NAPLES, ME: Another Week, Another KOA

 We're behind on the blog, but we'll catch up as we can.  As always, click on the pictures for better detail.

Sunday, Sept 13: Our short drive from Fryeburg, ME to Naple, ME was only about 28 miles. The town's website says:

"Naples is one of the most picturesque small towns in Western Maine surrounded by Maine nature at its finest. Located in the center of southern Maine's Lake Region, Naples has a wealth of opportunities for recreation year-round. Visitors are drawn to the Naples Causeway on Long Lake & Brandy Pond where they find lots of fun activities by day, then spectacular sunsets and bustling nightlife at restaurants and pubs". 

Many of the restaurants and pubs are closed for the season, so the area is more quiet this time of year.

 

 This is the main road through Naples (Hwy 302) with Long Lake in the background.  The Songo River Queen, an old-fashioned riverboat, can be seen leaving the dock for a lake tour.

Looking north at Long Lake with the White Mountains of New Hampshire in the background.
















We picked the Naples KOA Campground as our home for a week because of  the good online reviews, especially concerning the owners, the free WiFi and cable TV.  We were not disappointed.  A lot of the prepared food they sell is homemade, including bread.  They also offer Passport America discounts for several nights, and the last two nights of our stay were a KOA 'buy one get one free" promotion.  When we arrived, the owner let us use his golf cart to pick out our site. We chose A-13 at one end of the campground in a quiet area.

 Monday, Sept. 14,  was a day to start catching up on laundry and computer work.

Tuesday, Sept. 15,  we explored some of the area.  We also had friendly neighbors move in on our driver's side

Wednesday, Sept. 16, Hank spent most of the day working on Selene's computer which had issues after downloading new updates. On the recommendation of some local people, we went to The Galley for supper - a rustic grill on the edge of town, popular with the locals and serving good food.

Thursday, we went on a drive to Portland, about 30   to the southeast.   At one edge of the waterfront is Fort Allen  Park - a very scenic area overlooking Casco Bay.




 Boats of all sizes can be seen from small pleasure boats to large cargo ships.














 A small schooner is dwarfed by a large freighter.












Here's examples of some of the beautiful homes facing the park and the bay. Not sure if they're private homes or bed and breakfast establishments.

 As we entered the Victorian style wharf area, with restored buildings containing shops and restaurants, we saw the Serenade of the Seas at the dock, one of several cruise ships that come into port.

 We also visited neaby Cape Elizabeth which has another beautiful park on the waterfront as well as the Portland Head Light,, one of the oldest lighthouses in continuous use in the country.

Our return trip took us through parts of Falmouth, Gray and Windham.

Saturday, Sept. 19 was an early Halloween celebration since the campground closes in mid-October, as many other  campgrounds do in this part of the county.  The day was full of family activities, including an hour of trick or treating at 4:30 P.M. and a Haunted Walk from 8-9 P.M. in the woods behind our campsite. 

This was another great week in a part of Maine,where it seems that almost every home has at least one boat, and chowder is on every menu!

PICTURE UPDATE FROM HENDERSON, NY

Here are pictures from the 1000 Island KOA in Henderson, NY that we didn't post due to upload speed issues when we were there.

When we arrived, there weren't very many RV's in our area.  This was our view of Lake Huron.  The white buildings on the right are a couple of the cabins that were available












We had a good view of the sunsets, and as darkness set in,we enjoyed watching other campers enjoying their campfires.

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WILSON , NY: Picture Updates

  Here are some of the pictures we couldn't load before due to slow download speeds.

Wilson, NY  - View from the lake end of the Daisy Barn Campground

Wilson, NY -  The weekend brought out plenty of sailboats and fishing boats.

Wilson, NY  - Cargo ship with the Toronto skyline in the background.

Alexandria Bay -  Large tanker crossed our path with little cargo since it's sitting high in the water
Su
nsets were spectacular

FRYEBURG & NAPLES, ME: The Blog Will be Updated.....

We had a wonderful time the during the last 5 days in Fryeburg, ME at the Good Sam Maine Samboree. The schedule was full of activities and we had limited WiFi access, so that's why there's been no posts for a while.  Today we moved to Naples, ME where we'll be for a week, with good, free WiFi.  Hope to get the blog caught up in a day or two.

RANDOLPH CENTER, VT: Back in the Mountains

Wednesday, Sept. 2: We packed things away, pulled up the jacks, hooked up the car and drove over the causeway to the mainland, leaving views of Lake Ontario in the rear view mirror. It was time to head to new places and new views.

After a lunch stop, our plan was to stop near Sarasota Springs and spend the night at the local Walmart.  Upon arrival, we found out that this Walmart no longer allows overnight RV or truck parking due to local ordinances, so it was time to move to Plan B.  Hank was ready to keep going all the way to our next stop - Randolph Center, VT.  Selene called the campground and they said we were only about 3 hours away and to come on in.  After a fuel stop and a stop at the Vermont Welcome Center,  we headed into the Green Mountains of Vermont and arrived at the campground about 6:30 P.M. after almost 8 hours on the road.  We enjoyed the change in topography, and Little House handled the occasional steep grades on two-lane roads with no problems.

We're at the Lake Champagne Campground, one mile off of I-89 in Randolph Center, VT., about 20 miles south of Montpelier.  It's a beautiful place in a valley with terraced levels of campsites so you don't have anyone parked right in front of you to spoil the mountain views.  The facilities are well-kept and the area is quiet. This is the view in front of us from left to right.

Thursday was a day to relax and catch up on some chores, as well as a Walmart outing to Barre, VT  15 miles to the north .  We took back roads on the return trip to the campground, just enjoying the mountain views.

Friday was a day for sightseeing, but before we left, we met the neighbors on our driver's side - Jim & Corrine -seasonal RVers from Spencerport, NY - and had a nice conversation with them. The four of us are members of RVillage.com,  a website that lets other members know where you are, and and allows you to know if there are RVillagers in your current campground.  Then we drove to, and around, the Stowe, VT area about 50 miles away.




The cleared areas on the hillsides are ski trails.  Use your imagination to picture deep snow all around and skiers enjoying the slopes.




We found the Trapp Lodge Resort.  The  VonTrapp family (made famous by the movie The Sound of Music) is still represented in the operation of the facility.  Room rates start at about $250 per night.





The main building of the resort.  There are multiple other guesthouses and cabins.

The view from the parking lot in front of the main building.







We wanted to find a lunch spot,, but many of the restaurants in the area were closed or only open for dinner.  This is the slow time for the area, since winter sports are the main draw.  We ended up at Piecasso sharing a good New York style pizza.

Our next stop was  the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream factory in Waterbury Center, VT.  The 20 minutes tour costs $3 for seniors, $4 for adults and includes a short film on the history of the company, viewing the production line area as the packaging process is described, and a stop in the tasting room for a free sample.  Our sample was chocolate chip cookie in vanilla ice cream and it was very good.  There is the usual gift shop selling different souvenirs and  apparel, and an outside ice cream bar where you can purchase your favorite treat.

Our next visit was to Montpelier, the capital of Vermont.  It's not a large town, but has an impressive capital building with a guilded dome.
  
  The downtown area was full of people enjoying the many shops and restaurants.

We continued to Berlin, VT for prescription pickups at CVS.  One of the clerks recommended a Chinese buffet not far away, and that's where we had supper before heading back to the campground as dusk settled in.  All in all, it was an enjoyable and beautiful day in a very scenic part of the USA.

The weekend has been spent enjoying our surroundings and watching the activities in the full campground. We continue to find more reminders that we're in the north - signs for snowplow turnaround areas, thin rods on top of fire plugs and taller mile markers to show above the snow levels, and you can't miss the numerous moose warning signs (haven't seen a moose yet).  Two people have said we have a southern accent - that was news to us! The days have been beautiful, although much warmer than normal, but the nights cool down quickly when the sun sets over the mountain tops.

We'll be here until Wednesday when we head to Maine.

HENDERSON, NY: A Little Further North

Wednesday, August 26:  We left the Wilson NY area about 11:30 A.M. and drove 255 miles to  1000 Islands/ Association Island KOA in Henderson, NY.  This large campground is on a 65 acre island in eastern Lake Ontario.  Included are a marina, many cabins, beautiful sunrises and sunsets, and almost every campsite has at least a partial view of the water. This is a popular family campground with many activities for kids. Lakeside sites cost $75 per night.  We opted for a regular  site 4 rows back for $32 per night and we still have a nice view of the lake.

While we're in our current location at the 1000 Islands KOA in Henderson NY, we won't be adding pictures to our blog posts. The free Wi-Fi is not good enough to handle the transfer of pictures in a timely matter.  Our Verizon monthly billing period has just started, so we don't want to use a lot of those gigabytes right now by transferring pictures.  Therefore, our blog posts will not have pictures we've taken until we get to  Vermont on Sept. 3, where the grass is greener and the  free WiFi is reported to be  much better. We'll see how that turns out and hope to catch up with pictures then.

Friday, August 28:  This was another sightseeing day.  We drove an hour north to Alexandria Bay and the Thousand Islands area.  Uncle Sam Boat Tours offers several excursions on the St. Lawrence River. We chose the 2 Nation Tour - a 2 1/4 hour outing around many of the islands, learning some of the area history, and seeing many millionaires' homes.  We even added Canada to our list of places visited as the boat cruised in Canadian waters for part of the tour - no passport needed as long as you stay on a USA boat.  As we headed back to the marina, we were treated to an up close view of a large cargo ship as it crossed right in front of us.  Our return trip to Henderson took us through Watertown, NY where we stopped for an early dinner and some Walmart shopping.

Tomorrow (Monday) we're driving 30 miles south to meet up with Kathy & John.  We met at Tom Johnson's Camping Center  last summer while our two coaches were being repaired, and we've kept in touch over the past year, hoping our paths would cross again.

During the rest of our stay, we enjoyed the campground activity around us while looking at the lake in front of us. The weather should remain nice, although much warmer temperatures are in the forecast for this week.  We'll be here until Wednesday, Sept. 2 when we head east toward Vermont.

WILSON, NY: Time for Updates, Part 2

The rest of our time at Daisy Barn Campground was most enjoyable with beautiful weather, pleasant conversations with residents, and Hank even played some pool.  It was the perfect place for relaxation or getting chores done.  Of course, most of our 'chores' involve computer time, so there's not a lot of physical labor. Staying in one place for a week or so works out well - time to explore and plenty of time with our computers.