Our Wander Years

Hey! Don’t the Red Sox train here?

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Sparky

Lest you think that I am working all the time (which may be true but I don’t want you thinking that), I just bought tickets for two Red Sox spring training games. The Red Sox have a new stadium here in Fort Myers (JetBlue Park) and it is laid out to match the dimensions of Fenway. It even has a Green Monster! With seats on top of it!

JetBlue Park

Spring training tickets went on sale at 10am today. By 10:15 I was in possession of tickets to two games – one with the Baltimore Orioles and one with the Tampa Bay Rays. The Rays tickets are on the Green Monster. I didn’t intentionally get them – I just selected “best available” for that game – and Jett may not like them as they are in the front row atop the wall. But it will be interesting, for sure. And, at $37 each, they are more affordable than the real Green Monster seats which run over $200.

The Minnesota Twins also have a stadium in Fort Myers and the Red Sox have several games against them. When their tickets go on sale (not until January), I may try to get some tickets there, too.

Spring training! Another item to check off on my bucket list.

Categories: FL, Places | 2 Comments

The downside of WFH

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Sparky

My work area in the RV

Since arriving in Florida, I have been working out of the RV using my Verizon hotspot. This has worked pretty well overall, despite the cramped quarters. I am able to access the servers that physically reside in Burlington, MA, just as I would if I were working in Cambridge. And I can participate in meetings – including group assemblies – using Skype and the company’s conferencing software. The worst thing about not being in the office is that I can’t get to the free coffee and snacks. But I have my own.

There is, however, one big downside to WFH (working from home, in case you didn’t know): an inability to escape. Having the computer right there, all the time, 24/7, means that I am actually connected more than I would be if I were in Massachusetts. Not having to spend 3 hours a day commuting means that there are 3 more hours a day to be online. On Thanksgiving weekend – ostensibly a 4-day holiday – I monitored a series of tests that were running on two servers. I actually checked on them at 3am one night and always checked on them around 5am when I usually get up. I was pretty much connected to those servers all the time, all four days.

This week had a lot of fairly urgent issues to deal with, so I worked long hours every day. I didn’t keep a detailed timesheet, but I think I averaged over 10 hours per day – over 50 hours for the week.

If it wasn’t for the need to walk the dogs 3 times a day I might never leave the RV.

So much for “fun in the sun.”

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living, Work | Leave a comment

Thanksgiving, RV style

Posted on December 1, 2013 by Sparky

We don’t have family or friends in Fort Myers, so it was going to be a quiet Thanksgiving, regardless. Jett doesn’t use the RV oven – she doesn’t like that it has to be manually lit and seems to think that she will blow up the RV if she attempts it. So if we were going to cook Thanksgiving dinner ourselves it was going to be something that fit in a toaster oven or a microwave. Not very appealing.

Going out would be a hassle as most restaurants that choose to stay open are packed solid. This is probably true everywhere, but even more so in Florida, with its incoming flock of snowbirds.

The takeout option is usually pretty limited. As good as a Quarter Pounder with Cheese can be, it just doesn’t cut it on Thanksgiving.

But Cracker Barrel offers a takeout Thanksgiving feast that serves 4 to 6 for just $56:

2 pounds of turkey
12 ounces of ham
2 pounds of stuffing
12 ounces of cranberry relish
13 corn muffins or biscuits
3 quarts of vegetables

We chose mashed potatoes (with gravy, of course), mac and cheese and cooked apples for our veggies. I added in an apple pie to complete the meal, picked it up at 1pm on Thanksgiving Day (nicely packed in a box with a handle) and brought it home. We then sat down for a sumptuous meal, still hot and very tasty.

That’s how to do Thanksgiving dinner in an RV!

I only wish I had gotten a picture of it after Jett laid it all out. It was an impressive amount of food.

BTW, it was a cool day in Fort Myers – only(!) 70 degrees.

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving as much as we enjoyed ours.

Categories: FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

Car-buying in the modern age

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Sparky

When we arrived in Florida on Sunday, 5 days ago, we had not yet decided whether to buy or rent a car for Jett. We will be here for just 4 months and hauling a car north, while possible, is a hassle we didn’t need. On the other hand, renting a car also had a downside in their annoying rules (no pets, no smoking) and risks (uncertainty as to how an accident would be handled and whether we would get nailed for “loss of use” as rental companies are now wont to do). Close call. If we could find a rental like we had in San Jose – a decent car for under $600 a month – that likely would have been our chosen option. But in Fort Myers I could not find any such vehicle for much less than $900.

So, at 11am on Monday, we started looking for a dealer, thinking that we would go see some cars at lunch and mull it over a bit. We settled on AutoNation of Fort Myers, a large Toyota dealership not far from the RV park. I browsed its used car inventory and saw a number of vehicles that would fit the bill.

Off we went. We found the place, found a spot to stash the truck and walked into the showroom. And were informed that we were in the wrong place… the used car dealership was across the street. We were about to exit when we were introduced to Ezequiel Garcia, one of their used car salesmen who was about to head across the street. “Follow me,” he said. And we did.

But getting there was tricky. We had to take a right onto a busy road, then immediately cross 3 lanes of traffic to get into the left turn lane, then take a U-turn. Because he didn’t want to endanger us in pulling into the heavy traffic, we waited what felt like forever to get onto the road. And making a U-turn in our beast of a truck is always an adventure. But we made it, arriving about 1pm.

I asked about a Toyota Yaris that I had seen advertised, but it was gone. We looked at a Mustang that got Jett really excited, until she found out it was standard transmission. We looked at a couple more, then found a basic Corolla that we liked enough to do a test drive. It drove great and came with a 6-month warranty which would be fine for our expected 4-month term of ownership. The only negative was that it lacked power windows and locks, but Jett said she could deal with that for four months. We parked the car and were about to go into the building to talk turkey when Jett spotted another Yaris. This one had power everything, just 57K miles and came with the original warranty that was good to 100K miles. Ding, ding, ding! A winner! A short test drive convinced us that that car would suit us better than the Corolla. And we were going to finance it all, so the extra $1,500 wasn’t a deterrent.

In the Old Days the process would go like this:

settle on the terms for the car
go to the bank or credit union to arrange the loan
get a cashier’s check
go back to the dealer to buy the car
go to your insurance agent to arrange insurance
take all the papers to the Registry and stand in line for an hour or two to get the plates
go back to the dealership, put the plates on the car and drive away

The process could take the better part of a week.

For our purchase, we negotiated the terms, the salesman disappeared to work up the sales papers, came back a few minutes later, we shook hands, we called an insurance agent, bought insurance on our Visa, he faxed the insurance documents to the dealership, we went into the finance manager’s office, signed the papers, he handed the plates to the salesman, he put them on the car and we drove away.

We drove off the lot at 4:30pm. Total time at the dealership: 3.5 hours. Add in another two hours for doing the internet search and getting to the dealership and the total time required to buy a $12,000 car was less than 6 hours. Nice!

In truth it wasn’t quite as smooth as described. The hitch was the taxes and fees. I was SHOCKED at the high Florida sales tax and registration fee. Add in the mandatory $700 dealership document processing fee and these one-time extras exceeded $2,000! I just about walked out the door. As I explained to Ezequiel, that was, to me, an extra $500 per month as I expected to keep the car for just 4 months. Add in about $100 for insurance and the depreciation cost and the total monthly cost of ownership was hovering right around the $850 mark, which would make owning just as expensive as renting.

So they knocked $1,000 off the purchase price for me.

I guess I was playing hardball without even knowing it.

Anyway, we now own a steel-blue 2008 Toyota Yaris. Jett loves it. And we are already thinking about how to take it north with us.

Little Blue, parked next to Big Red

Categories: Adventures, FL, Places, RV Living | Leave a comment

QTS Hop 4: Savannah, GA, to North Ft Myers, FL

Posted on November 20, 2013 by Sparky

417 miles via I-95, I-4, County 557, US 17 and FL 31.

This was the last hop of the relatively short QTS and I was hoping to complete the trip with no “dings” to report. Alas, ’twas not to be. We got two rather significant dings on Saturday.

Day 1: Savannah, GA, to Daytona Beach, FL

208 miles, almost entirely on I-95, with a lunch break at a rest area just north of Jacksonville

QTS Hop 4, Day 1

The day started badly: as we were pulling in the slides in preparation for leaving Savannah, a cable on the left bunkhouse slide snapped. With a little cursing and some manual assistance, we got the slide properly stowed, but it was a bad start to what turned out to be a very bad day.

The trip down I-95 to the lunch break at the “Welcome to Florida!” rest area just north of Jacksonville was uneventful. We pulled into a slot next to a travel trailer owned by a 79-year-old gentleman who came over to strike up a conversation with me while I was eating my bologna sandwich and Jett was in the tourism office collecting brochures that we will likely discard before reading. He was waiting for assistance in fixing a blowout. I commiserated and, naturally, told of our “adventures” with exploding tires. I got out to show him our damage and directed his attention to the spare tire that was still mounted on the right rear from our near-flat in Louisville in early July. Anyway, when Jett got back we wished him well and went on our merry way, grateful that we were not the ones who had to deal with a blowout. Nope, we were headed for Daytona Beach, just 90 minutes away. We would arrive by 2pm, which would give us plenty of time to actually visit the beach.

Then, 20 miles later, just as we were approaching the Danes Point Bridge on the I-295 East Beltway around Jacksonville (which, ironically, we took on the advice of the gentleman at the rest area)… BLAM!!!

Yup, another blowout. Our fourth, if you include the one that was my fault. The three blowouts and the near-flat were all rear-tire failures. That makes sense as the rear tires carry more weight than the front ones because we can’t make the RV totally level when towing, due to the height of the bed of the truck. But they are not carrying so much weight that they should blow out so frequently. All of the blown tires had less than 2,000 miles of use. Only the near-flat was a failure of a tire with more than 5,000 miles on it.

Patience, awaiting assistance

As explosive blowouts go, this one was pretty ugly. The noise alone just about gave Jett a heart attack. I immediately looked in the side-view mirrors and saw debris – I am still not sure from what – bouncing all over the road behind me. Once again I was lucky, in that no one was in the right lane (I was in the center lane), so I was able to get to the breakdown lane without running anyone off the road. I was also lucky in that there was a breakdown lane. I was able to brake to a hard stop just before the breakdown lane narrowed to nearly nothing as the approach to the bridge began. If the tire had blown 10 seconds later I would have blocked at least a partial lane of traffic. If it had blown a minute later I would have been on the bridge and would have blocked an entire traffic lane.

Lucky, I guess. Though I would have felt much luckier if it had not happened at all. Or if it had not done considerable damage to the RV, including peeling away more sheet metal, ripping off a big chunk of insulation from the underside of the kitchen slide and (we discovered later) cracking the plywood flooring of the kitchen so we now have a very noticeable ridge in front of the sink.

Jett, Grace and Rusty cooling their heels

I also would have felt a lot luckier if help had arrived sooner. As it was, the tire was not replaced until 3 hours later. At least there was a grassy area where Jett and the dogs could relax while I paced incessantly, trying to figure out some way to fix the flat myself (nope, couldn’t do it). Jett even had a little nap while waiting.

When the tire was finally in place we discovered that the pressure in the (new) spare tire was just 45 psi rather than the recommended 65 psi. We could not make it to Daytona Beach with a tire with pressure that low. So the roadside assistance guy escorted us to a service station where we could inflate it. But we missed the entrance and had to U-turn in a shopping center parking lot, which was like turning an aircraft carrier around in the Charles River. Then we found that we would have to turn the RV around in the service station to get the air hose to reach the bad tire, which was like turning an aircraft carrier around in a bathtub, so Jett got out and directed traffic while I threaded the rig through the gas pumps. Very exciting. But not in a pleasant way.

We finally got the tire inflated, got on the road again and made it to the RV park in Daytona Beach at 6:08pm, just 4 hours later than planned.

And with 2 dings added to our ledger.

The red marker on the map is where the blowout occurred.

We didn’t get much opportunity to sample what the Sunshine Holiday Daytona RV Resort had to offer, but I can tell you, without equivocation, that it was not worth the price we paid. It was, at $66 for a single night, one of the most expensive places we have stayed. And when we arrived the office was closed and the sun was long gone, so we had to find our way to our site and get set up in the dark. And it started to rain.

Tight site

The roads in the park are very narrow, the turns very tight and the pull-thrus very small. High price and poor facilities – a very bad combination. I think this makes our 10 Least Enjoyable parks list.

On the positive side, the staff there (which I met on Sunday morning) was very helpful and the pool was just about the best we have seen – second only to the pool at Paradise in Phoenix.

Sunday morning we decided to try to replace the spare. Finding a tire shop that was open on Sunday was not easy. I drove over 25 miles without success. But after returning to the park the nice folks in the office mentioned a PepBoys shop about 5 miles away. I called and they did, in fact, have a tire for me. So I ran over there and got a new tire mounted on the rim. That made the final day of the QTS a little more carefree. Besides, Murphy’s Law says that if I hadn’t gotten the tire we would have had another blowout.

Day 2: Daytona Beach, FL, to North Ft Myers, FL

209 miles via I-95, I-4, County 557, US 17 and FL 31, with a lunch break in a Publix parking lot in Winter Haven.

QTS Hop 4, Day 2

This was a fairly leisurely jaunt through central Florida. The I-4 segment was annoying because the whole route was under construction, meaning the road was rough and the shoulders were often non-existent. But the US 17 and FL 31 segments were flat and straight. With very little traffic.

The most interesting part of the trip was lunch. We pulled into a Publix parking lot and Jett went in to get us some sandwiches. I had to position the rig so it wouldn’t block anybody and try to figure out how to exit – not a simple matter as it turned out the the way out that I expected to use was actually an entrance. I finally opted for a U-turn in the lot, then exit the way we came in. But I had to back up a bit to get enough room for the turn, which meant that Jett had to stand behind the rig and block traffic – something that she hates. But we made it.

When we got to the Seminole Campground the office was closed and there was no answer at the phone number posted on the office door. So, after 1,500 miles, we couldn’t complete the last 300 feet of the trip. Fortunately, one of the maintenance people came along and we figured out where we were supposed to be. Before backing into the site, I gave the number another try and got an answer. The manager confirmed that we were at the right site, so we finished the trip.

I will, of course, describe the campground more fully later. No rush on that as we will be here for 4 months. But our initial impression?

We love it!

Categories: Adventures, FL, GA, Places, QTS, Routes | Leave a comment

Savannah, GA

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Sparky

We will be leaving the Savannah Oaks RV Resort today (Saturday) after spending a pretty nice 6 nights here. This was a working week for me, so we didn’t do a lot of sightseeing, but we did get to downtown Savannah twice to look around – once on Sunday night and again on Friday afternoon.

The camp store/service station

First, the park. I wouldn’t put it on our Top 10 list, but it wasn’t bad. It had the best camp store we have seen anywhere – a true convenience store, with an entire wall of beer and wine and an entire aisle of snacks. We didn’t buy a lot of stuff there, but it was nice to be able to make a short walk to buy a half gallon of milk or some TastyKake cupcakes (yes, Jett sent me out Wednesday night to get some because she had a craving). The store is also a service station with both diesel and gas pumps. It wasn’t cheap, but it was nice to have the option of topping off there before heading out.

The staff at both the office and the store was very courteous and helpful. The site we were given (#93) was wide and long, so we had no trouble pulling in and setting up. There was a pretty nice laundry that we used Friday night to do a couple of loads and there is a dog park that is not large but was a good walk destination for the dogs. The WiFi, while not particularly strong, was steady and very usable. I was actually able to do my work using their WiFi Monday and Tuesday when my hotspot was acting up. The hotspot seemed to be better by Wednesday, so I used that the rest of the week.

The park also had a pool that was OPEN (I guess we are truly in the south now) that we didn’t use and a propane filling service that we did use. Like Circle Cg, a flat rate was charged, but it was $19 – $1 cheaper than Circle Cg.

Dog park

Negatives:

The campground had a lot of street noise. We were pretty close to a busy road and we heard (and sometimes felt) the big trucks to by.
The roads in the campground are narrow and make some sharp turns. While we didn’t have any trouble getting into the site, getting to the site was a little tricky. And we still aren’t sure whether we can make the sharp turn to exit the campground; we may have to go through the service station to get a gentler approach to the road.
I am not sure what kind of trees lined the site, but they dropped a lot of crap on the RV. I have a feeling that Patience is going to look like Pigpen when we leave the campground, trailing a cloud of debris behind.
It is 17 miles from downtown. Getting to the places we wanted to see was a 30-minute trip each way.
Jett didn’t like the dryers in the laundry. She thought they were expensive and ineffective.

So not one of our all-time favorites, but not bad.

The OPEN pool

Narrow roads

Savannah River at night

The trip into Savannah Sunday night was to get our bearings and to grab some dinner. Bearings were easy to get at the Historical District is a grid bounded on the north by the Savannah River. There is a beautiful bridge to SC that my camera didn’t capture very well. Getting to River Street (along the river, duh), was a bit of an adventure as the street is paved with very crude cobblestones. We were thoroughly jumbled by the time we maneuvered our beast of a truck into a (free) parking spot along the river.

The Cotton Exchange Restaurant

We selected The Cotton Exchange as our dining destination, partly because it was very near where we parked and partly because it had an appealing menu. Once inside, we also found the decor to be appealing. The building was truly a cotton exchange back in the day. I would guess that the structure was circa 1900 with lots of exposed brick and beams. Very cozy.

Jett, never very adventurous in culinary terms, chose the chicken finger basket, which she found to be more than adequate. I chose one of the evening specials: shrimp and grits, which turned out to be about a dozen tasty shrimp in a mushroom-and-sausage cream sauce, resting on a puck of fried grits. Yes, fried grits. I never knew grits could be fried. Anyway, it was superb.

Shrimp and fried grits

The second trip was on Friday afternoon. The intent was to walk around the Historic District, with no particular destination in mind, so see what Savannah was all about. The weather, which was beautiful most of the week, did not cooperate as it turned cloudy and threatening. But we did get to look around for nearly two hours before the rain began.

Cotton Exchange

We parked near the Colonial Park Cemetary but delayed visiting it until we returned. Instead we headed north, toward the Savannah River, and visited River Street a second time. We wandered the street a bit, but were more interested in the buildings than the shops they housed. The city side of the Cotton Exchange building (where we had dinner Sunday night), for example, was quite striking. I also liked the 3-level sidewalk/alleyway that served that side of the row of buildings along the river.

3-level sidewalk

John Wesley statue

One of the nicest features of Savannah is the numerous squares that punctuate the Historic District. Each has its own character, but they all have some large, gnarly trees that would be awesome in fog. Some of the squares have statues or obelisks as centerpieces; others just offer benches for quite contemplation. They may not be as grand as the parks of Paris and they are miniscule when compared to Central Park, but they are very nice in their own way.

Obelisk

Duellist’s Grave plaque

After grabbing a coffee, we ended our self-guided tour of Savannah at the Colonial Park Cemetery. It has lots of atmosphere and purportedly has the graves of many Revolutionary War heroes. Unfortunately, almost none of the headstones was legible, so unless there was a modern explanation of who was buried nearby (as with the “Duellist’s Grave”), we would have no clue who was there. But even with the help we didn’t find anyone we knew.

Then the rain began and we headed home.

Colonial Park Cemetery

Corner house

Row houses

Categories: GA, QTS, RV Parks | 2 Comments

QTS Hop 3: Lorton, VA, to Savannah, GA

Posted on November 14, 2013 by Sparky

2 days, 577 miles via I-95 and some local roads.

Day 1: Lorton, VA, to Wade, NC

QTS Hop 3, Day 1

293 miles, of which all but 10 miles were on I-95, with a refueling stop in Rocky Mount, NC.

As usual, tears were shed when Jett said goodbye to her sons and her grandkids. We had her 8-year-old grandson, Patrick, overnight on Friday, which is always a pleasure. But everyone was tired from an exhausting (physically and emotionally) week and we were all in bed before 10am. Patrick’s father, Josh, picked him up at 8am Saturday morning, as planned, but we were surprised by an early morning visit from Jett’s other son, Devin. Coffee was consumed, tearful goodbyes were exchanged and we were on the road by 9:30am.

Jett doesn’t like to navigate (thank God for GPS!) but even Mr. Magoo couldn’t have gotten lost on this trip. Straight down I-95. The only “difficult” part was the refueling stop in Rocky Mount, NC, which meant leaving I-95 at the correct exit, traveling a quarter of a mile to the gas station, refueling (me), grabbing sandwiches (Jett) and getting back on I-95. We almost got Jett some Marlboro’s at $48 per carton (read it and weep, Massachusetts smokers), but the cashier leaned over the counter and drawled in my ear: “Between you and me you can get them cheaper somewhere else.” So we passed on the cigs and eventually got them on Sunday for $46 in South Carolina.

Patience at Fayetteville RV Resort

Our destination for the evening was the Fayetteville RV Resort in Wade, NC. I had planned this hop so that no refueling would be needed at our overnight stop, so we didn’t even unhitch – just pushed the slides out, hooked up the utilities and relaxed. For this kind of quick, overnight stop just about any park would do. But this park was so nice that I found myself wishing we were staying longer. A beautiful office, two swimming pools, two dog parks, a clubhouse, a fitness center, a walking trail and a large open space in the middle for activities. And CLEAN. The sites didn’t have trees, so there weren’t even leaves on the ground. No trash anywhere. Spotless. This park is now on our Top 10 list. I don’t know which park got bumped, but we certainly haven’t seen 10 others as nice as this one.

The open field

Enjoying the 70-degree day

Day 2: Wade, NC, to Savannah, GA

284 miles, all but 6 of those miles on I-95, with a refueling stop in Florence, SC

Hop 3, Day 2

This was another long day of pretty boring driving – I-95 is flat and tree-lined along most of this route, making for good gas mileage (almost, but not quite, 10mpg) but hard to stay alert. We listened to a book-on-CD (Jonathan Kellerman’s Gone) and that helped pass the time. We refueled at a Pilot truck stop in Florence, SC. Jett loves truck stops – they are easy to get into and out of and they usually have a nice mini-mart and some good food. We made the stop at 11am, which was a little early for lunch, but that didn’t stop us from enjoying a nice meal from Wendy’s. This truck stop also had something I have never seen before – some diesel pumps dedicated to RVers. I didn’t have to choose between the gas pumps which are generally very tight for our rig or the truck pumps which usually don’t take credit cards at the pump and have a passenger-side hose that has to be laid on the ground(!) in order for the driver-side pump to work.

Later in the day we stopped at a rest area to let the dogs stretch their legs and water the bushes.

Our destination and home for the week was the Savannah Oaks RV Resort in Savannah, GA. I will report on the park more fully when we leave, but I will make two preliminary observations: (1) the Wi-Fi is pretty good, which was fortunate as our Verizon hotspot was pretty iffy at this location and (2) there must really be oak trees in the park because something dropped on the roof of the RV pretty regularly. I am hoping it was acorns.

Categories: GA, NC, Places, QTS, Routes, RV Parks, SC | Leave a comment

Happy 90th, Mom!

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Sparky

The weekend before we started the trek south I had the opportunity to fly coast-to-coast from Massachusetts to Oregon to visit my mother, who recently celebrated her 90th birthday, and my sister who… well, I won’t mention her age, but you can do the math. While there I also had the opportunity to enjoy some rare sunny weather on the Oregon coast and to go on a 3-hour mushroom tour with Tillamook Eco-Adventures. It was an exhausting trip, but well worth it.

My mother was in the hospital for several days just prior to my arrival, with fluid buildup around the heart, so naturally I was concerned about how she would be. Well, here is a photo I took just before I left:

Mom at 90

I thought she looked great. She was upbeat and got around pretty well, too, making it up the difficult stairs at my sister’s house for dinner on Friday. It was a very comforting visit with my wonderful mother.

The flight out was miserable. I had a stop in Phoenix and we encountered a maintenance delay there. I didn’t get to my hotel room until 3am and then had a problem getting the key card to work. I finally got to bed, but with my body clock all out of whack, I got only about 3 hours of deep sleep. The flight back, non-stop to Charlotte, was better. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep on that flight, which is a personal best for me.

On Friday my sister Lois and my brother-in-law Chris treated me to a short walk on the beach. The Oregon shore is always stunning, but seeing it in sunshine is a special treat.

Sunset on the Oregon coast

We took their 3 dogs with us. They always enjoy the beach walks, too. In the parking area I was a sign warning against picking up “tsunami debris.” Junk from the 2011 Japan tsunami has made it all the way to Oregon.

Tsunami debris warning

Dogs on the beach

Looking north along the beach

Just to prove I was there

On Saturday Chris and Lois treated me to a mushroom walk, which was more fun than it sounds. Again, the sun was shining, and the walk was colorful with the changing fall foliage. I learned a lot about mushrooms and even nibbled on one that was guaranteed to be safe.

Lois, Chris and me on the mushroom trail

Mushroom guy Brian with Lois and Chris

Sunday started with a wonderful breakfast at Pirate’s Cove Restaurant in Garibaldi, OR. The shrimp omelet was superb! It then transitioned into a sports viewing day. We channel-hopped between the Red Sox (game 4 of the World Series) and the Redskins (Chris is a Redskins fan – go figure).

Start of World Series Game 4

A happy Chris, before the Redskins collapsed

After the Redskins and before the Red Sox lost, I headed back to Portland for my flight. I drove a Chrysler 200 from Enterprise that cost me $68 for the weekend – a real bargain. I have to say that I really enjoyed driving it. It was smooth, responsive, had power to pass on the uphill stretches over the mountains and was very comfortable. I think it was the best rental car I have had in many years. Good job, Chrysler!

The Chrysler 200

It was great to see you, Mom. And great to see you looking so well. Lois and Chris – thanks for the hospitality, the walk and the mushroom tour. It is always a pleasure to visit you.

Categories: Adventures, OR, Places | Leave a comment

QTS Hop 2: Bellingham, MA, to Lorton, VA

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Sparky

2 days, 493 miles via I-495 (MA), I-90, I-84, I-91, I-95, I-286, NJ 440, US 9, I-195 (NJ), I-495 (MD and VA) and some local roads.

I routed this trip so that we could overnight in NJ and thus earn the right to put another state on our map. In retrospect, we would have been wiser to just skip NJ. That sticker was earned the hard way.

Day 1: Bellingham, MA, to Jackson, NJ

There is really no good way to get from southern MA to NJ. Our choices were either to either take I-84 across CT, then down the Garden State Parkway, or find a way through New York City. We have driven I-84 before and it is horrible and I don’t have many fond memories of the Garden State Parkway, either, so I opted for I-286 over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. That would take us through Brooklyn, but, hey, it’s an interstate. How bad could it be?

Plus I wanted to go over the bridge.

Well, never again.

Hop 2, Day 1

One problem was that the road was even rougher than I-84. When we finally arrived in NJ – exhausted and frazzled – we had to deal with the mess inside the RV. The new table next to my chair fell over, nearly everything that was on the bunks had fallen off (including cans of soda, which, thankfully, did not explode) and everything in the refrigerator looked like it had gone through a dryer cycle. We didn’t have any eggs in there but if we had, they would have been pre-scrambled. We did have a jar of pickles that somehow ended up standing on its lid. How does that happen?

Another problem was cost. The tolls on that route exceeded $100. The bridge alone was $62! I was expecting more like $30. Outrageous.

The worst problem, though, is that there is an underpass on I-286 in Brooklyn with a 12′ 6″ clearance, which is exactly the height of Patience. I admit that I had not checked for low clearances on the NY segment because it was all interstate and interstates have standards, right? Wrong. Lesson learned, but not before getting an earful from Jett, who nearly had a heart attack. I, too, was pretty upset as I had visions of either getting stuck on a surface street in Brooklyn and needing a police escort to get extricated, or paying the price of a very long detour back up to I-95 and then across the George Washington Bridge – which would take me on the Cross-Bronx Expressway, another of my least favorite roads.

Well, fortunately it was just a matter of exiting at the underpass and re-entering on the other side, with was really no detour at all. But our blood pressure remained highly elevated for another 45 minutes until we had crossed the bridge (and paid our ransom at the toll booth there) and were safely on US 9 in NJ, which was a pretty nice road.

Our campground for the night was the Timberland Lake Campground in Jackson, NJ. I have to give this place a very mixed review. The site was huge and level, so I think the campsite itself gets high marks. There are also a lot of amenities here, including a very large pool (as shown on the home page of their website), a very nice playground, an open-air pavilion, horseshoe pits and a basketball court, all of which, except for the pool, were being heavily used when we arrived. The park was nearly full and it seems that most everybody knew each other. There was a huge pot luck dinner and party that night which, if we were invited, no one bothered to inform us. But the place had a festive, friendly air about it.

So why the mixed review? The place is impossible to get out of. The road from the gate into the office area is wide enough for two vehicles but is marked as one-way inbound. I had to walk the campground to find a way out. There were two choices, neither marked as an exit and both very narrow and difficult. I chose what I thought would be the better of the two and nearly got hung up on trees. If there hadn’t been an empty pull-through site at that location I would have had to back up and go the wrong way out the one-way road (which Jett was telling me, vociferously, is what I should have done to begin with).

Also, the road leading to the campground is basically a mile of 1-lane road with very soft shoulders. Two large RVs meeting on that road would both run the risk of getting stuck. Plus the telephone wires overhead are low enough to snag a large rig that pulls over to let another get by. Combine that with the horrible, rutted, unpaved dirt paths inside the park and I have to rate this campground as a 0 on the accessibility scale. Just plain awful.

It is located very close to the Six Flags amusement park, so I am sure it is a popular campground in the summer. But not one that I will ever return to.

Day 2: Jackson, NJ, to Lorton, VA

I had planned to take the Baltimore-Washington Parkway to the Beltway, then take the Beltway to the east side of DC. But after our I-286 experience on Saturday I opted to stay on I-95 which I knew had no low bridges and go to the west of DC on the Beltway. That added a couple of miles to the trip.

Hop 2, Day 2

There were more tolls on this route and we cut it pretty close on our cash – we arrived in Lorton with $15 remaining. The total for the 2 days of tolls was over $130. Ouch!

But other than the pain to my wallet, there was nothing painful about this trip. We arrived before 2pm (thanks to an early start, made possible by the extra hour of sleep we got on the switch to EST). We settled in at Site 75 at Pohick Bay Regional Park for the third time. It is a difficult spot to back into, but is a very nice campsite once settled in. We really enjoy having the open field and the playground right behind us.

I will be working remotely this week while Jett catches up with family and laundry.

On one of my commuting trips home I witnessed a spectacular sunset. I took this photo, through my windshield, while driving.

Alexandria sunset

Categories: NJ, Places, Routes, RV Parks | Leave a comment

And heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Rusty!

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Sparky

Rusty, post-grooming

Those of you who know us well could have predicted that we wouldn’t last long with just one dog. It just isn’t sufficient. Grace needed a playmate and we needed another dog so that we wouldn’t fight over having a pet to… well, pet.

There was no question that it would be another rescue dog. We prefer mutts anyway and a homeless mutt in a shelter that is desperate for a family just tugs at our heartstrings. So, at the recommendation of a colleague at work and after looking at the photos of the available dogs on their website, we were off to Save A Dog in Sudbury, MA.

Jett wanted a smaller dog – under 20 pounds. I preferred a larger dog – 30 to 40 pounds or just slightly smaller than Grace (44 lb). Naturally Jett got her way. Or mostly so. We did test out one Miniature Pinscher who weighed in at about 12 pounds and another small dog of indeterminate pedigree, but Grace had no interest in them. Then we took a look at a 22lb 3-year-old wire-haired terrier mix and Grace came to life – the two ran around the pen, thoroughly enjoying each other. So Grace was the one who settled our dispute. And, in retrospect, there was really no reason for Jett and I to even discuss it. Our role in this process was limited to choosing dogs for Grace to try out; Grace was the one who made the final decision.

So, after paying $403 to Save A Dog, $362 to the vet for an initial checkup, heartworm medication and flea/tick treatment, and $100 to PetSmart for a much-needed grooming, we owned a second dog. Needless to say, our “Pet” budget category was blown to bits last month.

Naming him was not too difficult. His name in the shelter was “Russ” which we didn’t much care for, primarily because we wanted a 2-syllable name (Cesar say dogs need a 2-syllable name so that it is distinct from the 1-syllable commands like “down”, “stay” and “sit”). We ran through a few options, but nothing stuck. So “Russ” became “Rusty.” Simple.

The photo above is post-grooming. For comparison, here is a pre-grooming shot:

Rusty, pre-grooming

We are still getting to know him, but I can tell you this:

Someone took good care of this dog. He is housebroken, knows some basic commands and is very responsive to our compliments and reprimands.
He is a clown. He is like a cat in that he can amuse himself for long periods of time by batting a ball around the room. He can even toss a ball into the air and catch it!
He is either going to keep Grace young or kill her with a heart attack. The two play endlessly and (usually) quite well. We have had a few little tiffs where Grace needed to remind Rusty that she was the alpha dog in this pack, but he didn’t seem to disagree much.
He is a wonderful traveler. We have now put him in the truck for several trips – to the vet for his checkup and this weekend for our trip to VA – and he just curls up and sleeps. Now if he could just teach Grace how to do that…

Anyway, our pack population is back up to 4. And that feels right.

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