On Tour with J&B, Week 7, 2017

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RV Parks:
Hillsboro, DE: The Resort at Massey’s Landing. A huge park waiting for the summer family rush.
East Lyme, CT: Aces High RV, very roomy, picturesque, quiet.
Portland, ME:  Wild Duck Campground, tight, narrow roads, small sites. Ours was very not level.
Bar Harbor, ME: Bar Harbor Oceanside KOA. Good location, strangely laid out. We had a nice view of the sound.

Hillsboro, DE — From Virginia Beach we took the 23 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to the Virginia Peninsula. This consisted of several sections of bridge and two tunnels under the water. Quite an engineering feat — completed in 1964. The bottom of the peninsula is Virginia, then we drove through Maryland, and ended up in Delaware. I suggested we slow down a bit . . . but we have places to go. Just yesterday we were complaining about the 94 degree weather . . . at our destination in Delaware it was 64 and windy. Well one day, three states and 30 degree change in temperature — at least we didn’t change time zones!

Mystic, CT — Well, if yesterday seemed like a busy day . . . we topped it on Sunday. We had planned on taking the 1:45pm ferry from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May, New Jersey. That allowed for a leisure morning, took into consideration the half hour drive to the ferry dock and the hour in advance we needed to be there. Woke up early, went online and changed the reservation to the 10:15am ferry. Great, ahead of schedule already! We arrived at the ferry staging area a little before the planned time and they asked if we wanted to go on the 8:45 ferry — yes! They measured us at 60 feet long with our tow, and yes, there was just enough room for us. That was a hoot. No problems loading, and off we went for the 85 minute trip. It was a beautiful day and it was quite smooth.

OK, Delaware to New Jersey, then drove 280 miles, through New York (west of the City), to Connecticut — four states in one day — I think this is a record for us (and one that I hope doesn’t get broken any time soon.) It was also an expensive travel day: $102 for the ferry and seven tolls totaling $45.75. Some other events of the day: solved a flapping sound (was our gas cap door), saw a sign that the bridges ahead were only 13’ on the sides (we’re 12’11”), saw another sign as we were transiting from one highway to another that said “Passenger Cars Only” (now what do we do? . . . we kept going), and crossed the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee Bridge. Oh, and one other concern. We weren’t seeing any other RVs or trucks on the highway. We saw a sign, I think it said no trucks over 13 gross tons. Geez, how much do we weigh? Googled our specs, looks like we are 45,660 GVWR. Oh dear, 20.25 tons! We didn’t topple any bridges, but it makes us wonder how we were supposed to navigate our way through. Any comments from our RV customers about this would be appreciated!

After this busy day we took ourselves to a popular local restaurant for a nice dinner . . . and perhaps one too many drinks! Slept well.

     Woke up to rain, rain, rain — were we just complaining about 94 degree weather? Took a short drive to Groton, CT, home of the Naval Submarine Base. We visited the USS Nautilus at the Submarine Force Museum. The Nautilus was the world’s first nuclear powered sub, and the first to cross under the North Pole  — in 1958. It is 319 feet long, 27 feet wide, and extremely compact inside.
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  • Ah, another round of golf.

  • Liking his drive on this par 3!

  • Couldn’t find much of a place to pull over, but it was lunchtime and we were hungry!

  • The Wild Duck campground in Portland, Maine, was a little tight.

  • Bar Harbor Oceanside campsite, we had a nice view — and we were supposed to be facing the other direction!

  • The 12 foot tides in front of our motorhome were fun to watch.

  • Will be under water soon!

  • A little cold, but at least the sun is shining!

  • Bar Harbor

  • Had Maine lobster at Galyn’s with a great view of the harbor.

  • Acadia National Park

  • Bar Harbor

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Portland, ME — Drove from Connecticut, through Massachusetts, through New Hampshire, to Maine — another three state day.  I wanted to see if we could drive through Rhode Island too, just for the record, but we missed it. This was just a stop over on our way to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park.
Bar Harbor, ME — Made it to Maine — we are definitely in the northeast! Absolutely beautiful trees and so many different shades of green . . . oh, and water everywhere. We are probably a little early in the year, however, as it is only in the mid-fifties, gray skies and rain. Too bad, because Acadia National Park would have been beautiful in the sunshine. We did tour the park, but skipped hiking and biking. John had a Maine lobster lunch in downtown Bar Harbor — were expecting it to be fantastic . . . it was good. We spent three days experiencing the town as it is the majority of the year — damp, cold and dreary. We are spoiled Southern Californians!
Next stop — Canada!!
Printer: We have a Canon iP110 very small printer that is perfect for RVs. It fits easily into a small cabinet, but I leave it out on a rubber mat for convenience. The ink didn’t even dry up during the 6 months between trips.
Camera: In addition to our iPhones, we have been using a Nikon Coolpix B500 for photos. It has a 40x wide optical zoom lens and lots of features we don’t use. What I like the most is the Nikon SnapBridge app. Using the app, I am able to transfer photos from the camera to my iPad (or phone or laptop), amazingly fast. It uses bluetooth, or wifi, or some other magic. No need to take the memory card out and copy photos. It’s so easy and quick.( From our iPhones, I use Apple AirPlay to move photos between our apple phones, iPad and laptop devices.)
Wifi: We use the AT&T Velocity for wifi on the RV. It’s a small, phone-size device that I leave plugged in and on all the time. There is a monthly fee and we have unlimited data, but I never have to connect to campground wifi’s and our devices are always online.