Long Drive

August 27

Tough Drive

We woke up very early this morning (4:30 am) and after eating and cleaning up we got on the road for what I had dreaded from day one, going through Massachusetts and Connecticut.  I thought that going through on Sunday morning would be the easiest time to do it.  Well if that is the best time to go then I don’t want to go at the bad time.  When we got to Massachusetts traffic came to a stop

then go traffic until we got to the west side of Hartford, Connecticut.  We spent 2 extra hours in this mess before the traffic smoothed out.  Our time on the road was over 10 hours (480 miles).  Oh, did I mention some of the roads were worst than I-440 in Nashville.  Some of the pot holes were 2-3’ in diameter.  Not something to play with at 65 mph.

BTW, we are so glad to be off the metric system.  I was mentally challenged at each kilometer sign.  Each one had to be multiplied by .6.  This sounds easy but there was also a momentary delay when a sign showed up before I realized that it is metric.

The campground that we are in tonight is really pretty but getting here was a real trick.  When we turned off the main road, the road took a steep grade up.  This was so steep that our RV had to change to 1^st gear to make it.  For the next 7 miles we climbed, descended, twisted and turned on a little one lane road.  Finally we turned down a small valley and there was the campground.  We did ask if there was another way out.  They told us yes.  What a relief. The GPS brought us in the shortest way, not the easiest.

This whole trip Jan and I have wanted to see a moose.  We have seen turkeys, chipmunks, osprey, a bald eagle, deer, a coyote, and roads covered with dead porcupines.   We have actually begun to think that the only moose are on signs

for tourists to see.

The reason we put so many miles on today was twofold.  1. There are not many campgrounds to choose from in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and lower New York.  2. We started south on Saturday and all of a sudden we could smell Cookeville and at that point the “barn horse” in each of us kicked in.