Our Eastern Seaboard excursion

We left on Wednesday morning, about 10 am from home and made it as far as Glade Spring, VA (about 1 1/2 hrs away) before having a blow-out on the front tire , driver's side of the TT. We pulled off the highway, we were about 200 yds away when it blew and there was a truck stuck (the one that was blew away in the tornado last year) and a TIRE COMPANY!! Woohooo! But, alas, he didnt' have any tires. He was just rebuilding and hadn't gotten any tires yet. They were due to arrive in approximately 30 minutes. We hung around since we couldn't go anywhere else and the truck did arrive, but it was more like an hour and a half. We got our tire and were on our way again.

We went to Luray, VA Jellystone campground and if you've never been to a Jellystone, if you have kids, I can highly recommend them. They had 3 pools, a pond with paddle boats and fishing, an 18 hole puttputt course, large waterslide, two bouncing pillows, 2 playgrounds, a theater, store, restaurant, game room, laundry and other assorted places. They had planned activities for the kids, but my kids just wanted to do the other things. The activity bracelet, which is $13/day or $17 for the entire stay was kinda expensive if you had many kids, but we stayed busy pretty much the entire time. One evening, they had a "wildlife safari" night and a woman had brought some owls and an alligator for the kids to pet/touch. (She held it).

We spent 3 great nights there and then we were on the road again, this time, heading for Hershey Park, PA. We got about 50 miles away and guess what? We had another blow-out, this time on the back driver's side. We were again almost at an exit, took it and pulled into a convenience store, but our cell phones had NO service, zip, nothing. Used their phone and called Good Sam Roadside Assistance. They said they were sending someone. 45 minutes later, the wrecker company called and said they were tied up in traffic and it would be another 45 minutes. Well, it was 1 hr 10 minutes and then they got there. They had a really hard time getting the tire off and it had done some damage, all cosmetic that we have discovered so far. After about 3 hours sitting in the parking lot, we were back on the road. Go to High Meadows Campground outside Hershey Park and got set up, went for dinner and got in about 10 pm. Went to the "preview" night, riding the free shuttle from the campground from 6:00 pm until after 10:00 pm.

Planned to go to the park today, but the weather is not condusive to a good park day - it's rainy and about 68 degrees. We will just stay another night here and go tothe park tomorrow. Hope for better weather, but it's supposed to get HOT after today.

Today is a day of rest for us and we will get on with it tomorrow. I'll update later this week. We should be heading into Maine about Thursday or Friday.

NOTE: On our way out of here on Wednesday, we will get 2 additional tires put on the other side, just so we won't have the same problem with them.

Bummer on the tires. Any clue whats going on there? Maybe its all that ecoboost tourqe.

Hope you guys enjoy Hershey. My wife is from Reading PA so we know that area fairly well but have never had the time to make an RV trip back up to the inlaws. I'm looking forward to pictures when you guys get back.

afob3 wrote:Bummer on the tires. Any clue whats going on there? Maybe its all that ecoboost tourqe.

The tires are 6 years old and Chinese-made, so I guess they just had their useful years up.

They are being replaced by American made tires tomorrow when we pull out of the campground - Goodyear tire store just down the block.

Hershey Park was GREAT!! They had plenty of rides that my kids could ride....and did. Jayda was big enough to ride a couple of the BIG roller coasters, so she was just tickled teetotally to death. If you ever want to take kids someplace new, it is wonderful and Highmeadow Campground is fabulous. Smallish sites, but most are in "those areas". Great wifi, three nice pools, great laundry facilities, nice friendly staff, FHU sites with cable. What more could you ask for? Well, a cheaper price, but they also had the shuttle to/from the park and we saved $12 parking fee twice, so I guess that helped and the tickets were cheaper when purchased at the campground. It cost $137 and change for the 4 of us to go. Senior prices start at age 55, so Butch went for the same as the girls.

When we left Hershey on Wednesday, we got our tires, then headed on toward Maine and our stopping point was Ashford, CT. When we were travelling, the weather was HOT, HOT, HOT!! It got to 100 degrees somewhere along the way. We overnighted at Brialee Campground and didn't unhook from the truck. We put the hitch down to take weight off the truck, hooked up the power since it was STILL HOT, screwed in the water hose and went to bed.

The next morning, we took in what the campground had to offer. It had a swimming pond with a sand beach, pool, fishing pond and other activity areas. It was about 50/50 permanent, seasonal sites and regular campsites. It was in the Berkshires, so we were on a mountain (they think it is), so it was cooler, but it only got down to 78 degrees overnight. We left out about 2pm on Thursday with the temps already 95 degrees. It got as high as 101 in Worcester, MASS. It was supposedly a 3 hr drive, but there were 3 wrecks along the way and we were in Worcester at 4:30 in the afternoon, so we were getting a lot of the work traffic. We crawled for about an hour.

We arrived at the Maine state line about 6:30 pm and wehad th AC going full blast. About 8 miles in, Butch commented that he was cool and we needed to turn the AC down. (He NEVER complains that he's cool). I looked at the external temp and it was 73 degrees - WOOOHOOO! Cool at last. We unhooked and partially set up and went to get dinner. We are now camping at the Ne're Family Campground in Old Orchard Beach. We are 3 blocks off the ocean, but it does have an ocean view from the entrance to the campground. There are many, many French Canadians here. French seems to be the local language here, at least in this park.

We ate LOBSTAH for dinner at the CRABHOUSE restaurant here in Old Orchard Beach. It was GOOOOOD! Came back, swam inthe pool, finished setting up the camper and just chilled out the rest of the evening.

Today, we swam in the pool, ate lunch, swam in the ocean (some of us did. for the others, it was just way too cold) showered, went shopping and looking around in downtown Old Orchard Beach and went to the Lobster Pound and had them steam us some lobster for dinner. Brought it back to the camper, cracked it open, tore into pieces and fixed a linguini with lobster and garlic cream sauce. It was fabulous! The lobster cost us $6.99 EACH - yes, EACH. We got 3, about 4 3/4 lbs worth.

Tomorrow I have to come up with some other way to use the lobster - I'll pick up a couple more tomorrow afternoon.

Anyway, we are paid up here until Sunday. May move somewhere else or may just use this as a base point and come and go. Haven't decided yet.

I have pics on my facebook page, so if I'm not your friend, send me a request and you can see them.

Other than tires and traffic, sounds like a great summer camping tour.

I was just thinking earlier that I wondered if you guys made it back safely. Re-read your last post and found the photo albums. Looks like lots of good memories made.

WE ARE FINALLY BACK HOME!!!


We actually arrived back home on the 22nd, about 10 pm, but we had no internet, nor phone service at the house. Before you ask, yes, we had paid the bill, but apprently our service was disrupted by lightning during one of the many storms that occurred.

On my last post, we were in OOB, Maine and it was very, very nice. I ate my fill of lobster and the campground we were staying in was close to town, but not the most "RESORT" place I've ever been.

When we left OOB, we headed to Foster, Rhode Island to the Ginny B Campground for 4 nights. We wanted to be able to fill in RI on our map! Anyway, this campground was huge and there were about 400 LARGE sites. About 2/3 of the cg is seasonal sites, but they are very well kept. The overnight sites are mixed in with the seasonals, so when we pulled in, we were greeted by 3 different neighbors. They had a large pond for fishing and another for swimming/fishing with a lifeguard until 4 pm. The girls both fished and Butch had planned to, but spent all his time taking fish off the hooks and re-baiting!! They each caught quite a few fish. We sat around the campfire with our neighbors, the Fournier's, and talked into the night. It was a very nice place and if we are ever in the area, we will plan to return. It's about 7-8 miles off of I-95 and halfway between NYC and ME.

We then headed to NYC. CAN I SAY YUCK!!!! We were in bumper to bumper traffic for 7 1/2 hrs on a 3 hr trip and then we had to pay $28.60 for toll charges on the NJ Turnpike. It is in worse shape then I-81 and I-40 ever thought about being!! Potholes everywhere. Liberty Harbor RV Park and Marina is a large parking lot. I thought people were kidding when they posted about it, but they weren't. That is exactly what it is.....a gravel and old asphalt parking lot with water/electric services.We had enough room to put out our slide, but we were about 1-2' away from our neighbors awning. We didn't even put our awning out since we weren't sure how far we would be from our neighbors slide. Well, NYC was just as awful as I remembered it being. We did the whole tourist thing, Statue of Liberty (which we could see from the campground), Times Square, etc. AND we saw the "BLUE MAN GROUP", which was great. On Tuesday, we went to see THE LION KING and it was absolutely marvelous!!! On Wednesday, Butch wanted to take the girls to the Central Park Zoo, but I had had it with the crowds and told him I wasn't going. He took the girls by himself and I stayed and cleaned the TT and washed clothes in the laundry.

I was so very glad to leave and could really care less where we were heading. We had from Thursday am until Sunday pm to get to Hunting Island, SC and our directions brought us down I-81 to I-77 in Wytheville. Since 07/06 was Jayda's birthday, I called my parents and they met us in Roanoke to surprise the girls (both parents and girls were missing each other) and have a party for Jayda at Chuck E. Cheese.

We left on Friday am heading down I-81 and I-77 to I-26 and decided to just head on toward Beaufort. We got to Point South, just off of I-95 before 10 pm and spent a couple of nights there. It's an ok place, great for an overnight if you are ever in that area. My brother and his family met us there on Saturday evening.

On Sunday, we took the TT on to Hunting Island and we had the most fabulous site we have ever had. We were about 10' from the ocean access. From front door to waters edge took about 15 seconds at low tide. At high tide, about 8 seconds. We left the TT there and Butch, the girls and I headed to Folly Beach, SC to meet up with the other members of our church mission team. We spent the next week working at a horse farm for special needs kids (Blissful Farms) and putting down new flooring at Folly Beach Baptist Church.

NOTE: While there, we drove through James Island County Park and we will be doing a trip down there....soon.

On Thursday evening, the mission team had dinner at The Grill in Folly Beach (which I would definitely recommend) and we headed back to Hunting Island for recouping. On Friday morning, we were up early - Ashley (my niece) was graduating from basic training at Parris Island. She is now a full-fledged Marine and is currently on her way to Camp LeJune, NC for MCOS (??). We all (yes, 12 of us) spent Fri night in the TT. Sardine time. They all left out about noon on Saturday, heading back home, but about 8 pm that evening, Elora's best friend and her family (3 kids, 1 Mom) came to visit with us for 4 nights. They left out on Wednesday and we continued at Hunting Island until Saturday.

It was a great, fun time and I am glad that we did it, but we put almost 4500 miles on the truck, so I guess our driving away time should be done for a while......maybe.

Wow, what a travel narrative! What a trip!