Back in the USA!

Post by Cynthia; Photos by Bobby

In August, we crossed back to the US through Maine and stayed at a little family campground outside of Bangor – after driving by Stephen King’s house of course! The next night we Wal-docked in a Walmart parking lot in New Hampshire, and then made it to Bobby’s sister in Rochester for some family visiting time. Somehow we did a horrible job of getting many pictures of the next few weeks as we were just busy visiting.

From New York, we went to Ohio, for a USMC reunion and had a great time.

We also closed on our house (finally!) which was a relief.

We then headed east, and stayed a few nights at the Highland Campgrounds in Dalton, PA (near Scranton) which was one of the few locations we could find to stay over Labor Day weekend. We aren’t always the best at making advance reservations and that can lead to a lot of phone calls for holiday weekends.

After Labor Day we headed to Boston to visit Cynthia’s family. We stayed at the Canoe River Campground in Mansfield, which was lovely and shaded and would have been great except the pine trees leaked sap ALL OVER the truck and camper. We can tell you with expertise that using hand sanitizer to get pine sap off a vehicle is the best method (and yes we looked at all the others, but the trick is alcohol, and in a hand sanitizer it’s a little goopier and therefore easier to use to scrub it off).

My Auntie Claire and my cousin, Sandy, were adventurous enough to visit the camper and I think are still in disbelief at the tiny place we call home. And, of course, there was lobster.

From Boston we stopped in Glastonbury, Conn. and camped in my cousin Susan’s driveway for some more family visiting time. It was so much fun seeing everyone, but it was then time to head off again.

So we wound up in the Catskills, at Hilltop Farm Campsites in Mountain Dale, NY. It was another little family campground that was lovely and private. We had some downtime before we were heading to Pennsylvania for some more family visiting, but it rained most of the time we were there. Luckily, there was a casino nearby …

It was here that we decided T-Mobile wasn’t cutting it anymore as a cell/internet provider so we wound up switching phones and plans (to Verizon) at a nearby town.

After that we went to the Tohickon Family Campground in Quakertown, PA and I got to visit with my dear friend, Nicole and see her very grown-up twins who I hadn’t seen since they were little, little kids. It was wonderful.

Bobby got some great pictures at the campground of this Great Blue Heron.

From the Quakertown area we moved south to the Philadelphia South/Clarksboro KOA. We had good internet and good facilities, but I soon left Bobby on his own to visit with the Philadelphia family and my Mom and George who also came in to town. In fact we had a great dinner that also happened to be my birthday celebration!

We left Pennsylvania for the DC area where we had a lovely visit with Bobby’s good friend, V, and his family. We then went to Charlottesville, VA where I had a lovely time seeing my good friend from law school, Katherine, and we all went on a tour of Monticello. We stayed at KOAs (the Ritz Carltons of campgrounds) at both places, so it felt like we were living the high life for a while.

After that, though, things got back to basics, which we will share in our next post.