Breakfast is the most important meal of the day

We got a bit of a late start today because it was raining again. We decided there was no point in driving around in the rain, in a foreign city where we don’t know our way, can’t read the signs or speak the language and us not even having a GPS.

When the rain finally stopped we got ready to go. After checking our maps and books, we drove towards downtown. Our first stop was the Olympic Park. We got really lucky that as someone was leaving he gave us his parking ticket. If not we would have had to pay $10 to park.

Then we took a nice walk to the Olympic Center, here we saw the swimming pool, where people were swimming and children were practicing diving. Next we walked to the visitor’s center where we found the place to go up in a funicular all the way to the top of this building built specifically for the 1976 Olympics, to get a 360 degree view of Montreal. After this spectacular view we headed into the city.

We drove through Chinatown and then through the city. This is a very interesting city, you can see a library right next to a sex shop. Then we found parking by The Village, where we got out and walked around.

At dinnertime, Mar was in the mood for breakfast. (Don’t laugh, that’s what happens when you’re a night owl.) A couple of people recommended Resto Au Village, where they serve breakfast 24 hours. It is a little restaurant down a side street, very French … and it was a really good breakfast too. What a treat.

We then left downtown and drove around trying to find a place to park. Tonight we really wanted to stay close to the city so tomorrow we could go exploring some more. We finally found a big parking lot next to CTV (Canada tv). We drove to the back of the lot and spent the night there.

Old Montreal

We were very excited today because this is the first time either one of us has been to Canada. After trying many times to find a route to get there with our GPS we realized it does not include Canada. We looked it up online and to get the download we would have to pay fifty dollars to add Canada. So, this will be the first time we are on the road without our GPS, we will just have to figure it out the old fashioned way.

We got a full tank of gas and some groceries and off we went. We knew Champlain was close to the border but didn’t realize how close, within a couple of miles we were already to Canada.

After waiting in line behind 3 or 4 cars, it was our turn to go through customs. The very nice young man took a quick look at our passports, asked us some questions, and sent us on our way. No one checked anything. It was such a relief.

The questions he asked us were: what is your license plate number, where do you live, why are you going to Canada, how long are you staying, do you know anyone in Canada, what do you do for a living, do you have any fruits or meats, do you have any alcohol or firearms or pepper spray.

We drove north on 15 and felt pretty weird not being able to understand the signs or billboards. It is a good thing that there are universal signs for things like traffic signs.

We eventually found Old Montreal. Finding parking in Montreal was hard, finding free parking was impossible. We finally found a spot we could fit in and parked our Bella. The parking meters are in French so we did our best to understand them. It seemed they were five cents a minute … outrageous.

As we walked around we did some window shopping, and watched some street performers. One was like a clown riding a unicycle and breathing fire. The other street performer played a guitar while he sang and danced and got the audience to sing along. He was pretty funny. Then there was a Native American band, with the soft soothing sounds of the flute. There were a lot of people here today and lots of activity, great for people watching.

Then we heard some thunder and decided to get back to Bella before it started raining. We drove around trying to find the Walmart to spend the night but never found it. We asked around but no one knew where it was. Along the way we saw a grocery store, Loblaws and as the manager was coming out, we talked to him and he gave us permission to stay the night. Loblaws is a chain grocery store, we saw several as we were driving around.

After getting settled in for the night, we had a chance to get caught up on our reading, as we have no phone, no internet, no computer, no GPS … absolutely no communication with the outside world.

Driving in the rain

We woke up with the knowledge that today was our last day at the KOA and the RVbuddies rally. Sad but true. We had all those little things to do to get ready to leave: cleaning, packing up, doing dishes, and putting everything away. It is always a tedious task and just hope we remember to strap everything in and unhook everything.

We decided to do our laundry before we headed out. This way we know the laundromat is clean and safe, while we still had time to pack and visit.

As the laundry dried we headed over the RVbuddies’ campsites to say goodbye to our new friends. Remember that we love our wrenches :-)

It was cold and starting to get dark. The sky was ominous looking and the thunder would sneak a roar in every now and then. We knew we had to hurry to make it out and down the mountain before the torrential down pour came down on us.

Then we drove to Champlain NY in the rain and Bernie got to drive today. It was a beautiful drive with mountain ranges covering the horizon, clear creeks meandering down the mountains, and some tiny bridges reminding you of books you might have read.

Champlain is almost to the Canadian border and we spent the night there. We got off on exit 42 and looked for a good place to park for the night. We drove through the tiny downtown but could not find a place to park. We went back towards the exit and found a restaurant which had a huge parking lot. Bernie went it to ask if we could stay the night and they were very welcoming so we stayed.

Around the campfire

After plenty of rain during the night, which sounds very loud on our roof, we finally woke up to some sun today. We were happy to see the sun. Bernie got up, got dressed and got busy around Bella and the campground. She was able to finish up a couple more things from her to do list.

Then we got our things ready to go shower in the campground’s bathhouse. The bathhouse in the campground gets about 3 stars. The bathhouse on the second floor of the store/front desk gets 5 stars. That’s where we went to shower.

This KOA campground is very nice with planned activities for the kids and families. They even had karaoke tonight.

After our showers, Mar gave Bernie a haircut. This is only Mar's second attempt at cutting hair. Bernie is either crazy or very brave. But in the end it came out great.

Then Bernie went back to work. She cleaned the back of Bella with a new product to wash RVs without water. It works well and really helps keep the shine. After that, we finally put up the travel map on the outside of Bella, showing the states we have already visited. We hope to add many more states to our travel map.

Then we were invited by the RVbuddies to sit around the campfire and eat together, everyone was bringing their own dinner. It was really nice to sit and chat with everyone. The ladies are super nice and we loved listening to all their travel stories and telling them ours. There were plenty of extras so everyone shared the corn on the cob, coleslaw, potato salad, and bundt cake for dessert.

After everyone went to bed, we went back to Bella and watched the Olympics.

We want to give a shout out to Grandmother Maryanne. When we left her house she was kind enough to give us some money. Because it was a gift we had been saving it and hadn’t spent it. Well, it came in handy on the way here because it was the only cash we had when we found out we would be going through toll after toll, almost $30 worth of tolls to get here. Thanks Grandma, you saved the day!!

8-8-08

Still raining today. We went to sleep last night and it was raining. We woke up today and it was raining. It looks like it will rain all day. But when it finally let up a little bit, we went out exploring. It was pretty cold today too so we wore our layers.

After walking around the campground for a little while and checking out the restrooms, we came back to our campsite and finally got to meet the members of the RVbuddies yahoo group.

It rained pretty much on and off all afternoon after that. Bernie was able to complete some projects in between. She mended a hole in the back of Bella, dumped the tanks, and then started cleaning Bella.

In the evening it was pretty cold and it was raining again so with nothing else to do, we tried the tv. Only one channel came in and we were lucky it was the channel playing the Olympics.

We were able to watch the opening ceremonies. They were pretty amazing, hope everyone had a chance to see them too.

The long and winding road

It was raining when we woke up in Albany NY. We got some groceries at Walmart to get ready for a weekend of camping, and got on the road again.

We drove to Wilmington NY, to the KOA campground in White Mountain, Lake Placid.

Thanks to our GPS we took a couple wrong turns, so it got dark while we were going up this beautiful mountain. It rained the whole way there. We had to go extra slow, but it was a pretty drive, as the mist hung in the air over the mountain tops.

After what seemed like forever, driving miles and miles, up and down hills in the pouring rain and darkness, we finally made it to the park at about 9:00 pm. The front office was still open so we checked in and then went to find our campsite.

It was still raining when we parked, so Bernie put on her rain poncho and went outside to hook up the water and electric, which was pretty much all we could do for now. Everything else will have to wait till the morning. We settled in for the night.

We are here at the KOA for a camping get together with one of our yahoo groups, the RV Buddies, and we can’t wait to meet everyone tomorrow.

Rocky was here

Once in PA we decided to go to Philadelphia. Once in Philadelphia we decided to try to find a good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. We asked around and we were told the best place was Pat’s Steaks. We looked it up online and off we went to find it.

We drove through some very narrow Philadelphia streets, with cars parked on both sides. It was a tight fit for Bella. We were both biting our nails. Turning at a really tight corner, Bernie even had to get out and look at both sides of Bella to make sure we could fit. We drove through both the historic district and the shopping district, and saw several very cool murals, painted and mosaic, by looking down some of the side streets.

We were very lucky to find a good parking spot for Bella and went in search of that good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. We ate at Pat's which was featured in the movie Rocky. There is a sign on the floor on the spot where Rocky stood. But the two most memorable things about PA are: how dirty downtown is and how rude people are. Since we just came from spending quite a bit of time in the south, we were certainly not prepared for this ice wave.

Before we ate, we had checked out another cheesesteak stand across the street, which will remain nameless. This place looked cleaner so we almost ate there instead. That was until we stood in line to order and saw a picture of the owner with a huge grin pointing to a sign that said to speak English when ordering, and another sign offering “Speak English” t-shirts for sale. That was enough, Mar’s first language is not English, and there is no way she’s spending a penny at any place displaying such disrespectful public insults.

So we went back to Pat’s, where we split the mushroom cheesesteak and fries. It could have been better but at least it was an experience. We have the pictures to go along with the memories.

With our bellies full we went back to Bella and hit the road again. We are both still very tired from two days in a row of early-to-rise and late-to-bed. This is rough, you know, we need our beauty sleep.

We drove to NY and found the Walmart in Albany where we spent the night. We parked as far away as possible from the front doors, trying to find a quiet spot for the night. We need our beauty sleep.

It sure wasn't cheap getting here. We had to stop at many toll plazas along the way and spent about $30 just in tolls, jeez ...

P.S. Today is Sara’s birthday, she is now 20 years old. Sara is Mar’s youngest. Happy birthday, Sara!

We are free to go

At 9:00 am Tom, the Camping World manager, knocked on our door to wake us up. We wondered if they had to draw straws to see who was brave enough to do such a thing. We went back to the customer lounge, with our pillows, blankets, computers and books … we hoped we’d only be there a couple of hours today since Matt said that’s how long he needed to finish up.

Tom surprised us a little later. He brought us coffee and donuts from Dunkin Donuts. That was very nice of him and we greatly appreciated it.

What we thought would only take a couple of hours ended up taking almost all day. Finally at about 4:00 pm Matt came to get us. He said he was done and we went with him out to our rv where he explained the new system to us.

We now have two 6-volt golf cart batteries and a 2000-watt inverter. We couldn’t wait to test it out. The 2000w was more than we wanted but it did everything else we wanted so we went with it.

It was about 4:30 pm when we finally got on the road. We were so happy to be back on the road.

We are headed to NY next so we drove through PA where we spent the night.

The world of camping

We got up by 8:30 am this morning to give Camping World all day to work on our Bella. This took quite a bit of effort. Mar tried to sneak in some more sleep as they started to work. They were on to her and we ended up in the customer lounge with our blankets, pillows, and of course Mar’s laptop.

We didn’t have access to Bella while the work was being done and we needed to get some coffee and something to eat. Tom, the manager, was great. He lent us his truck to go to Dunkin Donuts. We got donuts for them as a bribe. The truck has a manual transmission and when Bernie stepped on the clutch she realized, as pain shot thru her foot and leg, that her sprained ankle is still not completely healed.

After waiting all day in the lounge, Tom lent us his truck again to go get groceries, but this time Mar drove.

At quitting time we were told the work wasn't completed yet, they needed to continue tomorrow which meant we would have to stay the night.

We went back outside to plug in the electric and nothing worked. Five minutes before the store closed Bernie went in to ask Tom about it. Tom came to our rescue. He graciously offered to put us up in a hotel for the night courtesy of Camping World. Having been out of the rv all day, at that point it was just too complicated to pack up our things and leave the comforts of our “home”.

But if we stayed, that meant having no ac tonight so Bernie asked to borrow a fan and Tom was able to provide us one. Bernie was able to rig us up so we had everything we could need to be comfortable for one night (except ac of course).

We decided to stay and do some spring cleaning. We cleaned out drawers and cabinets. We reorganized and shifted things around. Bernie reorganized the outside compartments. Now things fit better and we have a clean Bella.

We got a movie from RedBox and we spent the night in the Camping World parking lot, again.

Goodbye again

The next door neighbor must have decided to take a break on his shed building project today so we were able to sleep in a little. We were so tired from all the sightseeing we did yesterday that we could have slept all day but we knew we had lots to do today to get ready to get on the road again.

Uncle Richard and his family came over and later cousin Chris and his kids came too. There was lots of visiting and we got pizza for dinner. Bernie made chicken on the grill and Mar made rice and beans. Everyone talked and took pictures and caught up with each other, there were lots of hugs and smiles all around. Then everyone enjoyed the strawberry shortcake Bernie made for dessert.

Mar did the laundry and was able to watch the season finale of two shows she likes: The Next Food Network Star and HGTV’s Design Star. Too bad she missed the whole season because we don’t have satellite service for our tv.

We packed up and decided to take our showers before leaving (can't pass up the opportunity to take a "real" shower when we can). It was around 11:00 pm when we were finally ready to hit the road. We drove about an hour and a half, back to Camping World in Winchester VA to park for the night and wait for them to open in the morning. We are ready to get the electrical work done on our Bella.

Washington DC

We woke up early today, courtesy of Aunt Evelyn’s next door neighbor who is building a shed in his backyard. There was a lot of banging and power tool noises. A lot of banging.

When we went downstairs we found Aunt Evelyn who had been up for hours. After visiting a bit she offered us breakfast and suggested pancakes. Bernie offered to make the pancakes. Bernie and Aunt Evelyn enjoyed the pancakes but it was way too early for Mar to eat anything yet, not being a breakfast person … or a morning person either, for that matter …

We had done our research last night and found a few things we were interested in seeing in the area. Aunt Evelyn was kind enough to let us borrow her car to go into DC. It would be much easier to maneuver around in a car than our Bella (we don't have a toad).

First, we went to Georgetown. Just crossing the Key Bridge to get there was an experience, the view of the Potomac River with these gorgeous houses all around was breath taking.

We drove around and ended up on a street with a canal and a visitor’s center. We decided to stop and take a look. Just by chance we were there when the boat came in. We got to see this amazing system of getting the boat up and down the river by opening and closing the gates to let the water in or out. As the water is released the whole boat is lowered down into the canal. It was amazing. When down, the top of the boat was level with the grass we were standing on, so then it could pass under a small bridge, and do the same thing again on the other side. There are no engines on this boat, the boat is pulled by mules. People can ride this boat, there are three tours a day. If you are ever in Georgetown you should check this out.

Then while we window shopped and walked around Georgetown, it started to rain. We took cover inside the nearest store which happened to be a Barnes and Noble. Question: What better place to wait for the rain to stop than a bookstore? Answer: A bookstore with a coffee shop, of course.

Next we went to the National Mall. We saw both walls, the Korean War memorial and the Vietnam War memorial. Both are beautiful, touching memorials. As we left the Vietnam wall we saw the memorial to the seven women, all nurses, who had also served. This too was an incredibly moving experience. The memorial is a life size statue of three women and a wounded solider, all very lifelike. Then we took pictures of the Washington Memorial at the other end of the reflection pond and then climbed up the steps to the Lincoln Memorial.

After that we got in the car again and headed for Arlington VA. Bernie has family buried there, an uncle and a grandfather. However they were closed when we got there, so we were only able to see the cemetery from outside. A very impressive sight.

We kept driving and somehow ended up at the Pentagon. It was a little late by now when we were a little lost and saw a sign for the Pentagon memorial. Unfortunately we could not find the memorial. We ended up circling the huge parking lot a few times and then we were greeted by an officer in his patrol car. He wondered what we were doing, after all it was about 9:00 pm and we were driving around in circles in the parking lot of the Pentagon (sound strange?).

We asked the officer where to find the memorial. He gave us directions, but to a different one, the Missing Man Formation memorial, which is a memorial to the lost pilots of the Air Force. We thanked him and went to find it. A few seconds later we realized we had our very own "escort" to the memorial as he was following us. Maybe he didn’t want us to get lost again, right? (the trouble we find!).

Next we were driving down another street when we noticed a lighted glass pyramid. Of course, we had to pull over to take a closer look. It was the roof, at ground level, of the shopping mall in the Plaza hotel. We could see the stores below as we looked down, we took some pics and left.

It was getting pretty late, it was probably around 10:00 pm by now, and we decided we were hungry. We drove around until we found DuPont Circle. Once there we went around the circle several times, trying to figure things out, getting a lay of the land. Finally we stopped and asked around for a good burger place. We were told the best places to eat were all on 17th Street so that’s where we went. We found some great outside dinning at a little place called Trios Fox and Hound. It was nice to sit and do some people watching, while we had our hummus and guacamole cheeseburger.

What a long day. We were so tired from all the walking we did today, sore feet, aching bodies, and tired minds. We were really ready for bed when we got back to Aunt Evelyn’s.

A better plan

Today we woke up and went into Camping World, after a good night’s sleep.

First they checked the generator to try to figure out why oil is seeping out. Bernie spent a lot of time out there with the mechanics. They couldn’t find anything really wrong with the generator (that is good news) and they think it was just overfilled. They said to keep an eye on it from now on.

Our mechanic was Matt, a really nice guy. He also drilled a hole on the outside near the tv cabinet to install a cable outlet. Now when we stop somewhere with a cable tv hookup, we don’t have to put the cable through the window anymore.

Then we talked about the electrical stuff. We had our books and notes in hand with suggestions and our questions. After a couple of hours we came away with a definite plan and an itemized estimate for the work.

It was too late to do anything else today. If they started the work tomorrow (Saturday), then we would be stuck here on Sunday, waiting for them to finish up on Monday. Instead of doing that, we made an appointment to come back on Monday. We decided this way we could go see Bernie’s aunt in MD, spend a couple days with her, and then come back on Monday to get all the work done. A much better plan.

Next we drove to Rockville MD. The drive was beautiful. We went through the Appalachian Trail and also through West Virginia. We saw many rivers and lovely trees and huge rocks. It was a great drive.

When we got to Aunt Evelyn's house, she was playing bridge, her favorite game, with her in-laws. Mar got to meet them and Bernie got to catch up with them. Then one of Bernie's cousins came over with his two children to say hi.

Later after everyone said their goodbyes and good nights, we sat down to watch the finale of Last Comic Standing, while checking online to see where we want to go in DC. There is so much to do and see, it sounds like we’ll have a full day tomorrow.