8000 miles!

Nicole joins us...we head for Philly!

After a few travel troubles, Nicole made it to Newburgh, NY to spend our last week on the road with us. Courtney and Matthew popped out of bed for a change, both excited that their cousin was coming. We had some trouble parking in Philadelphia, but finally found a bus lot and consulted a local fireman for a recommendation on a Philly cheesesteak spot. Those fireman are always dependable...we enjoyed some yummy hoagies and headed for the Liberty Bell. We got as much education in as summer vacation will allow, but the kids seemed a little more interested in heading to the beach, so we drove a little south, and stopped at a state park in Delaware. It was a beautiful campground...Nicole pulled out the cabbageball and found a makeshift bat so we could enjoy a little game while Darin cooked up some burgers. A couple games of Rummikub before bed...to the beach tomorrow!

Getting a little history in...

Enjoying cheesesteak in Philly!

In front of Trump International

Matthew gets Carlie a Wiggles hat!

Dad and kids in NY

On the Miss Liberty

World Trade Center memorial

A 'Wicked' time in New York City!

After leaving the RV at a friend's house, we hopped on the train headed for Trump International to enjoy a couple of days in New York. We caught some of the touristy stuff, the World Trade Center, Statue of Liberty, etc. In typical kid fashion, Matthew and Courtney were most interested in hitting the hotel pool! But, the definite highlight of our trip was the play 'Wicked'. Both the kids and adults were mesmerized by the story of Oz before Dorothy arrived...it was truly an awesome show! Wednesday morning we got up early to catch the Today show, complete with a performance from 'The Wiggles'. A little too young for our kids, but we all enjoyed seeing Matt, Katie and Al up close. After hitting the pool one more time, we headed out for a little shopping and back to the train. The kids really enjoyed New York, and we will surely be headed back for a return visit!

Courtney is NOT happy that Carl Edwards loses to Kurt Busch!

While Lynelle and Courtney enjoy it from the view of the front seat of the RV!

Darin and Matthew watch the race from the top of the neighbor's RV

Our star sighting...Mario Batali of the Food Network

Darin and Matthew learn the ropes of washerboard

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

We arrived for the Pennsylvania 500 in the Poconos and were very happy with our ebay ticket purchase of a trackside RV spot. We soon learned that all of our neighbors had been doing this for some years, and were professionals. They quickly welcomed us into their game of washerboards, similar to horseshoes, and also shared their grills, RV roofs, etc. We were relaxing enjoying some people watching when Darin spotted Mario Batali, star of the Food Network, driving by on a golf cart in his signature orange shoes and turquoise socks. Other kids may not be excited by this, but ours are food network junkies, so they were quite pumped. Courtney waited for Mario's return and caught a quick picture of him, very pleased with herself! Raceday came, and the boys watched from the top of the neighbor's RV, while the girls enjoyed the quiet and convenience of watching from the front seat, with the TV on to show us the rest of the track. Kurt Busch pulled out the win, much to Courtney's dismay, since she has adopted Carl Edwards as her favorite driver (hey, if you live in Charlotte you have to have one, right??). We enjoyed the race, but we were all excited to head to New York City, so off we went!

Hershey Park

Matthew's a Twizzler, Courtney's a Jolly Rancher!

We arrived in Hershey, PA around mid day and got settled into the Hershey Highmeadows campground, about a mile from the park. Darin registered us and came out with a big treat - a huge Hershey Special Dark bar, Lynelle's favorite! What a guy! A friend had given us the scoop on the to dos in Hershey, so we took in the 3D movie and the Chocolate Tour, which were great. Heading over to the park around 5, we checked out the map of rides. In this park, your height determines what rides you can go on, and each level is a candy...thus Courtney was Jolly Rancher, Matthew a Twizzler! We hit almost every roller coaster, and Matthew convinced Courtney to go on the first water ride. Once they were soaked through and through, they hit the remaining 3 water rides before it was time to go. Our favorite was a roller coaster where spectators on the ground could shoot water up at the people on the ride. Darin and Lynelle waited patiently for the kids to get on the ride, then Darin expertly douced them with the water guns!

One of the tamer rides...

Outback and WalMart

As we have done many times, we began heading in a direction, figuring we'll find somewhere to stay. Well, for those of you who may be wondering, there is really nowhere to camp in southwestern Connecticut. This has not happened a whole lot, so we resorted to plan B...found a WalMart! If anyone isn't up on the RV world, most Wal Marts allow RVs to spend the night in their parking lots...very convenient in a pinch! Since we had drive much farther than originally anticipated, we were all a bit hungry. We decided to break our 'no eating at chain restaurant rule' and enjoy a steak from Outback. With our bellies full, we headed to our home sweet parking lot and got some rest. Off to chocolate world tomorrow!

At the Cape Cod National Seashore

Sandwich and the Cape

At the recommendation of our new campground friends, we spent the evening at a campground in Sandwich, MA. It was a quick stop but moved us along to our destination, which was the ocean side of Cape Cod. We had a yummy lunch at a local spot - the Yardarm, enjoying some more clam chowder and their own brew of root beer and lemonade. We found a parking lot for the RV and boarded the shuttle for the Coast Guard beach on the Cape. The place was packed, but we found a nice spot on the beach. The kids headed for the sandbar that everyone seemed to enjoy jumping the waves on. We were a little hesitant about them being far from shore, so Darin was a good daddy and headed into the 58 degree water so the kids could enjoy the surf. The time at the beach flew by and it was time to head towards Pennsylvania...off we went!

Yum lobstah!

Matthew joins in the lobster eating.

Enjoying dinner with Elvis singing in the background

Kids in the COLD water!

Bar Harbor - gorgeous!

Unemployment gets better and better...

We made it to Bar Harbor a day early...what a wonderful place! We settled into our waterfront campsite (advertised as oceanfront, which wasn't exactly true, but pretty nonetheless), then wandered out to find our first lobster. Darin cooked up some great boiled crustaceans along with some steamed clams...we were in heaven!!! We went in to town the next day and walked around the shops, then hopped back into the rental car to do some exploring. Acadia National Park is the second most visited park in the US, and we could see why. Between beautiful wooded sections and a great sandy beach area, this was by far one of the prettiest places we had been. Oh, and guess what....Darin made friends with the neighbors!!!! We had a good long rest at this stop, with many lobster and chowder meals, smores and campfires with the neighbors nightly. We took in a local lobsterbake at a nearby restaurant, complete with 'Elvis' all dressed up and singing for us. The food was incredible, with some fun added in! After 4 nights, though, it was time to move on...where to next?

Dad and Matt on the pier

Matthew helping Darin cook up some lobster!

Ben and Jerry??

Smores - yum!

Enjoying the beach!

NY Lakes and a new AC...

Our first major RV issue...a broken AC unit. On our way to Lake George we contacted a repairman who suggested we try Alpine Lake instead of the parks on Lake George. After driving around a little bit we decided to give it a shot...we called and there was one lakefront site available, so off we went. We were pleasantly surprised at our campsite, sitting right between two small lakes, with a sandy beach right across the road. This turned out to be one of the most relaxing stops yet. The kids had a ball playing on the beach, and of course rented more bikes, and we all played some family tennis, though the temperatures and humidity were up there. And, what a surprise, Darin made great friends with the neighbors, who we ended up chatting with around the campfire. After 3 nights we had enjoyed our stay here but we were ready to move on. We headed to Vermont and took a tour of the Ben and Jerry's factory and enjoyed some ice cream. Next...off to Bar Harbor!

Courtney doing some shopping

I Love New York horse show

Lake Placid...in the rain!

Well, we've been pretty fortunate with the weather so far, so it was only fitting that we would run into some weather sooner or later, and Lake Placid was it. We were stopping at Lake Placid for the I Love New York horse show, one of Courtney's requests. The main event was postponed on Saturday due to rain, so we did some shopping in town, saw 'Bewitched' and hoped for better weather. Sunday brought sunny skies, so we headed back to the show grounds and watched the Grand Prix jumping event. After picking up a new saddle pad for Courtney and getting our fill of horse jumping we headed down to Lake George for a couple of days.

On the jetboat - we're in the 4th row!

Kids at Lake Ontario

Darin cooking up some grub

Looking cool in our ponchos!

Heading to the boat

Maid of the Soaked!

We arrived at our next stop, Niagara Falls, by late morning, hoping for a little more excitement. We all climbed aboard the Maid of the Mist for a close up view of the falls. The boat travels right up to the falls, and everyone receives a fashionable blue poncho in an attempt to keep dry. But, as Matthew put it, "We should call this Maid of the Soaked, not Maid of the Mist!" The Falls were pretty incredible and we took some time looking at them from several vantage points. After some afternoon ice cream we headed to our campsite, which turned out to be one of the most fun. Darin met the neighbors (surprise surprise), the kids rented bikes (another surprise!), then we all headed to the pool where the kids swam and Darin and Lynelle took up a game of Scrabble. The next morning we were heading out when our neighbor gave us the flyer for a jetboat on the Niagara river...where they were heading. We decided to be spontaneous and headed over. What a great decision...the jetboat was awesome! We got completely drenched riding in the class 5 rapids on the Niagara River, in a spot dubbed "Devil's Hole". This was definitely one of our most memorable excursions yet.

Geneva-on-the-Lake, Frommers #1 Campground in Ohio

NOT!
We decided to consult our handy dandy Frommer's guide book for our next stop. Indian Creek resort was rated the #1 campsite in Ohio in several categories, including 'Most Beautiful', so we headed there to spend a night on Lake Erie. Well...the campsite turned out to be more of a trailer park, the lake was across the street (and not so pretty), but we are very flexible, so we drove into our prime spot right next to the bathroom and made the best of it. Darin picked up a flyer for the restaurant...25 cent wings! We headed over to give it a try. Our waitress greeted us by saying that the kitchen was very slow and it might be a while before we got any food. We ordered anyway and played some family games of pool. About an hour later, our wings arrived...but were actually worth the wait. Despite our fun night we were out of there fairly early the next morning, chalking this up to one of the not so beautiful places we visited. Darin rolled his eyes when Lynelle swore to right a letter to Frommer's!

Feeding the ducks

Fun riding bikes at our campsite

USAF museum

Is that a nuclear bomb?

We decided to spend July 4 in the United State Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. The very first airplane we saw had dropped an atomic bomb in WWII. From that point on, Matthew looked at every bomb, missle, or unidentified object and asked "Is that a nuclear bomb"? We assured him that we wouldn't be viewing any nuclear bombs in the museum. It was a really cool stop...there were tons of planes from the very early ones to the stealth bombers. We moved on to our campsite outside of Dayton, where the kids rented bikes - a big hit!

5000 miles!

July 4th festival: Nicolas, Beau, Matthew, Casey, Carlie and Courtney

Courtney conquers the rock wall

Everyone having fun bowling (especially Beau!)

Beau, Nicolas and Matthew at the Louisville Slugger museum

Beau, Casey and Matthew in the hose

Family, Late Nights, Great Food and a KING SIZE BED!

We parked the RV on Uncle David's lawn and headed inside for one of our longer stays. Uncle Mike, Aunt Dawn and Carlie came to meet us, so there was a houseful! We stayed very busy with a day of family bowling, father/son golf day, girls shopping day, and wrapped it up with a July 4th festival on the Ohio river. Darin and Aunt Lisa kept the food coming, as usual, and we shared many laughs on the porch with a beverage or two. The kids enjoyed playing in the water hose, on the basketball court, and down in the basement. Monday morning it was time to move on, so we piled back into our house on wheels and headed north.