Day 10 - Newport, VT to Errol, NH - 76 miles

Today we woke up to a hazy day and moved off the camp site headed East. As we got onto the road though the clouds magically disappeared and the blue skies came out.....time to get the camera out me thinks :))

After many photographic stops along the way we moved from Vermont into New Hampshire. And the scenery did change a bit, we saw mountains for the first time in ages and the trees were not as colorful. Guess that's why everyone told us to go to Vermont to see the fall colours then! Well we certainly made the most of them and got loads of shots that I am happy with.

Everybody seemed friendly enough and even one old man pulled up at one of our photographic stops to see if everything was ok with the van. Random but true!

Even though we had only done 70 miles we had been on the road all day as we had stopped more than a dozen times for picture breaks, so we were looking for a place to camp when we saw a convoy of huge RV's turn right...we quickly followed suit as the site must be good if all those were going.

We parked up and set up a fire for dinner, then more star gazing using the app. Again we could see the milky way. I also set up my camera to do long exposures to try and get some star trails. A picture I have been trying to master for a while. I got one after about 30 minutes ...not bad for a first attempt...


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Day 9 - Messena, NY to Newport, VT - 167 miles

So today We really motored on and actually changed state! Whoop, we are now FINALLY out of New York and into Vermont. And boy can you really see the difference in the trees here.

Today we have blue skies, white fluffy clouds and red trees. We stopped in this picturesque location for a chat to the fisherman and have a coffee. Well mum and dad did, I went upstream to take some.

It was then back on the road and motoring on over the boarder from New York to Vermont. The boarder actually changed over this bridge that mum took a picture of...





Eventually we reached Newport and stopped in this car park to find a place to eat some food, only to find that there was a lake there and the sun was just setting....So we spent a good half an hour photographing the sunset!

Here is one of dads pictures..... Not bad for a beginner I say :)



Then after getting a recommendation from a yokle an out a good place to get steak for tea we headed there to eat, except when we got there all of us had seafood! Lol

Arriving at the next campsite we parked up, Dad went to check out the showers and came back saying they were worse than any of the places we had been so me and mum didn't even bother going to have a look!

But what the place did have was stars, not as many as I had seen camping with Kim, Balint, Sarah and Steph but you could still see the Milky Way. At least I got to use the app that let's you hold the iPad up to the sky and it tells you what star you are looking at. Pretty neat app! I found Jupiter and the plough and the minor plough, but no shooting stars this time :(

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Day 8 - Messena International Kampground - 0 miles.

Today dad decided that the site was so nice that we should stay one more night so after booking us in, we were staying!

The beast is so big that it's difficult to unhook everything and move the van unless you are moving to the next site so we stayed where we were all day.

This gave me chance to catch up on emails from the summer, Skype some of my friends and catch up on some sleep that is still missing from camp!! I think it will be another few months until I'm fully caught up, oh wait then it will be time to go back to camp :D

Here are some pictures....

This is the Beast!



It said no parking, but we did anyway!




Wine tasting finger lakes wine...




There is even an island with my name




David Bailey wannabe!




The tourists !



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Day 7 - Selkirk Shores, NY to Messena, NY - 145 miles

I don't know why I haven't thought of this before, to take a picture of the route that we have done that day and put it on here! Duh. Well I will start doing this from now on..... Here is a picture of where we are in relation to the East coast...






And here is a picture of our route today. ....




We went along the route that follows the shore of Lake Ontario, the other side of this lake is Canada.

Whilst driving up the lake we stopped at one of Americas State Parks called Fort Ontario.

The weather for the last few days has been dull and overcast, this has meant that the light has been flat and I have taken very few pictures. The forecast is for much of the same weather for the coming week, so it doesn't look great for picture taking opportunities. Hopefully this will change when we move further North.

After leaving the fort we carried on North East and headed towards another state park that had a camp site, but when we got there it was Closed for the season, so we got the map out and went another 20 or so miles to the next state park along the shore of the lake. When we got there we found that this was also closed for the season. So then out came the iPad and the RV site application to find a site that was privately owned. The next one along our route was is Messena, about 2 miles from the Canadian boarder. Here we headed and started following an even bigger RV than ours (a good sign, they must know where is open!) and turned off the highway to this camp site that was almost full. Another good sign... :)

We got parked up and I started a fire, just like I learned at camp.... :) thanks Big Ryan :) And we had pork ribs over the BBQ marinated in Jack Daniels sauce,...... Mmmmmmmm delicious!

I then went to test out the showers, lovely and clean and no spiders, and hot water! Heaven.

Dad had me put our English flag up on the van as he felt left out because all the other vans had Canadian and USA flags flying..... Some Canadians wandered over to talk to us and thought we were from Switzerland because the flag is red and white!!! Duh!

After this Dad made a friend and mum and dad went to join them at their RV for a campfire and sing song later that night....which ended with mum coming back and saying "What's Sambuka?" ..... "Is it alcoholic??"..... "Do they sell it in England?". Oh my ........

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Day 6 - Lakeside, NY to Selkirk Shores, NY - 70 miles

Today was an uneventful day with us driving far and stopping little. Therefore as a blog today I will post some of the pictures we have all taken over the last few weeks. Not in any order btw...

this is Simon going over the boarder for the first time on his second year working visa. Next time it will have to be permanent if he is going to stay.....

This is the van me and mum hired to drive from Boson to New York city. We booked an economy car but was upgraded to this plush van because they had no economies! It had the works like leather seats, reversing cameras, sirius radio, electric doors and boot, ect ect!

This is us visiting Flushing Meadows to see if we could get a ticket for the Monday final day as this was an extra day that had been put on to account for all the rain delays. Alas all the tickets were sold out by the time we got there.....

This is Simon half way between the USA and Canada....no turning back now!

The beast! No more needs to be said.....

I even have an island ......

Wishful thinking!

Empire State from top of the Rock...

Niagara at night from the USA side

Thats all for today folks, if you like any of the pictures leave feedback here, on my Facebook or send me an email......

Day 5 - Niagara Falls, NY to Lakeside, NY - 70 miles

Today we got up early and took the bus to Niagara Falls town as today is the day Simon is entering Canada again for his second 12 month working visa. We got to the falls and took a few pictures, nothing as spectacular as the night before because the light was falling the wrong way but amazing all the same.

We then walked over rainbow bridge, which is the bridge over the Niagara river inbetween USA and Canada and entered the Canadian customs hall. Dad got through no problem, but I as ever I got stopped. They wanted to see the paperwork that accompanied my USA working visa (I'm entering Canada!!) even though it had expired the day before and I was returning to the USA on the visa waver program, which is a tourist visa. Well this paperwork was back at the van which was parked at wall mart car park 40 minutes away! Grrrrr so back I walked along the Rainbow bridge with my denied entry slip and went back through USA customs. They couldn't refuse me entry because I technically hadn't left the USA! The boarder patrol lady on the USA side was surprisingly nice to me and couldn't understand the Canadians problem.

So it was back into the USA on my own with Mum, Dad and Simon having a party on the other side!! If we'd have stood opposite each other on each side of the river we could have waved - I was that close! But I'd pretty much seen the USA side of the falls the night before so I decided to get the bus back to the van and get my papers. After all I was only going to have to go back another time to see the better side of the falls once and for all!

This time I got let through no problem and off we went for lunch. Simon had left by this point to get his flight back to Calgary, so it was just mum, dad and I.

After lunch I walked up to the horseshoe falls but the light was flat as the cloud had come in. But the noise was incredible and you can stand almost 6 feet away from the cascading water at the right hand side of the falls!

Walking back down to meet mum and dad, someone shouted in a broad Lancashire accent, Oi, nice shirt!!!
I had my new Rovers shirt on that my Bestie Jen had bought me for my birthday!

Back across the boarder we went into the USA just as it started raining, and into a film about the falls. Did you know that one woman went over the falls in a barrel seeking fame and fortune, survived but didn;t find the fortune she was looking for! And a boy of 7 went over the falls in a life jacket after his boat lost power upstream and survived after getting picked up by the maid of the mist!

It was getting dark when we left Niagara so we did roughly 70 miles to the next camp site by Ontario Lake and parked the beast in the pouring rain, before having omelet for tea as there was no pizza shop on the way and we were in the middle of nowhere... - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Day 4 - Seneca Falls, NY to Niagara Falls NY -120 miles

What a day! So we made it to Niagara on time, infect we were a little early. Did laundry in the early afternoon and listened to the Rovers match on the Internet. We have free wifi at this site and took great advantage of it!

Simon went off to buy some fire wood from the shop but came back and said "Dad, I've done a deal!" what had happened was Simon had gone to the shop to find that firewood cost $7 per bundle and thought that this was too expensive so thought like a Croak and went to a group of 6 tree surgeons, who were cutting down 2 trees on the camp site, and said "got any spare wood?" one said "yeah I'll swop you for a beer!" so one can of mad dog 15% $2 lager down and 7 pieces of fire wood up, we started a fire!

My dad decided he had waited long enough to see the falls (40 odd years) so went on a mission to photograph them about 4pm. We all decided to stay at the RV site until I get a call about 6.30pm to say how great the light was falling on the falls as it was setting. This was an offer I could not refuse and off I set double quick time to catch the bus from outside the RV camp to the falls in time to catch the sun set.

I arrived at the falls ...... OH MY GOD! the noise was incredible, the pictures just do not convey the roar of the water as it dissappears over the edge. I didnt need to ask directions when i stepped off the bus i could hear it!

I met up with my dad who had already taken 150+ snaps! I gave him a few pointers on what the correct settings for the setting sun should be and then wasted no time in snapping away.

One thing I didn't have enough room for in my bag that I really should have brought was a tripod, but I made do with The telescopes that are around. I put one of my lens caps under the lens to help rest the camera on the binoculars only I slightly lifted the camera for a nano second and the lens cap fell off onto the floor and rolled under the barriers onto the grass area between me and the falls. Now this grass is about 5 feet wide and the lens is about 3 feet away from the fence. I could have quite easily climbed over as it wasn't a very big fence but the grassy verge was quite steep and well let's just say I could hear mum telling me not to do it!!

I said to dad that i need a stick, but looking around couldn't see any trees so knew I didn't have a chance, until.........dad spotted something in the distance.....

An old man using a walking stick! Off he went after the man and tapped him On the shoulder to ask if he could borrow his stick!!!!! The man was very confused for a while and thought dad was a looney. But dad came back with the stick and from lying on the ground I was able to bring the lens cap back from the brink of a sheer death defying act of bravery!! Phew!

Now it was about 8.15 and we started to think about making our way back to the RV site but realized that we didn't have a clue where to get the bus from, so we stood at a stop and debated which way we thought we should be going on the road and even stopped one bus. We had the right number but he was at the end of his journey and needed to turn round before he could take us back, so we set off walking to try and find a bus that was going our way.

Eventually the same driver that we stopped originally had made his way back and we hopped on, the sign said airport and we knew we were right by there so it must be the correct bus right?? Erm not quite! Our logic was right and we did indeed head in the right direction but the driver was new and didn't really have a clue where he was going, then to top it off it terminated at the airport and we had another few miles to go! so we thought that's ok we are at an airport there has to be taxis right? erm no..... not one, but there was a phone number.....engaged..... then voicemail to leave a number and they would call you back...no return call. By this time it was 10 pm and the temperature was dropping, I was a freezing and yes I had flip flops on!! ;)

So I called my brother who had Internet and asked for another taxi number! This one eventually worked and 15 freezing minutes later we were in the taxi and back at the RV for 10.30. Cold and very hungary but with some fantastic shots and a few tales to tell!

So, here is a few shots from the day..... This is one of mine....




One of dads...




And another one of mine.....





Phew what a day! And we are going back for more tomorrow, to see the falls during the day and this time from the Canadian side, and to ride the maid of the mist.

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Day 3 - North Adams, MA to Seneca Falls, NY - 221 miles

So today was a stride out day.....or a get a move on day! Simon is flying home from Toronto on Wednesday to go back to work and we are dropping him off at Niagara on Tuesday night.... so we have today and tomorrow to cover roughly 6 hours of driving.

We packed up and set off at around 9 am onto highway 2 which is also known as the Mohawk trail. This is taken from Wiki.... The Mohawk Trail began as an Native American trade route which connected Atlantic tribes with tribes in Upstate New York and beyond.... It's certainly pretty but too slow for what we needed today, so after a trip to Walmart to stock up on essentials like a cork screw, chopping board, and toaster (cant live without a toaster - we are English!!) we set off to the I 90....which is a major highway.

Now readers of my last blog (louisecroak.blogspot.com) will know that I travelled along the I 90 at Christmas but that time I was in the West on my way from Calgary to West Yellowstone. The I 90 runs from one side of America to the other, and now 9 months later I am on the same road just some 2,300 miles further East!!

Right before we got on to the 90 there was a diner, so we stopped off to get mum her 11 o'clock coffee and have a cake/waffle. Did you know that Diners get there name because the first diners were made out of railway dining cars?? Thanks dad ! (he picked up an American diner book from the 95% off sale at Borders that he is reading at night, so every day we are treated to a stop at a different diner and a new ''interesting fact!"

So on the toll road we went for roughly 3 hours, pretty boring and not much to see, until we reached the turn off for our next night. We stopped off at a liquor store to get some alcohol but they didn't sell beer, only spirits and wine, so it was off down the road to the grocery store to pick up dinner and some beer. I stayed in the van whilst dad and mum went in. After about 20 minutes I hear this faint shrill of Siiiiiiimmmmmmon! It was mum from across the car park. Simon says "sounds like dad needs your USA bank card" so I went into the shop to see what was going on. Well here is the funny thing......dad had only been refused to be served because he had no ID! So me, his 29 year old daughter had to go into the supermarket to buy my dad his beer. Lololol!

The next camp ground was close by and we set up the RV just in time for it to start raining. No camp fire or s'mores tonight!

And so to bed, ready for the last day going West before we head back East and north to start the leaf peeping !!

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Day 2 - Littleton MA to New Adams, MA

Today we arose promptly at 8 am and got showered and changed at the great showers at the campsite, we then unhooked the RV and set on the road West.

After stopping to get mum her 11 oclock coffee only to find both the coffee shops in the small town had closed at 12 noon (it was 12.05!) we set on our way to the next town and passed a old style American diner, which I promptly did a quick turn into the biggest parking space I could find! The back of the beast was still sticking out over the sidewalk (pavement).

After the best omelet I have ever tasted and potato hash (this time without the sick!!! Readers of my last blog Thelma and Louise will understand this) we set back off. Only trouble now was how to reverse out of the space into a major road. Cue 2 temporary police officers looking a lot like uk tourists ;) who stopped the traffic for a young Brit girl to manouver the beast out of the space and back onto the road!!

Next I saw a sign for a lake so I turned off the highway and followed the road to a quiet lake. Nothing like Lake Geneva proportion but pretty all the same. A family game of frisbee on the small beach followed, then a change of drivers. It was now dads turn to experience the beast as I relinquished the driving duties to him for a bit.

On we set ton a forest campsite that was too far up a mountain road for the beast so we stopped for gas (petrol) and asked for the nearest camp site. Windsor Lake was recommended by a yokle and off we went to check in.

After setting up and lighting a fire, mum made spaghetti Bol mmmmmmmm, I made cheesy garlic bread on the fire and dad and Simon drank beer ...

After dinner, it was back to English toasted marshmallows as we had run out of rolos (ah well...any port in a storm!)

And so on to tomorrow, 2 days to do 600km, to get to Niagara for Tuesday night.

Day 1 - RV pickup at Tyngsboro, MA to Littleton, MA - 79 miles

Today we picked up the RV from the rental company. Dad and I (the 2drivers) had to watch a 20 minute video on the workings of the RV including the dimensions...4 meters high, 3 meters wide and 10 meters long. Oh boy its a big un! Also on there was how to operate the sewerage system. Both of us volunteered Simon to do this job so we didn't pay that much attention :)

After checking out the inside and asking lots of questions we loaded up the bags and set off to Lowell to collect Simon from the train station. Simon had returned to Harvard (in Boston) to drop off the hire car we had been using.

Then it was on our way to the first campsite to set up camp.....only we ended up back near Boston!! Simon had only gone and typed the camp address into the sat nav and not accepted it properly so it was sending us back to our last destination ....BOSTON.. Oops!

So after a quick change of campsite to a closer one we were on our way again.

After getting to the site and successfully maneuvering the 30 foot beast into the camping space (this is me driving BtW!) we set out exploring all the Functions of the RV and starting the fire for a BBQ.

So we have hot water, a flushing toilet, a shower, 3 double beds, 1 single bed, a cooker and microwave, aircon and a heater, fridge and freezer - fully stocked fridge with beer and wine mostly :)

Once we had eaten I schooled the rents to the joys of S'mores, although Simon trumped me and taught me Canadian s'mores.....rolos instead of Hershey's! Mmmmmmmm so for all those back home that don't kmow what a s'more is, it's a toasted marshmallow with a gram cracker (biscuit) around it and a piece of chocolate thrown in because its not sweet enough!! Only in America!!

After that it was time for bed and boy was it COLD! I had several layers on including trackies and a hoodie, 2 blankets and a sleeping bag. All that was missing from my time in the camp van was my Hungarian hot water bottle ;(

Then off to a peaceful nights sleep in a surprisingly comfy bed!