Heading West

July 29, 2010 

We left Two Rivers, WI and headed northwest toward Green Bay.  One of our lasting impressions of Wisconsin and Illinois is that the coast line along the Great Lakes would be a wonderful place to come back and explore in more detail.  There are lots of cozy little towns, nice green space, lots of outdoor recreation, and the coast is beautiful.

We drove up to Green Bay and of course I insisted that we go by Lambeau Field.  If you know anything about NFL Football, Green Bay is steeped in tradition.  The old Lambeau Field has been redone but they still have the statue of Vince Lombardi and Cruly Lambeau out front.  When we arrived there were many people going into the stadium for what they call a "Shareholders Meeting".  I don't know if they really are shareholders or just season ticket holders, but they estimate 15,000 people were going to attend.  People were coming out with Packer souvenirs and t-shirts so I tried to walk right in like I owned the place but they caught me at the door because I didn't have a ticket.

After a couple of hours in Green Bay we headed for Minneapolis, Minnesota.  We found a nice KOA campsite northwest of town which was convenient to the freeway.  I went into town and did a driving tour prior to attending the Twins/ Seattle Mariners game.  I learned that the Mississippi River starts about 200 miles north of Minneapolis and it runs right through town, separating Minneapolis and St. Paul, the twin cities.  They have a lock on the river to allow marine navigation.  Minneapolis was famous for (other than the location of Mary Tyler Moore Show)being a "milling" city.  They have old mills that are in ruins and they have made them into museums.

You can see from the picture that they have built a new structure right into the old mill ruins and it is now a museum.  I wonder what architect and engineer put their name to that project as it looks rather fragile to me.

Of course, my friend Larry Bloom would argue that Minneapolis is famous as the home of the Minnesota Vikings football team. Yes Larry, this is the "Mall of America Stadium".  For those who don't know, it is an identical stadium to BC Place in Vancouver, only some would argue that they have a better football team.

This bizzar building is in St. Paul.  I got this shot while I was driving along West Riverway Drive on the Minnesota side of the Mississippe River.  I didn't have time to go over and investigate but it does make for an unusual picture.

As I said earlier, I went to the Twins ball game.  After driving around Minneapolis for over 2 hours, I found a parking place for the truck near Target Field.  I thought I would go and pick up a ticket and then head to a bar to mix with the locals and talk some baseball.  What I learned from the ticket window was that all Twins games this season are a sell-out and the only hope for a ticket was to stand in line for the last minute release of some tickets.  I was in line for 2 and a half hours....now my wife will tell you, I am one of the worst people when it comes to queing up for anything.  Half an hour before game time, I got a ticket and had a great time.  Justin Morneau of the Twins, who is from New Westminster, BC, did not play because of injury.  Twins won 5-3.

July 31, 2010  After 2 nights we left Minneapolis and began a "B-line" to head west.  We are following Hwy 94, and tonight we are overnighting in a small town called Jamestown, North Dakota.  In the morning we will continue our journey westward.  We hope to travel 500-600 kms per day until we get to Great Falls, Montana.  From there we will probably turn north to head for Calgary and Hwy 1, the Trans Canada Hwy.

Around the Bottom of the Great Lakes

July 23, 2010


When we planned to start heading back west we had to make a decision on whether to go north through Canada, or South through the USA to get around the Great Lakes. By my calculations, it was virtually the same distance. We talked it over and decided to go south primarily because looking at the map, there are many more interesting towns, our costs would be considerably less, and we still had some US dollars that we had set aside for our Odyssey.

We left Niagara Falls and headed toward the Windsor/Detroit border crossing. About 30 kms from Windsor we saw a black wall in the sky, and we were headed straight toward it. It started to rain, and then pour, like I have never seen before. All the cars and trucks put on their 4-way flashers and eventually we had to pull over because it was just too dangerous. We waited for about 10 minutes and then the cars in front of us decided to pull out and give it a try and we fell in behind them. Most of the time I was just following tail lights as it was coming down in sheets. By the time we got to Windsor, the rain had stopped and the sun came out. We headed over the Ambassador Bridge that led us into Detroit. The Customs officials wanted to look inside our RV so I gave them the keys. Luckily, Laurie had packed what fruit and vegetables we had left into a cooler bag and we had it in the truck. We showed them the bag and they confiscated a couple of items and we were off. Then we hit a toll booth….apparently it cost $8 to drive over the Ambassador Bridge, a nice welcome to the good old US of A.

Click on picture for an enlargement.  This is the view out the door of the RV during the flood.

We drove along Hwy 94 until just east of Ann Arbour, Michigan and we pulled over for fuel. We saw a sign for a campground and headed there. The Detroit/Greenfield Campground looked like a nice place, but the ground was very damp, presumably from the same storm system we had experienced. They assigned us a site and we set up for the night. Well, another severe thunderstorm hit and it began to pour again. What we discovered was that we were the low area of our portion of the campsite. Before long, our entire campsite was under 3-4 inches of water, our outdoor carpet was ruined and water was flowing under our RV. What we found out by watching the weather report on the news was that a major thunderstorm system was headed for the very area we were travelling through for the next few days.

July 24, 2010 One night was enough!!! In the morning we packed up, removing as much mud as possible from our lawn chairs and our blocking under the RV, and we hit the road, headed for Chicago. Again, we drove through another thunderstorm, but this one was not quite as severe as the day before.

The sun was shining as we pulled in to the Yogi Bear Campsite in Gary, Indiana, about 45 miles from Chicago. There was puddling around this campsite as well, but we were not stuck in the low area. That night, another thunderstorm hit and we had more rain. The next morning we discovered that this campsite is a happening place. They are celebrating Christmas in July, so many of the permanent sites have Christmas decorations out, they had a BBQ, they had 2 rock bands playing until 11pm, and they had a group of army enthusiasts who had military paraphernalia; jeeps, trucks, rifles and they were shooting off rounds across the lake that is there.

I called the Chicago Cubs ticket office and got a ticket for a game at Wrigley Field. It was quite an experience for me to watch a game in old Wrigley Field. I arrived at the park over 3 hours prior to the game and there was already a huge crowd, and lots of excitement on the streets.

One of the interesting features of Wrigley is that the buildings across the street from the outfield bleachers have installed their own bleachers on top of their buildings. The view is not bad as Wrigley has fairly low outfield bleachers, and of course, the price is right…free! Tickets for Wrigley are very difficult to get but because I only needed one, I was able to purchase one.


These buildings are across the street from Wrigley.

July 26,2010 We left the Chicago area and headed north into Wisconsin. We were very glad to get out of Illinois because they go crazy with road tolls. Travelling just over 200 kms, we were stopped 5 times and paid a total of $14 in tolls. We followed Hwy.43 up the side of Lake Michigan to a small town called Two Rivers not far from Green Bay. Our campsite was in a marina/RV park that is located right on the water. Once we got parked, Laurie tried to open our kitchen slide-out but it would come out properly. I climbed under the RV and checked the slide drive mechanism and found out that there was a sheered off bolt. After going to a couple of places, I found the bolt I needed and made the repair. Hopefully it will hold.

After that inconvenience, we finally got to relax and we sat and watched the small boats come in and out of the harbor. The Coast Guard station is right across the channel from us so we got to watch them doing various exercises. It’s a neat little place!

A beautiful moon over the entrance to the harbour at Two Rivers.






We have started, and plan to continue, to put more miles on between stops as we make our way back home.  We are planning on being home by the August 7 & 8 weekend, but we will see what happens.

Montreal and a Blitz through Ontario

Sunday, July 18, 2010 We left Quebec City and drove down Hwy. 20 to the Camping Allouette just East of Montreal. It was time to get the truck serviced so we decided to do it in Montreal. We arrived on a Sunday so I wasn’t able to book an appointment until Monday morning. The first dealership I called said that they had an opening in 10 days and I said no thanks. The second one I called booked us for Tuesday morning. Monday would have been our chosen day to tour Montreal but it was raining so we had a peaceful day reading, doing laundry and recharging our batteries. Tuesday morning I took the truck in for an oil change and lube, and I asked about the cost of changing the fuel filter. The technician said it would be $165 with the filter costing $35. and a charge of $130 for labour. I started to ask some questions and the guy soon realized that I know a few things about changing the fuel filter and servicing the truck (it’s one of my hobbies) and he quickly reduced the cost by $60. I hate taking my vehicles into a dealership for servicing because it is ridiculously expensive.

That afternoon we drove in to Montreal and did some tourist things. Montreal has some really neat districts and we found one in the area of Mont Royal and Saint Denis streets. We just strolled the streets and found a nice little sidewalk café (Maurices/Fanny Chocolatier) and stopped for lunch. People watching was very interesting as we saw many unique and eccentric outfits, and many of the women were

dressed to the “nines”. We also drove up to Mont Royal, which is a Stanley Park like setting in the middle of town with great views of Montreal. We drove around Olympic village and saw the infamous Olympic Stadium, which is a ridiculous design for a stadium, no wonder it cost Canadian so much money!

July 21, 2010 This was moving day! We drove from Montreal to Niagara Falls, Ontario, around 800 kms in total. We followed the “401” most of the way down, passing through Bowmanville, Toronto, Hamilton and down to Niagara Falls. We stopped in Bowmanville for tourist information and a photo opt, primarily because Laurie’s maiden name is Bowman….we had a laugh! Laurie didn’t have a desire to visit Toronto and I have been there many times on Softball business, so we blew through town. Along the Hwy. through Hamilton they have a sign that says “The boyhood home of Larry Bloom”, who knew?

We checked into Scott’s Trailer Park which is only 3 miles from The Falls. The neighbourhood was a little sketchy, as there is a 24 hours a day massage parlour across the street, and a “Gentlemen’s” club that has a sign “Girls, Girls, Girls”. Actually, the park is quite nice, but there are not that many campers here. We headed to “The Falls” and what a magnificent site (on our “Bucket List”). The size and dimensions of the Falls are incredible. Niagara Falls and American Falls are all located in

the same area and they are a wonder of the world. The volume of water dumping out of the Great Lakes and downstream into the St. Lawrence River is on a scale that you have to see to believe. As you look at the American Falls, you see the Buffalo, NY skyline in the distance.

On the Canadian side there are huge hotels right above the Falls that are designed to maximize the number of rooms that look down on to the Falls. An interesting observation that we discussed is that the place did not seem to be that busy and it appeared to have a lot more capacity for more tourists.

On the Road to Quebec

July 11, 2010 We lefty Fundy National Park and headed north through Moncton to the Confederation Bridge that leads to PEI. It was raining so all we could see is this giant bridge that disappeared into the fog of Northumberland Strait. The Bridge is 13 kms long and there is no charge to go to PEI, but you pay when you leave the island. The cost is $42.50 for a vehicle, and then $7 per axle if you are pulling a trailer. So our cost was $56.50 which seems reasonable to me. We stayed just outside of Charlottetown at Brackley Beach at a campground called Vacationland. They were promoting the fact that they had won an award for being a high level campground, but I don’t agree with that rating. Some of the sites, including ours, were tiny; their debit machine did not work, only one dryer in the laundry worked, both of the pay phones were out of order, the washrooms were full of dead bugs and so on. I question the rating system used.

Charlottetown, PEI

Confederation House where delegates drafted our Constitution.

The island was hopping with tourists and there was a major music festival taking place over the weekend including a performance by Taylor Swift. Then on the Monday, Regis and Kelly were doing their show from Charlottetown and it created quite a bit of excitement, and I might say, a lot of good press for PEI. We took a drive into Charlottetown and walked around the old part of town and it was very nice. The next day I played Glasgow Hills Golf Course and it had great views of the rolling hills and of the water. My impression of PEI is that it has a slower pace of life, with nice rolling hills, farms that are very well kept, beautiful beaches, potatoes, and a lot of very nice golf courses. It really is a place to relax. After 3 nights we decided to head out and I made a major mistake hooking up the RV. I had plugged in the wiring to the truck and then not thinking, I decided to move the truck over a little to line up the hitch. When I moved forward, I tore the wiring harness out of the RV. Big mistake!! So instead of hitting the road, I found an RV shop and we sat around in the rain for over 2 hours before a technician could reconnect our wiring. What a start to the day.

We decide not to travel to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia, as we want to be back home by August 10 and we would need a couple more weeks to see those Provinces. So we headed back through Moncton, NB and travelled all the way to Fredericton, NB. We found a Wal Mart and crashed in their parking lot for the night. Next morning we hit the road early, following Hwy 2 along the border of Maine, through Edmundston, NB, crossing into Quebec, down the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City. We checked into the Quebec City KOA which is just across the bridge from Quebec City. Along our route in Quebec we drove through very fertile land with many farms on the banks of the St. Lawrence, and many small towns that are very recognizable with their distinct church steeples.

Beautiful, romantic Quebec City!

The next day (July 16) we drove into Quebec City and did a walking tour (with Hooch) through the “Old Town” high above the St. Lawrence River.

The area around the Hotel Frontenac is beautiful, high above “Lower Town” and the St. Lawrence River; the buildings of the Old Town have been restored and are functional for commercial enterprise with apartments above. There are many narrow streets and sidewalk cafes. I had travelled to Quebec City on business about 25 years ago and since then I have promoted it as the most romantic city in Canada. As a result of that impression, I have always told Laurie that I would like to have lunch with her at a sidewalk café in Quebec City. Now I can stroke another item off of my “Bucket List”

Montnegamy Falls just outside of Quebec City.

I went golfing at Golf Stastny which is a course owned by retired NHL player Marion Stastny.  I had the opportunity to play with a French Canadian who could speak English.  A couple of things that he told me that were weird; for 2 weeks every July there is a Construction Holiday.  Basically construction shuts down for 2 weeks, in the middle of the Summer.  Summer is when the weather is good and construction should be rocking....it is particularly an important time for the paving industry who needs good weather to lay pavement.  The second thing he told me is that all leases for accomodations expire on the same day, July 1 each year.  That means that all leases must be renegotiated, or people will be moving.  Imagine the demand for moving trucks???

A Different World in Maine

We left the Boston area and headed for Maine. Maine has a beautiful coastline with many lighthouses and of course, World famous lobster. We booked into an RV park called Wassamki Springs for the 4th of July weekend. The campground was inland a few miles just south of Portland, Maine. This was a very nice place with a private lake, large campsites and lots of activities for the 4th of July celebration, including a breakfast, a pork and chicken dinner, games for the kids, a rock concert and more. Even though the park was packed for the weekend, you still had your space.

We went for a drive into Portland and discovered it to be a quaint old town with some nice green space along the water. We drove out to one of the city parks that had one of many lighthouses in the area. It was well preserved and the park was very nice. We drove down to Orchard Beach and found it to be like so many other beach towns that we have visited; lots of bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and it also had an amusement park on the beach complete with a ferris wheel. The next night we went out to Pine Point and found a lobster joint right on the beach. As we ate we watched boats coming and going and we had a nice view of the ocean.

July 5, 2010 We drove up to Bar Harbor, following the coast all the way. We drove through many small, fishing villages and beach towns. In almost every town there are beautifully restored old Victorian homes and a Main street that is made up of brick buildings, which are pretty much the way they were 100-200 years ago. We stayed at Hadley Point Campground which was only a few miles from the town of Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. On our second day there a big “toy-hauler” pulled in beside us and we were happy to discover that it was the same couple from N. Vancouver (Dave and Brenda) that we hung out with at Virginia Beach. What are the chances of them ending up in the same location as us for a second time. We still had only seen one other BC license plate (in Boston) in our entire travels. We had no idea where each other was headed when we left each other in Virginia Beach. Since then they had travelled up to Ottawa and then headed into the States again, putting on many miles. We were happy to see them and we had a couple of good nights around the camp fire and talked about the differences between Canada and the USA.

The next day Laurie surprised me by suggesting that we rent mopeds to cruise around the island. This came out of the blue as Laurie has always said that she would not get on a motorcycle because she had known people in high school who had been killed on them. We rented the mopeds for 3 hours and we both had a blast. We toured around Acadia National Park, which is beautiful, and we drove up to the top of Cadillac Mountain, which is right in the park. It is the highest mountain on the Atlantic coast. Laurie said that she would like to ride a moped again.

The last night in Bar Harbor we went out for dinner to another lobster joint with our friends Dave and Brenda. Tomorrow we head for Canada!

Oh CANADA!!!

On July 8, 2010 we left Bar Harbor and headed north along Hwy 1 which follows the coast to some degree. It was slow going as they slow you down in every little town, plus we hit road construction in a few places. We decided to head inland and get to a main highway. We crossed into Canada at the Calais/St. Stephen crossing in New Brunswick. The crossing is fairly new and it seems huge for the trickle of cars that actually cross the border there. The Canadian Customs officer was a nice, young woman who was very friendly to us. Unfortunately, she told us that the computer had chosen us for an inspection and we had to pull over. It felt odd because there was no one else around and the nice new customs office was empty. The inspection was a piece of cake; it was just weird to get pulled over when the place was dead. Laurie and I joked that the reason for the inspection was that they were bored and needed something to do.

We continued on Hwy 1 and stopped in Saint John, NB for a few groceries. We pushed on to Fundy National Park which is 45 kms off the main highway but it is really a nice park on the incredible Bay of Fundy. We found out that at Canada’s National Parks you not only pay your campsite fee, and your reservation fee, but each individual has to pay a daily user fee ($7.60/day) on top of that. In the end, we paid about $52. per night to camp there. That is one of the highest costs per night that we have ever seen in our camping experience, in either Canada or the USA. In Oregon for example, if you are camping in the National Park your campsite fee includes your daily user fee. I recognized that they

do a nice job of developing and maintaining our National Parks, but come on people??? At the edge of Fundy National Park is a little village called Alma that has most of the things that campers require and there are few restaurants.                                           Watching the Fundy tide come in!

I feel like the Government is like the Pirates of yester-year, they seem to always steal from you!!!


One of the things that strikes you when you enter Canada is the high cost of everything. Fuel costs are about a $1/gallon more, pop is 2 or 3 times more expensive, and beer…… oh my God!!! In New Brunswick a dozen beer cost me $22.90 and I have been used to paying $10/dozen in the USA, or $11.50 for a premium brand. I guess it’s the cost of living in such a wonderful country?

LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, START YOUR ENGINES

Ever since the Jack Nicolson/Morgan Freeman movie came out called “The Bucket List”, Laurie and I have been talking in those terms when planning for the future. Our helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon last March was one of the items that we stroked off our list. This trip, “the Odyssey”, is another item on the list. One of the items on my personal list was to see a NASCAR race. I have been checking the NASCAR website as we have been travelling and it seemed that we couldn’t catch up to the NASCAR tour. While we were in Newport RI I found out that NASCAR was in Loudon (Concord) New Hampshire the following weekend. So I bought a ticket on the internet and we took off from Newport (June 25) and checked into Blake’s Brook RV in Loudon NH, which was a way up in the mountains. It was camping with the hill-billys. When we arrived, Laurie and I drove over to New Hampshire Motor Speedway to scope it out; location, parking, and to get a feel for when I travelled there for the race on Sunday. We pulled into a parking lot to look at race souvenirs at a road-side stand and I bought a Jeff Gordon (#24) hat. While I was standing there a car pulled up behind me and a guy asked “Do you want tickets for tomorrow (Saturday)?” I said “How much” and he said “Free”. Apparently he works for the city of Loudon and they have promotion tickets to give out. Saturday has a race for open-wheel stock cars and a Nationwide Series race, which is the training ground for the big time Sprint Series. Danica Patrick drove in the Nationwide, but she was really out of her league.

We go back to the campsite and two trailers had pulled in beside us and I made friendly, and found out these people have been going to the race for over 10 years. The next day (Saturday) I went to the track with my 2 new friends (Skip and Leo) (both in their late 60s) and they educated me about car racing. What a hoot! The next day I drove to the track on my own for the big show, and is it ever a show. If you don’t know, NASCAR is the example for promoting a sporting event. Each driver has a semi-trailer where the side drops down and they sell their souvenirs. There is a rock concert and an Air Force fly-by before the day gets started, there are venders everywhere, they rent RV spaces in the fields around the outside of the track (I would guess that there were between 800-1000 RVs), there were 4-6 helicopters in the air at all times during the race, and much, much more. The noise that these powerful cars make is unbelievable, and you can actually get to within 10 feet of the cars while the race is going on, and they are travelling 160-180 miles per hour…..10 feet away. On the Sunday I wore ear-plugs and I was walking along the wall when they dropped the green flag after a yellow “Caution” flag, so all the cars, grouped together went roaring past me. Even with the ear plugs the noise was painful to my ears, and I had to go under the bleachers to stop the pain. To be there with 100,000 people and most of them are adamant fans of one particular driver, is quite a spectacle. It was well into Monday before my head stopped ringing. WOW!

June 28, 2010 On the Monday after the race, Laurie and I headed to Littleton, Massachusetts which is 25 miles out of Boston. We did a driving tour, stopping to walk through the park known as Boston Common and we went and had a drink at the bar called “Cheers” where they filmed the TV show. We drove through Harvard University and went for a walk along the Boston waterfront. Boston seems to be a very nice city with some very distinct areas; Historical District, Waterfront District, China Town, the University District, etc.

The next morning, June 30, (Sara’s Birthday….HAPPY BIRTHDAY) I went golfing at Shaker Hills Golf Club and that night I took the subway, “the T”, to Fenway Park to watch the Boston Red Soxs play the Tampa Bay Rays. Fenway was built in 1912 and it is one of the last remaining, old, classic ballparks in the Majors. You can probably guess, this was on my “Bucket List” as well. Just to be in that stadium where Babe Ruth pitched (yes he started out as a pitcher), and Ted Williams, Carl Yastremski, and Carlton Fisk all played was a special experience for me. It was a day I will always remember!

"The Green Monster"  If you know about Fenway Park, you know about the Green Monster!







Observations:

* Throughout Connecticut and New Hampshire, we saw many homes that have stacked rock fences. I believe that it is to give the home a historic look.

* While we were camped in Newport, we discovered that there was a polo practice field next door. One evening, 7 huge horse trailers with 3-4 horses in each, drive up and they have a polo practice. The horse groomers/trainers get the horses ready and then a bunch of fancy cars pull up and the polo players get on their mounts that were prepared for them, have some fun and then get back in their cars and leave the groomers to pack up the horses and the gear. What a life!

* At New Hampshire Motor Speedway, fans could bring coolers in with alcohol in them, as long as the containers weren’t glass. And boy, was there ever a lot of booze consumed that day. I don’t know if that is the norm at all tracks, but I can’t help but think that NASCAR is letting a lot of revenue slip through their fingers. Mind you, fans were still spending money hand over fist.

* We are really happy with our truck and 5th wheel and then you see the ultimate.  These people are from Alaska and both the truck and 5th wheel are each worth over $100,000.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
* We are amazed that there are police officers in their cars at every road construction site.  It seems that it would be more cost efficient to hire traffic control???