Eastern USA

Hello Friends:

Well we left Maine (and the sea food) and headed to New Hampshire.
We did not get very far and Doug said "We have a big problem", and as I looked out the mirror
all I could see was smoke!.  So Doug stopped right away, on a Highway with no shoulder, and on a curve to boot.  We pulled into somebody's yard, and of course they were not home, just our luck, but the man across the street came over to help us out.  The duel tires were touching each other, not good!
Paul the man across the street had phone numbers to call, and we got in touch with a RV place not too far away.  They sent a man out named "Johnny", you just had to laugh at him, he was such a "Red Neck" as anyone could be.  He had a moustache like a foo man chew, but he knew right away what the problem was.  It was a broken spring on the back rear tire....to make a long story short.  They fixed the spring, and charged us a lot, and funny thing is that the yard that we pulled into, the people never did show up, so they never knew we were even there LOL
So that put us back a bit, but not our spirits.  We have found in our travels that people are really nice and are very helpful when you are in need.  We have talked to and asked advice to a lot of really nice people along the way.

 Then  off to Vermont with a lot of excitement as we heard that Vermont is beautiful.  As we do not have maps of these states or camping guides, we were first looking for tourist information in each state we travelled thru.
It was impossible to find any tourist information in New Hampshire, or where to go for the information we needed?? so we travelled right on thought,
Vermont was the same.  We asked everywhere we stopped for a map?? or camping guide?? with no luck.  They do not have tourist information places like we have in Canada.  When you are travelling blind so to speak you don't know what you are missing?? but have to choice but to plow ahead as you have no information about what to see??
Vermont was very hilly and with thick forest, so we could see how beautiful it would be in the fall when all the trees turn colour!

One of many covered bridges that we have seen.

We did notice how big the houses are that are everywhere, old Victorian stye houses, and they all seem to have porches with rocking chairs, but they are huge.

A lot of the small towns have these big stone churches, that are beautiful!

So we drove thru Vermont and headed for Massachusetts and on the way we came across this bridge of flowers.  It is a abandoned trolly bridge, that the town of Shelburne Falls turned it into a bridge of flowers.  It was beautiful, and most of the flowers were in full bloom. 

A strange tree wrapped around a pole?

then not too far away we came across this covered bridge! I thought all the covered bridges we painted red! like the movie "Bridges over Madison Country" my personal favourite movie!  but they are mostly natural wood, they usually have a name, and what year they were built.

We like to camp in state parks as much as we can, and so with the limited information we had, there was a state park called Savoy forest state park in Massachusetts.  We drove about 20 "miles"

on a gravel dirt road with hopes that they would have room for a big trailer!  They have one site only for a trailer the rest are for tenters, and we lucked out and got the only site there was!  It was amazing, and very remote and quite!  We stated 2 nights and enjoyed every minute.

They had 2 ponds that had swimming in it and the ponds we crystal clear!

The "Erie Canal"

So as we were looking at a map of where we should go next, Doug sees "Cooperstown, New York State" and says!

"that is where the baseball hall of fame is -  we should go there as we are so close!

So of course we went!!

We drove to a  park and ride, and for a all day pass for $2.00 a trolly picked you up and took you to the highlights!

The entrance to the baseball hall of fame!

Now, not really being a baseball nut, let me tell you, there are people that were there, that think these players are right up there with "God".  The amount that they worship these players, and the fields that they played on to me was quite humorous.  I had to remind myself not to make fun of this, but to bite my tongue and just enjoy what was around me!

38,000 bats, balls, uniforms, gloves etc.

130,000 baseball cards

2 million research files

500,000 black and white and colour photographs

12,000 hours of recorded media

and we were there!

Of course there was a whole room dedicated to Babe Ruth!

There were on so many "signed Bats", "signed Balls" and "Gloves" a person can look at before they all look the same!

This was funny, it was statues of famous fans that were dedicated to their teams!  Mostly older folks!

They had a whole room dedicated to who was named to the "hall of fame" and what year they were name, I could not help but notice that this guys nick name was "Judy" - bet he was a great guy I am sure of it!!

After the Hall of Fame we went to a winery, and a couple of local breweries, which is always fun.

You meet all kinds of people there and get all kinds of advice of what you should see and do. 

When we were going across northern New York State, just below Lake Ontario, there were hundreds of corn fields.  They use the corn for feed for cattle.  Also lots of Apple orchards, cabbage crops, and sugar beets.

We are headed for Niagara Falls and are going to cut across lower Ontario to Michigan, and head home from there.  Probably won't be home until the middle of September.  We have put on

15,000 Kms on the truck, and are having a most amazing time.

Play safe, and chat next week

Doug and Judy