Thursday, July 24th

We awoke to a rainy, thundery morning and, knowing it was a travel day, decided to go into Freeport a mile or so away and begin our day with a Starbucks and pastry. Starbucks stores have been few and far between in our journey, so it was a treat to go there. I then took David over to the LL Bean Flagship Store so he could have some fun in the fishing and hunting departments. We finally left after he bought himself some fishing "waders" so he can truly do some stream fishing now like he's been promising.

We left Freeport around 1:00 PM and traveled Highway 1 up to Trenton, Maine. It was a scenic trip and we loved seeing all the small New England coastal villages. The road, however, was not in good shape -- so became a bit nerve-wracking from all the bumps and jostling. We arrived in Trenton around 4:30 PM and, after setting ourselves up at a lovely campground called "Timberland Acres", we decided to treat ourselves to a "real Maine" lobster dinner. We went to a nearby restaurant called the Union River Lobster Pot. I can't begin to describe how good our meal was ... David started out with oysters on the half shell (yuck ... ptui) and I ordered crabcakes. We then each ordered the lobster dinner, which included a 1.5 lb. whole steamed lobster, cole slaw, french fries, and rolls. The dinner came complete with bibs, a "claw cracker" and a special fork to clean out the good lobster meat. It was truly the most incredible lobster I've ever eaten -- and I had proudly proclaimed myself a lobster connissieur ... ha! I had no idea! Each morsel was a treat, and we each finished every bite of our meal. We then (because our server, Becky, talked us into it ...) shared a piece of wild Maine blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream. As I write this, I'm having trouble imagining that I'll ever eat again ... truly the best meal imaginable!

The next couple of days will take us the short trip over to Bar Harbor and the Acadia National Park - then on Sunday we head for the Boston area.

I saw two wild turkeys alongside the road today, and, according to some photos we saw at LL Bean, these turkeys run around 15-20 lbs. each. I'm sure glad we didn't run over one!

Freeport, ME July 23rd, 2008

We left Vermont on the 16th and really didn't want to leave. We had a beautiful spot where we could let Tiger out. The weather all week was wonderful. In the background of the picture below was a lovely lake (Lake Champagne) -- it was reason to stay for a week!

Then on to Rumney, NH to a nice camp ground that celebrates Christmas in July. Of course, Kathy hauled out our Christmas decorations and put them up in the motor home so we could "look festive" as well.

We visited with our friend Ray Jenkins who lives in Campton, NH. Had a nice lunch and dinner with him.

He gave us a tour of his home, Campton and the lower part of the White Mountains National Forest. New Hampshire is beautiful with lakes, rivers, streams and impressive mountains. They recorded a wind speed of 231 miles per hour in 1934 at the peak of Mount Washington and it regularly has 100 mph winds all year. We then toured Lake Winnipesaukee and made a circle thru the mountains. We never saw a moose. There are lots of signs telling us to watch for them.

We did a quick stop at the Mount Washington Lodge which is in the process of being remodeled. It is huge and very impressive. Had a fair amount of rain while here in New Hampshire, so we limited our sightseeing a bit.

We left New Hampshire yesterday and strayed off the interstate and ended up on some very narrow roads. All is well and we are here in Freeport, Maine. Kathy is at the LL Bean flagship store getting even with me for straying off the main roads. We are heading up to Trenton, ME tomorrow which is just outside of Bangor. We expect to partake of at least one lobster dinner while there. We have to be back in the Boston area by next Tuesday as we have standing room only tickets to a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.

That's it for now - we are missing our families, and feeling very far away from home - wherever that is!

July 13th, 2008

We are sitting here listening to rain and relaxing after almost a week in Vermont. We are in a beautiful RV park with rolling meadows and a small lake for swimming. 3 days ago we went to Stowe, VT which is one of their major tourist spots and we took a great glider ride over the mountains. They towed us up to 4500 feet and after we were cut loose from the tow plane we rode the waves up to 5000 feet and could see Lake Champlain and New York, Quebec, New Hampshire and all of Vermont. It was beautiful. We also went to the Trapp Family Lodge (The Sound of Music) which has beautiful views of Vermont. Yesterday we went back to Stowe to see the annual hot air balloon festival and we have attached pictures. On our way there we stopped and toured the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream plant and of course had a sample. We really like Vermont. In a few days we'll head for New Hampshire and then on to Maine.

July 8th, 2008

Well, we left Portsmouth Ohio on June 23rd and made it to Pittsburgh and enjoyed watching the Pirates beat the Yankees 12 to 5. We saw Mazeroski throw the 1st pitch and they had the 3rd largest crowd in the history of PNC Park. The Pirates ball park is really nice and we had great weather.

We then headed for Niagra Falls, NY. Our 1st day there was spent on a tour of the Canadian side and there is a lot to see. We did the Maid of the Mist boat ride and got soaked by the spray next to the falls. They are spectacular. My old friend Mitch Herron of Air force days (1951) lives in Toronto and the next day he took a bus from Toronto and met us on the Canadian side. We had a great time recanting those days when we had no cares in the world. Note the picture below of the "Drive Thru Pet Wash" business near our RV park! Made us laugh out loud!!

We left Niagra and went to Cooperstown, NY. We had dinner with Logan's other Grand parents (Larry & Bonnie Rivenburg) in Norwich, NY our 2nd night there and enjoyed a delicious Italian meal with them as well as a tour of Norwich. The next day we toured the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Fenimore Art Museum and the Farm Museum. The art museum is one of the best we've seen. The Baseball Hall of fame is really something to see and relive the history. I was a great fan of James Fenimore Cooper and read all of his Leather Stocking tales. "White man passed here many moons ago." Our RV site near Cooperstown was beautiful and pleasantly quiet - we even had four tiny chipmunks eat two bird feeders full of our bird seed while we were there! Tiger had a great time watching them ...

Larry & Bonnie

On July 3rd we headed for the Adirondacks and Schroon Lake. This was one of our real experiences. The "RV" park turned out to be a very busy, crowded, dirty, and loud campground in the middle of a small pine forest and we were the only Class A motor home in the park. Our site was so uneven that our right rear wheel was about 2 feet in the air after leveling and we had campers literally 8 or 10 feet on both sides with radios, camp fires and one even had a small refrigerator plugged into the power pole! We did visit Blue Mountain Lake and the Adirondack Museum - both very nice. On July 4th we went to the fireworks display at Schroon Lake and it was wonderful ... we had pretty low expectations since Schroon Lake is such a small community, but they did the fireworks display up in a big way - complete with a colors marching guard, full choir, videos, and over 300 fireworks -- we know there were around 300 fireworks, as we had a young boy near us counting them out one by one -- loudly and with great enthusiasm! It was a wonderful evening of "True Americana" - and warmed our hearts deeply. On Sunday, we visited Fort Ticonderoga - it was very well preserved, and we even enjoyed a Fife and Drum group entertaining the guests there.

We left Schroon Lake yesterday and we are now in Randolph, Vermont at a beautiful site and will stay here for a week. On our way here we passed a number of "Moose Crossing" signs but didn't see any. Our RV space is on lush green grass, and overlooks Lake Champagne - it's gorgeous, and a welcome treat from our pine forest spot in Schroon Lake!

June 4th through June 19th

Guess what? We're still in Portsmouth!! We ended up waiting for parts for the microwave, and it finally got fixed last Friday. In the meantime, our computer "crashed" so we had to Fed Ex it to Fremont, CA for hospitalization. It was down for a couple of weeks, and we're just now playing catch-up on e-mails, the Blog, etc. ... sorry! We really haven't dropped off the face of the earth ... just a couple of system hiccups. We also are having some work done on our Saturn.

We are planning to leave here early next week and head over to Pennsylvania. To Pittsburgh for a Pirates/Yankees game, and the north into New York. David has a good friend in Toronto we're hoping to see, and may catch another baseball game there. Then down to see daughter-in-law, Kelly's, parents in Norwich, NY, and over to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

We were going to going down to Alabama from here to take our motor home back to the factory in Red Bay for some adjustments; however, we learned they will be closed the entire week of the fourth of July, and the idea of spending July in Alabama really didn't appeal to us -- we'll catch it on our way back down the highway this Fall!

We went to the 25th Anniversary of the Roy Rogers Festival here in Portsmouth June 4-6. It was nice to meet Roy's daughter, Dodie Rogers Patterson, and her husband, John. There are still a number of Roy's "fans" who come to the Festival every year. We probably won't attend again, but are glad we saw it for once -- and David enjoyed finding out more information about his second cousin (Roy Rogers).

Also during this time frame, we've spent more time with David's "New-Found" Peters family - and they are a great bunch! Last weekend we went to Cincinnati ... David got in a round of golf with Scotty and Craig, and Kathy had a manicure/pedicure/shopping spree with Cathy (Scott's wife) and Scott's Mom, June. Then a wonderful rib/chicken barbecue for the whole "Cincinnati Peters" family on Saturday night. We spent the night at Scott and Cathy's lovely home, and Kathy had her first experience at holding fireflies!

All is well on our end - we're looking forward to more travels, and seeing more of our beautiful USA. We'll duck tornado warnings whenever possible -- had a "good one" two weeks ago here in Portsmouth ... Kathy and Tiger didn't like it one bit. We're avid weather-watchers now!!

Reports on our Grandson, Logan, continue to be good. He was in the hospital last week for another round of his antibody treatment, and came through it just fine. It's wonderful to hear he's playing like a normal, healthy six year old! Our Grandson, Peyton, will be one year old next month (July 30th) -- wow, time flies! We stay in very close touch with our kids, grandkids, and Kathy's Mom ... but we're missing all of them A LOT!!

Until later ... thanks for reading about our excursions!

JUNE 3, 2008

One year and 3 days ago we left Sunnyvale, CA and what a trip it has been. Our visit to Ohio has been nothing but great. We have met 8 niece’s and nephew’s, my other half-brother Don, his wife, Sandy, and my Step-Mother, Dorothy (“Dot”) Peters. Dot continues to amaze us. We are currently in Portsmouth where we’ll be for at least 3 weeks while we visit family, go to the Roy Rogers Festival, and get our microwave fixed.

We arrived on May 23rd and on the 24th, Sunday, Dot was up before 6 AM preparing dinner for 16 people including a turkey, ham and chicken with Amish noodles. Everything was from scratch including home canned corn and beans, biscuits & gravy and a birthday cake for desert. That was around 1 in the afternoon. At around 5 she laid out another table with cold cuts, cheese, chips & dips and ice cream. Later in the week she mowed 5 acres of lawn. All of this at 88 years young! Scotty & Cathy and Lori, Scotty and Lori are 2 of Lynn’s children) drove over from Cincinnati for the day. Scotty and Cathy have two adorable lab puppies – Sally and Sam … they enjoyed swimming in Dot’s pond!

We had a surprise visit from Don & Sandy the day we pulled in. We had not met Sandy and it was great just to be able sit and talk. Don & Sandy do a great job of helping Dot. The day before they left for Myrtle Beach, Don was over helping with the lawn mowing and also planting the vegetable garden. We had dinner at Don’s with Dot and we also took Dot out to Bob Evans for dinner. Dot has given us more pictures of my Dad and his family. Cathy, Scotty’s wife , gave us a DVD with video’s of the family including shots of my Dad … it’s very special hearing my Dad’s voice.

Another day we played 18 holes of golf at the Shawnee State Park Golf Course – it was a lovely course – one hole even overlooked the Ohio River! Even though our golf scores weren’t great, we had fun. The Ohio countryside is beautiful – most homes have lush and large green lawns. Being a lawn mower salesperson here would be lucrative!
We are currently sitting here watching and listening to a large thunder storm pass through. Tiger is huddled somewhere in the bedroom and won’t come out until it is over. The Roy Rogers Festival starts tomorrow night and we will bring you highlights later.

We will be heading for Red Bay, Alabama in about 10 days. That’s all for now!

May 20, 2008

We arrived today in Milan, OH (which is west of Cleveland) for a 4 night stay. We will be visiting our good friends Phil and Donna Ardire and going to a Cleveland Indians game. We plugged into the 50 amp service and proceeded to blow out our microwave/convection oven. Seems like the RV park has a hot reversed ground. The owner won’t be here until the day we leave and we hope they will help us with the repair.

When we called Phil we found out Donna has pneumonia and pleurisy and will be in bed for a couple of weeks. We’re real sorry we won’t see her on this trip and hope she’ll recover soon.
We met Phil at his office and were surprised to see an old friend, Mike Rigdon, who happened to be in town training on some products he will be selling for Western Datacomm. We had dinner with Phil & Mike that night and reminisced about old times. We had lunch again with Phil & Ray (Phil’s CFO at Western Datacomm) and went to Sandusky on Lake Erie for dinner one night.We managed to visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, drove to Canton, OH and toured the National Football Hall of Fame, and then on Friday night we went to see the Cleveland Indians. It was a very long game and we got to bed at 2 in the morning and were up at 8AM to meet with the manager of the RV park and then on to Portsmouth to visit relatives and attend the Roy Rogers Festival. Except for blowing out the microwave we had a great time in the Cleveland area.