The Rest of the Trip

This is why we love to travel by RV:
You won't see this from a motel or hotel room unless you're in Denali.


Traveling through the rest of Kentucky and then West Virginia, we stopped for the night in Kanawha State Forest campground. Using the GPS, we managed to find it on the first try. The last time we tried to find it, we missed a sign or two (they are small!) and had to back track. Some of the sites are up on top rises and just a little too steep for our 30-foot RV. The host said the federal government had given them a grant to widen the road all the way from the main highway and had even purchased 37 houses so far to tear down in order to straighten out the road some. The campsites are unique as some are pull-throughs, one to a hill; most are like back-in parking spaces beside the creek which is just about dried up due to the drought.
Leaving the next morning, using the GPS again just to see how it would take us to Mt. Crawford, VA, we were told to exit the interstate, go down the road a while, connect to US 33 east, even though the map showed the fastest way to be by I-64 to Lexington, VA, then north on I-81. After we got past Charleston onto I-64, I turned it back on then she said to get off I-64, go down some other route, then re-enter the same interstate! Needless to say, I turned her off!
The trees are changing colors looking beautiful. Because this area has had a very dry summer, the leaves will probably not last long. Quite a few trees have lost all their leaves already so I guess we're lucky to see some color at all.
I had planned to call some friends who live in Alderson, WV, to check on when they would be returning to FL but my cell phone was dead!! No screen at all; wouldn't take a charge, either. After we got to Luray, I remembered the other phone "reset" itself when I removed the battery, cleaned the contacts, and replaced it then punched a couple keys. Bingo! It now works - but too late to call our friends.

Mammoth Cave National Park Caves

Arriving in Mammoth Cave National Park on a Wednesday, we had no trouble getting a camp site. The next morning we went south to Bowling Green to take the Lost River tour on a flat-bottomed boat. Because of the drought, they had to dam the river to made it deep enough for the boats. We had to kiss our knees so we could go under the ceiling while on the boat to get to the actual cavern.





Just outside the boat loading area was a very large 'shelf' that was used as a night club even though the local politicians outlawed the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages below street level (they had business interests in the other local night spots). The party goers simply climbed up the stairs to the bar then came back down to dance and socialize.
This cavern site also had a business as a cabin motel during the 20's and 30's and was billed as a honeymoon place. Only one of these cabins is still on the site but cannot be entered for safety issues.
Before returning to Mammoth Park, we stopped at Diamond Cave to take that tour. So many of the formations are white and glittery that's how it got its name.

After looking over the Park information sheets that night, I decided that I would take only two of the ten tours available in the fall; the Gothic Avenue Tour is only available once every Saturday from November 1 – March 18 every year.
The Park was busy with school groups because the area schools were on Fall Break. I did get my two tours, Frozen Niagara and Great Onyx Lantern, when I wanted only because I was first in line when the Visitor Center opened at 8 a.m. Both tours were labeled “easy”.
The Great Onyx Lantern Tour was owned by a Miss Lucy until she sold it to the Park in 1960. She ran a hotel and made some of her guides spend the night so that any visitors arriving during the night could have a tour when they wanted. The original generator-powered lighting system was pulled out by the Park so all tours are now given the way Miss Lucy's guides took her guests through. We rode a bus to the entrance. Again, there are steep stairs twisting around formations and slippery slopes throughout the cavern. One woman had to return to the surface after we got down the first series of steps because she was dizzy. The brochures said not to be pressured by friends and family members to attempt a tour if the idea made you uncomfortable!


This tour required eight lanterns be carried scattered throughout the group in order to see the cave formations. One man insisted on holding his lantern at head height several times even when told by the guide and a visitor not to do so as it blinds others. Others were taking flash photos even though the brochure and the guide said this was not allowed! I had spots in front of my eyes for some time.
The Frozen Niagara Tour information said that it had 12 stairs, including an optional 98 to see the Drapery Room under the Frozen Niagara formation. These stairs were made of steel and went straight down so were easy to navigate. Even though some of the other tours said they were “moderate”, they had an average of 300 to 500 stairs so I don't think I could have gone on them. The Park offers other tours for spelunkers that are “strenuous” and “very strenuous” that I know for sure I wouldn't be able to take!
Because of the White-Nose Syndrome threatening the bats, be prepared to give a list of all caverns entered in the past five years and decontaminating your shoes to help prevent the spread of this disease.
From Thursday through Sunday, we listened as Austin, who was probably 10 or 12 years old, was being berated by his mother for every little infraction. She probably wonders why he's sullen! Unfortunately, they were in a tent, so they were all outside until time to go to bed. Of the five children, he was the only one in trouble for something except for his little sister who didn't hurry enough bringing her mother a damp washcloth.
Before leaving the area, we went to Guntown Mountain Theme Park in Cave City. This was billed as a 'wild west adventure'. We rode the chair lift up the mountain to arrive at the 'town' at the top of the mountain. Several different 'gun fights' were staged during the day. The medicine show as very entertaining as was the dance hall girls presentation. During this show the sound system blew the circuit breaker but they carried on anyway. It also knocked out the snack bar electricity. The country music show was more rock 'n roll than country. The sound system should have been adjusted so that the singers could be heard better; the instrumentals were way too loud and overrode the vocals. This was the last day that Guntown would be open until next spring.

Another Caverns Tour

Although we arrived at Florida Caverns outside Marianna, FL, in plenty of time to take the last cave tour of the day, it was too late to get a camp site for the night. Because Florida is mostly flat land, my thinking was that this cavern would be mostly almost flat, too. I was mistaken! We first walked down a rather steep trail to the entrance, then down some steep steps that twisted around some formations. The rest of the tour was very nice until we had to climb back up those steps in order to get out! When we came out of the cavern, it was by a different path that was very steep! The really great part was that there were only three people on the tour with the ranger.
This park was built by CCC workers in the 1930's.





That night we ended up going about fifteen miles further west on I-10 to get a camp site at Falling Waters State Park. The next day we toured this park looking at sink holes created hundreds of years ago. The waterfall that ended up in one of these sink holes and exiting though a cave was dry because of the drought.



What you're not seeing in the above photo is the waterfall! And this is the sinkhole it would disappear into if it were flowing.

The Step With a Mind of Its Own

Every time we opened the cabin door the step is suppose to come out when the switch is pushed up and retract when the door is closed. It is suppose to stay down when the switch is pushed up even when the door is closed. Frank had done some work on the step changing out some parts. It had been damaged last year when our son borrowed it for a long weekend (it failed to retract when the ignition was turned on). After Frank got it straightened out, more or less, it seemed to work just fine but then it is 15 years old and sits out in the weather.
We would open the door, the step wouldn't come out. I'd jump up and down a few times, Frank would jump out and give it a couple kicks, then it would come out. Some times we would just wait several minutes and it would come out. We decided it was being this way if we didn't retract it before turning on the ignition. Then one time after my jumping and his kicking didn't solve the problem, I gave the sensor a light tap with my foot and out came the step! The next few times it failed to deploy when the door was opened, one of us would tap the sensor, and the step would come out....must be the sensor, afterall!

Oddities

Stuff is expensive in Canada!
Milk is $7.47 gal; butter $4.17 a lb; gas $1 litre (multiply that by 3.8!); canned milk$1.79 ($.75 at Aldi every day); a small head of lettuce is $2.47 (usually $.88 - $1.29 at Aldi); couldn't find radishes;

People are super nice, a little too chatty at times.

Love:
Dollarama stores!
Maple crème cookies!

If you buy stamps at the post office, you will pay 5% tax on them; if you buy them anywhere else, you pay face value with no tax

Frenchy's or Guy's Frenchy's Used Clothing stores – mostly clothes sorted by size and are in large bins, jackets & dresses on hangers

thrift stores are very rare

a package of three 1-litre bags of milk

Mail boxes hanging by a chain or chains from a pole mounted on a 4x4

no-entry-possible front doors - some 3 or 4 feet above ground, one house had 2 stacked doors, even if at ground level they are without a stoop, steps, porch, no overhang or awning.

houses painted middle-of-the-road solid-line yellow or violent violet or royal blue, several houses painted dark purple with bright green trim; one new house had a bright yellow metal roof

On PEI, very few houses older than 1960 – or they are Victorian

In Quebec province, all the fire hydrants have two poles beside them and a tall pole with a yellow sign & hydrant in black shadow (so the snow plows can avoid them?)

Slaw is green: Dixie style is chopped very fine; vinegar I don't want to think about; regular is lime green colored and has pineapple & red pepper in it (it tasted ok but lacked enough celery seeds)

People back out of their driveways right out onto the major highway (think U.S. 1) even though the parking area and/or driveway is large enough to turn around in before getting onto the road.

Quite a few houses and some garages/barns wrapped in Tyvec with lathe nailed over it, some has been on so long that it is in shreds, most has been on more than a couple of years.

Back through Maine, Into VT, NH, NY Because It's Almost Over

June 15, 2010
Our parking space last night turned out to be behind a small shopping mall along the seawall next to the marina. During the night, the wind got up really high and several times it seemed as if it would knock us over. The windows on the sea side were covered with salt spray and this morning the wind is still up with the incoming tide.
After leaving this morning as we were headed toward Riviere-du-loup, we passed several places where crews were repairing the seawall along the highway. We also passed by a new house with a dandelion yellow metal roof.
We again had a time finding the correct route though a town; we saw the sign directing us toward Edmundston, NB, but without a route number, then we saw route directional signs without a clue where they would take us. We finally found it and got on our way. The GPS battery died and I had to shut it down.

June 16, 2010
We headed down the road to Woodstock, NB, to cross the border and get on I-95 without incident (getting off on the wrong road!!). We left I-95 at Newport taking US 2 west traveling through Skowheagan, didn't find the 62-foot wooden Indian said to be on the north side of the road behind a gas station. We ended up getting a campsite outside Stowe, VT, as I wanted to take a tour of Ben & Jerry's and we had gotten there too late.

June 19,2010
Lost a day or two somewhere again!
We took the 15-minute tour of the original Ben & Jerry's ice cream plant outside Waterbury, VT, down the road from the campground, which was a hoot! The tour guide assured us that he was going to milk the history of the company. We mooooved through the small plant after watching a short mooovie about the founders and how the company has grown, there's even a plant in Israel. The ice cream is only sold to retailers in packs of eight of one flavor; only one flavor is made a day, it's only made in half and pint sizes, employees get three pints of their choice every day they work, and the flavor graveyard was at the top of a steep hill.
My favorite 'tombstone'

When we stopped at a Walmart Superstore in Plattsburg, NY, I was surprised at how crowded the parking lot and store were. Turned out that many Canadians shop at that store and the surrounding shopping center about twice a month and that was one of the days. We spent the night at the store in Ticonderoga to get away from the interstate noise only to have a couple long-distance truck drivers ride around the parking lot several times in the middle of the night.
We decided to just take our time getting to Front Royal enjoying the scenery expecting to arrive there Monday around noon.

Cavendish, New Brunswick, Again, and Gaspe

June 9, 2010
Last night about dusk, Frank saw a fat fox run across the grassy parking area we were parked in for the night.
By 7 a,m. we were sitting on a cliff overlooking the Gulf of St. Lawrence watching the fishing boats pulling their nets behind them. Just before 9 a,m. we left to go to the Green Gables complex where it's 'all about Anne' and her creator Lucy Maud Montgomery. I did get some photos of the inside of the house (below is "Anne's" bedroom)

It was modeled after her cousins' home for the “Anne” books. I walked the whole (1 K) Balsam Hollow Trail and understand why she loved those walks in the wooded areas around the site. It's very quiet except for the birds and has several foot bridges back and forth across a stream. Off the trail a short distance, I discovered a beavers' dam.
After lunch we arrived in Summerside to refill the propane tank, the gas tank, and visit another Dollarama, my very favorite Canadian store. After I cleared their shelf of my absolute favorite cookie that can only be found in Canada!, we went across the street to take a look around the County Fair Mall – which was touted as being “a country fair every day!” It had a Zeller (a Target like store), a Sobey grocery store, a medical clinic, and about a dozen small boutiques, and a narrow middle corridor. Nowhere did I see anything that resembled a 'county fair'!
That evening we stopped at the Red Shores at Summerside Raceway where we watched the first five of twelve harness racing events. My first pick came in first by a mile, and my second pick came in dead last after breaking stride about ¾ of the way around the track. Then a driver was thrown and had to be taken to the hospital so we left as it was getting dark anyway. We returned to the Walmart we had seen on the way there to park for the night.

June 10, 2010
After I got fresh bread and eggs, and several other items, we didn't need, we followed Rt. 12 north around the North Cape tip of the island, stopping to visit the Wind Farm Interpretive Centre and the lighthouse. We started noticing that all the churches have huge spires, only a very few had none, three or four had four stubby spike like spires on the four corners of the tower.

This museum is dedicated to the history of the potato and how it changed the lives of the pioneers to PEI. The kitchen where all kinds of potato recipes are shown was closed. I did get a recipe for potato fudge, though. Just on PEI the farmers grow more than a dozen different varieties.

THIS IS MY DOLLHOUSE!!!! Why is it in their museum????
We worked our way around the west side of the island until we arrived at the Potato Museum in O'Leary. As it was getting to be 5 p.m. we headed for the closest provincial park to spend the night. It was getting hot, the wind died down, and the mesquites were swarming.

June 11, 2010
We left the campsite this morning and headed down the road to Cap-Egmont to see the Bottle Houses created by a man during his retirement years, now his son and grandson maintain the buildings.

Then we went on to Summerside again to do laundry and then to the Confederation bridge to get back over to New Brunswick to follow the Acadian Coastal Drive. We stopped at the Irving Eco-Centre, La Dune Bouctouche which has a wooden walkway that snaked along the dunes for miles (so it seemed) and I only managed about a half or maybe a third before turning back.

Planning to stop in Miramichi for the night, I used the GPS to find the place we wanted only to have it tell me to make a left turn then it said, “Make a legal U turn as soon as possible,” taking us right back to where we should have made a right turn like the map said to do; then further down the road it told us to make a right turn on the wrong side of the river! We finally made it to our overnight parking place.

June 12, 2010
While we were sitting in the hardware store parking lot waiting for it to open this morning at 8:30 a.m. (on a Saturday!), a former long-distance truck driver stopped to ask if we needed help thinking we had broken down. Then he tells us that we can park in his yard with full hookups for several days if we would like!
After we got the metal washers and rubber things needed to fix the front end of the RV, we headed on up the road to stop at the Acadian Historical Village outside Caraquet only to find out it didn't open til the next day. Nothing that I saw or read anywhere said that it was only open from June 13th til whenever this year.
We did stop in Bereford to check out the beach boardwalk and it was somewhat disappointing. It's not nearly as long as the one at Bouctouche. Plus the beach is very rocky, littered with broken shells, tree limbs, and sea weed. I think they brought in about three cubic yards of sand to make a 'beach' for children to play on and run in and out of the shallow, waveless water.
Hardly any English is spoken in this area of New Brunswick....we're crossing into Quebec tomorrow morning to tour the Gaspe peninsula and that's about all that's spoken in that province!

June 13, 2010
Spending the night in the Sobey's parking lot in Campbellton, NS, we left at 6 a.m. for Perce to go whale watching. Once we crossed into Quebec province, we noticed a definite difference in the terrain! It suddenly became mountainous with steep hills and many curves to slow us down. We were taking our time anyway.
We arrived in Perce just in time to catch the 1:30 p.m. cruise...in fact the ticket seller called the boat to return to the wharf to pick us up.

Only about twelve people were on the boat, one man in a wheelchair. Off we went into 20 kph winds in a large bass boat! It took about 20 minutes to get about eight miles off shore to start looking for the whales....we were being raced by three or four dolphins just before we caught sight of the first of many whales spotted. Unfortunately, two of the women got sick from the rocking, rolling, and tossing about we did most of the time we were out. Amazingly, I didn't get the least bit sick.

June 14, 2010
Leaving the Fort Ramsey campground this morning, we continued following Rt 132 around the very end of the Gaspe peninsula. We stopped at several picnic areas along the coast to try to spot sea creatures without luck. The scenery is spectacular!! We would top a hill and look down on a picturesque seaside village. We are seeing actual ocean waves again; before the shore line was like the Gulf of Mexico – little or no waves at all, now we can see actual swells.
Around dinner time, we arrived in Matane, and as we had been seeing a restaurant called 'Dixie Lee' in just about every town along the way in the other provinces too, we decided to have dinner there. As luck would have it, not one person in the tiny store we finally found could speak English. It was a fast-food restaurant serving several versions of chicken, seafood, and only pepperoni and cheese pizza or with everything on it so we ordered the everything-on-it pizza which turned out to be pepperoni, cheese, mushrooms, and green peppers! It was really, really good, though.