Back in Beautiful Vermont

After our time on the New York side of Lake Champlain, we hopped over to the Vermont side for a few days outside Burlington, Vermont's largest city.  It's a nice area, lots of sweeping views of the lake and pretty sunsets.  We went downtown a couple times and enjoyed the lakefront view from our campsite.  After Burlington, we returned to our favorite like spot in Randolph, Lake Champagne RV Resort.  This is just a great place to hang out and enjoy the shade, the views, and the lightening fast WiFi.  I was the musical entertainment for the Labor Day party on Saturday night, and we had a good time.  Some pictures from the last couple weeks:

Traditional sailboat along the Burlington, VT waterfront

At our local village, they do free Music on the Green concerts that draw all types.  Here's a typical Vermonter, spinning yarn while she waits for the band to start

We caught the last concert of the season, here's the guitar player coming 

Waterfall on the Mad River

Moss Glen Falls

Click to enlarge this one.  Warren Falls is a really cool series of pools and cascades.  There were quite a few folks cooling off in the August heat.

Our mascot, Jimmy Buffett, spinning in the breeze at Lake Champagne.  It's just as green and pretty as it looks, and they don't pack you in on top of each other

My only official "gig" of the summer, Labor Day party on Saturday the 1st.  Good times!

Ticonderoga

After Ottawa, we dropped down into Upstate New York for a few days.  We stayed at a nice little campground near Lake Champlain, about 15 minutes north of historic Ticonderoga.  We toured the fort, which is now under private conservancy.  I remembered Lake Champlain figuring in the various wars of the 18th and 19th centuries, but it was interesting seeing the sites in person.  Just a few pictures from that leg of the trip, all from Fort Ticonderoga and the surrounding hills.

Ottawa

I'm getting lazy again!

After Montreal, we hopped on the Trans Canada Highway and headed west a few hours to the national capital, Ottawa.  We stayed at a nice municipal campground just outside of town, a lovely spot in the woods but close to town.  We did a lot of running around, country drives, sitting outside and enjoying the weather, but no touring downtown.  I know they have some cultural attractions downtown, but the traffic getting down there always seemed daunting.  Plus, I had a lot of work to do on the laptop, so we stayed closer to "home" on the west side of town.  Laurie did find a really cool attraction outside of town that was right up my alley.  During the Cold War, Canada built a doomsday bunker outside of town (near us) for the government to operate out of.  It was decommissioned in the 90's and turned over to a private conservancy.  Very interesting tour and reminder of what things were like back then.  Hard to believe it's been almost 30 years since the wall came down.  Only a couple pictures:

The entrance to the Diefenbunker, jokingly named for the PM at the time, John Diefenbaker.

The entrance tunnel through the blast door.  They built the bunker by excavating a hillside, building a 3 story concrete structure with 3-foot walls, then burying the whole thing.  Reminded me a lot of the entry tunnel to Cheyenne Mountain, one of our own "DiefenBunkers."

3 Days in Montreal

Wow, what a cool city.  We camped 4 nights at the Montreal South KOA, an easy 15 minute drive to the nearest metro station.  Montreal is full of history and culture, we might need to come back some day.  On each of our 3 days, we'd park for $10 a day (conversion rate made that $7.60 USD) and ride the subway into town.  It was $19 each for a 3-day ride pass, so pretty cheap transportation.  We were able to tour Old Port Montreal, the Point de Calliere history museum, Jardin botanical garden, the Olympic center (site of the 1976 summer games), and take a river cruise.  We also did a lot of just walking around checking out the city.  It was really beautiful, and we had decent weather.  Too hot though, close to 90 degrees every day in late July, too much like Florida!  Here are some pictures from our days spent sight-seeing:

Lots of sidewalk cafes, just like Paris!

The Olympic Stadium from 1976, back when Bruce Jenner was the world's greatest male athlete.  We took a ride up the tower that holds up the roof of the stadium.

Fountains at the Jardin Botanique

You know you're in a tourist town when identical rental rigs start lining up

'76 was Nadia's year, so they erected a monument to her gymnastics performance

They had a small petting zoo at the KOA with goats and chickens.  Missy got along just fine, no barking or anything

More identical rental rigs, different company

The view from the Olympic Stadium tower. 

Montreal City Hall

Canada and Quebec flags

Intrepid travelers on a boat tour of the Saint Lawrence River

An original sewer from a few hundred years ago.  The Pont de Calliere museum preserved and lit it up for our walking pleasure.

Duck ramp at the city park

Skyline from the Saint Lawrence

The museum had Egyptian artifacts on loan from an Italian expedition that unearthed a few tombs about a hundred years ago.  The artifacts were from about 1200-1500 BC.

Central Vermont

After Delaware, we made our way north a bit, staying a few days in the Pocono Mountain region of Pennsylvania.  Not much to report from there, just the normal relaxing time in the country.  We stayed a place called Secluded Acres, probably a mile down a gravel road after a couple hours of over hill and dale driving.  I had to drive out of the campground 15 minutes just to find good enough cell signal to check into my classroom.  Plenty of room for Missy to run around, though, and folks were having a great weekend away from the daily grind of work.  After that, we spent 2 full weeks at one of our favorite campgrounds, Lake Champagne in Randolph, VT.  Vermont is quiet and sparsely populated to begin with, so saying we had a nice, relaxing time in the hills is a little redundant.  That's apparently what one does in Vermont.  The scenery is something like out of The Sound of Music, rolling hills and farm country with lots and lots of trees.  Lake Champagne is just a great place to hang out and avoid the heat, for the most part.  Even New England has been in somewhat of a heatwave and drought this summer.  However, we got a lot of days with no air conditioning, either hanging out at the rig, visiting friends in the area, or just driving through the country to see what we could see.  Our friends Mark and Amy that we've known for over 20 years live near by, and we got to visit with the Paddocks, friends from Tampa.  Bob and I worked and traveled together in the Middle East several times, and he was a great mentor of regional dynamics for a newbie Air Force computer nerd trying to learn security cooperation.  Bob's recently retired and was in the area visiting family.  It was such a nice two weeks that we're going to circle back and stay another couple weeks the last half of August before we start to slowly work our way south in September.  Slowly.....

Right now we're just outside Montreal, Canada.  We had a smooth, quick border crossing and are looking forward to practicing our French for a couple days.  Pardonnez-moi, avez-vous un poupon gris?  Just two pictures from the last couple weeks, good grief.

We went out for a country drive in the Poconos and happened upon a Blue Grass band performing at a restaurant.  Of course, we had to stop

Lovely view for lunch one day.  Growing up, I had trout stream envy.

Delaware Seashore

Laurie scored 3 nights on the beach in Delaware after we left the Outer Banks.  It was a nice drive up to Hampton Roads, then over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel for the 2nd time.  We took this route up the coast back in 2012 during our first summer.  You avoid DC entirely and end up in some pretty nice beach country.  We pretty much blasted through Delaware's coast in 2012.  I mean, it only takes about an hour being so small, but this time we stopped for a few days.  It was great!  We camped at the north campground of the Delaware Seashore State Park.  During our three days on the beach, we sat on the beach all three days.  The weather was perfect, and we knew we were heading for inland New England, so we took advantage.  We explored the local towns of Bethany Beach and Dewey Beach.  I talked my way onstage to play guitar and sing a few Johnny Cash songs at the marina near us, walking distance actually to a very nice restaurant by the boat slips.  This is one of those accidental discoveries we made that had us thinking "...we'll be back."  Just a few pictures...

The beach.  The waves were great, lots of surfers and people enjoying cloudless, hot weather.  Missy stayed in the air conditioning!

Our beach rig.  This umbrella and these two chairs have seen some serious action.  In fact, we're on our 2nd versions of both.

I couldn't get a good shot of this light show, so I found one online.  This is the view from our campground, at night.  They light up the bridge over the inlet with blue lights, and it's just plain purdy...

Further Wanderings

Wow, it is so easy to slack off the blogging when we're just drifting around visiting friends.  After Indianapolis, we went to Pittsburgh and stayed in Dan and Michelle's driveway again, for the third time since we started this road trip.  We went "don ton" (Michelle's take on the 'burgh accent) for the art festival and, of course, it rained.  Apparently it always rains in mid-June in da burgh.  We also visited with friends Dan and Jane from MacDill while we were there.  After Pittsburgh, we headed up to a campground near Mansfield, PA for a few nights at a US Army Corps of Engineer park.  It was, again, blissful to be out in the country at a very nice park with plenty of room for Missy to run around.  Next stop was a return to a park near Ithaca, NY that we stayed at during our first summer in 2012.  We got the prize spot overlooking their pond.  I caught a couple bass in the lake too!  Snedacres campground is between Seneca and Cayuga lakes in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.  We had a very nice, relaxing time for 6 nights before moving south again.  We had to stop in and see musical friends Dennis and Sue, staying in their driveway outside Lancaster, PA for a night.  Moving south again, we stayed 3 nights at a military campground outside Washington, DC.  We thought about fighting traffic to get into town, but we've been there a few times so we just chilled out at the campground.  Next was a stop outside Raleigh at Falls Lake for a visit with John and Phyllis.  We're currently "camped" at Kevin and daughter Stephanie's place in Kill Devil Hills, NC, in the Outer Banks.  The Outer Banks (OBX) are their own little slice of heaven.  It's been a bit warm, but fun and great to see "the kids" again.  Some pictures from the last couple weeks...

Dan, Michelle, Laurie and me.  We've been friends since late 1986!

Dennis singing the favorites in E-Town, PA

Panoramic view of our "porch" at Snedacres

While we were in New York, we caught a really good Johnny Cash tribute band

View from the RV at Fort Belvoir, on the Potomac downstream from DC

Great little spot at Holly Point Campground outside Raleigh

Kill Devil Hills on July 4th.  Packed!

Laurie and Steph

4th of July in OBX

Steph lives minutes from where the Wright Brother's made their first flight