! Down time. We are not doing much today, sitting at the picnic table reading and resting.
After lunch we did drive into Franconia to catch up on wifi, load the newspaper and visit the grocery store.
We are now in preparation mode to go home since we leave Sunday morning.
SUNDAY, JUNE 14
We were up early and left the campsite at 8:30 am. This time we did not get stopped along the way by police looking for the two fugitives and we arrived at the Walmart in Messena around 4. I had time to do a little shopping and look around the store. We also returned our plastic bottles and got the deposit back. We went back for another one of those delicious rotissere chickens we got last Sunday and had a great dinner. I could hear the rain falling gently on the trailer overnight.
MONDAY, JUNE 15
We woke up crazy early, packed stuff away and moved out. McDonald's was our breakfast stop and then we headed home. We got home around 1pm but it took a while to empty the trailer and clean it up. Since we had been away for a week, the frig was completely empty so I had to do grocery shopping for dinner and some food for Adrian's work lunches. He is now working at Yonge and Eglinton, a very inconvenient place to get to.
Carl cleaned out the back of the truck and towed the trailer back to the storage place. I am looking forward to settling down for a bit but it is going to be a busy week. Jennifer has her surgery on Wednesday morning and I will be accompanying her and staying with her.
People ask me "How was the trailer?" There are good and bad points. It is certainly nice to have all your stuff with you and sleep in your own bed but it does come with a bit of work (most of which Carl did). It seems to be a good way to get around and see stuff and meet people. We got some good advice from someone we met at the campsite. This was just a short trip to "get our feet wet", so to speak and, mission accomplished.
