Enjoying it in Coolsville

Yea, it's cool up here.


Our great adventure in TICA our little Casita is going very well. We’re getting pretty good at the camping routine, and we are learning a lot as we go. When we started out, we went as far as Greensboro, GA. We stayed with some longtime friends, the Conklins. We enjoyed a delicious dinner at their beautiful lakefront home. . We had not seen each other in almost 20 years so we had a lot of catching up to do! We had a wonderful time with them and hope that it will not be too long before we are able to get together again.

We continued our trip to the northern hills of Georgia near a town called Helen. There is a beautiful State campground there named Unicoi. The most interesting thing that happened there was … as we were checking in, another car pulled up with a Casita camper. Sightings are rare, and this was quite a coincidence. Then, as we pulled into our campsite, we saw yet another Casita. Now there were three of us, so I called for a campfire assembly after dinner. We had an interesting evening and heard a few great bear stories. Both of these other campers had downsized from much larger campers to the Casita. We have not had another Casita in our campground since then over the past 3 weeks.

After Helen, we had a schedule to keep to meet up with our daughter, Laura, near Washington D.C. On our way north we camped for just one night in North Carolina, and then in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. We cruised up the Blue Ridge Parkway and enjoyed some wonderful vistas. We saw lots of deer, but no bears. We hope to be able to spend some time in Shenandoah Park on our way back home.

After a great visit with Laura we stopped in to visit Bill’s uncle and aunt in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. What a great time we had ! Two of their children live in town so we were able to visit with them and their families over a delicious dinner that Aunt Connie prepared. We left the next morning for northern Pennsylvania and camped at a few State parks just south of the New York state border. We visited and camped at the Leonard Harrison state park that overlooks a river gorge. They called it the Grand Canyon (picture) of Pennsylvania. After that, we caught up with our sailing and camping friends, Paul and Flo Slater. We met them at the Hamlin Beach State park west of Rochester and on Lake Ontario. We shared cocktails and dinners and a lot of good laughs. The campgrounds at Hamlin were terrific and we stayed there for about five days. Elaine was happy that she got to catch up with a longtime friend, Kim Kay who lives just outside of Rochester, while we stayed in the area.

Following Hamlin, we and the Slaters moved together farther north to another campsite on Lake Ontario. We hiked to a beautiful waterfall (picture-Salmon River Falls) while there. After a few days, we moved a little further north to a campground called Wescott. This campground is up on a plateau with great views of the lake for miles. Nearby is a small town named Sackets Harbor that has a rich history, beautiful homes, and a neat little harbor and marina. We also took a day trip to the 1000 Islands. A tour of Boldt Castle was just a ferry ride away and we really were impressed with the castle and the grounds. Even though there is a major restoration project in progress, the place still had lots of impressive rooms that were open to the public.
From here, we will split up from Paul and Flo. They are headed to see their families in Connecticut, and Elaine and I are headed for the Adirondacks. We plan to catch up with the Slaters again on Labor Day in North Carolina a few weeks from now.

We’ve done a lot of hiking, some bike riding, and some exploration of small towns like Sackets Harbor. One of the neatest things was the Salmon River Falls, (picture) which are out in the middle of nowhere in New York. We hiked some trails near here too.

Until next time, we’ll be in the cool weather in the mountains of up state New York and Vermont.