Here we are, on the road: We’re in Salisbury, Vermont part two, part one is Westport, NY

We had too many pictures this week so we broke the blog up into two parts, the other part is Westport, New York.

9/29/13 Chuck’s report

Friday morning we once again headed out, leaving New York behind and driving here to Vermont. I think we spent 3 weeks in New York this time. We had been to New York before but only in the New York City area, upper New York is WAY different, lots of open spaces, farms, hills, trees and small cities with nice, helpful people. We REALLY like New York State!

We only had a short trip to get to our current campground here at Salisbury, VT. There is a ferry boat we could have gotten on but it was over $60 and the drive around was only about 20 miles so we did the drive. And once again this is a Passport America membership camp for us,

Once again we had a choice of sites here, none of them looked to be satellite friendly so we got one with 50 amp and easy in/out. All of the sites here have cable TV so we weren’t too concerned about no satellite but the stations they carry are sure limited. Here it is Sunday afternoon and they don’t have any pro football on any of the stations, shoot.

After we got set up we looked through the brochures about the area that Lorraine had picked up from the office. We decided to make a quick run to Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory. We are staying on the West side of the Green Mountains and knew we would drive over and hoped the colors would be better, - - they were.

I was a little surprised to find they charged for a tour at Ben & Jerry’s, I think it was only $3 for seniors and they did give us a sample of a “surprise flavor”. Our surprise flavor was Pumpkin, neither of us really cared for it. We got there after they had stopped work for the day and the only activity we saw was the cleaning of the machines.

A few years ago they sold out to a larger company so neither Ben nor Jerry show up very often even though they are still on the payroll as consultants. But the company still is “green” and remains socially responsible.

But once again the highlight of this drive was the tree colors we saw. We managed to hit peak season in the higher elevations once again, it sure is something to see. We have some color in Washington but nothing compared to here, the colors are everywhere depending on the altitude and timing and they are brighter colors too.

Wednesday Lorraine informed me that the handle for the sliding door on our closet was broken. I knew a friend of ours, Richard, was at Red Bay so I called him to see if he would purchase a couple of handles for us and put them in the mail to our next stop. Well, this was our next stop so Saturday morning I made a quick run to the local post office to see if our package had arrived. Sure enough, it was there so I picked it up, brought it back and installed one of the new handles, Lorraine can again open/close that door, yea. Thanks Richard, and you’re right about the price of those, mailing and friendship!

After we got ready, we headed out for another driving tour across the Green Mountains, this time via a route suggested by the lady at the office. The trees weren’t changing during the first part of this trip but once again as we climbed higher, the more changes/colors we saw.

We took a side trip to Lincoln Gap because of a sign we saw alongside the road. It was a steep climb for over three miles to get to the top and once there we found all the parking spots full and to see any of the hills would require a hike so we turned around without seeing lots of colors on that short side trip. This was the first time we’ve seen lots of other folks out touring the hills, I thought there might even be traffic jams along the roads but we’ve ran across nothing of that sort.

But on the way up we did stop and talk to a couple in a motorhome that had pulled over to the side because he had hot brakes from coming down that hill. There were signs at the beginning saying not recommended for trucks, buses and motorhomes but apparently they didn’t see them. When we drove back down, their tow car was gone and the lady was standing in front of their rig, not sure where he was going. I sure wouldn’t have wanted to drive our rig up there and we have air brakes as well as engine brakes.

We continued our drive, even found a covered bridge to check out. After we got back on the West side of the Green Mountains I checked the GPS and saw there was a Costco not too far away. So I plugged that into the GPS and we made a Costco stop.

While we were there, I checked with the gal at the wireless display to see what benefit it would be for us to buy a new phone from them vs going with a Verizon store. I guess we would still have the same two year contract with Verizon but the phone would be cheaper, it comes with an accessories package and the damage insurance is way cheaper over the two year contract. We are still looking at changing out our dumb phones for smart phones so more research will happen.

Because we don’t have internet access at this campground, we decided to head out for another driving trip on Sunday morning instead of writing and posting our blog. Actually this was more of a touristy thing vs. a tree viewing trip. We drove into Burlington to the Vermont Teddy Bear Factory where once again I was sort of surprised to see them charge for the tour. They only charged $3 each for seniors but this time we didn’t get a sample of ice cream, ha.

And once again we were there when no one was working. We did get to see some of the work areas and they had displays that the tour guide could use to show us how the teddy bears were sewn and filled. I didn’t realize the eyes on each bear have the words “born in Vermont” on each. And you can special order a large variety of different bears, they had one that on display that had a wedding dress made from the train of a costumer’s actual wedding dress and it was the same as the one she wore. They said it was worth over $1000, no one in our tour group jumped at the chance to buy it.

We then headed back to the campground and we were listening to the radio as the Seattle Seahawks played football, they were behind 20 – 6 when we got here. Like I said earlier, we didn’t have any football coverage on any of the TV stations we were able to get on the campground’s cable system so I went back outside to check the score on the radio and found that the Seahawks had tied the game and it was just going into overtime.

I sat in the car and listened to the game on the radio until Lorraine found that one of the TV stations was carrying the game sound only, no picture so I came in and we listened to the rest of the game. By the way, the Seahawks won in overtime with a field goal and are now 4 – 0 for the first time in their history. One of the announcers said he thought they might just be the best team in the league right now. Hope we can see more of their games in the next few weeks.

A couple of observations I’ve made over the last few weeks. We really live in a great country with lots of different areas and different types of scenery to see/visit. I have been impressed that all the water we’ve seen has been crystal clear, this includes the Great Lakes, the streams and rivers and most of the ponds and lakes. I guess I was most surprised to see the Hudson River being so clear; I seem to remember being told in school about all the pollution in the rivers. And we haven’t had any smog to worry about either.

And all the green, from the grass, fields and trees, I know we have lots of green back in Washington but it comes from all of the rain. I’m sure this area gets its share of rain but we have had real good weather most of the time. And there is sure no shortage of trees or forests either, at least according to what we’ve seen as we travel across the Northern part of our country.

What a great Country we live in! And being able to explore these after we’ve retired and still have our health is a great thing too. And most of all, having Lorraine by my side is the best part.

Speaking of weather, it has been warmer than average, according to the weatherman on TV. And that is supposed to continue in that vein for the rest of the week. The night time temps have been in the high 50s the last couple of nights and unless we get higher that is supposed to be the norm for the rest of the week also, hope they are right this time.

We are planning on tomorrow (Monday) being a travel day for us. We will be driving into New Hampshire to continue on our quest for tree colors. Lorraine heard on the TV that the colors are at peak in NH so here’s hoping we get to see them.

I will go through and pick out which of the MANY pictures Lorraine has taken this week and decide which ones I will add to this when we get a place where we have internet access. We will then post this and continue on this week’s adventures.

Now for the pictures from when we were in Vermont.

The bridge over Lake Champlain from New York into Vermont.