The End Is Near!

OK, so not to be too dramatic, but after 7 weeks of travel with our 7 year-old grandson, we're actually looking forward to some alone time. Especially Grover. Jace can get very excitable, and Grover's not big on “ambushes” when he's trying to catch up on his beauty sleep.

But first, it's a stop in the commonwealth of our birth – Massachusetts (as everyone in Massachusetts knows, Massachusetts not merely a “state”, but a “commonwealth”). It's another destination in which we've never parked our RV when visiting, so this will be one more new sticker for our state map, and a chance to visit friends and family.

Spacious Skies – Minuteman in Littleton, MA is a very old campground, developed at a time when travel trailers were the norm, and it shows. Perhaps their new corporate owners (Spacious Skies has been purchasing a number of existing campgrounds across America) are planning some upgrades, but there's no getting around the narrow dirt roads that are an adventure for larger RVs such as ours to navigate, the shorter and narrow sites themselves, and the aging infrastructure. Water went out 3 days in a row while we were there, and while it was repaired fairly quickly, it was inconvenient for many (we were busy with other tasks during the outages – more on that later). The staff is extremely friendly and helpful, but they've been given a daunting task to keep campers happy. On the plus side, Minuteman is only a 20-minute drive to visit my Dad, instead of the usual 45-50 minutes we typically had when previously staying in southern New Hampshire.

My Dad had just turned 94 years-old the previous week, and in prior telephone calls had expressed a desire to go to the beach, so with our first good day of weather we picked him up and headed over to Salisbury Beach in Massachusetts. Salisbury Beach brought back memories of my youth, when the family would take a day-trip to the beach and arcade area, where we could enjoy a day of sun, surf, games and unhealthy but delicious food. Dad seemed to have a good time, and Jace enjoyed Joe's Playland where he could crash to his hearts content playing driving games. I renewed my acquaintance with Skeeball after a few lost decades, and Barbara herded everybody in an attempt to keep us all together.

The 94 year-old patriarch gets his day at the beach!

 

Another planned activity for us was to show Jace some real history while on vacation, so we took the MBTA commuter train from Littleton into North Station, and walked a mile over part of the Freedom Trail to visit the USS Constitution – Old Ironsides. Jace got his first visit on a vintage warship, and was pretty impressed with the Constitution's history. Personally, I'm always in awe that such a ship still exists in such immaculate condition, and the fact that I could walk on the same decks men once trod to defend this nation still sends a chill up my spine.

Jace enjoying his first-ever train ride. Of course we had to ride in the upper level of the double-decker car!

 

Being a boy, Jace is fascinated with things that can go BOOM!

Best pic of the day. Mimi and Jace at the stern of one of the most famous warships ever built.

As originally planned months previously, we had intended to camp a few days with our best friends Rick and Marielle Penney, who have a Grand Design Reflection 5^th wheel. They had booked a spot right next to us so that we could enjoy each other's company without much of a walk, but both the weather and another unexpected diversion ended up pretty much ruining our plans to socialize. We still got to see them, but not nearly as long as planned, and not in the relaxing campground setting we had hoped to enjoy. We did manage to join them for a couple of meals, especially breakfast at the Red Arrow Diner in Nashua, NH, and Costello's in Plaistow, NH, home of our favorite roast beef sandwiches!

The Red Arrow was celebrating a Harry Potter menu, so he had a wizard at our table for breakfast!

The Red Arrow features a menu item I always wanted to order - their "Mug of Bacon". 20 pieces of extra thick bacon for everyone to share.

That diversion I alluded to earlier? Moving my Dad from one senior-living facility to another. At 94 years of age, Dad just doesn't do all the things he needs to do on a daily and weekly basis any more, and he needed a higher level of care than his previous place could provide. Their quality of meals had also suffered during COVID, and had never recovered. So, Barbara, Jace, my brother Doug, our friend Paul and yours truly moved the bulk of Dad's stuff from Chelmsford on Friday, then everyone but Paul helped set up Dad in his new digs in Billerica off and on for the next few days. We ended up extending our stay two nights just to get the job done, and Barbara and Jace got to experience a tornado warning while staying at the campground. Yay!

Jace was VERY helpful in prepping for the potential bad weather. Barbara had explained that if the weather got really bad and a tornado formed, they'd have to move from the motor home to one of the more permanent structures in the campground. Jace decided that he'd need to save his half-dozen “stuffies” - his stuffed animals – and had them all ready in both arms to take with him to the shelter. He then informed Mimi that she would have to grab all his Dogman books to bring with them – because his hands were full. Of course, Barbara had to explain to Jace that she would be carrying Grover in one arm (Grover would never go willingly out into a thunderstorm) and Jace in the other, and that his Dogman books would just have to take their chances with the storm. What a kid!

The move and his summer vacation complete, we finished off the trip with a few decompression days in central Pennsylvania at Twin Groves RV Resort – a very nice place to stay, btw – and made the drive back to Georgia to drop Jace off with his Mom. Overall, it was 8 weeks, 3,300 motor home miles, 7 campgrounds in 4 new states, one visit to an emergency room, 3 damaged or failed parts to the motor home (all suspiciously in Massachusetts), and hundreds of priceless memories we hope Jace will remember for a lifetime.

Now it's time to rest up, catch up on some missed sleep, and hopefully get my hand fixed and ready for future travel this Fall.