Country Bumpkins vs. City Slickers

All right, the city slickers almost got the best of us, but we figured it out...the Boston transit subway system! Not an employee in sight to help two elderly senior citizens, (ha ha) Ok, I thought I would really use the age "card" today, as we have never ridden the subway before, either one of us. You would have laughed to see two educated adults trying to figure out how to buy a ticket and navigate our way through three different subway lines (red, green and blue) today to get to downtown Boston. We decided that would be faster than trying to drive and guess what crazy Boston drivers are going to do..they don't use turn signals and they drive well over the speed limit, so it's kinda stressful! I had to call and text my brother three times about the ticket buying system. You have to buy a "Charlie ticket" or a "Charlie card". We didn't know what "Charlie" had to do with our ticket or the difference between a "card" and a "ticket" (Charlie is the nickname for the transit system), but oh, they also call it the "T"...cards hold multiple fares for longer periods of useage, tickets are for one way or round trip one day. Ok, next! We got confused because there was no simple mention of subway anywhere in the ticket buying process, at least we didn't see it. There were quite a few confused people huddled around the electronic ticket machines asking each other how to buy tickets. Finally, another lady next to us was asking the same things of us, so we collaborated. We must have tried about five times each on an automated machine before we finally figured it out and it spit out our tickets. (the transaction gets cancelled if you take too long to make a decision, about 30 seconds). OK, on to the tracks..take the red line (color depends on what part of the suburbs you are in, for us-the red line)-to the center of town, but make sure you know whether you are going eastbound or westbound to get on the right track. Somehow being underground sort of confuses the orientation for some...Then take the green line for two stops, then transfer to the blue line, but stay underground to do all your transferring or you will have to buy another ticket to get back in the maze if you accidentally exit out. If there are trains passing through, they block signs temporarily, and sometimes you have to go upstairs to get downstairs and around a corner to get to the right track. There were street musicians playing really great music so you don't lose your cool and panic. Everybody following me on this? I thought so! Now we've arrived at the ticket station for the whale watch. I buy the wrong tickets from the wrong vendor for the wrong trip because I didn't listen very well to my better half, and we get in a line for the historical tour by ship by mistake. Back to the line, refund my money, buy the whale watch tickets (trip offered by the Boston Aquarium) and wait in line for an hour in the hot sun to get on the ship. A word to the wise...It doesn't do you any good to stand in line forever to get your number one choice spot on the ship to watch for whales. Everybody else who came at the last minute will come and stand in front of you at the rails, standing the entire three to four hour trip, blocking your view anyway..it was discouraging to experience that again today, on our second whale watch of the summer. I did stake out a spot at the rail and stood for well over two hours to try and get a shot at what we might see, but no luck getting a photo, nothing close enough. BUT--it was a good trip out...we saw four finback whales, one humpback who showed his tail, and lots of sighted spoutings. Unfortunately, the viewings were quite far away except for one quick finwhale, so no photos of whales today. Tomorrow we hope to do some historical sightseeing...the photo today is on the ship coming back in, with Logan Airport extremely close by, the landing strips are right by the water!

A Taste of the Cape

First, let me tell you that the Minuteman Campground within one hour of Boston, is a beautiful, beautiful campground. The lanes back to each site twist and wind around and are kind of narrow, but we really didn't have any problems with getting our 38 ft. motor home backed into a site. There was a small contingency of 5 or 6 Prevost motor homes (million dollar coaches) that came in after us, and they are 40-45 feet long so this campground can accomodate them, too! Have posted a photo of our site, nestled among very tall, mature pines, and the smell is heavenly! It's quite quiet in contrast to the busy, family oriented, noisy Saco Campground in New Hampshire that we just came from. My brother helped us with some ideas of things to do while we were here..He thought of taking the ferry with our bikes to Provincetown,("P-Town") which is at the very tip top of the Cape, the "hook tip" of Massachusetts. So off we went this morning...the ferry was quite expensive, 96.00 a person (including our bikes), but the experience of Provincetown was worth it--the bike trail, the stores and shops, the unusual people we saw--Elsie, the 78 year old crooner that was a man who looked like a woman, dressed like a woman but with the voice of a man, singing on the street for money, "living out my dream"...are you confused? We were...not sure if he/she was in the middle of a sex change operation, or just decided to be a transexual. We biked over 11.3 miles, which was a record for us! Rich didn't know what the terrain would be like, and it definitely had rolling hills and some steep hills. The temperature was perfect today, not too hot, temporary cool down a little from the weather, and we did well, considering my brother routinely bikes 60 miles several times a week! We dipped our tootsies in the Atlantic Ocean, and wished we had brought our bathing suits. We came back from the bike ride and ate at Bubala's, and indoor/outdoor cafe, which was delicious. Interesting stores, cool little niche shops, fun place to people watch, nice breeze blowing through town off the ocean, beautiful beaches, an all around fun day...tomorrow we go back to Boston for some sightseeing and a whale watch tour. Since moose are no longer available for spotting, I'm now into whales!

Can you hear me now?

Anybody wondering how I can work on the blog while driving down the road? I mean, Eldy's driving, of course! We have a Verizon "air card". That is a portable connection to the cell tower signals. It looks just like a flash drive and plugs into the USB port on the laptop. Eldy is driving right now, and I am computing! We pay a fee of about 60.00 a month to use this air card/port. The connector itself was about 60.00 and you have to sign a two year contract with Verizon. The signal for the most part, is very good everywhere we go. Occasionally, we will hit dead spots when we are driving and we have had some very poor signals at the campgrounds in a couple of places. Service for the air card is very good in the midwest and eastern states but sometimes sporadic in the mountainous areas. We've heard that it will be much harder to get a good signal out west, where coverage is more sparse. When we hit the campground and get set up, we usually use a combination of the air card or free wi-fi that's offered by the campground (sometimes the wi-fi is a lot speedier). However, we don't use wi-fi for personal stuff like banking and sensitive information. We have a router in our camper, that is specially for travelers. It's a Cradlepoint MBR1000, and it enables us to print and compute wirelessly..we can both be on our computers at the same time and print, too. It's about the size of a box of kitchen matches, so it doesn't take up much space. Cell phone signals have been more problematic than the wi-fi or our network! Half a bar, one and a half bars on the AT & T network back in New Hampshire in North Conway was an example. So you can't plan on being tethered to a computer, or always able to talk to family easily! But we text and email and stay in touch often with everyone. Technology is great when it works well! I've been able to research campgrounds on the web while Eldy is driving, and let him know what kind of ratings it has and we decide whether we will be staying there or not. We use RV Campground Review website to check out places we think we might want to stay. Well, time for me to get off the computer, and help Eldy watch for our exit to Littleon, Massachusetts...headed to the Minuteman Campground for the next three days.

Rock Surfin'

Maybe I'll start a fad...lol. (see photo today)..just kidding around today..today was my 60th birthday. Since we did such a strenous hike yesterday, we looked around for some more waterfalls with an easier approach! We found some at Glenn Falls. This is on the way to Wildcat Mountain, again about a 35 min. drive from our campground. A VERY short hike, .3 of a mile, along the Ellis River, a relatively fast moving body of water with tons of boulders, eddies, and pools, rushing past narrow breaks in the rocks, then culminating in a 64 foot waterfall over a narrow path carved into rock, cascading down below. We could see the Ellis River all along the path as we walked towards the falls. This was a much more powerfull waterfall, although not as high as yesterday because of the forced narrow path of exit over the rocks. It doesn't take much encouragement to get me to clamber around on the rocks, so Eldy can get the right photo. Someone was kind enough to offer to take our photo, so we did the same for a couple more people coming through. Back to the town of North Conway, for some pizza at Flatbreads...a very unique dining experience with cooks making the pizza and cooking them in a wood fired oven right in front of you, everything organically made just about, and local farm produce used. Very cool management policies posted, and an interesting approach to dining. Culmination of the day was birthday cake! Yum! Today was our last day here in New Hampshire...tomorrow we are heading for the Minuteman Campground in Lexington, MA to see my brother. I probably won't post tomorrow as it will be a day for traveling and getting settled. Bye for now!

Water, water everywhere, but no moose

And that's ok, because once you have seen one moose, you've seen them all! Not true, really, we'd love to see another one, but we aren't going to go on any "Moose Safari" to try and see another one. What we REALLY love seeing is, waterfalls, and there is no shortage of them in this part of New Hampshire. Photos on top are Thompson Falls from yesterday's short hike, and the bottom ones are of Arethusa Falls in Crawford Notch State Park, about 35-40 min. from our campground. This was the most rugged hike attempted so far by us, and the hiking pamphlet said "moderate"...moderate in New England speak means "straddle boulders, try not to trip over tree roots, hoist yourself over fallen timbers that block your path, watch the beautiful ravine about 100 feet below you immediately to the side of the footpath dropoff, OR take two steps off the path and you will be tumbling down the mountainside, AND climb steadily upwards with no horizontal catch-your-breath places to breathe a little easier". WELL! At the end of the 1.5 mile hike one way, awaits one of the most beautiful waterfalls, one that cascades 200 FEET down from granite rock cliffs into a pool below...the same brochure says, "do NOT scramble among the rocks, the slippery rocks are quite dangerous" but apparently the approximately 40 people who had already traversed the path didn't read that, as they were frolicking in the pools and rushing waters, and clambering over rocks. Of course, they were about 30 years younger than us, most of them, so we enjoyed the view from a bit back. An interesting side note and this is true, confirmed by Eldy...he saw a girl change from her clothes to a complete change into a bikini, without ever revealing any skin underneath until she was completely changed. Shoo-uh, Eldy! (New England translation: SURE, Eldy!) But he was so confounded by that action, that I do believe him because he said "I don't know how she did that!" at least two times! We wish we had gone earlier this morning, as there wouldn't have been so many people at the falls by the time we got there, about noon...the falls cascaded down 200 feet, and it was awesome! We were really, really glad to have our hiking poles as they help with balance and placement of our feet. And yes, we did climb over the boulders at the base of the falls to get closer to the falls themselves. What an experience!

Home Sweet Mini Home

Ok, it's not a "mini" motor home, but when you think about how we had to consolidate, sell, give away, store and cram our belongings from two separate homes into what we thought was essential into a 38 ft. motor home, it's really a mini home on wheels. We thought we'd give anybody who's reading a glimpse inside and a little info on the RV. This is a Damon Platinum Challenger, 2008 model year, a "gasser" (runs on gas) as opposed to a much more expensive option, a diesel motor home. This is considered an entry level coach. It has some nice extras on it, such as full body paint instead of decals, an interesting floor plan (separate dinette area) walled off from the living room instead of one large living area. This was important to me, as I wanted some "space" to carve out for my own for crafts, or computing, just some area to call my own. The kitchen area is extremely small, and one thing we did not notice was the lack of pantry space and counter top space. I'm not big on cooking, so I thought that was ok, but in hindsight, I wish we had gotten a better organized work space in the kitchen. The fridge is extremely small and you can't regulate the temperature on it. Depending on how level you have gotten your RV, seems to change and affect the temp of the fridge. We have automatic levelers on the RV, you just push a button and two sets of jacks come down and go through interesting sounds and the coach moves both right to left and back, then front and back move up and down till it levels itself. We check with a level on the floor, to make sure we are in agreement with how it feels. From the photos today, you can see what our inside looks like. The shower is very small and you can barely move around in it. The sink is adequate, and the toilet is very moderately sized with a pedal flush. The bed is a "short queen"..some length is sacrificed here but we are comfortable with it. we had to change out the mattress as it was not very comfortable for our aging backs! There are three slides--bedroom, kitchen and dinette area. there are sliding doors between our bedroom and the dinette area. Eldy can watch TV and I can't hear it with the doors closed and a little fan running, should he decide to stay up late. This is NOT a four season RV...we don't have double pane windows which the next level of RV would have if we ever decided to upgrade. There are quite a few bays underneath for storage, but they don't pass all the way through to the other side because the chassis is there. In a diesel, a lot of the bays have all the way through storage. Diesels ride much better, but there is a LOT of maintenance with a diesel. We have a Ford Triton V-10 engine, and it has handled steep grades and inclines very well. We are towing my car, a Honda CR-V because it can be towed all four wheels down--not all cars can. I go through a procedure each time we tow, with sitting in the car, and moving through all the gears from park down to the lowest gear, than back up to drive for five seconds, then into neutral, wait three minutes, then turn off the engine into accessory position, leave the keys in it, get out, and hope I don't lock the doors accidentally (like I did the first or second time we headed out for camping before we were full timing.) It's been a real challenge to find space for everything, we don't want to get "tacky" with hooks everywhere! More about that some other day...we've added a few personal touches...I put corkboard on the side of the TV wall where there were inset panels in the paneling, and that's where our personal photos and calendar are posted. I've got a little copper tray with three herb plants (now, now, they are all legit!)--parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme...no, no...just parsley, basil and chives! One of the best things about the Challenger, is that when all three slides are in, and we are going down the road, I can walk straight back to the bathroom or the bedroom if I need to. I can even fix Eldy a sandwich while he's driving!

Before I leave today, we did go hiking on a 1.2 hike to some falls where the zipline was yesterday.. I'll post photos tomorrow! Rain came in right after we got done hiking, so we came home, computed, and watched cable TV. It was a wonderful day to take things easy in the motorhome, relax, or sit outside under the awning (it's motorized and has a wind sensor on it as well!), read the paper, watch the kids on the playground across from us, and people watch. It's a busy campground, but not noisy. We are enjoying the Saco Family Campground in North Conway very much!

Pande-"moosium"

Well, I thought we had seen the last of the moose, since we were in a more civilized area" here in North Conway, but I was encourage to see different moose signs that said, "BRAKE FOR MOOSE--IT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE. There were a couple of these along ten and eleven mile stretches of road. We were coming back from traveling by car to the top of Mt. Washington, (more on that later) when we saw a car in front of us, brake and pull off to the side on a mountainous stretch of road (heck, it's all mountainous all the way there and back) and as we slowly passed the driver, I saw her with her camera from the driver's seat stretching across the seat taking photos. I glanced right and saw a big, black female moose standing a few yds into the forest. I yelled, "MOOSE!" to Eldy and he pulls off the road carefully and safely, and backs up a bit so I can get that elusive moose photo. (What is is that we are suddenly enthralled with moose?) As I get out of the car, and slowly and quietly make my way closer to the moose sighting, what I didn't see except for the people who pulled in right in front of us, and who starting sprinting past me to see the moose, is the 15 cars that abruptly stopped behind the photographer lady and us, and who all came out of their cars running to the spot where the moose was! Eldy says many of the cars stopped right in the highway lane,not even bothering to pull off the road and they just poured out of their cars to gawk at the moose, who by this time, was wise to us and decided to go lumbering off back into the woods. I got a shot of her between the trees, and her rear end. (lovely shot) I suspect that some of the many collisions the signs are talking about are probably not all collisions with moose, but cars rear ending each other as they rubberneck to see a spotted moose! Very dangerous indeed, and this was at 3:00 PM today, and not a normal time to spot moose (dawn and dusk, like deer)

Ok, back to the thrill of the day...We've been experiencing remarkable things lately..I'm sure this blog will not always be this interesting, but for now, enjoy! We chose to DRIVE to the top of Mount Washington, the third highest peak east of the Mississippi on the Auto Road. This road first opened in 1861. The mountain is 6,288 ft. high. We chose today to go because weather conditions change rapidly and today was the only predicted sunny day this week.They charge a toll, 23.00 for a car and driver, and 8.00 additional for another passenger. It's a VERY unique experience. They give you a CD to play with the history of the road and the interesting weather presented, and you drive in the lowest gear on your car all the way up AND all the way down, of course. There are many outlooks and spots to pull off and reminders all the way in both directions to cool your brakes and engine by pulling over and stopping occasionally. There was quite a bit of fog and clouds at the top. Temperature at the top was a balmy 61 degrees today and it felt wonderful. There's a little museum to check out and it was interesting to see the hikers come in with all their gear and special clothing. We took some photos at the top, but the view was more spectacular on the way up and on the way down when the clouds would disperse for a bit so you could see stuff. There were severe dropoffs on both sides of the very narrow road, this trip was not for the fainthearted and especially not if you have a fear of heights! Taking photos helped keep me from worrying about brake failure or the brake linings burning up. They tell you not to ride the brakes so I was having a series of mini whiplashes as Eldy deftly applied the brakes intermittently. (just kidding, honey!) Speed limit all the way up and down is 10-15 mph recommended. As a final activity for the day, I convinced Eldy to play 9 holes of disc golf (like golf only with special frisbee type discs) We rode the ski lift up to hole #1, and walked, rather hiked our way through nine holes down the side of Wildcat Mountain, where we did the zip line yesterday. One of the photos shows Eldy retrieving his disc from the basket with the mountains in the background. We are pooped! Gotta do this stuff while we are physically able, ya know?