The Unlikely Names of RVs

As I look around the park, I have to giggle. RV manufacturers have bestowed their rigs with the most implausible names. See if you can spot the fictional one:

Cougar

Renegade

Magnum

Crusader

Road Warrior

Raptor

Avenger

XTreme

Wildcat

Maverick

Transcend

Vengeance

Prowler

Bullet

and my personal favorite, Intruder

Not to mention the collection of things that you hope to never actually experience with your motorhome:

Avalanche

Cyclone

Hurricane

Fireball

Inferno

Of course then we have the location-aspirational names, which only gets me giggling when we are in crowded or very well-groomed parks, the kind with lots of HOA-type rules, as they seem to demand spacious boondocking spots with sweeping views:

Montana

Laredo

Bighorn

Outback

As to which one was a made up name...? None of them. These are all real RV names I see on a regular basis.

I suppose this is all handled by Marketing Geniuses, if they were to name them realistically, nobody would buy:

Slow and Wide

Elephant

Never-Ending Mortgage

Nowhere Canya Park It

Spring-A-Leak

Bring All Your TVs with You

Stop Breathing On Me

Makes me appreciate the wisdom in simple, logical classic names that endure:

Airstream

Teardrop

Cub
Escape

American Dream

Ah... the things that grab your brain when sitting around the campfire with time to let it wander freely...

Colorado Bound, Lickety Split

We decided we wanted to be in Colorado and the forecast was more cold rain for a week anyways so we left New Hampshire a week earlier than planned and quickly scampered through Vermont, New York (paused for 3 days here near Niagara Falls), Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska.

Here's what I can tell you about Vermont: it's breathtaking, even in the pouring rain. Everything you've heard is true; more than once I found myself staring open-mouthed across the view and had to force myself back to reality (oh yeah - don't forget you're driving an 11 ton rig - doh!) I can only imagine how mind-blowing it will be with Fall colors. We stopped at the Ben & Jerry's factory, which was crazy crowded so we spent some time visiting the flavor graveyard and otherwise fled the mob scene. Their website advertises RV parking, and they do have it, but getting into/out of it wasn't for the faint of heart; it was possible, but I'll not be doing it again.

The ice cream puns at the flavor graveyard are delicious, too

Upstate New York was relaxed and beautiful. We settled in to celebrate a few days of unexpected sunshine at the Elks Lodge in Lockport NY, an adorable little town right on the Erie Canal. The river walk goes along the canal edge for miles, probably along the same path where the mules of long ago trod pulling barges.

Buildings along the Erie Canal in Lockport NY

Lockport was also a short drive along the river's edge to Niagara Falls, so we took a Maids of the Mist boat ride right up to the falls. The amount of power the little boat used to keep us in place against the stream was unbelievable. They hand out ponchos as part of the tour price, and we dutifully put them on but there wasn't much point to it as we got soaked anyways.

 

Getting soaked by the spray

Up close and personal to the Niagara Falls, the boat straining to keep us in place against the current

For the ride West we debated the cost of the toll road Turnpike Highway 90 against the time it would save us, and ultimately decided to pay the bill (final grand total bill was $120). The E-Z Pass New York transponder covered all of the tolls from New York through Illinois, although after some drama at one of the early toll plazas we moved the transponder in the RV down from the as-instructed top/center of the window to the bottom/driver side of the window so it could be read by the automated reader. In New York, Ohio and Illinois the turnpike is very well maintained; not so much in Indiana, but you still have to pay for it anyway, rrrrrgh. The Turnpike 90 road quality across Indiana is now tied with Pennsylvania for the dubious winning title of Worst Road In America.
Congratulations Indiana!

In Ohio they have off-ramp plazas fully equipped with 50amp RV service, a trucker rest area separate from the RVer rest area, showers, an RV dump, you can stay overnight and enjoy the 50amp service for the cost of a $20 ticket issued by a vending machine. There are also restaurants, a roomy fuel dock, and a pet run area onsite. When it comes to handling road-weary travelers - Ohio really gets it!

50 amp service in the overnight RV section of the Blue Heron stop on the OH Turnpike.
It's clearly marked max 40' but larger rigs stayed here too and everyone worked around it.

Iowa is beautiful and has some slightly rolling hills, which became flatter as we moved West. The folks there decorate their barns with cubist paintings on wood panels they call barn quilts. Somewhere around Des Moines we started playing a game and the winner would be whomever could spot a crop that wasn't either corn or soy. Endless agriculture as far as we could see for hours in every direction, and it wasn't until Lincoln Nebraska that we saw a hay field, followed immediately by a Christmas tree farm. That's a lot of corn and soy!

Somewhere around Chicago we exchanged the 90 Turnpike for Interstate 80 West and rolled on, stopping along the way here or there whenever we got tired. One of our night stops was at the Prairie Oasis in Nebraska. We'd been running from yet another storm (it's been raining for what seems like forever) when it became obvious we weren't going to outrun it and we opted to just hunker down and let it pass over us. The staff simply shrugged and said, "Meh, it's probably not hot enough for a tornado". They were right - no tornado but we did get some serious rain.

The pond at the Prairie Oasis park in Nebraska, after the rainstorm

We experienced squalls twice on this leg of the adventure, so here's what I learned about squalls. If you see a horizontal stripe in the clouds that looks like someone drew it with a fat black marker, button down everything, 'cuz you're about to get soaked. The rain comes down with such force that it's hard to tell where the sky ends and the road begins, from the low vantage point of the Subaru I lost nearly all visual cues and was able to keep up only by focusing on the blue kayak on the top of the trailer. From the RV Lance was high enough to see above it. The tactic if you're in New York is just to turn on your emergency flashers and continue driving at 70mph. If you're in Vermont you can expect to slow down to 20mph or so less than the posted speed limit, and use no flashers; in both places you continue on your merry way and just hope no moose wanders out in front of you in the meantime.

We're looking forward to drying out in Colorado for a while.

Good internet access overlooking a lake at the state park in Sterling, CO

"Let's go for a quick paddle on the river, it'll be fun!", she said...

We made some new friends at the campground in Gorham, NH. It shouldn't surprise anyone that our dogs hit it off and became besties first, and after a successful day hike and a beautiful sunset paddle together, we made plans for a paddle down the river.

They talked me into leaving the stand-up paddleboard behind and borrowing their extra kayak, so all four of us could paddle together.

We left a car at the landing spot and put in on the Androscoggin River just past Milan. The plan was to float down the river for a little bit. Honestly, it didn't seem that far when we were all riding and chatting our way up to the launching spot. Oh how the miles can fly by when you aren't paying attention!

We pushed off the river's edge and were greeted by floating fields of lily pads.  The river slowly wound its way East (yes that still feels backwards to me) and we floated along peacefully, chatting and occasionally swatting. The sun was bright, I was glad we'd covered in sunblock and bugspray.

Hour 1: I'm in love with this beautiful river, peaceful and lonely, I'm sure glad I put on the sunblock and bugspray. The flowers along the shoreline are colorful and bring floral scents to us on a light breeze. As we paddle and drift dreamily by I imagine what it would be like to live here and debate the pros/cons of having property on this side or that side of the river.

Hour 2: Look at that cute little turtle on the shoreline!  I need more sunblock, time to re-apply, my pasty white arms haven't seen enough sun this year to prepare for this. Where did that wind come from? It's good I left the stand-up paddleboard, it isn't likely I could have pushed against this wind. Why is the dog whining? At least for her I packed plenty of water. It's sure pretty here. Hey check out that cool bird!

Hour 3: Sure am glad I put on the bug spray. I need more sunblock, time to re-re-apply. That wind is getting stiff. Why is this river sooooo slow? I probably should have eaten a real breakfast this morning. My arms are getting tired and my butt is starting to complain. At least if I shift around often I can occasionally restore feeling to my legs. The dog is still whining, I've given up trying to guess at why.

Hour 4: Holy hell where are we? We are never going to get there, I should have studied that map more carefully, and I definitely should've packed snacks and more water. We're going to starve to death out here if I don't become a baked lobster or burst into flames first. I have lost sensation from the waist down and my fingers are blistering. The wind is whipping up little whitecaps for us to row against, in fact I'm pretty sure if I stop rowing I'll get pushed back UP the river. I briefly consider clawing my way up the riverbank to die of sun exposure on the shore. I hate every piece of abandoned property along the river's edge - seriously, where are all the #&**# people in this Godforsaken countryside!? The dog's whining is starting to really get on my nerves; in hindsight, she may have seen this coming.

Hour 5: I'm having an out-of-body experience. Yes in my new life here on the river I will try to catch fish and if I don't have any luck I will eat that dog, that's one sure way to stop her whining. I find myself casually wondering how long to cook a dog before she's edible... Hey wait, hold up! That's a landmark I recognize. We just might make it after all! I can probably stop regretting the life insurance policy I forgot to buy... Oh, hey, there's the landing spot. Wasn't that fun?

Towards the beginning of our 7-mile paddle, and before the 20 knot winds kicked up

Absolutely, let's definitely do this again sometime!

Come on legs, time to get out. Legs?!

Fake it 'til you make it!

This is the one year anniversary of being on the road. Shawna, Chloe, Starfish, Stewie, and I pulled away from our house July 17, 2017 after shakedown cruises to Pismo Beach, Northern California, and Utah. 

Our path has been North to Oregon, South through California, SouthEast through Arizona, New Mexico, East along the Gulf coast through Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, South to the Florida Keys, North to Georgia, North Carolina (skipped South Carolina for some reason), Virginia, Maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Maine, we are currently in New Hampshire starting our trek West. 

When this started it felt disingenuous at best to describe ourselves as "Full Time" nomads. After a year when I'm asked where I'm from, I'm comfortable telling them "here." When they if I'm retired I say "No, I'm a photographer." The first time I said "I'm from here." It felt a little strange. Are we homeless? Houseless? Do they think we live in this particular campground year-round? Now having met dozens of fellow nomads it feels natural. 

When I was a working stiff I categorized people into one of three groups, Big Brain on a stick (people who were paid for what they know), Asses in a seat (people that need to be onsite to solve problems or serve the customer) and Talent (artistic types that suckered their way into a job). I've always been an Ass in a Seat guy, fixing things that break, maintenance, work a shift/go home guy. Now I'm calling myself a photographer, moving from Ass in a Seat to Talent. Surprise! It ain't as easy as I thought. I went to school to repair video cameras but had limited experience operating one.

I was thinking about that this morning as I was trying to think of something to write for this blog. I remembered an essay I read by one of my favorite authors Captain Fatty Goodlander. To sum it up: Captain Fatty, a man with only four or five years of formal schooling, wanted to be an author. He set a goal of 100 rejection letters in a year and started writing. Years later he has written a dozen or so books, and numerous magazine articles.  He uses the money he earns to travel the world on S/V Ganesh his Wauquiez  Amphitrite.  Here is a link to the article from Fatty, inspirational stuff.

If Captain Fatty can do it so can I. I am a Photographer! I will have one thousand photos on my stock photo site and one hundred videos this year. I'm going to keep trying til I get it right.

White Mountains, New Hampshire - Proud Record Holder of the Worst Weather in the World, and Probably the Worst Internet Access, too

We heard some of the best fireworks on the East Coast could be found in Gorham, New Hampshire. It's at the foot of the White Mountains, a motorcycle mecca, so that works for us.

First on the to-do list, pick a spot with decent cell coverage so I can work. Tricky, this close to the mountain.  Sprint reported no coverage whatsoever and AT&T admitted theirs was spotty, but Verizon's map reported excellent coverage at White Birches campground just outside of town so I booked the site. In reality the coverage was dismal; slow when we could get it at all, and randomly it would shut off and on throughout the workday. We called Verizon to find out why the website and reality were so maligned and they sent someone out to check it, and confirmed it was "suboptimal" but offered no excuse for it or any hope that it would get better.  Now I distrust Verizon's coverage maps.

Here are the actual speed tests:

The strategy I ended up developing was to use the park Wi-Fi when the other campground guests were sleeping, and otherwise work at the Gorham City Library where they graciously allowed me to take over a quiet corner and work unmolested on their super-fast internet (it's important to note here, if this is a lifestyle you are considering, that a good VPN is mandatory to keep your data safe from prying eyes). And undoubtedly there's nothing quite like spending time at a library to show you a good cross-section of the local population.

Anyways, getting back to Gorham...
The fireworks were indeed pretty awesome. The town celebrations lasted a full 6 days, complete with a traveling carnival and live music.

Fresh raspberry pie

Rural America at its finest - the holiday parade
included a tractor brigade

The centerpiece of the White Mountains National Forest is Mount Washington, proud record holder of the world's highest winds @231 mph. There are earnest meteorology students here 24/7 - this is the spot where three major storm patterns regularly converge. Even on our tour day in early July, when the foot of the mountain was a balmy and calm 65, the top of the mountain was a bone-chilling 29 degrees with winds gusting to 40mph. There were sobering cairns marking spots where hikers had died over the years, mostly due to hypothermia, one less than two hundred yards from the hotel at the summit.

This coal-fired steam engine took us to the mountaintop, the other engines of the Cog Mountain Railway are eco-friendly biodiesel

The view out the window down the mountain behind us

We took the easy route and rode the Cog Mountain Railway to the mountaintop. At one point the grade is just over 37 degrees. It took us an hour to reach the top.

This is what it looks like when you rest the camera on the window sill and shoot out at the passing buildings. The building is level, our train was climbing past it at about 34 degrees

It really messes with your head

The motorcycle roads of the White Mountains are epic, but most of the bikes we see are Harleys or heavy cruisers. We'll do the cruiser roads too, but in the meantime I also received some off road route suggestions that are begging for further investigation. Speed limits are nearly impossible to comply with in this area so we'll have to be especially wary.

Maine: Freeport and Acadia National Park

Egg Rock Light Station

In June of last year, almost a full year ago, while we were busy clearing out our house and outfitting the RV, I presented Lance with a birthday card that said "this card good for flyfishing classes in the location of your choice", and a few basic flies.  It had always been a desire of his to learn to flyfish. A little later down the road he selected the LL Bean headquarters in Freeport, Maine and we decided June should be a good weather window.

Lance practicing his 4-part cast on the lawn at the RV park

Freeport is an adorable little company town, in this case the company being LL Bean and other like-minded stores. When I booked the class they directed me to the free RV parking onsite, a block away from the outlet shops and right in the middle of their adorable little downtown, a park-like location which was very convenient to shopping and dinner. It was also our first urban boondocking experience, there will be more to follow. We made friends with other RVers who parked nearby, also Californians who had been following the weather, as it turns out we'd stayed in many of the same places at the same time, and were heading to the same park near Acadia National Park next.

Lance thoroughly enjoyed his flyfishing class, and even caught a fish in the LL Bean pond. The staff was so quick about unhooking it and putting it back in the pond he didn't even get a picture of it, so  without photographic evidence to the contrary the fish gets bigger every time he tells the story. Last time I heard him tell it that trout was as big as a truck! The bottom line though, is that the moment that fish was caught, the person really hooked was Lance. We bought a flyfishing rod and he's been practicing his cast as often as he can since. I expect we will be investing in a license to cast into actual water when we get to New Hampshire.

Private residence on Mount Desert Island

The jump from Freeport to Trenton's Narrows Too RV Park was a short one. We selected this park because it was just on the outskirts of Acadia National Park and we asked to be tucked away in the corner. They put us in the back of the park by the dog park, and it's a pull-in site (a first for us) so all day while I work I am facing the forest and the dog park.  I received the supplies for making the window shade system, and will tackle it when I get a moment, but I'm not feeling rushed about it here since there are no prying eyes or baking sun. Our next long stop will be in Gorham NH, that seems like a good spot to take on that project.

Truly seaworthy vessels at rest in the SouthWest Harbor

We've spent nearly every free moment circling through Acadia National Park. Cadillac Mountain in the middle of the park has a height of 1530', and is the tallest mountain on the East Coast.  It is the first place in the continental USA to see the sun each day, and The Thing To Do is go to the mountaintop and greet the sunrise. At this latitude and this close to solstice that means sometime not long after 4am.

The Sunrise as viewed from Cadillac Mountain reveals the Porcupine Islands hiding under their own individual cloud layers

The majority of the park was once property owned by some Rockefellers, and they installed carriage roads along the lower elevations of the park with beautiful gatehouses. Nowadays you can walk, pedal your bike, or ride in a horse-drawn carriage on these same roads, no powered vehicles are allowed.

Gatehouse along the carriage road

While driving around the Park Loop one day we came across a sign for "sand beach". Lance laughed "of course it's sand, what else would a beach be made of".... well come to find out it's the only sand beach around here for quite a long ways, the rest of them being large round rocks or jagged volcanic rock. On sunny warm days locals and tourists alike stretch out and soak it all in but nobody is swimming, the water is 40 degrees. Yipe.

Shawna tide-pooling on a typical Maine beach

Chloe carefully supervising the harbor seal activity

We bought tickets for the local tour boat and went in search of puffins and lighthouses.  We found a lighthouse but no puffins, oh well... nature, whatareyagonnado. Bonus surprises were a pair of bald eagles, a harbor seal rookery and porpoises. The weather on the water that day was typical Maine, meaning layers are a good idea even in June. It went from coffee-cup-embracing/burrowing down into my jacket to stripping down to tee-shirt and sun-worshipping to zipping the jacket all the way back up again in the course of our two-hour tour.

Bald Eagle #1 of 2 on an otherwise uninhabited island

Yesterday we drove without purpose around the island and discovered SouthWest Harbor and Quietside, where the pace is even more laid-back. On that side of the island most of the boats in the harbor were fishing boats and there were stacks of lobster traps everywhere, the homes are more modest and the property more sparsely populated. We drove a little further along the coastline and discovered a neat wind-swept beach, campground and picnic area and a cool lighthouse, as it turns out there are a lot of them on the island.

Bass Harbor Lighthouse on the Quietside

The RV park where we are staying belongs to a collection of Thousand Trails and Encore parks, and after careful consideration we decided to buy into the program. If we choose our landings carefully we should be able to save quite a bit of money on the next year's worth of our RV park stays. I'll keep track of how it works out and report back on that later when I have some data compiled.

Boston and Bellingham, MA

Clock Tower in Boston, MA

Good friends recommended a family-owned private RV park in Bellingham, MA, a suburb of Boston. The park was adorable and well established. Because we booked so close to the Memorial Day weekend they put us in one of the last available spots, close to the front gate in the middle of all the action. The best part was watching the petting zoo animals frolic all day, the worst part was feeling like I was living in a fish bowl, since my office window is the front of the bus and everyone had to parade past me to get into/out of the park. That's the price we pay for waiting until the last minute to book a reservation on a holiday weekend.

Halfway through our stay I got an up-close inspection of a neighbor's MagneShade system and decided to break out the sewing machine and make a similar one myself. I'll order the parts to arrive at the next stop. This will reduce the heat/light/prying eyes coming in but not reduce our view out by much, if any. This is a worthy project that will greatly improve temperature control and give us some privacy when we are in full sun or tight quarters.

Host Pets at the RV Park

The majority of the park was covered in thick shade trees, with a pond and beautiful flowers. We hit the weather sweet spot, still mostly Spring with some rainy days which coincidentally landed on the days we'd carved out for sight seeing (see earlier blogs about embracing flexibility), and a few days which revealed some shocking heat, just enough to give a peek at what summer has in store for the region. We were grateful for our 50amp hookup and the park pool on those hot days.

The pond is home to a variety of frogs, and their beautiful harmony is incessant

We booked a foodie tour in Boston early into our stay here. We intended to go back and follow up on some of our favorites, but lost some time to cold/rainy weather and opted to stay close and explore Bellingham's bicycle pathways when we could take advantage of the short weather windows on those days instead. On one of these  local exploring days we came across the Franklin end of the Southern New England Trunkline Trail. This is a Rails to Trails project; the train originally ran in the mid-1800s. You can still sort of make out where the little villages along the railway used to be, nowadays the path goes through peaceful suburbia and small farms.

Bicycling on the Franklin Trail

The traffic getting into and out of Boston was fairly frightening. The on/off ramps are so short it's about impossible for anyone to merge on or off at freeway speed, and the result is a slinky-type slow-n-go which tends to jam up across all the traffic lanes. The closer you get to Boston the more intense things get, like any big city, and most of the driving in Boston is actually through a tunnel system UNDER the city; we took a big breath and got comfortable with it but many were not and there was some resulting drama. The T train does branch out into the suburbs rather nicely, I think if we come back we'll look into getting a commuter pass and skipping the freeway altogether next time.

The shops in the Boston Public Market source their food locally

As seen from the Boston Foodie Tour

The streets in the oldest parts of Boston are made of stone that was originally ship ballast, some dating back to almost 400 years ago. And it is still holding up nicely, all things considered.

The prevailing architecture is starting to change, as we go North we noticed a trend towards wood and less brick.  Next up, Maine.