Today we awakened with absolutely no plans to do anything and we carried them out to the fullest. We enjoyed the air conditioned comfort of our trailer only venturing outside long enough to realize we wanted to go back inside. It is very hot and very humid. The air conditioners are putting out solid streams of condensate while keeping us comfortable inside our beloved cheesy palace.
We were able to establish scratchy telephone communications so we made a series of reservations for the upcoming month or so. We have found that despite our belonging to several large campground organizations which are all owned by the same entity, the process of making reservations is completely befuddling, chaotic and bizarre.
We belong to groups known as Thousand Trails, Resort Parks International, Encore and Enjoy America. It would seem to the unknowing outsider that one would call Enjoy America to make an Enjoy America campground reservation. The outsider would be two-blocked at this point because you need to actually call Resort Parks International to make an Enjoy America reservation. Thousand Trails publishes a guide which allegedly shows all the Thousand Trails campgrounds numbering some 85 in number. Actually, without bothering to tell anyone, they have included some Encore parks in their guide. Thousand Trails parks are supposed to be free to Thousand Trails elite members, like us, but that is not necessarily true because we are charged what turns out to be a pretty substantial costs for the secret Encore parks shown in the Thousand Trails guide.
To make things interesting, as Thousand Trails elite members, we get a 20% discount on Encore parks if we make the reservation through the Encore or Thousand Trails reservation agency. Strangely, if we reserve our Encore destination through Resort Parks International, we get a 30% discount on the same reservation. Thousand Trails also sent us a Ready Camp Go card which allegedly saves us some unknown amount of money if we tell whoever is on the other end of the line that we have the card. Sometimes we get a 50% reduction in cost at Encore parks using this mechanism but sometimes we don’t. To make things more challenging, if we use the RPI reservation service they charge us $2 per reservation and add the caveat that changed or cancelled reservations have a $25 fee attached to them. Therefore, if one makes a reservation through RPI and subsequently finds he/she could have realized a bigger discount using another service, any gains will be cancelled out by the $25 penalty for cancelling an RPI reservation. Simple, eh?
After staggering through this maze of mysterious turns, twists and dead ends, we were ultimately able to make reservations (possibly not getting all the discounts available) through the first of September. I hope we don’t need to cancel any of them. We should be hunky-dory all the way from Kentucky through Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and finally into Rapid City, SD.

Exploring can sometimes be fun so today we decided to do some dead reckoning and check out the surrounding area. We started on Broadhead Road which runs directly through the campground and went north. After a curvy section with lots of hills we came to another road on the map that was shown in gray. Gray means the road is crummy. We headed southwest down the gray road until we found a sign directing us to I-77 which continued south to the exit for Chamberlain.
Chamberlain has a very pretty courthouse building. It also has a Napa store where I could go do some romantic shopping for rubber gasket adhesive that we need for the Barbarian Invader. It was very sexy. Having exhausted all the sightseeing opportunities in Chamberlain, we headed east on a journey of discovery toward our campground.
There are no real cities in this part of the world and the small towns are sort of mundane but the scenery in the countryside is quite beautiful. Thanks to automotive air conditioning, we were quite happy wandering around on the rural roads checking out the scenery. I can tell you that this part of Ohio is quite hot and very humid; about 90 on both scales.
We eventually ended up in Salt Fork State Park that has lots of stuff to do for hunters and boaters. The lake water is an interesting shade of brown and we did not seem to have any inkling to hop into the lake. We wandered through the park and accidentally found an old stone building called the Kennedy Stone House. The sign at the entry to the site indicated that the house was open and the docent on site from Friday until Monday from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM and, since it is Monday, we drove Charlotte down the long, steep gravel road to the house. We bailed out to look at the attractive old stone building and root vault and, as we approached, noted an 8.5 by 11″ piece of paper stuck to the front of the house that indicated the site was not open but closed on July 27, 2015 or today. No reason was given for the closure. We wandered around the outside of the house and the root cellar and we peeked into the windows but were unable to go inside. We did find some nice benches in a shady alcove where we had a seat and watched the swallows feed their young which were nested in the open rafters. The swallows here are quite striking in appearance but not happy about us humans near their nest so we finally left.
We drove out of the park going north and found our way back to Rocky Fork RV Resort. It was still very hot so we oozed back into the Invader and turned on the air conditioning.
It is like a jungle here. The vegetation is beautiful but the weather is a bit oppressive. We finally were able to go outside the trailer into about 88 degree heat right before dark. It was then that we noted there are bunches of fireflies here. They look like little bitty shooting stars except they are going the wrong way – up. Nevertheless, they are fascinating to watch. Watching fireflies is a good activity for those that do not have a pressing agenda.

Today was a travel day and we left Jefferson, Ohio’s Kenisee Lakes TT and headed south towards Kimbolton, OH. We started south on SR-11 until we reached the area south of Colombiana where we thought we could take a shortcut on a road shown as Ohio 45. On the map, it appears to run fairly straight. In the Good Sam road atlas, it shows it as being RV-friendly. Once we got onto 45, we found it was neither RV-friendly nor straight instead becoming a narrow, serpentine track with ample opportunities for hard uphill pulls and terrifying downhill sections requiring substantial braking in order to maintain control.
After what is shown as about 10 miles but what seems like 50, we emerged onto Ohio 7 which runs south on the western shore of the Ohio River. The Ohio River in this section is an industrial waterway with locks and calm waters running adjacent to large power plants and abandoned former smokestack industries. It is not very attractive. On the side of the road away from the river, there is emerald green hardwood forests that are very nice. Just don’t look toward the river. We continued on 7 to Steubenville where we turned west on Ohio 22. 22 starts out as a very scenic limited access highway with two lanes each way divided by a green median about 50 feet wide. Regrettably, after passing west of Hopedale, the road turns into a sinuous track with no divider and narrow lanes with lots of challenging corners and steep inclines. There is nowhere to pull out to let the pissed-off drivers that inevitably collect behind our 50-foot long vehicle and home pass our babies. Passing lanes are non-existent. Losing two wheels over the edge of the pavement would be fatal.
We continued on sub-highway 22 until we got to a town called Winterset where the Garmin directed us to turn north on a steep, narrow rural road without shoulders. Later, we realized this section was the good part because after a town shown in tiny font as Birmingham, the road went to single lane gravel and mud with deep ditches along both sides. This grubby road got narrower and darker the further we went but it was way too skinny to even contemplate turning around and chickening out. After some 30 minutes of terror, we emerged onto a road with really crummy paving but it was much better than the mud. A few miles later, we arrived at Rocky Fork Ranch Resort near Kimbolton.
Our first glimpse of the place was of enormous wide spots on both sides of the road where the resort has installed a fake ghost town, some riding stables, a driving range, a paint ball complex, an archery range, a shooting range, a store, a pizza shop, tennis courts, something called a “Captain’s Club” and, if you look carefully, the office where you check-in and register for your RV space. We were assigned C-8 and were told to hop back in our rig to await the arrival of the escort who would show us to our campsite. He must have been real busy because it took a while for him to show. He finally arrived and had us follow him up a very hard pull to our site where we pulled in, set up and turned on the AC before disappearing inside our trailer to cry over today’s driving woes. Although the roads on the drive were very challenging, the scenery was quite pretty, as long as you didn’t look at the west bank of the Ohio River. Even on the horrible road and sub-road sections, it was very green and shady which is fortunate because it is about 90 degrees outside and the humidity is perched at around 90%. Thanks to our wonderful trailer manufacturer for his excellent installation of both of our air conditioning units.

Peg and I got up around 8:00 AM and fortified ourselves with coffee and maybe some Irish Creme. After sustained effort at avoiding productive work, we relented and boarded Charlotte for some cruising around the local area. We started by driving east on some little nameless roads until we reached a great roadside veggie stand where we were also delighted to find they sold fresh fruit pies. $25 worth of pie and corn and squash and plums and apple butter later, we loaded the booty into the truck and drove further west to a place called Bendelewski and Son meats in Madison. I was disgusted with myself because of a complete lack of restraint which resulted in us acquiring steak and sausage and more sausage and bacon and maybe some other meaty stuff. We then took all our loot home and stuck it in the fridge.
After securing our newly-acquired treasure, we re-boarded Charlotte for an aimless search for covered bridges. Despite not having any real idea where they were, we managed to visit not less than 5 covered bridges and spotted a couple other specimens as we drove by accidentally. They seem to be everywhere around here.
After the bridge hunt, we took off by dead reckoning headed north until we arrived on the south shore of Lake Erie. We followed the shore highway west until we reached the town of Ashtabula. Ashtabula is a little port town with a small harbor that appears to handle mostly bulk coal. They were loading a freighter at the docks. We drove around town a bit, admiring the gorgeous houses before heading south on Hwy 11 back towards our campsite.
Ashtabula County has a bunch of Amish types that move about on the roads by horse-drawn carriage or wagons. Their horses are big, healthy draft animals like Percherons and Clydesdales since these folks use their animals to pull farm equipment like plows and harrows. In addition, this county may also be one of the pothole capitals of the world, at least on the rural roads. In combination, these two characteristics result in a conditions regularly presented to drivers of being forced to quickly choose between allowing your wheels to be plunged into an enormous, yawning hole in the road or running over an enormous pile of shit.
On the way home we ran by what would be a real novelty in California – a drive-in beer and wine store where you can pick up a half case of shandy or ale without even shutting off the engine. What an excellent concept. We pulled in and got some tobacco for me and shandy for Peg. Unfortunately, they had no porter. A crisis may develop if we don’t find some soon.

This was a travel day so Peg and I saddled up at Niagara’s Hartland and boogied for Jefferson, OH. The first 15 miles going south on Gasport Road and then turning east on Hwy 93 until we reached Hwy 78 was conquered quickly. Once we got on south 78, also foolishly called Transit Road, we foundered. Transit Road or 78 southbound is a section of highway apparently engineered by fiends whose only purpose in life is to foul up traffic by making sure nobody can drive through two sequential sets of lights without stopping for nothing. Our second twenty miles today took one hour and twenty minutes, giving an average speed on this primary arterial road of 15 miles per hour.
We stupidly continued down 78 until we made it to Hwy 20 where we turned west. Only 10 or 15 miles of periodic, hidden traffic signals and we broke clear of the giant, confused suburbia surrounding Buffalo. It was smooth sailing westbound and we zoomed onto Hwy 5 until we hit the Pennsylvania line. Here we hopped on I-90 west to Ohio, continuing until we went southbound on a road called 45 that promptly delivered us to our destination of Kenisee Lakes, a TT campground just south of Jefferson, OH.
The campground is quite large with full hookups but lousy wi-fi and no TV reception over the antenna as fibbed about by park staff. The sites are big with ample space between RVs and folks seem pretty happy here. We got set up in a great level spot with some shade and settled down for some congratulatory porter.
It was a long haul today for us driving wimps so we barbecued some steak and retired to the trailer for some movies and loafing.

Today was not nearly as exciting as yesterday. It was laundry day. When we initially headed over to the Niagara Hartland RV Resort laundry facility, there were not enough machines available to process our clothes heap so we did a little exploring. We found important stuff like liquor stores and a place where I could get some tobacco, both tasks that are remarkably difficult in New York state. Liquor stores only show up about twice per county and the few places selling tobacco were engaged in some kind of conspiracy and did not sell my brand. I might have to quit if I am ever dumb enough to move here.
While driving around, we found a little town called Jeddo which we had to stop in since it seemed to have my name. We shot a few pix and Peggy quizzed some of the locals about the origin of the town’s name. Unfortunately, the locals ran an antiques store and Peg went in to get a copy of a newspaper article and emerged quite some time later with a wooden thingy they sold her for $40.
We made it back to the Invader only about $100 poorer where we processed the laundry, cooked up a steak dinner, dumped the Invader’s tanks and made preparations for our trip out of this weird state and into Ohio, another state we have never seen before.

Aaaah! The secret benefits of living in RV parks. We were awakened this morning by the sound of our considerate neighbors’ backup alarm as he prepared to leave. He was nice enough to leave his rig in reverse long enough for all the locals to appreciate the fine tone of his beeping alarm and diesel engine rumble before putting his noisemaker in Park and idling while he and his spouse had a committee meeting about how to attach his car to the back of his coach. After about 10 minutes of motor noise, their quorum made some motions, seconded them, took a couple of votes, and published the results and then moved their vehicle 20 feet forward without bothering to shut off their throbbing diesel motor. Then they augmented the sound of their large diesel engine idling with the sound of their car sneaking up on their coach’s rear bumper. After considerable discussion about the mysteries and confusion associated with towing a small car behind a noisy coach, they attempted to align their car with the connection points on their coach which only required two more meetings and three quorum calls. Some 20 minutes later, the clever folks were finally able to board their chariot, slam the doors a half dozen times and ultimately pull forward in their noisemaker more than 50 yards to the office where more idling took place. Not too much later, the Katzenjammer Ancients left and silence again reigned over the land.
We were wide awake by the time they finally departed so we started up the coffee pot, opened the windows on a gorgeous day and I started incinerating breakfast for the both of us. I fired off the water heater and we sat down to consume our morning repast. Showers followed and we were finally ready for our trip to Niagara Falls.
The drive to Niagara from our campsite in Hartland was an easy drive down Hwy 104 until we hit the Robert Moses Parkway which takes drivers a bit south to the town of Niagara Falls. Folks here have a little trouble pronouncing their Rs and they say the name of the road is the Wobuht Moses Pockway which is closer to reality than they might know. The Pockway is liberally pockmarked with potholes, faults and poor road maintenance highlights that make for some challenging driving for those trying to maintain their steering alignment and expensive tires. Ultimately the Pockway delivers the dumb tourists, like us, to a thoroughly confusing labyrinth of downtown streets with so many signs directing the uninitiated to locations of places with names that make you think you may be approaching Niagara Falls State Park but actually trapping you in mazes intended to take your money before getting to the Park. We asked a guy who looked official (because he was wearing an OSHA-approved personal high-visibility vest) where we should go and he sent us to a parking structure where it only cost $15 to park. All the state park lots were full, of course.
After parking and climbing down one of the filthiest staircases I have ever waded through we emerged onto the sidewalk into the tourist hell surrounding the Park. Some ten minutes later, we had oriented ourselves on a map we had cleverly remembered to bring along and set off on the three block stroll to Niagara Falls State Park. Once in the park, we found the tourist info center and ticket booth for Park attractions and purchased $38 passes that allowed us to go to all the good stuff in the Park.
First we went to the observation tower and got a spectacular view from above of both American Falls and Horseshoe Falls, the section on the Canadian side of an island splitting the river before it plunges over the edge. From the observation tower we rode down an elevator and boarded the Maid of the Mist which is a medium-sized diesel powered boat with enough room for maybe 150 people. They pushed off from the dock and drove us initially toward American Falls where half the river plunges over the edge onto a big pile of boulders. Believe me – this river is open for business and the sight is terrific. They issue plastic ponchos to all who want them and that is probably a good thing because the volume of water hitting the rocks raises quite a cloud of water which the boat passes through getting everybody wet.
The next part was even better. From American Falls the boat heads over to Horseshoe Falls which is even bigger than American. It is about a third of a mile over to Horseshoe and there is so much water coming over and plunging into the pool that the boat, despite running full throttle upstream, stalls because it can’t go any closer due to the amount of water headed downstream. They hold the boat in the stream for a while before winging over and letting the boat go downstream which it does in a hurry.
The sight of these two torrents plunging over the edge and turning the pool into a turbulent rapid is about the most awe-inspiring thing I have ever witnessed. I am hard-pressed to find adequate superlatives to describe the beauty and power of this place, particularly when seen from the bottom.
We were delivered back to the dock and headed back up the elevator to the observation deck where we found some very well-used and fragrant restrooms before continuing. We boarded a shuttle after too long waiting in line and rode over to Goat Island that splits the Niagara River right before they jump over the cliff. We then disembarked and went to something they call Cave of the Winds. After another elevator ride to the lower pool and being issued another plastic poncho we strolled towards the attraction. There are neat wood walkways that take soon-to-be-wet funseekers right up close to the rock pile the American Falls land on. Some of the walkway sections have sections where the cascading water overwhelms the walkways so they offer water sandals to all visitors that they let you keep if you want them. They even have little printed sections that say “Cave of the Winds” on the side. One weird thing about this particular attraction – there is no cave. It apparently collapsed back in the 1920s but they forgot to mention this tidbit before sending the suckers down the elevators and onto the walkways. It is still pretty neat to get right up to the Falls; it is within arm’s reach to the water zinging by at about 150 miles per hour.
We finished up here, lost our ponchos and headed back up the elevator before getting in another very slow moving line to re-board the very infrequent and partially filled shuttle back to the visitor center. If you are going to visit this place, piss on the shuttle and walk because it isn’t that far and it is much faster than riding the shuttle. The shuttle also has some of the worst suspension imaginable so it is rough on the back and knees.
At the visitor center we waltzed into a movie with a stupid name I can’t remember and watched about a 30 minute presentation about crazy people who have attempted to survive a trip over the Falls. One kid in a life jacket who was riding in a dinghy with a defective motor that capsized in the upper rapids made it although the boat driver paid the ultimate price for buying an Evinrude instead of a Mercury. An old lady made it over with her cat while crammed into a barrel with a bunch of mattresses. A few other daredevils and nincompoops have also made it but the success rate is very low claiming the lives of some 55 idiots.
We were amazed by the power and majesty of the Falls but unimpressed with New York’s operation of the State Park. We rambled back over to our parking structure and departed the area around the Falls. Within about six blocks, we drove into a horrible dungheap of a neighborhood which was populated by desperate-looking people sitting on the porches of houses that appeared to be condemnable without even bothering to go inside. The streets were heavily cratered, some houses were burned out but undemolished, flashy cars with big shiny wheels and almost invisible tires loomed at us from the oncoming lane with loud bass tones emanating from their windows that even the deaf could hear. I would not want to drive through this city after dark.
We finally made it back to the Invader after stopping to buy a portable icemaker and a trip to Trader Joe’s in Buffalo. Niagara Falls is worth all the headaches you will encounter on the way in and out of town. The Falls are truly magnificent and should be on everyone’s bucket list. If I was to make a suggestion here – go to Niagara Falls State Park, check out the Falls from the observation tower and ride the Maid of the Mist. It is an overwhelming experience that is not available anywhere else we have ever been.

We packed up our stuff and left Brennan Beach in Pulaski, NY, and continued driving west to Gasport, NY, which is near Niagara Falls. Our trip today was almost all on Hwy 104 and it is a very nice drive through rolling hills and farmland. We passed through Rochester, where Kodak made film for about 100 years but they have shriveled up considerably since the creation of digital cameras which do not require film. Their factory is an enormous old gob of brick buildings that extend along both sides of the highway for about 1/2 a mile. Rochester has a bunch of traffic lights cleverly timed to operate in such a way that those of us pulling trailers through town are rewarded with long views of town and the abandoned Kodak facilities while waiting for red lights to allow us to continue on our way. There is no bypass road. Outside Rochester Hwy 104 is in fair shape most of the way and driving through was uneventful but very pretty.
We checked into a campground called Niagara’s Hartland (sic) which may be in a heartland but really is not very close to Niagara Falls. They are about 35 or 40 miles west and we will give them a sniff tomorrow. We decided to head down the road to check out the local area and we drove initially to Lockport, NY. Lockport has some neat old buildings but it appears there used to be a lot of industry here in the past. Now there are a bunch of unused industrial buildings that seem to have lots of broken windows. Once in Lockport, we realized we had forgotten the camera so we drove the 20 miles back to Niagara’s Hartland where we recovered the camera before setting out again.
From camp we then went to a place called Gordie Harper’s Bazaar, which was advertised as a restaurant along with a bunch of craft shops so we had to take a look. Normally when we go places like this the food is pretty good but this place was the exception. I ordered the fish plate which came with soup, fries and a big hunk of beer battered fish. The soup was alright and the fries were okay but the enormous chunk of beer battered fish was only nominal, particularly when coupled with the Kraft pre-packaged tartar sauce. Peg chose the fried chicken which also came with soup and green beans. Peg offered me some of the chicken and, fortunately, it was a small piece because it seemed the powder-dry meat had been thoroughly vulcanized somehow giving it a pencil eraser-like consistency that made it almost inedible. Peg stated the green beans, despite being served in a restaurant located in the middle of a region of extensive farming, seemed to be canned and also nominal. To cap this experience off, the waitress seemed unable to remember anything, like what you ordered to eat or drink and she also exhibited an arithmetic acumen when totaling up the bill that was frightening. Her tip was not thrilling.
After a quick foray through the rest of the Bazaar (Bizarre?) and finding nothing of value, we departed. Next on the agenda was a search for diesel since we want to travel to Niagara tomorrow. It seems diesel is a product with scant demand in this farm community amply supplied with diesel farm equipment because we were challenged by our efforts to find someone who had fuel for sale. After the first 20 minute drive, we arrived at a diesel distributor who was closed when we arrived at 7:00 PM, maybe because he had been killed by the food at the Bazaar. We then took another long foray over roads that looked startlingly familiar until we found another station that was only about half an hour from our campground. This vendor, fortunately, had sufficient fuel that we were able to pump into our tanks such that we did not need to be concerned that we would be unable to leave town. We found our way from this remote location back to Niagara’s Hartland where we chickened out on further exploration and rolled into the Invader for sleep.

We woke up late and kicked off the day with coffee and Irish Creme. Afterwards we hopped into Charlotte and initiated our explorations for today by driving through the campground to recon the area. A portion of the campground borders Lake Ontario so we gave that a sniff first. When you find an access to the beach between all the “seasonals” you emerge to the edge of the lake and find there really isn’t much of a beach at Brennan Beach in spite of the name. The water in the Lake near the edge is sort of a murky brown color so swimming seemed right out. Looking east along the south shore reveals a long curving coastline with emerald green foliage that is quite beautiful. Looking west you are treated to a nice view of a nuclear reactor with an enormous cooling tower with big clouds of steam emanating from the top.
Abandoning our campground reconnaissance, we drove southwest along the shore of Lake Ontario and found another nuclear reactor and some big power plants generating power by burning something. We continued until we reached Oswego, NY, which is a nice city with lots of gorgeous architecture. The roads are shit but the scenery in this part of the world is great. We popped into a War of 1812-era fort on the shore of the lake and noted that the Corps of Engineers was rebuilding the breakwaters which protect Oswego from certain death in the winter. I imagine the lake freezes here, at least along the shoreline. In any event, the Corps was placing big concrete things that look like enormous jacks or anchors along with giant boulders in an attempt to replace sections of the old breakwater that was very porous and exhibited large gaps.
We found our miserable phone service works in Oswego so we made some campground reservations and chatted with Dana, our daughter, back in San Diego. It is always nice to hear the kids since we do not see them while traveling. We headed back towards our campsite from Oswego on Hwy 104 which only had one 10 mile long detour before returning to the Invader. The drive through the countryside here is very nice with great scenery but rotten paving. We spotted numerous New Yorkers on the way back. They were almost all uglier than me, some by a substantial margin. However, some of them have neat old cars.

Today was a travel day so we left the camp spot with about the best view imaginable and the crummy neighbors and drove to Pulaski, NY, where we checked into an RV campground called Brennan Beach. Brennan Beach is a gigantic RV campground with maybe 1500 spaces although about 75% of them are filled with what they call “seasonal” installations. A “seasonal” is a camp spot with an RV parked on it that never moves. The season here is spring, summer and autumn because it is about 30 below in the winter and nobody bothers going through leagues of snow and frozen icy roads to visit their RV in February.
The part of the campground where we stayed is for transient folks like us who stay from one day to two or three weeks before leaving for the next spot. Brennan Beach has full hook-ups and cable TV but the phone service with our dreadful Sprint system is non-existent. The campground portion where we were is quite pretty with lots of shade trees and grass everywhere. Most of the folks left today because it is Sunday and they have to work so we had lots of room around our campsite without neighbors. The only neighbor we did have near us was from the Office of Emergency Services, a part of Homeland Security. There must not have been any emergencies because I did not see him go anywhere today. He just hung out next to his RV and read magazines. We were pretty happy that is all he did instead of there being an emergency and having him respond in regular Homeland Security fashion by looking up our butts before shooting us. On the news we heard that there were a bunch of tornadoes in Kansas and we were puzzled why he wasn’t there helping out with the chaos. Maybe it was out of his jurisdiction.