Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Un Air de 'ete at Point Rouge and Old Quebec City

Our next stop was at a small countryside campground in Point Rouge, Quebec on Monday, July 12th. Un Air de-ete Campgrund is hidden away off Highway 367 and is also neat and VERY French! The managers are a husband wife team (Andre and Francine). He speaks broken English and she speaks only French. For $31.61 (Canadian) nightly, we have 30A/W/S on a grassy, sunny pull-through space. We like it and will stay on for several nights.

Tuesday morning, July 13, we took the car and drove into Old Quebec City. The sky is overcast and the temperature is still in the low 80's with continued high humidity, but it is more tolerable than the days before. This old section of Quebec is on the highest point and overlooks the narrow part of the St. Lawrence River. The oldest existing fort in North America is at the highest point. We spent all day and took lots of pictures before having dinner at an open air cafe. This is a beautiful place and while the locals do not go out of their way to be hospitable, they are friendly enough to suit me.
July 13, 2010 Quebec City

Welcome To Quebec!

Sunday morning, July 11, we left Ausable River Campsite and continued our trip northward on I-87. We made a stop in Plattsburg, NY for food supplies and then crossed the border into Canada mid-day. We erroniously took the "bus" terminal instead of the "car" terminal and were greeted by a customs agent who checked our license and passports and send us on our way without having to go back into the proper terminal.

Everything in Quebec is in French. I mean everything. At the Quebec Welcome Center, we stopped for currency exchange and brochures and received courteous and friendly service along with a wealth of good tourist information on various area regions. We chose the Drummondville, Quebec for our first night's destination and arrived at Camp Des Voltigeurs in the afternoon. For this 30Amp/Water and sewer site we paid a record $49.67 (Canadian). We were surprised to find the campground showers were 50c for 5 minutes! However the campground was nice enough with lots of shade trees, fair roads and reasonably level campsites. We did opt to stay only one night as we were still itchy to get farther into the country.

We've not had satellite service since the night we stayed at the Shenandoah Valley Campground in Verona, Virginia. After several calls to the TransStar and Mr. Satellite people, we finally gave up once we reached Canada as it isn't likely we'd have reception this far north under normal circumstances. We can't decide whether our system requires the TransStar upgrade or if the newly installed TIVO has caused the service interruption. Oh well... that's a problem for another day.

Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Day Trip

On Saturday we took a day trip into the Adirondack Mountains where the temperature was cooler and the humidity was much lower than in the campground below. We visited Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Essex, New York to see the Lake Champlain coast.

The Adirondack mountains are beautiful, not as intense in height as the Smokey Mountains but with seeminly longer slopes up and down. The village of Lake Placid was just as I had imagined and we saw lots of middle aged atheletic types biking, swimming and running everywhere. Not too many overweight people around here.

Next we drove over to Saranac Lake which we found to be beautifully serene too. There was a wooden boat exposition along the lake shore where we found restored old wood Chris Craft boats and hand made canoes. Wayne really wanted to spend some time looking at the boats, but the park area was full of dog poop so we didn't stay long or look at much else.

From there we went to Essex, New York along the shore of Lake Champlain. All of these towns and villages are quaint, quiet and as clean as a pin. I am surprised at the huge numbers of flower gardens and the beautiful wild flowers growing everywhere.

Day trip to Lake Placid, Saranac Lake and Essex New York

Ausable Chasm - Upstate New York







Mid afternoon on Friday, July 9 we arrived Ausable, New York along Interstate 87 and checked in at Ausable River Campsite Campground. The weather is unbelievably hot and muggy. All the locals are complaining -- it's in the high 80's and very little air conditioning. The campground is off a secondary highway and in a low area so the mosquitos are bad. We liked the campground and the site so we agree to stay on two nights. Late Friday afternoon, just before dusk, we unhooked the car and took a ride through the campground and then to Ausable Chasm.




Thursday, July 8, 2010

Tobywanna, Pennsylvania and King George, New York

Wednesday turned out to be a real thriller for us -- really hot as we drove from Virginia into Maryland and then Pennsylvania. We set our overnight sites on a Pennsylvania State Park at Locust Lake, making a reservation for the only pull-through available for one night. Pennsylvania does not run water or sewers in their state parks but they did alert us to that fact and they provided a fast running spigot for filling our tank, which we did promptly upon arrival around around 4 p.m. Driving to our site, we found the campground to be very crowded and dusty and decided to leave for a more favorable place. The very nice attendant, Debbie, refunded our prepaid camp fee of $24.


We drove on to another campground located in White Haven, Pennsylvania but it seemed to be deserted except for a very few, very old campers and we opted to escape without further pursuit.

The next stop would be in the Pocono foothills in the town of Tobywanna, Pennsylvania where we found the Hemlock Campground to be a perfect fit. Even the management was good. The price was right to for site #50. $21.50 for 30amp with water and sewer.


We got up Thursday morning and made a quick departure, leav ing Tobywanna at 9:45 a.m. with 9,550 ODO.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Overnight at Verona, Virginia




The ride on Monday was nice but in the afternoon, I had a terrible sleepy spell and couldn't stay awake unless I laid down to take a nap. We entered Virginia in the early afternoon and stopped in the Virginia Welcome Center for brochures and maps. We ate lunch on the road and ran Blackie through her gears but failed to return her to "Neutral" and caused a screeching pull as we attempted to pull away. We both knew this accident would happen at some point. Maybe now we won't make that mistake again. It was scary.









After eating supper in a truck stop parking lot, we pulled into Sheanandoah Valley Good Sam Campground in Verona, Virginia around 6:30 p.m. and paid $35 to overnight in site #114 with water and 30 amp service. The weather was frightfully hot and muggy and it took a long time to get the coach cooled. Turned out there was a switch left on in the campsite power box. Wayne found it and restored our power. The campground showers were small but clean and I found myself with a headache and went to bed early.








We were up early and left the campground at 9 a.m. We're now on Eastern Daylight Savings Time. The ODO is at 9,209.2. Today, Tuesday, July 7 is going to be very hot again and we just passed an "Ozone Warning" sign. The Shenandoah Valley is beautiful, but the haze keeps us from seeing much of the beautiful mountains along our east and west.




Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Refuel: How Bad Can It Be?

Around 10 am we pulled into Love's at Dandridge (I-40) to refuel. Mona likes diesel...alot of diesel. She held 69.305 gallons which cost $196.76. The ODO reading is 8895.2. The ADCO bicycle cover is too small to fit over the bikes properly and we had to readjust it too By 10:30 we're rolling again.

We'll soon be taking I-81 going North into new camping territory.

July 6 Early Departure

At 5 am we woke up and spirited through the paces. Before last night's shower, we loaded all the patio supplies. By 6:45 we had dumped the tanks, hooked the car and were leaving Cumberland Mountain State Park. The ODO shows 8,798.9. The weather is remarkably cool with low humidity. What an oddity for July. We're heading east on I-40 through Knoxville to I-81 North. We're as excited as children on Christmas Eve.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Tuesday, July 5th: Recovery Day

Last night was wonderfully restful sleep for both of us and we rose early and had a coffee fueling before a much needed weekend style breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuts. More organizing, repairing and sorting. Mid-morning we took a ride to the registration office and paid for a second night here at Cumberland Mountain State Park. The park is beautiful, the weather is terrific and we almost feel guilty not to be putting more miles behind us. But all that comes in due time. We simply must recover from last week. We took a few pictures and I'm going to try again to post a clickie to them here.



Late in the afternoon, we stowed everything and will be pulling out early tomorrow morning.

July 4-6 2010 Cumberland Mountain State Park. Crossville, Tennessee

Already tired when we pulled away from the Nashville I-24 Good Sam Campground on Sunday, July 4th, we agreed the best idea was to get only as far as Crossville where we knew we liked the state park campground. Our fingers were crossed that there would be some vacated campsites when we arrived and sure enough... out luck held. We certainly wanted to go farther, but we were so exhausted and there was so much we needed to organize...

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Leaving The House Behind

Thursday, Friday and Saturday, July 1,2&3 were a blur but by 2 p.m. Saturday, we had finished emptying the house, disposed of every single thing that wouldn't be taken with us and we left Franklin behind. Our final Thursday agenda item was getting Mona to the Nashville I-24 Good Sam Campground where we would be based for sleeping until all the other chores were finished and we were ready to pull out. Charles picked up the last bedroom set Thursday morning. Friday morning Mary and Bob came for Wayne's leather recliner, we signed RE closing documents and had the Thriftsmart charity goods picked up. In the afternoon we went to Maury County stopping by Columbia Campers, Hardin's office, the libraries and the Mt. Pleasant Museum. Friday night we enjoyed dinner at Cheddar's with Cam and Amy. Finally, on Saturday we took our family keepsakes to storage. It's hard to believe it's all over. Now the fun begins. We will need to be patient as we get the inside of Mona organized. Wayne has an overload of clothes but we will manage.