Out of Gas.

I know that may sound strange since we have a diesel engine in the motorhome, but in this case it refers to our old bodies.  We finally hit the wall after 22 days of driving, sightseeing, walking and all those good things.

There is a family of campers across from us with 8-9 kids in their group.  It's a case where each of the children gets to bring a friend and also some cousins thrown in for good measure.  They have a 38ft 5th wheel and two tents to take care of the crowd.  Yesterday Grant started playing with a couple of the kids and now they are best buddies.  He found some crawdads in the creek, played ball, rode bikes and had a blast.  I am sure he will be ready for bed early this evening and sleep like a log.

We took advantage of his being occupied and got some things done around the motorhome.  Gerry bought a towel holder while we were in Red Bay at Tiffin and I promised to install it.  She has gently reminded me of this fairly often and since it is about the end of Grant's time in the motorhome, it was finally the time to tackle the job.  You would think this would be a 10 minute job, but you would be wrong.  It wound up taking about an hour to do the job due to the walls being thin in the bathroom.  At least it is finished.

Then she reminded me to clean the screens on the fantastic fans.  Now that is a job that I can do fairly quickly, but slowed it down so she wouldn't keep adding jobs to the list.  It's worked so far.

We had a nice fire last night and burned all of our firewood we've been carrying around for the last three weeks.  It wasn't cured enough and was hard to start again, but we finally had a good enough fire to cook marshmallows.  They were good and we all had our fill of them before the fire died down.  

The lady with all the children came over with three portions of pie iron for us.  We had just finished our homemade chili and they hit the spot.  For those who don't know what pie iron sandwiches are, here is what I know about it.  Get a roaring fire, two pieces of bread, some cheese, ham or whatever filling you want, some butter on the outside of the bread and drop them on the hot iron skillet in the fire.  Try it, you will like it.

Here are some pictures taken from overlooks and also the airplane ride.  It is a beautiful part of Pennsylvania and one of our favorite campgrounds on the East Coast.

Misty Morning

It's hard to believe that we've been on the road with Grant for 22 days now, except that we are bone tired.  I had laid out an agressive travel plan and we almost hit everything on the list.  Now we have something to look forward to for the next trip with him.

That's it for now folks.  Hope you all had as nice of a day we did.

  

Ives Run COE, Hammond Lake, Tioga PA

It was moving day and we took our time getting out of the Camp Bell CG since we didn't want to arrive too early at our next stop, Ives Run COE.  It was only 31 miles down the road and with Sunday traffic, it was a breeze.  Since it was so close, we didn't bother to hook up the car to the motorhome and Gerry drove the car and Grant accompained her.

We woke up to this view out of our side window this morning.

Not only was his awning about a foot from our slide out, but they moved their table over a couple feet so they would have more room.  This was a tiny trailer without any slideouts and they had a lot of room on the other side, but they wanted to be up close and personal with us.  Since we were leaving, it wasn't a problem, but if it would have been long term I would have said something.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of campground etiquette anymore.

We left that campsite and moved to Ives Run COE CG in Tioga, PA and this is what our site looks like here.

Not only is it larger, but also cheaper with the Golden Age card that gives us 50% off in Federal campgrounds.  It is a full hookup site with 50amp electric on the lake for $17 a night.  You can't beat that with a stick.

Aerial view of campground.

A neighbor across the street said there was a huge family reunion held at the park the past couple days and there were over 100 children in attendance.  We just left a park where they had two family reunions going on, but they weren't that large.  

We treated ourselves to some fried catfish tonight at the Florida Fryed Chicken restaurant.  The meal was pretty good and we managed to almost fill up on the food.  Gerry has sharp eyes and noticed they sold ice cream in another part of the building and we finished the meal with ice cream cones.

Decisions, decisions.  What to order.

Grant with his French Vanilla cone.

My Black Cherry cone.

Gerry with her Swiss chocolate almond cone.

 It wasn't a Dairy Queen, but it helped bridge the gap until we can find one up here.   Yes, it was great ice cream and went down easily.

That's what we did today.  What did you do?

Plane ride & Lunch

Our good friends John & Pat who we met in the Florida Keys 12 years ago live in the Corning, NY area and I contacted them last night about getting together while we were here.  It worked out best for them to meet today for lunch in the town of Painted Post at a nice Italian restaurant.  We haven't seen them for a couple years since we go to Tucson for the winter and they have a place in Central Florida for the winter, so it was good connecting with them again.

We had a nice lunch and got caught up on events in their lives since we last saw them and filled them in on what has been going on with us.  John built a scaled down P-51 airplane from a kit a number of years ago and keeps it at a local airport.  

Grant in the cockpit of the P-51

 
He also has another airplane but it was in Ohio at the present time with his son.  We got to talking about airplanes and he asked if we wanted to go for a ride in a friend's plane and Grant's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree light.  That said it all and John arranged to get his friend's plane and off we went to the airport.

Gerry & Grant preparing to board the plane.

After a long preflight check of the plane Grant and Gerry were ready to fly off into the wide blue yonder.  Or in this case, the cloud filled yonder.  The picture below is of the airfield as they lifted off the runway.  If you blow up the picture you will see Pat & me sitting on a bench outside of the building on the right.  I am wearing the "red shirt" as Henry says.

They took a 35 minute flight around the Corning area and flew over our campground, John & Pat's house, our next campsite and the Corning Glass company from where John retired.

Our motorhome to the right of the pool.  The big MH

 A little way into the flight, Grant took over the controls and flew the plane for a while.  John drew the line at letting him land the plane.  Good move on John's part.  Guess what Grant wants to be when he gets older.

 While they were in the air, a restored 1927 bi-plane landed due to bad weather ahead.  The pilot was heading for the airshow at Oshkosh, WI and had to land early due to storms rolling into his flight plan.  He landed the plane and then was going to call a taxi and spend the night at a local hotel.

 
After the flight, we all adjourned to our motorhome so they could see it.  They have a Winnebago RV so they wanted to see the differences in the units.  We sat around and chatted or an hour or so and then went to their home for a further visit.  5 hours later and one huge pizza devoured saw us heading back to the motorhome.

We had a great visit with them and wish they lived closer so we could see them more often.  John worked in IT like I did and Pat is a crafty lady like Gerry is.  She showed Gerry her beautiful quilts she has made and also examples on her new hobby, wood carving.  She has some beautiful and interesting carvings she's made recently and they are wonderfully done.  I wish I had a talent like that, but just like music and arts, I have no talent for it.

As Forrest Gump said, "life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get".  That's how it is traveling in a motorhome and seeing all the sights and people out there.

As an aside note, when we brought them to the motorhome, I didn't stop completely at a stop sign in the park and the park patrolman jumped in his golf cart and followed us to the site and told Gerry that was twice I didn't stop and I'd better obey the rules.  The bad part was that I didn't even see the stop sign and was just slowing down from the 5mph speed limit to check around the corner for kids.  Now that I know about the stop sign, I stopped for 10 seconds on the way home tonight and the patrolman got up from his easy chair to check on me.  It's as bad as having a HOA association with all the rules.  At least they don't cite me for having weeds on my site in the flower beds nearby.  My FSILINC knows what the above comment is all about.  I hate HOAs and the petty people who govern them.

That was our day, how was yours?

 

Bully for you & Hammondsport, NY

We decided to go to Hammondsport today to check out the village.  It is a quaint town and the downtown area is really neat to visit.  Gerry and Grant got out of the car and walked down the main street and checked out all the shops.  It seems a lot of "junk" we threw away years ago are now antiques and quite valuable. Why is that always the case with stuff we get rid of and the stuff we keep is worthless?

Gerry, Larry Jr and I toured Hammondsport around 1978 and I took a picture of the Train Depot.  I think the train had stopped running by then, but it still looked like a train depot.  Now they have converted it into a police station and city offices.  The depot is right by Lake Keuka which is one of the "finger lakes" in New York.  There are a number of marinas near the depot and a small park.  We also took our oldest grandson Ryan to Bully Hill & Cooperstown back in 1996 on one of his trips with us into this part of the country.

2013 photo

1996 photo

We drove around town looking for some geocaches and found two of them.  It was too busy to check for others since there were muggles around.  Then we drove along the lake shore and were amazed by all the homes built right on the lake.  It really is a popular destination and there were some beautiful homes in the area.

Our primary destination by this time was Bully Hill Winery located just north of Hammondsport along a country road.  We decided to do a little wine tasting and Grant was able to down some grape juice made by the winery.  Real grape juice, not wine.

Grant tasting the grape juice.

Twin matching shirts today almost.

 We tried 5 different wines in this room and didn't find one that we both liked that much.  It was $5 for each of to taste the wines and we kept the glass with their logo on it.  The room to the right of Gerry is another wine tasting area that was $1 a glass (not full), but you could select the wine you wanted.  Gerry tried two more and finally said that was enough.  We bought a couple bottles for later consumption.

They give a short tour of the facilities and it was interesting, but there wasn't anything going on since it wasn't the time for harvesting or bottling the wine.  Bully Hill produces over a million gallons of  wine a year and is available in 30 different states.

After the tour we had dinner on their nice veranda with a view of the lake.  Across the lake were some nice homes and the area was very picturesque.  The food was good, but the prices were quite high for what you got.  A small pizza with 8 small squares was $12.95.  It really was small, but tasty.  If you are ever in the area I would advise you to eat dinner elsewhere.  JMHO

By this time it was getting late and we headed back to the campground via Bath, NY.  There was a rock band playing in the city park and they were loud and animated.  We stopped at an ice cream stand and picked up three small cones.  For a minute we thought we were in Texas where everything is bigger.  Our eyes were opened wide. They were huge and almost too much to eat, but we managed to finish them off.

The campground is full now and there are two family reunions going on along with the regulars who spend the summer here.  It is very crowded to say the least and lots of fires going full blast.  It looks like the place is burning down, but with the a/c on it's not a problem.

We did have an interesting ride to Hammondsport today due to the GPS taking us the fastest way there.  We wound up out in the country on dirt, gravel and asphalt roads that had very steep hills and lots of curves.  I thought for a while that the GPS had malfunctioned, but it brought us to our destination.  I am glad we weren't driving the motorhome or that would have been a mess.

That was it for today.  What did you all do interesting?

Moving Day & hose repair

We developed a leak in a hose running from the engine to the coolant holding tank on Sunday out in the middle of nowhere.  Really out in the middle of nowhere.  We lost the coolant in the tank and the engine began to run very hot and the shutoff beeper began to chirp at us.  I immediately pulled into the entrance of a closed rest area and got far off the interstate.  

We had fresh water in the holding tank and it took about 4 gallons to refill the tank and cool down the engine.  I was careful the rest of the way to our next stop (150 miles) and watched the temp guage quite often.  By the time we pulled into the KOA the coolant level was quite low again, but no beeping.  Since it was Sunday and the Cummins dealer was closed, we just parked and went about our touring and sightseeing.

Monday I called Cummins in Albany (60 miles back up the road) and made an appointment to have them check it out on Thursday morning.  They had an electric hookup so we headed back there this afternoon and checked in.  I determined that there was a pin hole leak in a hose and it was spraying on the hot engine, so nothing dropped to the ground.  When I explained what the problem was, the service guy said he would try to get us in today.  Well, he was true to his word and the repairs were made and we were on our way.

We are camped along a river in Bainbridge, NY at a Passport America campground.  Great price, but not so great of a campground.  Narrow road and difficult to get into sites.  Plus, the electric and water post is in the front of the coach and the sewer hookup is in the back.  Different, but doable since I have a 25ft long 30amp extension cable and the site has 30amp service.  It's very cool outside so we don't need a/c and the clothes are all washed, so it will work fine for us.

The weather forecast for tonight is a low of 48 degrees.  May have to pull out the long johns if it gets that cold.  Brrrrr!

Nothing much exciting or interesting to blog about today, but that is how it is sometimes when you are traveling.  Now to make sure the river doesn't rise and we will be in good shape.

That was our not so exciting day, how was yours?