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.