A Relaxing Week

Denny and I spent last week at a member campground in Long Neck, Delaware and we were able to snag a site with a view of the Guinea Creek, located right across from our rig. The resort is divided into three sections; permanent manufactured homes, seasonal trailer/park model sites and the campground section. Strangely enough, the campground section has the best view of the water. Members can rent a boat dock on an annual basis and there were easily 50 pontoon boats docked along the creek during our stay. Folks would meander down the creek for an evening ride or to pick up their crab pots from further out towards Rehoboth Bay.
Standing at the marina looking towards the campground section of the resort.
If I had been equipped with a piece of string and a chicken neck, I might have been able to tempt this blue crab off his perch on the boat dock piling and into my cookpot for dinner!While we spent many an hour simply sitting and watching the world (and pontoon boats) go by, we did take one day to drive into the town of Rehoboth Beach, which is lined with shop after shop of this, that and the other and there were a lot of tourists wandering the sidewalks and crossing the narrows streets with impunity (or stupidity.) Since neither Denny nor I are shoppers, especially not having any extra room for gewgaws in our tin can on wheels, we headed south on Rt. 1 to find a place where we could wander the beach and search for sea glass. The first public beach we found was at Dewey Beach State Park, where for a fee of $8 for out of state transients one could walk the beach. The gatekeeper allowed us in free of charge since we arrived close to the time that they close up the gate house, which we appreciated since we were only going to spend a short time wandering the beach. But before we walked to the beach we were intrigued by the two tall concrete towers located just off the beach.

According to the placard at the base of the closest tower, in the early 1940s there was a line of eleven of these towers built along the Delaware and New Jersey coast lines to watch for German submarines. During the war the submarines were shooting down an average of one U.S. ship a week, including a destroyer off the Delaware coast which caused the loss of 100 American sailors. The towers were simply to watch for any enemy boats and then triangulate the ship's location between the towers so the nearby artillery locations could be advised where to shoot. The towers were simply for observation and contained nothing but an inner stairway; no heat, no weaponry, just slits for windows to look out. It's finding these kinds of things that make our travels so interesting and so educational.

Denny and I did get our round of golf, so we are able to check off Delaware from our goal of playing golf in all 50 states. We're down to Maryland and Oklahoma. I still can't believe we didn't play golf while we were in Oklahoma City, but according to Denny's records we missed the boat on that one. The rest of the week was spent with piddling little chores, chatting with the neighbors, walking Patches and watching the wildlife, including the ever growing fairy ring of mushrooms in our yard.

Early morning and dusk weren't bad, either.We learned that there isn't any sales tax on food here and that the sales tax on new purchases such as cars, boats and houses is very low. There might even be an exemption on the state income tax for our pensions since they are through a government agency. Combined with the proximity to beaches and the serenity of the resort, we might add this area to our "places we could live" list. Because those folks riding in those pontoon boats sure looked relaxed and happy going down the crick.

Flash Floods, Food and Factories

Our week in photos:

We had to try a Whoopie Pie, made here in Lancaster, PA.

We drove through Bird-in-Hand, Blue Ball, stopped at Intercourse and didn't make it to Paradise--all here in Pennsylvania, of course.

Thanks to inattentive drivers, Amish horse and buggies are now equipped with flashing red lights and rear view mirrors.  And still people and  horses are killed when drivers in automobiles don't yield to them.

Our first stop was at the Intercourse Canning Factory.  There is a viewing area of the canning line and a large storefront where they sell salsas, jams, chow chow, saurkraut, pickled EVERYTHING and souvenirs.

The store was canning pickled eggs today.  I asked two different employees how many eggs they pickled in a day's work and neither one could tell me.  I guess they just worked there.

Next up and right across the street was the Intercourse Pretzel Factory.  There was no one actually making pretzels that day so one of the employees simply explained the process to us.  Then we were given the opportunity to make a pretzel by hand, as that's how it's done here.

You cross one end over the other and then cross it again.

Then you grab each end and fold them down to the other side and voila', you have a pretzel.

Of course, the pretzel makers here at the factory use the spin and twist-in-the-air method, which we all tried.  This is my dismal attempt.  It's definitely not as easy as it looks.

All that work made us hungry, so upon the advice of Don and Vicki, we headed to the Shady Maple Smorgasbord in East Earl, PA.  As did every other senior citizen in the county.

Denny really isn't in pain, despite his appearance.  And this is but a small segment of the several buffet lines that make up the vast eatery that is Shady Maple.

Last night we heard sirens which I thought were tornado sirens but there were no alerts on the weather radio so perhaps it was flood warnings because all the rivers and creeks here are reaching flood stage quickly.  I'm hoping we have no trouble getting out of here when we leave tomorrow for the state of Delaware. 

This is a beautiful area and in addition to eating a lot of fat food (there is also a small shoo-fly pie in our refrigerator) we have been gorging ourselves on the local peaches, green peppers, tomatoes, apples and sweet corn.  The farms here are lovely as is the countryside.  It is fun to drive the back roads looking at the farms and watching the hard working Amish and Mennonite families harvest their crops with their huge Belgians and big mules.  Farm stands offer fruit and vegetables unmanned, relying upon the honor system of payment.  It is a step back into the past here, and a most welcome one.  I could live here.

Today We're the Windshield

Usually in our relationship with The Beast, Denny and I are the bugs but today we were the windshield.  And that feels good!

For well over a year, I've had problems with the microwave going black on me when we move to a new campground or if I grab a bottle of vitamins from the cabinet where its electric cord plugs into the outlet.  Denny has insisted that the prongs of the power cord need to be spread as the cord is simply falling out of the plug because it is loose.  I've tried that; no it isn't.  Since we were planning a trip to one of the big box hardware stores this morning Denny said we'd look for some type of adapter to make the plug fit better.  Hmph.

As his wife of many, many years I have discovered that the best way to get Denny to check something/fix something is to START TO FIX IT MYSELF!  Because *gasp*!  That is something a manly man does!  Therefore, right after breakfast I proceeded to empty out the cupboard after turning off the circuit breaker to the microwave (daddy didn't raise no dummy) and thence to pry off the cover to the electrical outlet and look closely where I found...a melted section on one leg of the outlet.  Yup, more collateral damage from the big power-surge-that-was-really-a-malfunctioning-power-cord (I'm talking to YOU Heartland RV factory!) While Denny took over the removal of the electrical outlet and took it apart to see what type of electrical expertise it would take to install a new one, I plopped my rear end down at the computer to find a new part.

This is where the happy dance begins.  Calling the only RV dealer in town I find they have one fixture that they believe is what I need, although they have a different electrical outlet that they think would work if the first option wasn't right.  And this place is only five miles away.  And it causes us to pass an apple orchard where they have fresh apple cider.  And whoopie pies.  And freshly picked peaches.  And the part turns out to be inexpensive.  And we find what we need at the big box hardware store, cheaper than we've found elsewhere.  And we take all of our pieces parts home and they all go where they are supposed to go and the microwave works and Denny didn't get zapped by any stray electrical current.  And so we aren't the bugs today.  Yay! 

P.S. And yes, all those "ands" were intentional. Lighten up.

Marriage Saving--There's An App For That!

Seriously, there is an app for that; it's called DishPointer.  And it only costs $9.99!  For those on the road who use satellites to receive either a TV or Internet signal, DishPointer is this wonderful little app that lists all of the signal receiving satellites in the sky.  You choose what satellites you need to hone in on, which in our case would be satellites 83, 110, 119 and 129 (one for the Internet and three for DISH TV service with HD.)  Using the internal GPS of a smart phone and the camera option, you simply choose your campsite and if it is surrounded by tall trees you hold up your cell phone with the app running and a dotted red line that indicates each individual satellite you have chosen will show up on the camera screen which will show you whether or not the trees are blocking the satellite signal.  Believe me, in our household, this is a marriage saver!!!


While the program is pretty basic, just having a rough idea of whether or not the line of trees would block our signal path would allow us to know if we should pick that particular campsite.  It will also show us which direction the line of sight to the satellite is so that we know about where we'd have to set up the satellite dish tripods to receive a good signal.  This would also work fairly well for those with roof top mounted satellite dishes, especially here on the East Coast where very tall pine trees are common.

What you are seeing in the photograph above is that from where I was standing I could set up our Internet receiving satellite dish (satellite 83) because there is clear sky around the satellite. We could NOT receive the signals for our DISH TV satellites as they are below the tree line. However, from a different location on our site we are able to get a clear, straight shot to those particular satellites.  As you move the smart phone, the screen moves also, following the satellites path.  Once we are set up, I have taken the phone and walked around in other areas of our campgrounds to see what campsites would have a clear line of sight to the satellites in case of future visits and then mark those sites on the campground maps that we are given upon our arrival at the campground.

I do not have any relationship to this company, nor am I being paid for my recommendation--I just really like this little app and have to thank Bob and Brooke for showing me how it works on their iPad (and boy, wouldn't I like to have one of those little toys, too!)

A Crazy Couple of Days

There is no photo today, unless you want to picture us frustrated and irritated. Denny and I had left our campground in New Jersey three days early to avoid the hurricane, settling in at a campground in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Ron and Nancy also moved to the same campground and we went out to dinner at a local Amish buffet, stuffing ourselves and spending a good evening chatting. The next morning we ran into each other again at a farmer's market, Denny and I returning from a shopping trip and Ron and Nancy just starting out on one.

Around 1:30PM there was a knock on our door which turned out to be a campground employee notifying us that a decision had been made to close the campground due to the upcoming hurricane. They were closing the campground at 4PM, turning off the electrical power at that time. "Are you going to leave?", he asked. Well yeah, because we have no generator to create our own electricity! Denny went outside to start taking down our satellite dishes and put things away while I scurried to find a campground. I made arrangements at one campground about 200 miles away and then I called Nancy because I didn't see their car at their campsite and I wanted to warn her that they needed to pack up and leave. When Nancy answered I could tell that something was wrong; it turns out she was at the hospital with Ron who had exhibited signs of a heart attack and so he was being checked out. I hated to add to her worries, but told her about the campground closing. I explained that she could stay at the campground since their rig has a generator and leaving wasn't mandatory, so she didn't need to worry about that immediately since she had greater concerns with Ron.

Denny and I finished packing up and headed out. We got about two four miles from our campground when it hit me that the campground I had called to make reservations at was the one where we had blown our transmission out about four years ago due to the steep interior roads. Crap!!! Thank goodness for smart phones, as I have a campground directory app and was able to locate a campground in Gettysburg that was staying open and had spaces available, so we went there instead. It is a lot closer so we arrived before the rains became too heavy, plus it will be easier to return to Lancaster to finish out our stay over the Labor Day weekend if that campground reopens in time (most campgrounds are already booked for the holiday.)

Right now I'm listening to limbs falling on our roof because this campground has a lot more trees than our last one. I'm crossing my fingers that later today we'll avoid damage when the winds are really supposed to pick up. Hurricane Irene has lost power but there's still a lot of rain and wind left in her today before she moves on to the upper East Coast. Today we'll hunker down, hoping to hear some good news from Ron and Nancy. Right now our concern is more with them.

Next in the path are friends Brooke and Bob up in Maine. Sometimes living in a tin can on wheels isn't all that much fun.

Weather or Not

At first our plans were to leave New Jersey on Monday. Then word of Hurricane Irene hit the air waves and yesterday I changed our reservations in Pennsylvania to arrive on Saturday since Irene was supposed to come roaring up the Atlantic coastline. This morning after discussing the fact that working folks might all decide to head out on their day off on Saturday, I once again changed our reservations so that we would leave here tomorrow morning (Friday) instead. Chances are good we won't have to fight winds and rain that way, which is a good thing too.

That being decided, since the news was also warning that high winds and strong storms would probably cause power outages throughout New England, Denny and I figured a trip to fuel up the truck and stock up on some basic groceries was called for so that was next on the list. RVing friends Ron and Nancy will probably also be leaving tomorrow so today we'll have lunch together. While the two of them haven't decided just where they will land, it may very well be at the same campground we're heading towards.

And I'm just waiting for Denny to say "if we were out west we wouldn't have to worry about this stuff", which encompasses bugs, tall trees, children, tornadoes, flooding and hurricanes. Sigh.

A Morning at Mystic Seaport

Mystic Seaport--say it and my mind conjures a vision of sailors, whalers and misty waters. I've always been intrigued by the sound of the name and on Thursday Denny and I finally found our way to The Museum of America and the Sea; Mystic Seaport in Connecticut.

The two of us were pleased upon arriving in town to find clearly marked signage for parking to the museum and a short walk to the entrance of the complex. Because Mystic Seaport is indeed a huge complex and you will be doing a lot of walking later. Upon entering the ticket area you are informed that your ticket is good for two days and that there will be people wearing name tags through the grounds that are available to answer any and all questions you might have. I used a 10% off coupon I got online at the Mystic Seaport web site to purchase our tickets. There are a variety of discounts available along with a special pass that gives you additional benefits.

After you exit the ticket building the first thing you notice on your left is the huge whaling ship undergoing restoration. The Charles W. Morgan is the last wooden whaling ship in existence and it has been declared a National Historic Monument. The neat thing is that you can actually go inside the ship and wander around while the restoration is under way. Denny and I spoke to a volunteer who was scraping down the galley area, a small space of about four feet by six feet that was the kitchen area used to feed thirty-five people. I commented that the kitchen in my RV was larger and the woman laughed and said it was about the size of her kitchen in New York City. Now that I can believe!

The height of the hold of this whaling ship is only about five feet--obviously people were smaller or the sailors became awfully stooped over time!
Next we wandered over to the Baltimore Clipper, the Amistad. The photo below is not canted at an angle; the two masts are actually tilted backwards which allowed the clipper to sail much faster than other ships of the day. Baltimore Clippers were used by Americans in the War of 1812 to capture British ships and after the war they were favored by pirates and those running goods from China due to their speed at sea.
Walking the streets of Mystic Seaport is taking a step back in time. The buildings are historically correct and house blacksmiths, print shops, coopers, schools, apothecaries, churches, sail makers, stables and other businesses you'd see in the 19th century. You can wander in and out of these buildings at will and there will be someone there to answer your questions or explain what the building was used for.
There are a lot of "hands on" activities, especially for children. As you are given your ticket and wrist band at the ticket center, you are also given a map which has the daily activities for the museum listed. You can make a lanyard, build a boat, try your hand as a blacksmith.
You will find a "witness to history" here; someone playing the role of a person who lived in the mid 1800s and who stays in character as you speak to him/her.
I did find a lighthouse for my collection, albeit a reproduction of the actual Brandt Point lighthouse.
The Mystic River. This area developed into a major shipbuilding area due to the availability of wood, sheltered waterways and flat land. There were two large shipbuilders here where the museum complex is now located and after shipbuilding started to wane other manufacturing businesses developed in their place, keeping the area viable.
As Denny and I were wandering away from the lighthouse we heard the sound of singing and came upon the Joseph Conrad, which was full of people listening to one of the employees talk about life aboard a sailing ship.

Intrigued by the singing and a bit awed at the biceps of the young women heaving a heavy load up the rigging, Denny and I stopped Denise to ask a couple of questions about the songs being sung. Denise explained that the sea shanties were songs sung by the shanty man to develop a rhythm in raising and lowering the sails and hauling loads from the holds, etc. Each shanty man had a huge number of songs in his head and after asking us where we were from, Denise then sang a bit of a shanty that had the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers in its lyrics. To say that Denny and I were impressed is a bit of an understatement! Sea shanties--a fascinating bit of seagoing history and Denise had a lovely voice for singing them.
A cooper (barrel maker) plying his trade. While the clothing may not be historically accurate, the work done here is; even the ship restorers and boat builders here use the old time tools for their work.
In addition to the historical buildings and activities there are special exhibits during the year. Currently there is an exhibit about sailors' tattoos and the tattoo artists and how the craft started. One of the most fun things at this exhibit was a special light that slowly "tattooed" an anchor on your arm as you watched. Computer generated with a buzzing sound in the background you watched as the anchor was inked onto this young lady's arm. Fun stuff!
Of course there are shops to buy things and restaurants on the grounds if you are hungry and park benches where you can sit and watch the river flow by. Most of the buildings are not air conditioned so it was nice to be able to sit for a while in the shade enjoying a bit of a breeze while we people watched.

If you enjoy history and come from a relatively landlocked area like we do, visiting Mystic Seaport is a most enjoyable way to spend a day. Or two.

Getting Closer

Denny and I are fighting with a troublesome cabinet modification and we have to make yet another trip to the hardware store today. But before we head out, I wanted to update my "States We've Visited" map waaaaaayyyy down at the bottom right corner of this page. See it? Look closely and you'll see that we now have only two (count 'em) white spaces left to fill on that map. And in another month the big guy and I will be starting our fourteenth year of living in the tin can on wheels.

Big wheels keep on turnin'......


Ike & Tina Turner - Proud Mary on MUZU.TV

Cutting You a Break

For the past year or so I've been posting information about the golf courses we've played for any RVers who happen to golf.  I thought it might be helpful for those new to an area and who want to play a golf course that is less expensive than the country club level courses out there.

Realizing that our golfing adventures are of no interest to many (hi, Skippy!), I've decided to start a different blog where I'll be posting our golfing adventures from this point on.  For those who are interested you can find out where we're playing at Two Golfers--One Pension.  Over the next few days I'll be adding the previous golfing posts from this blog and then any new courses we play will be discussed there.

For today; we have a project to work on here in the RV, so my post and pictures of our day trip to Mystic Seaport will have to wait.  Plus I have to work on my post of our golf outing this week.

Catch ya later.

Wannabees With Wine

This week I received an e-mail from a couple who live in Massachusetts. The e-mail brought up the fact that the couple was interested in Landmark fifth wheels, specifically the Grand Canyon model that we own, and that they are seriously considering selling off everything to become full time RVers. They had been unable to find a Grand Canyon model fifth wheel at any of the local RV dealers and wondered if they could make the hour's drive to our campground to look at The Beast and pick our brains a bit about our lifestyle.

Well! If you know Denny and me (or read my blog at all) you know we are avid proponents of living in a RV full time even if we aren't the staunchest fans of the Heartland RV company. Naturally I wrote back and said "come on down", so yesterday John and Carol made the trek to Rhode Island to see a Grand Canyon up close and personal. And they came bearing wine! Woot! Already they are my kind of people!

What often happens when people want to know about the fulltiming lifestyle is that they start asking questions about how we get mail, pay bills, etc. John and Carol have done their homework by reading some of the hundreds of RVing bloggers online and finding the (now) many web sites dedicated to explaining how to prepare for living in a RV. When Denny and I started researching the idea, there were perhaps two books written about life on the road and "blogs" hadn't hit the scene yet. We discussed letting go of "stuff", storing possessions versus selling them, dealing with ailing parents, traveling with pets. Talking with John and Carol was easy and they felt like friends right from the get go.

We toured The Beast, explaining why we made the changes we've made in the furnishing, modifications we've made to make the unit more liveable for us, the special touches available in the Landmark models. Denny and I didn't touch too heavily on the problems we've had; John and Carol had read some of the information on my web site and they've read many of my blog posts so they have an idea of what we've been through with The Beast. We explained that we seem to be the exception rather than the rule for the most part when it comes to having problems with Heartland products (see? I can be good!) Then we talked and talked and talked until Carol had to call "time out" since she had to work that evening and she hadn't yet been to bed since getting off work in the morning before driving out to see us. Whew! That was a sentence and a half!

Denny and I have no doubt that John and Carol will one day be out there on the road in a shiny new Landmark Grand Canyon wearing big grins on their faces. And when that day comes we'll find a way to catch up with them with a big bottle of wine to toast their new life! So until then, you two-- happy trails!

A Fort-uitous Trip

Okay, so it wasn't fortuitous, it was planned. But a day trip to Newport to explore Fort Adams and a little bit of Newport on Friday was fortuitous in the sense that we had a lovely sunny day of low humidity to do our wandering.

Set at the tip of a peninsula, Fort Adams State Park is a gem of an area. You not only have the fort to explore (guided tours only at this time), there is a yachting museum, the marina area, a beach, a picnic area and beautiful views whichever way you turn. Denny and I took the hour and a half long tour guided by Bill, who had a rather distracting vocal and physical resemblance to Gilbert Gottfried, but who was extremely knowledgeable about the fort itself.Construction of Fort Adams was begun in 1825 but it wasn't fully completed for another 30 years. Built as the largest coastal fort in the U.S., constructed with walls of granite and shale to repel cannon balls, built with special defenses for attack by land and sea, the fort never came under attack. But the story of the time and effort and type of defenses built into the fort, including the spooky "listening tunnels" was fascinating. A lot of the area is fenced off due to ongoing restoration but the goal of the state is to open the fort to the public without the need of tour guides to control access to the more dangerous sections of the fort.
We were allowed up on the top tier of one section to view the coastline that the fort was built to protect.

Of course there was a strange juxtaposition of the old and the new when some of the view was this cruise ship docked for the day at Narragansett Bay.Strangely enough, even though you can't enter the park without a tour guide, you can rent the park for parties and functions, such as the Special Forces military families' party that was being set up while we were touring.There was a ton of information packed into that hour and a half and a good amount of walking in the hot sun so at the end of the tour Denny and I were ready to find a shady spot in the park to eat our picnic lunch. It happened to overlook the harbor and we watched people take lessons in how to operate tiny sailboats as we ate.Once we finished our lunch we took the driving loop of Ocean Blvd., passing many huge mansions, most of which were hidden behind clever landscaping. There are about five mansions that you can tour but we chose to simply do a "drive by" this time around.

Along Ocean Blvd. we did pass at least two sections of state park where you could park your car and cross the street to climb down the boulders to the ocean. It's not an area for swimming but rather exploring tidal pools and simply enjoying the view and the sunshine which many people were doing. The town of Newport itself was jammed with tourists wandering the historic homes which now house businesses and the mansions that are open to the public were doing a good business also. We had to be really careful on the narrow streets with our very large truck and the rather oblivious tourists who crossed the streets wherever they could. Denny was glad to finally cross the two bridges that led us out of town.
If you love to browse shops, this town is for you. And for those of us who would rather take in a scenic view, they have that too. Win/win.