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White Sands National Park
There are only so many destinations you can reasonably drive to in one day from Big Bend NP. White Sands NP, in south-central New Mexico, looked doable (under 400 miles) and was certainly worth a visit. While visiting, we boondocked just 4 miles away from the park on property that Holloman Air Force Base allows. It was not a bad place to spend the work week! The sky was absolutely amazing every night. Unfortunately, you can’t have any contact with the lake since it’s toxic; and sadly, there were a lot of ducks there that can’t read the posted signs. White Sands NP protects the largest gypsum dunefield in the…
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Big Bend National Park
It was nothing short of a miracle that we left NC “on time” in a new tow vehicle and with the same 14-year-old adventure cat, Lynx. The cat had been minutes away from surgery to remove bladder stones before it was determined that the surgery would not have been successful. For now, she will just live with her stones until her behavior indicates that she is too uncomfortable. Also, after finding out that our Ford needed its second expensive repair (both recall items on other models), we decided to buy a new truck. We were happy to find a RAM, during the national truck shortage, that had several features we…
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Following Fall Through PA & VA
Pennsylvania We were very excited about our plans to stay at Moon Lake Recreation Area in Pennsylvania’s Pinchot State Forest. Moon Lake is free (permit required) and has miles and miles of mountain bike trails. There are 10 numbered campsites and a rig our size will only fit in numbers 1 and 7. Unfortunately, we had a few “dips” in full-time RV living this week. There was a lot of rain, in the forms of a nor’easter and a bomb cyclone, whatever the heck that is. A lot of rain is not fun when you are towing your 10,000lb house up and down dirt roads and it caused us to…
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Rhinebeck, NY
Our NY friends had suggested stopping in the Hudson Valley on our way back to NC and gave us a lot of good ideas of things to do, which we accomplished about half in the week we were there. We stayed at Interlake RV Park in Rhinebeck, NY. Our Sunday travel day from Boston to New York was not the best. First, somewhere along the MA turnpike, we heard a loud BOOM followed by about 65% of a tractor trailer’s tire flying through the air toward us. Thankfully, it landed in our lane before it reached us, and Michael was able to drive around it without incident. Then, we arrived…
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History Lessons In Beautiful Boston, MA
Boston wasn’t a huge detour off our route south and we have always wanted to visit! We stayed for one week at Minute Man campground in Littleton, MA, which put us within commuter train distance from downtown Boston’s North Station. The RV park was close to the Minute Man National Historical Park. This NP commemorates the events that occurred on April 19, 1775, when Paul Revere went on his midnight ride to Lexington and Concord to warn militiamen that British troops were coming to raid supplies. After a skirmish in Lexington, where Revere was captured, it is at the North Bridge in Concord that militiamen opened fire on the British…
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The White Mountains & Lakes Regions, NH
I have realized that the formatting of my pictures doesn’t always work with the emailed version of my blog posts. If that is the case, please go to the website. There are a lot of pictures in this one! After our month in Vermont, we moved over to New Hampshire where there is no sales tax or seatbelt law if you’re over 18 and the state motto is “Live Free Or Die”. We had booked another month-long stay at an RV park from mid-September to mid-October and chose Ames Brook Campground in Ashland, NH because of its reputation of having great campsites. Of course, we weren’t in one of the…
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Burlington & Stowe Area, VT
We decided to “camp” a little differently during our visit to the Green Mountain State and booked a month-long reservation at an RV park. We had imagined a busy summer camping season and difficulty finding sites on the weekends. Also, camping seems to be more expensive in the northeast. A monthly discount would bring our camping costs down to around $30 per night instead of $50+. Maple Grove Campground was about 20 minutes north of Burlington and 45 minutes from Stowe. The campground was small with about 30 tight spaces but luckily we had trees on two sides and we enjoyed our stay from mid-Aug to mid- Sept. One of…
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Thousand Islands Region, NY
We had a week to fill between Letchworth SP and our next destination – northern Vermont. And, a choice whether to go north or south around the obstacles of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain. After talking with our NY guides Mike and Betty, we decided to head north and visit the Thousand Islands Region of NY. We stayed at two separate campgrounds in the area. First, we spent the weekend at Wellesley Island State Park just across a toll bridge from the river towns of Alexandria Bay and Clayton. While the rest of the park was beautiful, the campground was a bit…challenging. The sites were directly across from each other…
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Letchworth State Park, NY
The next stop on our tour of NY state was Letchworth State Park. Known as the “Grand Canyon of the East” and earning a #1 spot on one list of top state parks in the country, we figured that we needed to visit. We continue to be very impressed with NY State Parks and this one almost feels like a National Park. Also, in addition to all the usual amenities, you can white water raft or take a hot air balloon ride inside the park. Letchworth is located amidst western NY farmland about an hour east of Buffalo and an hour south of Rochester. The canyon is 17 miles long…
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Being Tourists At Niagara Falls, USA
We spent a hot and hazy week in July at Four Mile Creek State Park on Lake Ontario, which we chose because it has the closest state park camping to Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls ranked high on our list of must-visit sites on our “more than just a city” tour of New York. New York has protected the US side of the falls by the creation of Niagara Falls State Park in 1885, the first state park in the country. We were just 20 minutes north of the falls and ended up visiting 4 times! The Niagara River flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. Along the way, 750,000…
