Ringing Rocks campground / Milford NJ

Today Paul spent much of hiss riding time in New Jersery. I have yet to cross over that border. Today was a confusing drive for me. It seemed like for a while my gps was taking me in circles. I  got here though and so we inch closer to Bar Harbor everyday. Tomorrow will be our last night in PA. It was hot today and tomorrow is supposed to be another hot one. Hopefully after that it will cool off a bit. The swimming pool in camp felt good tonight. After the Memorial weekend the campgrounds are just about deserted. Both last night and tonight it feels like we are the ony people in camp. That is fine for us and makes finding a spot easier.

Hershey PA and onto Elverson

This morning when we got up and stepped outside we were suprised at how warm and humid it was even in the morning. When I left camp it was already 77 degrees and the humidity must have been that high as well. They are even in a heat advisory in this area. Hopefully Thur. it is supposed to be drier and cooler (mid  80's). While Paul was riding today I went to Hershey Gardens and spent a couple of hours walking through the gardens. It was warm but they had umbrellas that could be borrowed and I did. That way I could at least take a bit of shade with me. The gardens were nice but not as much wow factor as Buchart Gardens on Vancover Island. It looked like many of the summer flowers had been planted recently but had not had time to fill out. They had hundreds of roses in bloom though. They have a butterfly house and it was fun to go in and see all the butterflys. In the childrens garden they had stools for sitting on shaped like a hershey kiss. They had a nice gift shop and of course I found something nice to take home as a momento. It is a carved gourd with a light in it and it is nice because it was locally grown and made by local craftsmen. By the time I had spent a couple of hours there I was very hot so I stopped on my way to the campground and bought a drink and some strawberries from a farm store and some local cheese. The store workers were either Amish or Mennonite. I arrived at our campsite before checkin time so it was a little confusing for a while but finally I got to my site and Paul pulled up before I could get everthing set up so it was nice to have his help. As soon as we could we headed for the swimming pool. It is the nicest pool we have seen at any of our campground and the water sure felt good. Then we both took a COOL shower (there wasn't any hot water) and bought a huge ice cream cone. I am so glad we have air conditioning in our trailer and truck. Tomorrow it is supposed to be in the 90's and I must admit I worry about Paul riding in that heat for6-8 hours. Can't wait for cooler weather sometime.

Manheim

Today was a rest day so we went to church and did our laundry. This is Amish country and I was hoping I would see some of them but the route I drive is mostly on busy roads so I don't think I will see any. Hershey Pa is only about 20 miles away and while it is tempting to go there tomorrow and see their gardens, it is in the wrong direction. Maybe another trip another time. Tomorrow it is back on the road.

Manheim Pa

Another day another state. Last night we spent the night in the Wal Mart parking lot. We asked them if it was OK and they said yes but they wanted us to leave by 6:30 in the morning. When Paul left I left as well. We could not get into our campsite until 2:00 so I had a long day to spend somewhere. When I got to Manheim I found a school with trees along the parking lot. I was able to park there without being asked to leave. Fortunately there was a nice breeze and with the windows open I was able to stay pretty cool. I read for most of the day and then there was a T ball game played on the fields at the school so I took my lawn chair and watched the kids play T ball. Finally after a few wrong turns( probably because I lead him astray) Paul found me and we went on to our campground. The one we are staying at is a rather rough place but is a sister campground to a very nice one that we are able to use some of the amenities of. After dinner we went over and cooled off in the swimming pool and took showers. It feels good to feel clean and fresh again. Today on my drive a saw signs that warned me of a split in the traffic ahead. I had never seen a sign that said that before so I wondered what it meant. It also warned of a bridge with a 10 ft maximum width. My truck and trailer are about 8 ft wide. It seemed like the bridge went on for ever but it was probable only 1/4 mile. I had to talk myself all the way through it. So far I have put no scratches on truck and trailer. The road did split and the lane I went into had barricades up on both sides with just those 10 ft to drive in. I hope I don't experience that again. Tomorrow is a rest day and we will be going to church and doing our laundry.

Owings Mills Md

 A thunderstorm just rolled by and has made the air cooler but more humid. When ever there is a thunderstorm here I always think of tornados since there have been so many this year. Tonight we are camped or I guess you could say parked in a Wal Mart parking lot. I have been here since about 2:00 this afternoon and it really doesn't hold much charm for me. We can't run the air conditioner without an electric connection so it is pretty muggy. This is the only night we will spend in Maryland because tomorrow we expect to be in Pennsylvania. We did manage to find a campground for Saturday and Sunday night so it will be good to have electricity. The drive through Washington DC was a little nerve racking for me. My gps lead me on all the right roads but there was so much traffic and so much road construction going on that it made it a nervous drive for me. Then I had about 6 miles of stop and go traffic to deal with before I got out of the city. I hope tomorrow will be less congestion and more small roads.

Polick Bay Regional Park

We are now just on the outskirts of Washington D,C. Paul had a pretty god day until he had to find the camping site. He had a hard time finding the right roads. I used the gps and fortunately it brought me right here. I would never have been able to find it by myself. For me the drive was nerve racking since it was steady traffic on 3 lanes of freeway with many semis. I was relieved to arrive here. Tomorrow we will end up on the otherside of  Washington if all goes well. We have no place lined up to camp for the next 3 nights so we will probably stay in a Wal Mart parking lot tomorrow. That will be a challenge since it is hot here and we will not have air conditioning without an electrical hookup.I am hoping for cooler weather as we continue to go north. I thought we would be in Maryland tonight but we are still in Virginia and tomorrow we will go into Maryland. Right now it is 91 degrees.

Jamestown and Fredricksburg.

Yesterday was our last day to visit with Brent. We took Brent and his friend Christine to Jamestown which is the first permanent settlement (English) settlement in the new world. We where able to go on replicas of the boats that they came on. It sure doesn't look like a fun trip. They basically came as an investment by a company in England that wanted to come and find richs for the company. Of course that did not pan out for the investers. It was a touch and go interprise for a number of years. Originally it was the Capitol of Virginia but when that was moved to Williamsburg and then to Richmond that left Jamestown out of the loop. While in Jamestown I had a fly that was driving me crazy trying to bite me. Paul saw me swatting away at it and noticed I had a tick bitting my leg right behind the knee. We went into the visitor center and borrowed a pocket knife and a pair of tweezers. Paul tried to dig it out but couldn't get it so he tried the tweezers and after keeping pressure on it, it finally popped out. That evening we found 3 ticks in our trailer so we have been freaked out about ticks every since. While we were at Jamestown,(,a thunder storm approached and they asked us all to head into the indoors until it passed. It took up some of the valuable time we had to spend there and we never got any rain and the storm went another way. We were still able to see some of the recreations of the indian village and settler villages. This morning we needed to get back on the road so we got up at 5:00 this morning to drive to where Paul left off on his route. He started riding about 7:15 and had 103 miles to ride today. He got into camp about 4:30. This was a hot and tiring day for him, especially since it has been in the upper 80's most of the day. Hopefully after a shower and a good rest we will recuperate. When he got here we went into Fredricksburg to the Costco where we had preordered a tire for the truck. It was nice to see Brent but it is time to make tracks to the North, maybe it will be cooler there.

Cheatham Annex

 For the last couple of nights we have been camping at Cheatham Annex. It is on a Navy base. We are able to camp here because Paul is a federal employee. It is much less expensive that at other campgrounds so it is kind of nice to be able to stay here. Today we went to Yorktown. I don't know how much you remember from US History but the battle of Yorktown was a turning point in the Revolutionary War. We were able to visit the battleground and have a very informative guide tell us about the battle then we drove to the various parts of the grounds and could kind of get a feel for what happened there. It was interesting that Cornwallis was so upset by his defeat that he sent his second in command to surrender the weapons so George Washington sent his second in command to receive the weapons and take the prisoner's. This was poetic justice since he had had  to surrender to the British and was taken captive a few months before. He was later part of a prisioner exchange. It was a series of unlikely events that helped tip the battle in our favor. Later we took a trolley ride around Yorktown and stopped for ice cream. Brents friend was not able to go with us today but she will be going to Jamestown with us tomorrow. Tonight the weather is hot and humid. There is a severe weather warning out for areas not too far from us. So far we have not had any stormy weather but we put our chairs away just in case. Last night we left them out and it poured during the night so Paul ran out and brought them in but not before they got wet. They are not predicting tornados here but strong winds and quarter size hail. Tomorrow will be our last for playing tourist for a while. Wed we will be back on the path.    

Willaimsburg Virginia

Yesterday we arrived in Newport News Park. We were able to meet with Brent yesterday and we went to the Maritime Museum. It was all about the recovery of the Monitor which was one of the first armed warships to be made in this part of the world. They have found her remains on the ocean floor and are recovering artifacts from her. The museum had many parts of the ship there. We learned a little bit about the history of the war between the states. Today we went to Colonial Willamsburg. It was very interesting and by the end of the day we were exhausted and could only be revived by pizza and a shower. Tomorrow we will go to church with Brent. It doesn't start until 12:00 so we should have a relaxing morning.

Windsor Vriginia

We have crossed the boundry into Virginia. The drive went smoothly until I tried to find the campground. The gps messed me up or at least I will blame it on that. Just when I thought I was hopelessly lost and had called Paul to try to corroborate where I was I decided to trust my gps to get me there. It turned out I was not quite as lost as I thought I was and got to the campground about 10 mins before Paul. This was planned to be a short day but after we got set up Paul decided to do tomorrows short ride today so that tomorrow we could just go on to Newport News where we will be camping and spending time with Brent. Paul went on with his ride and then I went and picked him up. We stopped for a burger and stopped at a peanut store. We bought some nuts for Paul to eat as his snack while he is traveling.

Merchants Millpond State Park

Merchants Millpond State Park is named that because in this area there were a number of merchants that set up this millpond to help with their logging interests. It is no longer used for that and is now a state park. The Millpond has water in it year round. Paul and I rented a kayak at the park and went out into the pond. It was pretty cool. There were many cypresss trees growing in the water and many turtles sunning them selves on logs etc. There is supposed to be aligators in there as well but we did not see any. The Pond was pretty big and it had buoys to mark the way to canoe into campgrounds. We followed the buoys over to the family camp site. Without the buoys you could really get lost. The pond is just full of trees, water lilies and other water plants. I wish I could put a picture on this site but if you want pictures look at Pauls journal. It really felt like we were in the midst of a swamp. That was the big adventure for the day. Small adventures include getting lost in the city of Plymouth and having to turn around at the end of a residential street, then later taking the wrong road at the state park and having to back a block down the gravel road and get back on the road to the correct place to turn. Paul got caught in a thunderstorn but I was lucky to be in the visitors center at the park during the rain. I have really enjoyed the countryside in No Carolina. Today we drove through more agricultural areas and the homes were nice. There were fields that were being worked so the landscape seemed more open as opposed to the many miles we have traveled with trees along the side of the road. Today we passed acres and acres of flowers. One of the workers along the road said it was sage and told Paul they grind the seeds to make pepper. I am not sure I believe that. I will have to look into that. They were sure pretty and nice to see. There are also acres and acres of corn that is grown in this country. Tomorrow we go into Virginia.

Goose Creek State Park

We are sitting outside in this state park and it is starting to get dark. We are the only campers in the whole park tonight. We crossed another ferry today. Our plan was to arrive about the same time but Paul had a problem with his maps and got off on the wrong road. When I got to the ferry Paul was not there yet. I was the first person to arrive for this ferry. I tried to call Paul and could not get him on the phone so I left a message about the times for the ferry. He called me back and we realized it would be unlikely that he could get there in time. I parked so I could wait for the next one if necessary. When the ferry arrived they loaded all the cars etc and asked if I was coming and I told them Paul was on the way and please give him as much chance to arrive as possible. They had already dropped the stop sign when I saw Paul tearing down the road. I let them know he was here and they raised the gate and let us on. That was a close call. We could have waited until the next one but it was nice that we didn't need to. No Carolina is having an unusual cool spell and it has been so nice for us. The highs have been in the 70's and it sure has been pleasant. We have had enough wind to keep the bugs down so the last 2 days have been very enjoyable. Paul has had the wind to his back so that has helped him make better time and in fact he says he would not have made the ferry without it. We will meet up with our son Brent on Friday and be off the route for a few days playing tourist. No Carolina is a beautiful state. I am still amazed at how many trees we see in our travels each day.

Maysville (North of Jacksonville) No Carolina

Today has been a delightful day as far as the weather goes. It is dryer and cooler. The sun shone and we had a nice breeze. The breeze helped Paul by giving him a nice push. I spent a good portion of the morning at the rv service center. We have had our trailer for a year and needed to take it in for an inspection to keep our warranty in effect. Everything went fine. I got some straps to attach some fun lights on our trailer. It seems to be the thing to do now. We have been working on getting our camping places lined up for the coming days. It is a never finished job. It is harder to fine places on this portion of the route. Yesterday we didn't get on the comnputer but after church we took a nice walk down by the river. At least they call it a river. It is part of the intercostal waterway, It was very pleasant to sit and watch the boats go by. The water connects with the ocean on both sides. There were a lot of people along the shore, either fishing or just messing around. There was a nice breeze that we really enjoyed.

Wilmington N Carolina

Another ferry and another state. Today we left So Carolina. Paul and I planned to meet up to take a ferry across Cape Fear. Paul left early to try and make the 12:15 ferry and I thought I was leaving plenty early at 10:15 but I made a wrong turn even with my gps and it slowed me down enough that my gps said I would arrive at 12:13. I was afraid that I would not get on so I called Paul and told him. He said he thought he could make it so I carried on. I must admit I pressed the gas pedal a little more than I normally would and when I arrived there was Paul standing by the gate. The lady said she could not believe I made it and she said it was a good thing the ferry was not full. The weather was about 80 degrees and the humidity was high so it didn't feel very comfortable. Once we got away from the coast it didn't seem quite so humid. When we got to our campground we left our trailer and went to town. Paul needed a new bike computer since his died. It is what keeps track of his miles. Then we stopped and got a frosty from Wendy's. There was a lot of traffic and I have a feeling we will see more of that for the next few states. We had a little shower last night and could see lightening out of the window but we did not get much rain from it. today we did not encounter any rain though there were showers in some parts of the state. Tomorrow is a rest day and since we got our laundry done today it really can be. 

Conway SC

Tonight we are in Conway SC. It will be our last night in S Carolina. Yesterday this site was down  and I was not able to post. The last 2 days have been uneventful. Just driving and camping. Last night we stayed at a campground ran for military personal. We were able to camp there because Paul was a Federal employee with the C of Eng. We felt lucky because we had not been able to find anything else in the area. It was a very nice place on a large lake. It was interesting because there were some cypress trees growing right in the water. Tonight we are camped at Cypress Lake camp ground and there are even more trees growing in the lake. It is a pretty lake. Today Paul rode through a little rain and since there was some rain in the air it is very humid. It is interesting to us that Florida, and So Carolina seem to be all made of sand. It is very hard to keep it out of our trailer. When we get up in the morning the ground is moist from condensation  and the wet sand sticks to our shoes and gets tracked into our trailer way to easlily. This campground is a little different from every other campground that we have stayed at for one very interesting reason. They don't provide toliet paper in the bathrooms. I feel like I was real lucky that Paul discovered this first and warned me. It costs 35 dollars a night to stay here. You would think they could provide tp woudn't you?

Statesboro to Yemesee

Today we crossed another border. We are now in So Carolina. Today's drive was a challenge for me. The GPS could not find the address I needed to go to so I tried to follow Paul's bike maps. Of course I don't have them with me and so I was trying to follow notes we had made on which routes to take. It is always easier to know where to go sitting in the trailer than drive by myself. Fortunately we had cell phones and Paul was able to help me figure out the road changes. I was pretty relieved to arrive here today. The next few days are going to be challenging as well since the places we are going are so small that I can't bring them up on the GPS. I did write out all of the map quest instructions so I should be able to follow them. The last few states we have come through we have seem many Waffle Houses. I asked someone about them and they are basically fast food places that feature waffles as well as burgers etc. Today there was one by our campground and we knew we had to try one before we left this part of the country so we had lunch there. It was pretty good and we had lots of food. There special was eggs, bacon, hash browns toast and waffles. We got very full but one of the best things about it was the ice water. We are getting pretty used to drinking warm water so the cold water tasted great. Tonight we are going to go to the clubhouse and watch Survivor. It will be nice to do something out of the trailer.

Jesup to Statesboro

This morning we woke to a foggy morning. It was not cold, just foggy. Paul even put his tail light on so he could be seen better. Paul left early because it was forcast to be warm and it turned out to be hot. Paul got into our camp ground at 12:15. When I left this morning it was 86 at 11:00. At 5:00 I checked the truck to see what it said the temp was and it said 100. I am not sure how correct that is because our truck is parked in the sun. This afternoon we spent a couple of hours figuring out how to get our service done on our trailer. It was very difficult because so many of the businesses have gone out of business. Right now we have the TV on and they are having a telethon to raise money for the tornado victims. I thought it was interesting the last 2 weeks in church they have been talking about  members volenteering to help with the clean up. In the first ward they asked for 20 men with chainsaws to go to Alabama, that was in Florida. Then last Sunday they had 10 men who had voleenteered to go but they said they had all the people they needed. They had asked for 1800 voleenteers from our church and they had them all from closer th Alabama. Kind of cool to have such a good response to the need. Today as I drove my gps kept losing the signal. That makes me kind of nervous for tomorrows drive. Hopefully I will end up at the same place as Paul.

Folkston to Jesup

We have arrived at our rv park for the night. We have been trying to line up a campground in Virginia close to our son Brent so we spent some time on the internet and had to fax some id for a place on the Navy Base. We still don't know if we will be able to camp there, I guess we will see. Today we stopped at Wal Mart for some groceries. We had thought about spending the night there but I am really glad we came on here because it is very hot here today. It was over 90 at about 1:30 and there was no breeze and there are many ghants that land all over on you and drive you crazy. Our air conditioned trailer will be welcome relief from all that. I hope as we go futher north the weather will be cooler. I have a feeling we are just seeing the beginning of bugs though. Yesterday we were able to call Aaron and visit for a bit and we spent quite a while trying to get through to him in  Brazil. We were never able to get him but he got us for just a few minutes. I must say I was disappointed until our other son called and said he had him on Skype and we were able to join him for a conference type call. It was a nice Mother's Day effort for Christian to do. Justin was able to join in listening but not talking also. In church they gave us each a rose for Mothers Day and I have mine in a vase now on our table. Tomorrow it is on to Statesboro.

Yulee Florida to Folkston Georgia

Tonight we are in Folkston Geirgia. It is near the Okefeenkee Swamp. Our drive was short today because we are having a harder time finding rv parks. When I called about this one he said he had space available. That turned out to be an understatement. When I put the address in my gps and drove here I pulled in at an old dilapated sign to an over grown field that looked like an abandoned rv park. I called the number for the park to ask if they had changed addresses or something but he said no. Pull back in, he was there. I guess this place closed last year and he pulled everything out. Now he has decided to reopen and we are his first customers since reopening. We have the place to ourselves  At least we have electric and water. Later in the day we went over to the Okeefenokee Wildlife Refuge Center. Most of the refuge was closed because they are having a big fire but we were able to go in the visitor center and take a short hike on a trail. There was a good video about the swamp and as we walked along the trail we saw alligators. There were 8 of them lying along the stream. Of course we forgot our cameras. We took a picture with our cell phone but since we don't know how to take it off the phone and put it somewhere else no one will ever be able to see it. We have a church to attend tomorrow. Since it is mother's Day we will be able to visit with Aaron, our son who is serving a mission for our church in Brazil. I am looking forward to a nice day tomorrow.  

St Augustine to Yulee

Today we are back on the road again. Paul left about 7:15 from our campsite. A couple of hours later he called and said the wind was pushing him along faster than he expected so I picked up camp and got on the road. Our plan was to meet at the St Johns river ferry. He got there before I did but he waited and we rode across together. Our route took us along some of the barrier islands along the Florida coast. We crossed several bridges. I went through a couple of rain showers but Paul missed getting caught in heavy rain. As we headed inland from the coast the road became very busy and our campground was not easy for me to find. I ended up making several mistakes and had to turn around and make u-turns a few times but finally I found it. Paul arrived an hour or so later. We have been having a slow leak in one of the tires on the truck so we took it in to see what could be done about it. It turns out it had a sharp nail in it. We got it repaired and bought some groceries. The other day we had some real good watermelon so we dicided to try another one with our dinner tonight. It was good. Today I saw signs for fresh juicy peaches. I could hardly believe it since in Oregon we don't have fresh peaches until August. I did not get any today but I am thinking I need to check this out as we enter Georgia tomorrow.

St Augustine Day 3

Today we are still camp[ed in St Augustine. We drove down to Stuart and looked at Pauls dream boat today. It was a long drive but much shorter from St Augustine than from Oregon. We are going to be back on the road tomorrow and so we have been busy working out our camp places for the next few days. It is going to be interesting because we are finding it difficult to find camp grounds where we need them. We may end up doing our first Wal- Mart campout. That will be interesting because we will not have air conditioning and the weather is supposed to be heating up this coming week. The weather the last few days has been so mice that we have even started thinking maybe living in Florida would not be so bad. Today as we were driving we went through several areas where the flying buges were terrible and the front of our truck is covered with dead bugs. We cleaned the windshield when we got gas but the truck is still covered.

St Augustine Day 2

We are staying in St Augustine until Friday. Today we drove Jean to Jacksonville so she could fly home to Portland. Tomorrow we are dryving down the coast to Stuart to look at a boat that Paul is interested in. It has made for a nice interlude in our trip. This morning we went down to the beach and walked along it until we came to a little place where they were having a farmers market type thing. We bought some tomotos and half a watermelon. They both turned out to be very good. I guess it is already tomato season here. Then after our trip to Jacksonville and dinner we went down to the beach again and watched the sky turn from night to day. The sun did not go down over the ocean of course but the sky was very pretty and we enjoyed the beach walk. Then I took a nice shower and an ready to call it a day. It has been a nice one with time for relaxing.

St Augustine

Yesterday we arrived in St Augustine! It really feels like a milestone. Paul has ridden 4300 miles so far. Yesterday was a fun day. We got to our campground, Paul took a shower and then we went to town. We took a trolley tour of the town. The temp was real nice. Then we came back and had dinner at camp. In the evening we went back into town and did a walking tour. It was called History, Mystery, Mayhem and Murder. It was a fun tour. Today we are taking Jean to the airport and she is flying home to Portland. This morning we are going to dip our toe in the Atlantic ocean.

White springs to Hawthorne

Today we drove from White Springs to Hawthorne. The drive was uneventful and that is good. This campground is like a Mexican getto. The trailers are old and run down and the bathrooms are not appetizing so tonight I think we will be using ther bathroom in the trailer. I think Jean and Andrew are going to sleep in here on the floor tonight. Jean even felt like locking the door when paul and I went for a walk. We drove into town and bought chicken from the deli and took it to a park and had a picnic. I am really loioking forward to arriving at St Augustine tomorrow and camping at a nice state park.