Sleepy Hollow Lake, Akron NY

As we finish up our week on the road, we drove halfway back and stopped for the evening in Sleepy Hollow Lake RV Resort in Akron, NY just outside of Buffalo. This is a pretty nice resort, with lots of RVs, but not many occupants on this Wednesday evening. Nice lake with paddle boats, decent showers and very reasonable tariff. Just a short hop off of I90 to boot.

With the evening temperature dropping into the 40s, the few campers here are the hearty variety.

Word of caution about the showers. There is a big propane tank outside the shower house. My shower ran cold far a couple of minutes, then warmed up nicely but for only about a minute and a half. Then it was icy. A mite hard to explain, but its possible I was the lucky one to tap out the gas bottle. Might be best to ask about the hot water status in advance.

Webster Sturbridge Family Campground, MA

There are few campgrounds left in this area of expensive real estate and mountainous terrain. As a result the approval standards to assess a sites quality and friendliness have deteriorated. Nonetheless, there are some basic standards of cleanliness that ought to be observed.

Sadly this not true in this case here. No cleaning had gone on in either the bathrooms, or  the assigned site itself for many a moon. As for the office/store the mildew is on the verge of victory. The AAA endorsement, is meaningless in this case. State parks are generally much cleaner than this campground.

Drive on unless you are desperate to stop.

http://www.webstercamp.com/

Jellystone RV Park, Natural Bridge VA

Gravel roads, take me home... Virginia on $56 per night. But you do get the use of the pool and putt putt. The plumbing is newer, but some are obviously smoked in. Occupancy is about as low as the pricing would suggest.

Probably a decent place to drop a pack of kids for the week, but I would guess that most would soon bore themselves up to the next level of demands. The visit from Yogi was a very nice touch.

Overall not so enthusiastic from my 67 year-old standpoint.

http://www.campnbr.com/

Baileyton RV Park, TN

A delightful quiet little park off I81 in northeast Tennessee. Driving range, fishing pond, extensive picnic grounds, immaculate showers and restrooms. Crushed stone roads and drives, are the only negatives we could find. A perfect after-dinner stop on our way further northeast.

http://www.baileytonrvpark.com/

Cumberland Falls St Pk KY

Turning West off of I75, we filled up in Corbin, only $3.30 per gallon. That was a refreshing 35 cents lower than what we were used to. On to Cumberland Falls, about 15 more miles of very hilly forest road. Quite a few spots available for the first weekend in June, I'd say. Many spots to rent horses and canoes for the adventurous. Very lucky to have an extension cord of 30 amps to reach the outlet on the wrong side of the site.



The major highlight is the weather. We thought it important to get South out from under the rain clouds, and were rewarded with a splendid mix of high puffy clouds, sun and 72 degrees. About as perfect as anyone needs. Kicking back for the rest of the day...


Cumberland Falls State Park, Kentucky

Ms Garmina Gets Glamorous

One of the inter-trip rituals, is downloading new maps for the Garmin Nuvi 200 that we use to find our way. That process can be very frustrating unless you remember to switch your browser to Internet Explorer. My favorite browser is now Google Chrome, but using that one lets you do a three-hour download that seems to be unable to run. Unfortunately, there is no prior warning about this requirement on the Garmin site.

I finally got the new maps loaded onto Ms Garmina and then noticed that there was a new program which could also be loaded, so of course, I did that. Then I noticed that there was an "Extras" choice on the menu screen that was available for user-content. After digging around a little on the net, I found a site which has numerous point of  interest files available for such things as campgrounds, museums and photography. This is a real gem for travelers like us. The site is POI Factory -- pretty amazing. Before I knew it, I had downloaded a couple of dozen files with 6,500 points of interest into that little GPS. I don't think there is any way to tell how much space is left -- snooping while attached to the computer shows no storage at all. Must be magic. Anyhow, the new availability of things like seaside campgrounds in the Southeast should be very useful.

Paul B Johnson St Pk, Mississippi

Morty is finally camping in Mississippi, as we are crossing it the long way this time. We are heading more North than East; a little South of Hattiesburg in a lake-centric park named after Paul B Johnson. The senior rate is $14 for full hookups, but the sites themselves are crammed so close together  we might as well be in the ghetto. We do have a fair view of the lake, but it is a big hike around the end to the nearest restroom. No WiFi and the weather is dreary, threatening rain. The maintenance workers are wearing wide striped green and white prison pants -- must be the latest fashion thing. At least the cell is coming in strong. We had a long 290 mile driving day, so I'm a little tired, maybe it will look better in the morning.

We were initially assigned to pull-thru site 95 but after one trip to the restroom we requested a transfer to site 1. This is a much prettier wooded locale with no adjacent sites for 360 degree views. My strong advice would be to avoid the pull-thru area, unless you think you really need one. Now things are looking better already.

Galveston Island State Park, TX

When you look at the website for Galveston Island State Park you might be put off by the update which says "no showers and only portable restrooms". They are very slow in recovering from Hurricane Ike and even slower in publishing their progress. The fact of the matter is that the bayside restrooms, though only two in number, are fully plumbed and electrified and even air conditioned. You could move or remove them, but they are not what "portable" brings to mind. There are at this time two shower/restroom buildings on the beach side, which are nearly identical to those at Goose Island. There are some limitations in that there is a pretty good hike from the RV Bayside camping area to the restrooms which are in the tent camping area, but it is not a major factor. The other limitation is that the Beachside areas are still not electrified, although the hardware to do that appears to be in place. Also of the three beach loops, only two have restroom/shower buildings. There is even a strong WiFi signal at the headquarters building.



We camped on the bay and used the electrical hookup on Friday. After breakfast on Saturday morning, we rolled Morty to the beach side to walk the beach and enjoy the beautiful day. We will be showering before returning to the bay.

Las Cruces, New Mexico

Morty turned in a 228 mile day today because Deming, NM was a little too close and Las Cruces was a little more than just right. But we are glad to be here. "Here" is the "gold standard" of RV parks -- Hacienda RV & Rally Resort. We picked this one from the AAA Campbook, even though it was a little more expensive than the competition -- it did mention a continental breakfast -- something we haven't experienced before in our Morty World.

We check in and a trio of blondes whisks us through the paper work, and we get warm cookies. We are issued hotel-style card keys for the facilities. Then two of them hop into a golf cart and guide us to our site, including the backing in and hooking up -- something else entirely new.  We look at the cable TV line-up and see that they have an incredible 120 channels. We check the WiFi and find that it works perfectly and is fast too. We walk back to the office and take seats in the guest lobby to peruse some of the local color brochures. I try the hot-tub and find it clean, hot and big. We peek into the showers and find an array of home-style individual shower rooms with marble and pewter sinks and hair dryers. The restrooms have soap and paper towels. This they are doing for $40 per night. Far, far beyond the realm of any prior RV experience. Just to prove that I haven't completely lost my sensibilities over this place, I must point out that their sign on the building, is a temporary canvas affair that is totally out of place, and the I-10 freeway is close enough to be seen and heard. If you are here in the Summer, the daily rate drops to $30.

Desert Boondocking

Welcome to California desert spring camping -- where all the folks come to enjoy the early desert wildflowers! The desert is more beautiful than I ever imagined, and lots of other campers are thinking that too. For the first time in longer than I can remember, Morty is being squeezed out of a site by prior reservations and the entire hook-up area is full at Anza-Borrego. That means we will have to move to a dry camping, no-hook-ups area, or as RVers say, boondocking. So we topped off our water tank to just over two-thirds full, checked the generator for oil, and will move at check-out time of noon.



Speaking of the generator, we got a phone call from Marvin who sold Morty to us. He had found a DVD describing the care and maintenance of the generator and wanted to give it to us. Boy, was he surprised when we told him we were talking from the middle of the California desert, sitting in the our RV. He thought it sounded like we were right next-door.  He was also curious about whether we had been to Alamogordo, New Mexico where he served in the Air Force in 1948! So we told him how to find our blog to see how his old RV was making out as the new Mortimer Turtle.

Some of these pictures show the first time use of the close-up function of the Canon S90 -- pretty good for just walking and biking around. By the way, the boondocking area still has restrooms and showers and I'm hoping that it is WiFi range.

Needles, California

Today, Morty and Ms Garmina did not get their acts together. It started with reading another blog that mentioned a Wal-Mart near our next destination, Parker, AZ. We needed to do some grocery shopping, so I figured that all I had to do was enter Parker as our destination, and the closest Wal-Mart as a way point. That however, took us to Needles, California, some 60 more miles North, where we still didn't find the Wal-Mart.  Not a very happy driving day. So we shopped at a local chain Basha, and then picked the Needles Marina Park to camp for the night. The Basha was successful in that it had everything on our list at reasonable prices, and something that has consistently been out of stock at all the Wal-Marts we have been to lately: red wine in a box.



At the marina we found a nice heated pool that would allow me to swim my half-mile. Also got in a little neighborhood bike riding along the residential communities that line the Colorado River.  The other amenities were fine too, but the price was $31 after the AAA discount.

Goose Island Wildlife

Some photos of: the back bay during morning feeding, turtles sunning, the Whooping Crane pair a little further off, and the Big Tree -- over 1000 years old.



Some other features of this park: near perfection in rest rooms and showers, great biking, sunsets. We have extended our stay through Tuesday.

Brazos Bend State Park, Texas

Before we left Louisiana this morning, I gave the park WiFi one more chance. It caused warnings that its security certificates were not acceptable, but I forged ahead determined not to do anything sensitive. This time I got a familiar page that I had seen before in gathering park information so I nearly ignored it as useless, but then I saw that there was a little new area with a blurb and button to accept the parks access conditions which I clicked. The speed and access was amazing -- too bad that their security certificates aren’t current or up to regular Internet standards. So there is another [at least partial] plus to our top ratings for Louisiana State Parks.

Brazos Bend State Park is about 20 miles southwest of Houston and about 185 miles southwest of Lake Charles. So Morty did a great job getting us here through a few showers and lots of road grime – he was covered in it. My first order of business was giving him a thorough scrubbing so he is looking a lot better now. I tried to use a plastic nozzle that I had used a couple of times before, but today, it seemed all stretched out and unable to stay on with moderate water pressure. There’s $2 and change down the drain. I’d return it to Meijer except that I’ll probably have forgotten about it before we get back into their Midwest market.



We somehow lost our drainpipe cap. So that will have to go on our list for the next Wal-Mart stop. On yesterday’s stop we picked up a 9 x 12 foot patio carpet for those sandy sites to help keep the interior a little cleaner. It is supposed to be available in a variety of colors besides only the tan and white that we have been able to find. We finally discovered how much we do like the tan and white combination. We also have an annoying rattle in the roof area that is coincident with speed. Looked at the TV antenna wiring and the surrounding area on top of Morty, but could not find any likely suspects.

In looking at the web site to plan this stop, we noticed that Brazos Bend is on Texas route FM something or other. When we got here we finally figured out from the road signs the FM stands for FarM Road. That may be a little misleading to those of us from smaller states because here it means a wide smooth concrete paved highway that just happens to be in farm country. In taking Route 8 around Houston, we encountered 3 tollbooths needing a total of $5 -- just sayin’. Texas parks have a $3 daily charge per person [over 65] or a $65 annual pass on top of the $20 camping fee. That makes the break-even point 11 nights of camping. That seems like a lot for our current schedule, so we will defer getting the pass for now. Other Brazos/Texas details: only about 5% full, excellent back-in sites – many triple-wide, 30 amp power, water, very friendly rangers, large rambling park grounds, camping sites are relatively few for such a large park, no-license required for park fishing more than 25 TV channels in English and probably more than 15 in Spanish.

We are getting warm scattered rain showers here at Brazos, so we left the bikes in the garage and walked to the park’s Nature Center -- very nice display of the park’s wild life. Afternoon temperature today was 69. We learned that alligators don’t hibernate in the winter. They just move to the bottom of the lake and surface for a breath only once in as much as 10 or 12 hours. Their summer breathing when submerged is more like once every 5 or 6 minutes. If I had web access right now, I would verify those numbers for you.

Small observation: in Ohio big car dealers and such who want to stand out fly huge American Flags. They do in Texas too, just that it’s the Lone Star flag. It seems like we have seen about 20 times more Texas flags today than American – just sayin’.

Oak Grove Park

RV Genie Pays a Visit to Mortimer! Overnight the furnace repaired itself and was working fine to take the chill off for breakfast. We're glad it doesn't need immediate repairs, but wonder how strange it would be if our furnace had some aversion to the cold.

The Oak Grove Park campground we are in is different from all others we have experienced to date. It is restricted to the military and sponsored guests. It is small -- only 45 sites on a mile and a half of beachfront. The bathhouse is nicer than any we have ever experienced -- finished in ceramic tile and impervious plastic, heated and probably air conditioned, and clean -- twice a day clean; hospital clean! Although the camp is full, it is quieter than you could ever expect. The coin laundry room is locked -- you must sign out a key from the office. Another restriction we have never before seen: No metal detectors allowed. We are happy campers -- but quiet and unobrusive guests.

Indian Lake, MI

We are spending a day relaxng and enjoying the perfect weather, or doing laundry, depending on your point of view.

It's pretty interesting to see the stream of campers coming in to give this lady a big end of season boost -- all due to the construction in the state park across the lake.

We also enjoyed the Wi-Fi to get the old emails into the blog. Also turned out to be a fairly active day of trading stocks and options with just eight days to go until the expiration of the September contracts. Was glad to have the fast data connection for that, it would have made me crazy trying to do it all over the cell phone.

Tomorrow, we head for Van Riper state park, about 90 miles to the northwest. When I looked on-line, it said all but two sites were already reserved, so I paid the crummy reservation fee again, and repeated it for the next night at McClain on Lake Superior.

At least, we will be all fresh and clean now.

Orchard Beach State Park, Michigan

Relentless in his determination to make it to the UP, Morty went further north on Thursday, September 3, 2009 to Orchard Beach. We could have stayed longer in Muskegon, but now have an impromptu mini-class reunion date in Painesville OH on the 24th, so excessive dallying is now not on the program.

Lynne made breakfast, and generally got us ready to clean up and hit the road. This process exposed some peaches with bad spots that were just purchased yesterday.

And that was all it took to put out a general quarters alert to all the fruit flies in two and half counties. We promptly disposed of all suspect fruit at the sanitation station on the way out of the park, but that still left about three dozen or so fruit flies who now thought of the bathroom as their weekend get-away. We tried opening the bedroom window as we drove to encourage them to look elsewhere.

As the anxiety over the propane indicators grew, we finally passed a dealer who was open and pulled in. A couple of ladies in the office, said that there was no one there to work the equipment - all the men were out training - but another dealer was just a couple of miles up the road. So we found the second dealer, with even more office personnel holding down the fort. Here there was also an operator, but he was occupied in selling a furnace to an extended family that all seemed to be present and mightily involved in the buying decision. So it was nearly a half hour wait for that sale to be completed. I busied my self with a damp dishrag mass extermination of fruit flies that had set up housekeeping in our little bathroom. The little buggers were inordinately drawn to the plastic mirrors, and that made the process pretty easy. In any event, the flies were mostly dispatched by the time the propane pumper was ready to pump. Our six-gallon tank, that was indicating both 3/8 and 2/3 full on the exterior and interior meters respectively, took 3.9 gallons. That leaves 2.1 gallons left in the tank. This means that the accuracy award goes to the exterior indicator since 2.1/.375=5.6 while 2.1/.66=3.2!

Before the propane anxiety could recede adequately, reservation anxiety was taking center stage. The new campground had space available for only one night. So we picked a spot, and settled in, then promptly got online to find a site for the beginning of the holiday weekend. Must avoid the disgrace of camping in the Wal-Mart for the holiday. Our first choice, Traverse City, was full, so we tried Interlochen.  Success, we had to book two nights, and pay a slightly exorbitant reservation fee of $8, but that job also got done. So now it's fairly certain that we will be at that park on Friday and Saturday evenings.

Cell phone service here comes and goes, so there is some question about when we can post this update. At least we are not stranded here, not that there's any thing wrong with that. Today's beach walk was awesome; it was down about four stories of extremely steep stairs from our campsite.  The sand was brown and rough, with extremely many pebbles to keep your feet on their feet. The pictures are fairly accurate. The water was mostly very clear, certainly not what you expect of a lake in which the water comes, and doesn't leave for over 100 years.

Turns out the fruit fly campaign was less successful that initially thought. Lynne, though came up with the ingenious solution of using the handi-vac to suck them up to release on the outside. Now we are making real progress...