Homeward Bound

After a beautiful day yesterday, the view out our window was of low clouds and heavy overcast. Still, the scene was colorful.

We elected to get breakfast on the road. The first place we came to didn’t seem to have much parking, so we passed it up. It turns out that we didn’t see another restaurant for many miles = a late breakfast.

The road took us past (but not up) Mt. Washington. In the higher elevation, the woods were spectacular, even in the overcast. We crossed New Hampshire twice, both times at places where it is narrow. So we soon got into Vermont. We had a number of stops to make in Vermont. First was Goddard, the school where Jean’s daughter took her masters. It is a non-residential college, plus it was Columbus Day weekend so the campus was deserted. We walked around a little and took some pictures.

Then we followed the back roads to Bragg Farm. This is a sugar farm where we normally spend a night in the Harvest Hosts program. We also pick up our year’s supply of maple syrup. We were not staying overnight this year, but we still went in and shopped. They were doing a good business on the weekend.

Next stop was Montpelier, the capital. Once again, we followed what has become a tradition and had lunch at the Skinny Pancake, a popular crepe restaurant. Then we walked around a little, and visited an interesting record store. While perusing the CDs, we spotted a man on his hands and knees on the floor. He was sorting through a low shelf of old vinyls. He was obviously a collector. He eventually picked several, one of which he said only had two tracks he was interested in.

By then it was time to head into Burlington and Gene’s son Alan’s house. We started out on Route 2, the road we had been on all day. After a while it got very rough, and we gave up and went the rest of the way on the interstate.

Next day, Monday, Jean and Valerie went shopping, and I got a prescription filled. For some reason, my insurance wouldn’t cover it. It was for a 90-day quantity and they said I had another month to go, even though the bottle had fewer than seven pills in it. It was a generic, and the pharmacist found a way for me to get it filled for $10. My handy son fixed a drawer in the motorhome that had started to come apart. The day was very relaxed (for us; Alan and Valerie are workaholics).

Tuesday was more relaxing all around. The four of us drove to Waterbury for lunch, and then on to Stowe. We went to the Von Trappe farm in the mountains. This is in a beautiful location. It mostly caters to the tourist trade, but they do raise some cattle and sheep.

We left on Wednesday after a great breakfast by Alan, enjoyed on the deck. The Lois McClure, which I usually visit, was not in Burlington. Alan said that they moved her to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum for the winter, so on the way south we stopped there. I didn’t get to see the ship but I did talk with her former boatswain. I was interested in his reaction to a book I am thinking of publishing on basic rope work for historic reproductions. He was enthusiastic, which made me feel good and optimistic.

We stopped for lunch in Fair Haven. We went to a nice café where we had eaten before, but got there just after closing. We had salads in a pizza place instead. Downtown Fair Haven is a typical New England small town. There are interesting buildings,

And a village green.

We made it into New York, where we stayed in a campground which had TV. We mostly saw news about Hurricane Michael. This trip seems to be book-ended by hurricanes. Next day was overcast, with occasional rain and fog. It seems to be an every-other-day phenomenon. The drive was pleasant, though.

We made it into Pennsylvania, and found a campground a bit off US-11, which we were now following. We plugged the address into the GPS, which led us on a merry chase across miles of dirt (gravel?) roads in the misty rain. After more turns than I would be able to remember, we arrived, covered in mud, at a campground in the hills.

 Next morning, I asked the campground manager if there was another way back to US-11. She told me a way that was shorter, with fewer turns, and almost all on pavement. She said the GPSs always sent people the long, difficult way there.

South of Scranton, US-11 veers away from I-81 and follows the Susquehanna River. We often got views of the wide river, but nowhere where we could get a picture. We enjoyed the wide valley views. In places where the road runs close to the bluff we saw frequent springs running down the hillside. The road is smooth and wide for the most part.

Most of the towns are small, but there were a couple big enough to lose the route in. All you have to do is miss one turn sign (assuming there actually is one) and you are lost. In one town I stopped at a gas station to ask for directions to Route 11 and the man at the counter didn’t know what I was talking about. Gas stations and convenience stores often hire people who are not from the area and don’t know the town. There was a customer there playing the electronic slots, who was able to give me directions that put us back on the right road. In the second town we were able to find our own way back.

Our last night in Pennsylvania, we were not able to find a convenient campground, so we spent another night at a Walmart, along with three other RVs.  Since we needed to run the generator, we parked some distance away from them so as not to disturb them with the noise. The generator runs on propane, and we were getting low, but we made it through the night okay.

Next morning I was able to squeeze myself into a crowded U-Haul dealership without hitting anything (or being hit, I stuck out onto the road a little) and topped up the propane tank. Then I went to a nearby gas station and topped up with diesel. As it turned out, the propane cost about a dollar more than the diesel --- but we don’t use as much of it.

We picked up I-81 near Harrisburg and followed it into Maryland. We made a short run back on US-11, but we were doing well so we decided to go the rest of the way home. We got back on 81 and other than a brief glitch changing to I-64, we made good progress. Traffic wasn’t bad for an interstate. It was a long day, 349 miles (long for us) but we made it back to Forest in time to meet Jean’s brother, Chillie, for dinner at 6:00. Thus ended our New England adventure, after 23 days and 2,584 miles. Some problems but mostly a good trip.