Day 9 Nova Scotia

Today we continued our drive across New Brunswick and into Nova Scotia. The Trans Canada Highway continued to be great with minimal traffic. What has us buffaloed is the lack of seeing other RV either coming or going.

Thought you might enjoy this garden celebratin Canada 150 years old.

Had to get a picture of the Airstream and the welcome sign.

These Lupins are along the road all over the area. I think they are very pretty.

Day 8 Driving

Today was a lovely drive across NH and ME on US 2. It is a two lane road with virtually no traffic.
We had lovely country side all the way, nothing spectacular just lots of trees. At Bangor we picked up I97 to Canada. We are currently in Woodstock, NB, CA.

Sorry no pics today.

Day 7 Mt Washington

After a late breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup the four of us were off to drive the auto road to the top of Mt Washington. If you are not aware this mountain has a reputation for having some of the worst weather. We were in luck and had relative good weather for the trip up and our stay on top. Just as we were finishing lunch the weather started changing. The wind increased and it was getting dark. We headed to the car just before it started to rain. Another good timing, hope this continues for the rest of the trip.

I took a lot of picture on the way up. You are given a CD to provide a narration of the drive up and down. The view were spectacular. The road has an average of 12% grade which make it easy to go slowly. The other way up is to ride the cog railroad at $65 a person. As you can see in the pictures, I'm sure it is an interesting ride(very steep).

Next up was a hike into Glen falls. The falls is 64 feet high an very narrow delivering 600 gallons of water a second. This was much better than we expected when we started the hike.

Day 7 Album

Day 6 White Moutains

Today was our day to explore. Alysha and Matt took off early to hike the ridge trail. The indicated it was a very difficult trail with lots of bolder climbing.

Sue and I were off to hike the Flume trail. Our experience was much different. It was a well traveled trail with lots of steps up. As you will see from the pictures it was a very narrow slot in the rock with high wall and a walkway hung off the side.

Next on the agenda was to drive the Kancamagus Highway (I have no idea how you say that). It is advertised to a national scenic byway. There were a number of view points with similar views.

We explored a couple of the forest service campgrounds. The were fantastic but nearly empty of campers. One of them even had a new shower house but still was only 10% full. Got to be sure to use forest service campground in the future.

The rest of the pictures can be seen in Day 6 White Mountains.

Day 5 Twin Mountain, NH

Last night we got quite a surprise. Around 8:00 PM we got a call from Alysha and Matt. They indicated they were only 2 hours from us. Sure enough they arrived right on time and were our first overnight guests in the new trailer.

This morning we took them to see the canyon. The plan for the day was to drive to the Ben and Jerry factory and take the tour.  The treat of the tour was a sample of there product. I just can not remember what flavor but I can tell you it was very good and had a second. Out side the factory was an King Arthur Flour food truck. They were serving delicious chocolate chip cookies plus a free box of the cookie mix. All of this made for a great stop.

Next up was Maple Grove Farms of Vermont. We thought they also had a factory tour but that was not the case. They did have a video of the production which we watched. After tasting various grades of maple syrup we ended up buying grade A golden syrup and some pancake mix. How knew there were multiple grades of syrup. In addition we had samples of maple candy.

This was sure a sweet hart day. Don't want to see my test results in the morning.

Today's pictures here

Day 4 White River Junction, VT

A short drive today of 90 miles to White River Junction, VT. On the agenda today was to get some internet access. First stop was McDonald's in Rutland. Good access but slow because I'm still experimenting with new tools. Some work and some don't for me. Will let you know as I sort things out.

While the morning was still misting, it latter cleared and is a great day. On tap was exploring Quechee Gorge (Grand Canyon of Vermont). The canyon is around 345 feet deep. The Ottauquechee River flows through the canyon. It is believed that it was created around 100,000 years ago during the Ice age.

Canyon Pictures

We elected to stay in the KOA since we did not have confidence in our batteries. Last night I used my CPAP machine all night and reduced the voltage to 12. It is my understanding that going much beyond this is very bad for them. I wasn't aware of how much charge we could get from the truck on such a short drive. It turned out we were up to 12.7 volts when we arrived. If we had known, we would have stayed in the State Park next door. We took time to drive through and it would have been a much nicer place to camp.

Tomorrow we will be off to Twin Mountain, NH. There we will meet Alysha and Matt for a few days

Day 3 Beautiful drive I86

Today we continued our beautiful drive across NY state on I86. I want to recommend this route for anyone coming this way. Traffic was very light until Albany. Pavement was mostly great with just a few miles of bumps. The scenery was terrific.

Spent the night in  Emerald Lake State Park, VT.  We took a short hike down to the lake just before the rain started. It rained all night but was very pleasant sleeping.

Day 2 Change of plans

Day 2 starts with a great morning, cool temps and sun shining. Found Lou and Larry enjoying the morning on their front porch. Thank you guys for being wonder hosts and allowing us to share your new grandson.

With Larry's great directions it was an uneventful drive around Cleveland. But the sky started getting dark and threatening. We got just a few drops on the way to the visitor center in New York. This is the Chautauqua visitor center just off I86. What a beautiful location and building. Hope you agree.

While at the visitor center we had lunch and the rain came. We used the time to reevaluate our plans. We had planned to camp at Allegheny State Park and do some exploring. The rain however changed our plans. We decided to drive on and use our spare time in Vermont instead.

We stayed in Campbell, NY at the Camp Bell campground. By this time it was hot and humid and the air conditioning felt good.

We will have to see what tomorrow brings.

Launch Day

After week of planning we are finally off on our Newfoundland adventure. First was last minute loading and closing up the house. You know all those last details always take more time than expected. That was OK because we had a short day planned. It was a 100 mile trip to Lou and Larry's  home for a courtesy parking spot. It was a special day since their new grandson Conner came home.
It was really great to visit with their family.

We did capture a short video of the launch.

Here is our parking spot for the night.

Drone First Try

Testing the new drone before the trip. Got to make sure I know how to make it work. Went out the the parking lot behind the house to try things out. Was a bit windy but the drone seemed to stay stable.

These were shot with the drone in beginner mode and auto settings for the camera. It was bright over head sun with wind. Found out I need to get a shade for the controller in order to read the screen.

Also found that I can not do lots of pics and post via email. I will have to investigate other possibilities for posting. If anyone has ideas let me know.

I had to reduce the video to a computer format before it would upload. It was originally as a 4K video. It looks like we lost a lot of quality in the transition. May have to look at other alternatives. Maybe even shoot it orginally in a smaller format. I guess that is why we have to try these things.

Getting Ready for Newfoundland

You are welcome to join us as we travel to and around Newfoundland this summer. We will be traveling in our 2017 Airstream Flying Cloud 28. The general plan is to travel directly to Newfoundland and not do much exploring of the other Atlantic Provinces. We believe this is a once in a life time trip. We want to spend about 6 weeks exploring the Rock. We are hoping to do some hiking, see whales, see ice bergs and learn a little about the history. We are told to be on the lookout for moose. Some folks claim there are more moose than people.

Two side trips are planned. One to Labrador and the other to France. Just a note that there is an island off the coast of Newfoundland that is part of France. It is only an hour ferry ride. Sounds like a good day trip.