The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 8

We're finally heading in a southern direction, moving away from comfortable temperatures during the day, but chillier temperatures at night. Fall is on the way. Our next destination was another pilgrimage to the “World's Largest RV Show” in Hershey PA. It's been a few years since our last visit, and as always with RV shows, we're not in the market for a new home, but rather third-party upgrades that will make life on the road a bit easier. Or as Barbara likes to say, it satisfies my need to buy new things.

The good news is that after the Tampa RV Show in January, my spending urges had been satisfied for a while.

Or so I thought.

The problem for RV-ers – and me, specifically - is that there's always some third-party geniuses out there creating really nice (and sometimes really necessary) products that enhance the road experience.

So I really should avoid these shows entirely. But I can't.

However, in order to get to the show, we first had to address a problem with our Jeep Cherokee. On our last day in New York's Finger lakes area, the Jeep had begun to overheat on us. Not to the point where it couldn't be driven relatively short distances, but enough to smell hot at the end of a 20-25 minute drive.

We were staying at Mountain Springs RV Resort and Campground in Hamburg, PA, about a 45 minute drive to Hershey, but it had a Jeep dealership one exit down the road from us. After a day of driving the Jeep around to “recreate the problem”, they figured out that it was likely the thermostat going bad. And as has happened every time something has gone wrong with the Jeep, it's a good thing that our Endurance extended warranty was still active – at least until February of 2027. Endurance covered more than $700 dollars and I paid the $100 deductible. Since my coolant was likely the original coolant in the 2015 Jeep, I also had a flush and replacement done for another $250, which should last us until the Jeep dies of old age and/or overuse.

The RV show itself is always loaded with new units in which to walk through, and it gives us ideas for upgrades to our older systems. Bob Tiffin, the godfather of RV manufacturers, was settled into an Allegro Bus in the Tiffin area, and we got to see him and thank him once again for our great road home. He's beginning to show his 80+ years of living, but he's always got a warm smile and a handshake for anybody coming through one of his RV's.

The third-party vendors held few surprises for us, but one vendor (See-Level) has an upgrade to the black, gray and fresh water tank sensors that register much more accurately than our existing sensors do, and I'll probably get them upgraded in Florida during our winter stay. Instead of doing 1/3^rd levels on the Spyder panel, they do them in 1/8^th increments, and are allegedly much more accurate in their readings.

We spoke to a Florida park owner (Ja-Mar Resorts) who we might end up using for the January-April portion of our stay this winter. They're almost into Tampa, so they'll be warmer than our usual park outside of Gainesville, FL, and unlike most of central Florida their lots have more room between each RV. They're about half again more expensive, but much cheaper than the usual rates for the Tampa area. They would also be closer to friends and family in Florida than usual.

So - we're walking towards the exit after a three-hour visit at the show when disaster struck . . .

There's a vendor selling golf carts – mini golf carts. Given our usual stays at COE parks and Florida parks during the year, we've always envied people who bring their own golf carts with them when RV-ing. They're convenient in the larger resorts, and of course Jace would love to have one available for use when visiting us. It's kind of a status thing.

But as much as we like the idea of bringing a golf cart with us, we tow a Jeep Cherokee behind us. And we obviously don't want to negate the more than $6,000 we've invested in that Jeep to flat tow it across the country. Now if the Jeep ever dies we can talk about possibly flat towing a small pickup, but we really hope that's way in our future.

Enter Cricket Mini Golf Carts. Big enough when expanded to carry up to 4 adults with a 600lb capacity, and only weighing 400lbs with batteries installed. And the really cool thing: One of their models might – just might – fit into the BACK of the Jeep when collapsed down to it's smallest size! Not only that, you don't even have to push it up a set of ramps to get it into the Jeep! It comes with a remote that let's you drive the collapsed Cricket up the (optional) ramps without having to push it!

Very cool . . .

So, once we get down to Florida in November, we'll be taking a little drive over to Daytona where the Crickets are manufactured, and doing a test insert into the Jeep before finalizing any decision. Their measurements are 58” long, 28” high and 31” wide. The Jeep opening is more than 58” long with the back seats down, maybe 29” high and 32” wide, so it's going to be tight if it does work out. And the good news is that it wouldn't add enough weight to the Jeep to violate our 5,000lb towing capacity on the RV.

The Cricket SX-3

It's even the right color . . . 

 

Maybe it will fit in the back of the Jeep . . . ?

I am quivering with expectation.

No trip to the Hershey area is complete without a visit to Amish country. We took advantage of that by heading over to Lancaster, PA to get Grover his semi-annual checkup at Petsmart Banfield, and while he was being pampered by one of the front office staff who used to have a lemon beagle of her own, we ventured into Amish farm country for some very tasty and fresh farm produce and confections.

But the grandkids are calling, so we needed to start heading more directly south for a whole month of Barbara getting her grandchild fix, but there are two rendezvous still on our schedule before arriving at a couple of COE parks beginning in October.

The Great End of Summer Road Trip - Part 7

A destination 55 years in the making

The year was 1971. The Richard family consisting of Lenny, Dot, and their three boys, Doug, Dave and Mark were on a family road trip to the Finger Lakes region of New York state. Destination: Canandaigua Lake, the smallest and most distant Finger Lake in the region. The mode of transportation was a Rambler station wagon of a vintage long forgotten in time.

I-90 was not as direct as it is today, and stops had to be planned to eat on the side of the road and hit bathrooms during the 7 or so hour drive, especially with three boys in the back. No GPS, so everything was mapped out in advance. Given the Richard family finances of the time, we stayed in an out of the way (meaning cheap) motel where two beds and a cot served as sleeping quarters.

Dad brought a small charcoal grill to use for lunches and suppers cooked just outside the room. Everything was done on the cheap.

The beach on Canandaigua Lake was a short walk from the motel, and the waters were crystal clear, as was the norm for all the Finger Lakes at that time. The Richard family couldn't imagine a better vacation before the boys began graduating high school two, three and five years down the road, when lives and loves began the inevitable separation of distance.

Moving forward to 2026, and out Great Summer Road Trip continues westward from Massachusetts on our way to the Hershey RV Show in late September. So what better destination than one Barbara had never experienced, and that I remembered so fondly over the years?

Our campground was Bristol Woodlands nestled in the Bristol Hills outside Canadaigua, and I've got to tell you, in seven years of RV-ing full-time, this was one of the prettiest and well-maintained campgrounds we have ever stayed at. A gentle slope brings you down through incredibly wide, level campsites terraced down the hill with gravel driveways on lush green grassed and shaded lots. Twenty feet or more separated you from your neighbors lot. The mountain view looking down into the valley was spectacular.

Since it was Labor Day weekend and the campground was full, the hosts served up a full eggs, pancakes and sausage breakfast on Sunday morning, cooked at their pavilion at the top of the hill. The camp hosts and staff were very friendly. The location ended up being about a 20-25 minute drive to the downtown area of Canandiagua, so it was peaceful and quiet each and every night.

There's a beautiful old-money mansion just outside the city center called the Sonnenburg Gardens and Mansion. It doesn't have the over-the-top opulence and size of the Vanderbilt mansions in Newport, RI, but it is a much more livable space, and the gardens are actually nicer than what we experienced in Newport. Two of the three floors are open to the public and furnished. It was home to Frederick and Mary Thompson from 1887 to 1923, with most of the redesign of the home and gardens being done by Mary after her husband's death in 1899.

Sonnenburg as viewed from the edge of the Italian garden

 

Twice a year, Mary would invite the public to tour the home and grounds so that the locals could experience the various international-styled gardens and walkways. The variety of plants and flowers is simply overwhelming, and are grown onsite in the property's own greenhouses. It is said that a young Winston Churchill even visited Sonnenburg. After Mary's death, the property was sold to the the Federal government, where a portion of the land was used for the local VA hospital. You can see the hospital building behind and to the right of the mansion. The mansion and gardens were later taken over by New York state, which helps more than 170 volunteers keep it in beautiful condition today through historical preservation standards, however all funding for Sonnenburg comes from private sources and visitor fees.

So what was 55 years in the making?

Dipping my toes into Canadaigua Lake again.

Barbara and I had taken a trip to the local big marina area, which featured dozens of brightly painted boat houses used by the locals. Pretty little things with electricity only, so they're day use, but not a bad place to keep a boat and spend a few hours on the water.

Just around the corner was a local park which laughingly boasted a “beach” and dog park. We figured we take Grover for a dip in the lake if he wanted (he didn't) and I could complete my pilgrimage (as it were) to recreate a time of my youth. The “beach” was a 4-foot wide stretch of sand that was used primarily as a launching point for kayaks and paddle boards. Nevertheless, I managed to dip a foot into Canandaigua Lake anyway.

There is a nice little paddle wheeler on the lake which does cruises during the day and dinner cruises, but they were booked solid for the time frame we were there. If you'd like to visit Canandaigua Lake so day, be sure to get reservations for a cruise well in advance.

So where to next? The destination we built this entire End of Summer Road trip around – The World's Largest RV Show in Hershey, PA.

In the next Parental Parolees!

The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 6

One of the interesting things about traveling full-time in an RV is finding out that despite how long you've lived together, you can still find out something your spouse hasn't seen or done in their life, especially in the state of their birth and spending more than 30 years living there.

Which brings us to western Massachusetts, specifically the Northampton KOA for a week.

As we were planning the Great End of Summer Road Trip, knowing we'd be knocking off the last 3 eastern seaboard states on our travel map, finding our way back down south became – interesting. Our ultimate destination on the way back to Georgia was the annual Hershey RV Show held each year in late September, but between Maine and Hershey were three weeks of travel to states we had already visited.

Come to find out, Barbara had never visited western Massachusetts. Go figure.

I, on the other hand, had visited the western part of our birth state a few times, and knew of some nice places to encounter that are very un-Massachusetts-like compared to the eastern side of state – er- commonwealth.

The first place to visit was a drive to the top of Mount Greylock; the highest peak in Massachusetts. Rising more than 3,400 ft above sea level, it has some spectacular views of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut and of course, Massachusetts. I had always though that Mt. Greylock was part of the Berkshire range of mountains, yet came to find out it is part of the Taconic mountain range.

The drive is steep and narrow, and very tree-covered. Multiple small bridges were one lane only due to wash-out from the heavy rains western Mass. had been receiving over the summer. There's a ton of hiking trails that crisscross the road to the summit, so drivers have to be wary of hikers more focused on the hike than any traffic they might encounter.

The summit has a very nice war memorial with a beacon on top. The beacon is lit up most nights and can be seen for more than 70 miles, but is shut down during bird migration seasons so as to not confuse the birds as they head to more temperate climates.

The Mt. Greylock War Monument

Grover and I enjoying the view from the summit

Another day was spent in Shelburne Falls, home of the world-famous Bridge of Flowers, a beautiful bridge spanning the Deerfield River. It is maintained from April to November with floral plantings suitable for each growing season. A lot of hard work goes into keeping the bridge beautiful while open.

Bridge of Flowers from the bridge connecting Shelburne Falls and Buckland, Ma.

One beauty deserves another . . .

Just below Shelburne Falls is a very strange rock formation called the Glacial Potholes. Very circular and very deep holes have been created in the rocks below the falls by water runoff over centuries, and the Deefield River is shunted off to one side in order to expose the rock formations for year-round viewing.

They're kinda weird, but cool . . . 

What's left of Shelburne Falls is shunted off to one side to preserve the level of the Deerfield River

We stopped in for lunch at a local diner, where I was able to see the cook preparing bacon for the next day's breakfast (the diner was only open until 2 PM every day). For bacon lovers it was the coolest thing; she'd take a large sheet of wax paper with about a dozen strips of bacon adhering to the paper, drop it on the griddle bacon-side down, and start cooking it. The paper was removed as it heated, leaving a dozen strips of bacon simply waiting to be turned over for it's second side cooking. It was a bacon assembly line, and could only be found in a country as great as America!

I even got a free piece of bacon just for asking her about the process. It pays to be curious . . .

So here's a bit of KOA campground trivia for those already RV-ing or thinking about doing so.

There are three levels of KOA's; Journey, Holiday and Resort. They are pretty self explanatory just by their names; Journey is for the one-night stops as you're heading down the road, with lot's of pull-through sites for easy in and out, and few amenities.

Holiday has some basic amenities like playgrounds, pools and games, while Resort has bigger and more elaborate pools, more recreation like jump pads and mini-golf, and usually contains some sort of snack bar for quick meals throughout the day.

The KOA in Northampton was sort of a KOA Holiday trying to be a Resort. Their pool was small and unfortunately for me, unheated. A clear violation of my needs and wants. And due to the colder than normal weather, the water temps were in the low '60's at best. Their snack bar was only open Saturday night and Sunday morning, although they did a pretty darned good burger.

But the biggest turnoff to the KOA experience was the large amount of what are called “seasonal” campers; people who have bought some pretty old and sketchy-looking campers and park them on a site all year (closing them up for the winter months) and using them almost full-time in the warmer months. And I get it; campgrounds need seasonal campers as much, if not more than us transient campers because it's steady (although discounted) money coming in.

But today's “seasonal” camper tends to be a little lax on the cleaning and maintenance aspect of their campers and sites. And because of the large number of them in this particular campground, it's a bit – untidy. And some of the “seasonal” travel trailers were derelicts more than 20 years ago. Don't get me wrong; they're generally as nice as the campers we meet as transients on the road (although they do tend to stick together in seasonal groups at social events), but the look isn't good if you're trying to move up from Holiday-level to Resort-level at KOA.

Rain kept us indoors for 3-4 days of this stop, but we did manage to find one farmer with a sense of humor on the road just outside the campground. Seems he has a problem with a particularly large rock on his property, and is trying a unique way to solve it – by offering it for sale. I give him an “A” for effort.

It's one way to try to get a rock removed from your property, but I'm not sure how effective the marketing is. I love the "as is" stipulation.

The offending rock. It's a ways back, so the picture doesn't do it justice, but it's a pretty big rock.

Our next destination was a return trip for me that was 55 years in the making. Read about that in the next installment of Parental Parolees!

The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 5

What can we say about Wells, Maine?

Well, it's not a bad place to stay if you have friends and relatives surrounding you in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine.

And the campground we stayed at – Coastal Woods Campground – was as good a location as you could find to explore the Maine coast while having an incredibly easy on / easy off exit to I-95 about 200 feet away from the campground entrance. Yet, surprisingly, there was no interstate noise to be heard.

Now, there are campgrounds in and around Wells with better amenities, as Coastal Woods' only amenity was a small playground for the kids, but what they lacked in amenities they more than made up for with sterling customer service.

When I made our reservations over the phone, they had only one site available for our 2-week time frame that they were “pretty sure” we could fit into it. The site was listed as being able to take a 38-foot camper / RV, which we took to mean 38 feet with room for the Jeep. When we got there, the site was so narrow that the rear end of our motor home was threaded between two trees in back, with barely enough room for our slides to be extended on the driver's side. Our fire pit was so close to the door of the RV that we would probably peel paint if we tried to have a camp fire!

And the Jeep?

No place to park it beside us, and no place to park it in front of us without crossing the “T” of the RV at the front and having the passenger side stick out into the street about a foot or so in order for the driver to get out of the car!

 

Look at the back of the motor home, and imagine another tree on the other side just as close. Then imagine your fire pit just off-camera on the left . . .

After explaining this to the manager, he apologized but had nothing else for us at the time and length we needed. But within 2 days, he had had another reservation cancel at a much longer and wider site up front, and said we could have it if we wanted it. After one look, we hurriedly packed everything up and switched sites.

Lots of room front to back, lots of room side to side, lots of room for the Jeep, and lots of – apples.

Small, hard, green apples which kept dropping on our site, fortunately NOT on the RV as it was about 3-4 feet away from our spot, but each morning we'd be greeted with a fresh carpet of apples just waiting for Grover to sniff. Every one of them. Because, well – Grover.

But the other great customer service was their local camp maintenance guy, who came by every other day like clockwork to remove the apples so that they didn't attract bees and wasps.

So if you're an RV-er reading this blog and need to stay in the Wells, ME area, you can't do much better than Coastal Woods Campground. Even their rates per week were very reasonable; about $300 per week less than what we used to pay in Kingston, NH a few years ago.

So what did we have to do for 2 weeks in the Wells area? Family and friends, mostly.

I had to meet with my sister-in-law, Debby, so that she could show us where she had my brother's remains moved. The area he was originally in was being vandalized as it was close to the main road (which is a shame as it was the veteran's area of the cemetery), and it was also far away from her own family's grave sites.

Since we were in Wilmington, MA, we had to make the obligatory stop at Simard's Roast Beef for an excellent North Shore-style roast beef sandwich.

 

What can I say? We're suckers for great roast beef sandwiches!

We also had to shop at the Portsmouth, NH Market Basket to pick up certain foods you can't get anywhere else in the country. They make their own store brand of cheese puffs that are better than the national brands, they carry the Kayem Mini Hot dogs we love to use for Pigs-in-a-Blanket, and their store brand Rice Pilaf is actually better than the Near East national brand. We can also get individually-sealed frozen haddock loins in packs.

Barbara has relatives on her mother's side in Ossipee, NH and near Portsmouth, and also in Cape Elizabeth, ME, so visits had to be scheduled with each of them. After 7 years on the road, we were finally able to meet up with her cousin, Patti and her husband Russell where we were close enough to be able to have them back to the RV to show them what full-time living is all about. Russell was suitably impressed with the motor home, and also with Grover.

 

Grover ingratiating himself to new people as only Grover can, by being a lovable pest.

Once the initial meeting was concluded it was time for Grover to settle down with his new friend, Russell

Russell, me and our Starlink panel, plus a better view of the new site.

No trip to New England is complete without a visit to see my best and longest-ever friend and his wife, Rick and Marielle Penney. Fortunately, they were camping about 30 minutes away from us in their 5th-wheel so we were able to see them for an afternoon. Our time ran out before we could see them a second time, however.

We still needed to take in the sights and food that Wells offered, however.

No trip to Wells is complete with getting some delectable treats from Congdon's Doughnuts. It's a Wells institution. So much so that even on rainy days the line extends out the door for people waiting to satisfy their sweet-tooth. Now, are the GREAT donuts? Not really, but they are VERY GOOD donuts. Due to their size, they contain more filling than in your usual Dunkin Donuts, but they also have more dough than most people would probably want to eat. Their blueberry fritters, however, were excellent.

 

Mike's Clam Shack is also a must-see. Their seafood is not up to par with the north shore seafood one might find in Ipswich or Essex, MA, but it was the best seafood we had on the entire trip to New England. So after at least 7 tries at seafood on the trip, we could finally leave the area – or we might have had to drive down to Massachusetts to finally satisfy that particular craving.

We also took a shoreline drive for a few hours, but it was not nearly as satisfying in the Jeep as it was in our previous Mini Cooper convertible. Oh, well, we traded expensive maintenance and fun for practical towing. C'est la vie!

Sadly, we simply ran out of time trying to get with everybody we wanted to visit with, so it will probably be a couple of years before we can see other friends and family again. We still had one more stop to make in Massachusetts before leaving New England on the Great End of Summer Road Trip, but that's a story for another time.

The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 4

How does one live in Massachusetts for more than 30 years, and never visit Cape Cod?

I'd been asking myself that question for years. Barbara had visited Provincetown a long, long while back with a friend of hers before we met each other, and she and I had just barely crossed over the Sagamore Bridge when her grandparents lived maybe 10 minutes over that bridge just after we were married.

But Cape beaches? Quaint Cape tourist traps? Never!

Not that this trip was going to give us a lot of time to do some major Cape Cod exploration, because once again, it was a short stop towards a more lengthy stay in southern Maine, but we were determined to give it our best shot.

With one exception, it was a wasted endeavor.

We had three nights booked at Bay View RV Campground about 3 miles over the Bourne Bridge in Bourne, MA. It's an older campground open since 1959, and the sites and roads in the camp are very narrow and most are not big rig friendly. We're 38' long, and we watched two 45' motor homes who checked in ahead of us struggling to navigate roads that were designated as 2-way, but were barely wide enough for one way traffic if it was any RV. Most site were barely long enough to back in with enough room left to park your tow vehicle.

 

If you look to the rear of the RV on the left, you'll see how I had to thread the needle between the picnic table and the trees on the right. The Jeep's location is deceptive, as it's front end is next to our entry steps!

That being said, the lack of proper sites was more than made up for with the amenities on-site. Not one, not two, but THREE pools, a huge playground that would have had Jace salivating, the usual basketball and pickleball courts, an ice cream / snack bar, and the staff was doing Halloween in August for the kids since the park closes down around Columbus Day.

Due to it's narrow roads and small sites, Bay View did NOT allow for early check-in – not even if you wanted to pay extra. Basically, they needed all checkouts leaving in one direction up until 11:00, and incoming arrivals coming in those same roads in the other direction, with time enough to prepare sites in between. But the staff made it work. They were also right off of state Route 28 with a VERY LIMITED entrance way, so at 2:00 check-in time, there was a three lane wide backup in the campground entrance that on busy arrival days, extended out onto state Route 28 which also ended up blocking another street access if you didn't know what was going on. (I didn't, so guilty as charged)

I ended up speaking to one of the seasonal residents on a trip to the nearest pool, and the park was apparently slated to close permanently after last season, but an new investor came in and saved it from extinction. Really nice couple who gave us the scoop on the best pizza place nearby (and it was very good!), and gave us some pointers on our next destination in Wells, ME.

We were also on the Cape to visit a former high school classmate of Barbara's we had last seen at her 50^th reunion a couple of years ago, who lived a short distance from the campground. Ended up getting our first taste of New England seafood at a nearby restaurant with them. The company was great; the seafood was – meh. If you've grown up in Massachusetts near the North Shore of Essex and Ipswich, your seafood standards are pretty high – what can I say?

 

While the seafood could have been better, the company was fantastic. Mary Jo and Barbara attended high school together, and Bob and I hit it off right away.

Attempts at sightseeing on the Cape were, frankly, a disaster. Tried to do the Provincetown thing, but apparently there was some festival going on that week and traffic into an out of the town was murderous. And once we did get near the shopping/tourist district, the roads were so narrow and packed with cars that I actually started to have a panic attack! To be honest, I don't know how people live there on a daily basis. If you're willing to live like a sardine 24/7, go for it; but that's not for me. We turned around and fled the scene without stopping.

Did get our second helping of New England seafood at Moby Dick's in, I believe, Wellfleet, and it was – meh. Scallops, OK. Clams were tiny and tasteless.

Our second sightseeing attempt was Woods Hole. While not quite as tightly-packed as Provincetown, attempts to find parking were futile. One lot which had any spots available charged $70 PER DAY! And that was their ONLY rate. Nothing hourly! So we turned around and headed back to the campground.

We determined that the best way to sight-see on Cape Cod if you're just visiting is to find a tour company and let them shuttle you to and from your destination in a bus.

One little RV-specific note which was a bit strange – and sometimes challenging – is the way they handle traffic on state Route 28 up and down the Cape. It's a 2-and-2 parkway with a median in the middle, and their way of allowing you to reverse direction is to give you breaks in the median with a left turn feeding into a U-turn. Once you navigate that, there's a significantly long acceleration lane on the left side of the parkway to get you up to highway speeds.

Unless you're a motor home.

One: if you're driving a motor home the U-turn might be a bit narrow, meaning your nose MIGHT work it's way out into oncoming 55 MPH traffic if you're not being cautious.

Two: that acceleration lane I mentioned? Long enough for cars to get up to highway speeds; not so much for a 28,600 lb motor home towing a 3,600 lb Jeep trying to reach 55 MPH before some jerk who is nowhere close to following the speed limit (standard operating procedure for most Massachusetts drivers), runs right up your rear end and takes umbrage at slowing him or her down.

All that being said, our long wait to discover Cape Cod was – pretty awful. Definitely not a repeat destination for us.

Our next stop on the Great American Summer Trip was the friends and family portion; always a challenge due to timings and scheduling of people who still aren't retired like we are and have lives of their own, plus too many of them to see even with two weeks of opportunity.

All in the next Parental Parolees!

The Great End of Summer Road Trip - Part 3

So with sticker shock behind us from New York tolls and a brief stop in Connecticut for a little seashore adventure, it's time to knock off the last of the three states remaining on out travel map of the Northeast - Rhode Island.

One of the toughest things about RV-ing in Rhode Island is due to the state's size. It's so small that there are not a lot of campgrounds in the state which can accommodate a motorhome of our size that also have the amenities we like to have when traveling. Timing of reservations also comes into play if your stay is going to occur on any given weekend during the last few days of summer vacation.

And while the state's small size makes it easy to get from one area to another, being close to places you want to visit is always a plus.

So we were fortunate to find a campground just about 20 minutes away from the Newport area, given our interest was in visiting some Newport mansions. A few years back Barbara and I took a trip to Asheville, NC to tour the famous Vanderbilt estate of Biltmore (a must-see destination, btw), so naturally we wanted to see how the Vanderbilt's spent their summer months in Newport, RI.

There are Newpost mansion tour deals to be had, where you can tour the Vanderbilt mansion called The Breakers, then add one, two or more other Newport mansions for a discounted price. We opted for the three mansion deal based on time allotted during our 3-day stay in the area.

The Breakers is as stunningly opulent as Biltmore is in typically ostentatious in true Vanderbilt style, but is considerably smaller. It's also nicely preserved with each room still containing original artwork and furniture that gives you some idea of the lifestyle the ultra-rich of that era lived. Mr. Vanderbilt's marble bathtub could float a small fleet of ships in it, and was capable of providing both hot and cold running fresh water or sea water as the master desired. Very weird seeing 4 faucets feeding a tub.

The Breakers from a side view. The landscaping was beautiful even with the heat of the summer.

 

A few rooms had gold leaf accents, while one room had titanium accents! The whole mansion screamed – MONEY! Interestingly, the view of the sea from the property was not as good as the next mansion on our list.

Rosecliff was recommended by my brother, Doug, as a must-see mansion while in Newport. His recommendation was based on his love of the movie, 'The Great Gatsby', which used Rosecliff as the location for the film. While visually stunning, the movie itself was a dud.

So was Rosecliff.

The building itself was not nearly as opulent as The Breakers was, and only the first floor contained any furniture set up the way the owners originally had. The second floor was a not-very-interesting museum of Newport war history. While the ballroom and patio are used today for wedding receptions and other social functions, both are bare. About the only redeeming value to the mansion are the grounds. The sea-side lawn and view of the harbor are the best feature of the home. And Arnold Swarzenegger fans will notice the exterior as being in the opening sequence of his movie 'True Lies'.

Beautiful exterior, but a disappointing tour

 

Other than that, Rosecliff was pretty – meh.

Our final museum wasn't a building at all; it was the Green Animals Topiary Garden well away from Newport proper. It is one of the few remaining topiary gardens left in the U.S., and if you love gardens, it's a great place to visit. The designs are pretty well done, the flowers and tress were very colorful, and a light sea breeze kept the temperatures in the comfortable range even though we were outdoors.

They claim it's a bear, but I swear I'm being attacked by a frog!

 

As we were leaving, Barbara and I were discussing our museum tour and lamented our experience at Rosecliff. One of the guides / docents at the garden overheard us and agreed wholeheartedly with our assessment. She told us to wait, went into a building, and came out with two free passes to any mansion good for a year. While we were leaving the next day and couldn't use them ourselves, we were going to be visiting a classmate of Barbara's at our next stop nearby, so we accepted the tickets.

Interestingly enough, despite it's small size, we could have spent a couple of more days doing the Newport thing, but frankly, the park we were staying at didn't have a pool, and we had other places to be to keep to our itinerary.

A little bit of RV traveling information that usually doesn't affect us is that with so few miles between destinations, and strict check-out and check-in times at northeast campgrounds, we had to leave at the latest times possible, stop in a rest area and sit around for an hour or two with the generator running in order to keep cool, then head to our next campground to check in. But that's the beauty of living in a motorhome where the interior is ALWAYS conditioned as long as you've got fuel to run your generator.

Our next destination on the Great End of Summer Road Trip is a strange one given that both Barbara and I grew up in Massachusetts. Keep an eye out for the next installment in Parental Parolees!

The Great End of Summer Road Trip – Part 2

Wake up call in the Northeast.

We last left our fellow Parolees wondering if you can get a decent Philly cheesesteak in south-central New Jersey (you can) and just how much the toll system was going to take us a for a ride driving I-95 through New York City.

We made our way north from DC to a nice little KOA campground we had stayed in a few years ago in Clarksboro, NJ. Unfortunately, our expected meeting with long-time friends Tom and Bobbie Barbarese didn't happen due to their vacation plans on the Jersey shore. But the pool onsite was nice and the cheesesteak search was underway.

If you ever tried to order a cheesesteak at Pat's Steaks in south Philly, you know there are only two ways to order them; Wid or Widout. Wid is with peppers and onions, and Widout is plain steak and cheese. Failure to order in this exact manner at the window gets you sent unceremoniously to the back of the line, and there is no appeal. Back when I was in the Air Force, my great friend Dan Barbarese introduced me to Pat's but failed to mention the proper way to order, leaving him laughing his head off at my expense.

I bring this episode up because while in New Jersey last week, we found a cheesesteak place called Whit or Whitout, which – while not honoring the method of ordering as with Pat's Steaks – comes close to honoring the quality of the cheesesteak itself.

So yes, you CAN get a pretty good cheesesteak in New Jersey.

Heading north after a relaxing 3 nights at the KOA, we attack the infamous Northeast corridor of I-95 consisting of the northern leg of the Jersey Turnpike, the George Washington Bridge and various and sundry tolls into and through Connecticut and Rhode Island.

Understand, this is a route I had always vowed to NEVER drive in a motorhome, but the alternative to visit places on the coastline meant hours and miles of detours both north and east if I tried to avoid I-95.

So we bit the bullet.

The smallest state with tolls, Delaware, charged us $24.00 to drive about 30 minutes in their state. Normally $5 for a car.

New Jersey hit us up for $26.90 for a heck of a lot more miles and time from Clarksboro to the George Washington Bridge exit on the Jersey Turnpike.

Drove through New York during what is called “non-peak” hours (middle of the day) and thought we'd get a break on the tolls due to us having an EZ-Pass transponder on both the RV and the Jeep. Come to find out later that EZ-Pass discounts are only given to people who bought their transponders from either NY or NJ, and screw every other EZ-Pass customer across the rest of the country!

And here's the sticker shock: For an RV with a tow vehicle with a total of 4 axles (two on the RV and two on the Jeep), the great state of New York charged us - $102.68!!!!!!! Just to CROSS the George Washington Bridge! During NON-PEAK HOURS! Then they tacked on ANOTHER $8.73 to LEAVE the state after crossing the bridge!

Oh, and they also tried to charge us an additional $23.30 for a car when their system picked up our Jeep transponder behind the motorhome, but I disputed that since they had already charged us for the extra 2 axles in the initial $102 toll. Snakes.

I paid $102.68 for THIS?

 

I should have kept my vow and never driven this route . . .

Fortunately, the rest of our trip across Connecticut was uneventful, and our three days in Mystic, CT were very nice, with a visit to the USS Nautilus and downtown Mystic. I was fascinated by their second epic voyage back when I was just 9 years old, so it was really cool to see what captured my attention more than 60 years ago. The Sun Outdoors park we stayed at had a very nice pool, and I got to speak with some locals who gave us good suggestions for places to see while we were there.

Realizing a boyhood dream . . .

 

Next, we're off to the last state in the Northeast we haven't stayed in - Rhode Island - and a short trip to Bourne, MA on the Cape. Can't wait to see what is ahead of us in the next Parental Parolees installment!