and the visiting begins....

Today is Saturday...we arrived in Gloucester yesterday after spending 2 days with Stephen in Sturbridge..it was really hard to say goodbye to him- the only thing that made it easier is that he should be able to spend a couple of days with us in Gloucester. The ride here was uneventful and easy, unusual for a Friday in the summer. Usually the traffic would be a killer, but I guess when they are predicting hurricanes, people don't head to the beach....Go figure. Our first day here we spent cleaning, shopping, etc. and just walked to Wingaersheek beach, a mile or so down the street. Its sooooo awesome to be here where we can see so many friends/family, and be near the ocean. We can't wait to get the inflatable out on the water. Hopefully the weather will clear eventually. No actual hurricane here, but tons of rain and wind today. Gloucester is having a problem with the water- there is potentially bacteria in it, so everyone has to boil their water. We had water in our tank so we have been using that up, and haven't had to use the town water, but it won't last much longer. We really don't want to put that water through our pipes if we can avoid it. Hopefully they get the situation squared away soon. This afternoon, my brothers Rich and Ray, and my sister-in-law Dawn came over. We ate lunch here, then went bowling this afternoon. It was actually pretty fun, since most of us (except Rich, who bowls in a league) haven't bowled candlepin for years. We went to dinner at the Gloucester House, a well known restaurant, afterwards. Tomorrow more friends will be here. The next week or so will pretty much be visiting, although there is a schooner festival this coming weekend that should be interesting...

"travel days"

I have determined that "Travel days" are interesting and an adventure all by themselves. It takes us about an hour to "break camp" and get on the road. We are getting into a routine of who does what....By then its about 10-11 am. Usually it rains. Today it didn't for some reason. Paul is calm and confident behind the wheel, as usual, and I pretend to be calm, as usual. I have maps, the laptop, and guidebooks on my lap and I am trying to look at the road occasionally too. I have discovered that if I don't watch the road, we could inadvertently travel down one that says "no trucks". We have already discovered that that's not a good idea. You never know WHY they don't want trucks. It may be the road is narrow, or it could be that there are LOW BRIDGES....we didn't learn that the hard way, luckily, (we squeaked under the bridge) but you can bet that unless we are on at least a 2 lane highway, I am mostly watching the road. Today Dozer decided he didn't want to be in the truck. Usually he is good, and meows about once every 30 minutes or so, just so we know he is back there. If the road is bumpy he meows until its smooth again. New York has waaaaay too many bumpy roads... Today, though, he just plain didn't want to be in the truck and meowed for almost 2 hours straight. Eventually we stopped for lunch, he ate his piece of turkey, and then fell asleep when we got back on the road. We drove through the Catskill mountains in NY this morning. We really wanted to find a campground to stay in that had some hiking nearby, or access to a lake. We didn't find either. So we kept driving (we could have stayed at a Walmart, but um, there aren't any in the Catskills). We made one interesting turn. We thought it was one of the "Parking area"s that NY has along the highways so that people can stop and take a breather. they are like circular driveways- you can pull off the road, then just continue forward to get back on. We wanted to take a look at the map together, so we pulled into one to take a break. Well, it turned out we turned a bit early and landed in a small parking lot that had no second exit, and Paul had to make a tight 3-point turn (ok, 14 point turn) with the Everest behind us. That was an adventure all by itself. Soon after that he had to take us through a "roundabout" or rotary. He says that was nervewracking, but he looked calm the whole time, so I don't know. As the day wears on, we really need to find a place to stay, and nothing is popping up on the horizon. I am thumbing through the 2 books we have and watching the road signs. In the end, we found a regular campground outside the state park and just called it a day. The good news is we have Wi-Fi!! I really do miss a fast internet connection, but I really don't want to pay the ridiculous price to get it by satellite.... My biggest disappointment today is that we saw a lot of people having a great time tubing down a river. It would have been a blast if we could have found a nearby campground so we could drop the Everest off and go tubing.......... oh well.... The decision for tomorrow is....do we leave early and try to get to the Berkshires and hike there? or do we try to find a trail to walk here tomorrow and leave later in the day.....?

Watkins Glen, NY

Our last night at Allegheny National Forest was interesting... we had been watching a thunderstorm go by, lightning and all, and when it was over, decided to call it a night. Just as I was falling asleep, I saw headlights come our way. I watched it (it was a golf cart) go past us, then turn around and come back a few minutes later. it drove in behind us, and up to our door. By now I was a little tense and I woke Paul up. He scrambled out to see what was up (naturally it was torrentially down pouring). It turns out it was the ranger guy in charge of this area of the park. He told us there was a severe storm headed our way with strong winds and hail, and that there would be a severe thunderstorm warning all night. This is getting to be an every day occurrence!! We took in the awning which was about all we could do, since we had already packed up to leave in the morning. The storm came but it wasn't that bad. The trip to Watkins Glen was uneventful. Rainy, of course, but uneventful. This is a small, cute town, on Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes Region of NY. Our first day we walked around town, just to get a feel for the town. The following day we hiked in Watkins Glen State Park, through a gorge, with 19 waterfalls. THAT was a great time. The gorge is huge and awesome. When I can post pictures (slow Internet does not allow it!) I will, but they won't do it justice! The sign tells you in advance there are 800 steps to eventually reach the top, which is 1.5 miles away. The last bit is very steep indeed. There is a shuttle you can take, either up, or if you want, from the top down. We walked one trail up, and a different one down. The falls are great, and well worth the trip up there. On the way down we passed by a cemetery that had old gravestones as well as new ones. One of the pictures I took looking inside a crypt or whatever its called, came out really cool. I look forward to posting it. We spent yesterday afternoon relaxing and researching places to stay in ME near Acadia National Park. This morning we drove to several nearby waterfalls, but nothing was as fun and awesome as the gorge. This afternoon we put the dinghy in the water and started to explore Seneca Lake, which is 40 miles long and, at 600 ft deep, the deepest of the Finger Lakes. We anchored for a bit, close to shore and had to put out almost 100 ft of line on the anchor! Unfortunately we could see the storm approaching across the lake, and decided to be prudent and head back. The dinghy doesn't handle big waves too well... Tomorrow will be a boring day, since our plan is to drive as far as we can, headed to Boston. We have no reservations. Maybe it will be our first "Walmart" night? we'll see. I would love to come back to this area and explore it more when we have more time.

Sheffield PA

Well, the weather kinda hindered our plans a bit....we did hike, but we never got the dinghy in the water. With no access to outside info, we judged from the skies that the weather wasn't going to be great. it hasn't been bad yet, but apparently we are in the "red zone" for likely thunderstorms today, so just as well. its not like the lake is a touristy lake with lots of places to "duck in" if the weather turns bad. there is only one Marina that we can see, and its a long way off from where we are....The Forest is huge, and there don't seem to be many people here. There are tons of trails for hiking-we just picked a couple- so the hiking was great. My favorite part was when we got DEEP into the forest and Paul started calling out to the bears (we are in Black Bear territory)....I helped by calling "here kitty kitty" . Paul laughed, but really, isnt the idea to just make some noise? We are now in Sheffield PA, just outside the Forest, doing a ton of laundry. we leave in the AM for Lake Seneca, one of the Finger lakes in NY. We hope to stay there 3 days before heading to Boston. I'll probably write more tomorrow, once we are back into civilization. Its a little spooky being cut off from cell phone and internet, and TV.. Its like when you have a power outage and you say thats ok you'll just watch TV, listen to the stereo, etc etc..... I just keep thinking of things I will do that involve getting online!

Allegheny National Forest

Tues. August 18, 2009- Here we sit, in Allegheny National Forest, PA- no Wi-Fi, no cell phone signal, no TV- Nada….it feels great! Well, it feels great now….earlier today, not so great. We left Geneva, OH, late this morning. When we had the boat, we were used to traveling first thing in the morning (6-7 am), so I am not used to getting such a late start when we head out. Maybe we don’t have the rhythm yet…I also think my mind is in vacation mode, and I really don’t feel like getting up so early. Whatever. That will probably change with time. I don’t like leaving late- you feel like you lose the whole day- can’t do anything worthwhile in the AM, and then by the time you get to your destination, the day is pretty much gone. So, we left a little before noon, drove for an hour so, with the radio on. That awful noise you hear when they do the “test of the emergency broadcast system”? Well, we heard that on the radio. As I was listening, I was thinking, “don’t they usually say they are going to do a test?” Yeah, well, it wasn’t a test, of course. The broadcast was for a severe thunderstorm warning, including one severe storm, packing 60 MPH winds, traveling from blah blah PA, to blah blah PA - couldn’t quite make out all the town names, but we knew it was near, because we were in that county and could see the nastiness up ahead. Of course, the lap top wasn’t even on, so I got it going and pulled up weather.com to check out the radar. Long story short, we avoided the real nasty stuff but had TORRENTIAL downpours on and off all afternoon. Not a pleasant afternoon. We survived, the Everest survived, no issues. Actually the best lesson we learned today was to do a better job of planning what roads to take to get to our destination. The roads we plotted brought us up the side of a Mountainous hill, on a road labeled “narrow road next 5 miles”, rather than around it. During a torrential downpour, it was stress I could have done without! During all that fun stuff, it never dawned on me that we were now in the National Forest, until we stopped and I realized I already had no phone signal, etc. That’s no big deal, except I never called Jess to tell her we wouldn’t be reachable for potentially 3 days. After setting up, we went for a walk and actually found a pay phone. I called her to tell her, so now its all good. We are sitting here listening to Judy Collins, writing and reading. Tomorrow we hope to do a 6 mile hike and then get the dinghy in the water….

First Stop- Geneva State Park, OH

Ok Kirk, this is for you... Our first stop on the way from MI to Boston is a small state park in OH, on Lake Erie. The trip here was uneventful, which was great, for our first day out. We did stop at Cabelas to get me hiking boots, with no success. We'll have to wait till we get to an REI somewhere. This is a small park, nice, I guess, for a vacation with kids. There is a free beach, which I was desperate to get to....I haven't been out in the sun all summer, and this is the palest I have ever looked. When we got here yesterday we took a long-3 mile walk around to see the water, marina, etc. We wanted to go hiking but found out there really isn't much hiking around here. we did walk through the woods, sort of like hiking ( more like a conditioning walk, I guess) for a few miles this morning. The closest thing we saw to wildlife were deer tracks. Seriously, no birds, no squirrels, nothing. Its been pretty hot out there the last few days- low 90s. we came back for lunch, then hit the beach for an hour or so...we would have loved to take the dinghy out, but it isn't worth it for one afternoon. tonight we need to make some plans for where we will stay after Allegheny Natl Forest. We have a couple of free days before we meet up with Stephen (Yay!!) in MA. We have also been trying to decide what to do at Christmas time...we originally were planning on spending a whole month in San Diego, but Jess says she would like to head up the coast to see Paul's friends with us, so now we may plan to do that while she is with us... Tomorrow its off to Allegheny National Forest in PA.