G&T's Excellent Adventure

A lot going on: retirement, Gary’s birthday and the start of a two-month trip.

We were able to get work completed, pack up for a two-month trip, and leave when we had hoped to… despite a late start to spring in the Northeast, an unexpected furnace problem on the RV, and a re-occurrence of Kya’s chronic bronchitis.

The furnace problem was fixed in a day. It helped that it’s off-season in New England and the RV repair place was able to fit us in so quickly. (Thank you Paul for the recommendation! They were awesome!) We’re learning that RV repairs are expensive. The part was $150, the labor was 5 hours… $675 later we were fixed.

Kya was diagnosed with chronic bronchitis about a month ago and we’ve been trying different meds to figure out what works. It’s a work in progress. Prednisone eliminated the symptoms but left her peeing like a sieve. Not helpful when we’re starting a road trip. The morning we were leaving she was having symptoms again so we contacted the vet and ran around for 2 hours locating the meds. Naturally our local pharmacy didn’t have the bronchial dilator pills so we had to travel 30 minutes to pick them up. 24 pills and $90 later we were set. As it turns out, since we’ve been on the road, Kya is almost symptom free. Maybe she’s allergic to our house…

Monday, April 9th we left home around 11am and traveled down to Uncasville, CT to camp at Mohegan Sun, the Indian casino. Gary comes by his gambling gene honestly. His mom loved the slots. Gary enjoys blackjack, and he wanted to do that on his birthday, the 10th. We were able to camp for free at Mohegan Sun. It’s our first experience at dry camping (parking lot) but it overlooks the Thames River and is virtually empty this time of year. We shared the space with about six other campers. There are security cameras, lights and Mohegan Sun security makes the rounds regularly, plus there is a shuttle bus that takes you to the casino. We were there for 2 nights. Gary played blackjack the second day. I joined him playing after his birthday dinner and we played together for a while. I’m not particularly good so when I asked “what should I do?” I got in stereo from Gary and the other two people at the table, what I should do. It was pretty funny. I was playing with Gary’s money and even with my less-than-stellar-play, he ended up about $250 ahead for the evening.

The weather was cold! And we had no hook-ups so heat came from our propane, and lights came from the battery power. We do have a generator, which we haven’t used just yet. There was a glaze of ice on Wed. morning, the 11th. We waited for that to melt and departed around 10AM for a campground outside the Philadelphia area.

Travel in the northeast is lots of trucks and lots of traffic. A little stressful… we stopped in a rest area in Stamford, CT and we landed in an “Authorized Vehicle only” area. Oops. Had to back out of that. Luckily we weren’t too far in, but it took us a few tries to back out anyway.  Then we had to back into a parking space in the same rest area. What the heck! As Gary said, we get a little back-in practice. Always an adventure!

We landed at the South Philadelphia KOA in Clarksboro, NJ at about 3:30 on Wed., April 11th. Busy campground. It’s one of the few open year round in this area. There are the snowbirds traveling back north and there were some full time transient workers here as well. But, the campground is well kept and there’s a pond and geese, which means there’s goose poop, which is one of Kya’s favorites and doesn’t sit well in her tummy. Kind of like me and sushi. TMI?

Thursday, April 12th, we headed into Philadelphia for the day! Weather was in the low 60’s, which was a treat. We were able to take a train. Mass transit is such a fun novelty when you don’t use it every day! Riding the train… feeling like a city mouse, rather than a country mouse. Very cool! We started out with the Liberty Bell. It’s free (a bonus) and the line was short on a Thursday. There are kiosks to educate you along the way. At the time the bell was made, the materials used for metal making, were not the best. It suffered hairline cracks early on, was repaired, and then cracked again…. wider this time and that stopped the ringing. It was smaller than I anticipated. I expected it to be twice the size it was, although it weighs 2,000 pounds, so not a lightweight. The “crack” is approx. 1/2” wide and 24.5 inches long. The circumference around the lip (widest part) of the bell is 12 ft. and the height is about 5 ft. But realizing the history behind this bell was humbling and reading the information in the kiosks brought tears to my eyes.

The Liberty Bell is in the historic district and surrounded by Independence Hall and other historic buildings where the Declaration of Independence was signed. We needed tickets to be able to enter some of the historic buildings. They were sold out and unavailable. We opted instead for a Hop On-Hop Off bus and got a 90 minute tour of the city. We saw all the different neighborhoods in Philly, including amazing architecture, where the wealthy call home, Chinatown, the waterfront and the famous steps leading up to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, made famous by Sly Stallone in Rocky. There was also a statue of Rocky, which was donated by Sylvester Stallone, and grudgingly accepted by the Art Museum who thought it wasn’t worthy. But, since it brought a ton of tourists to the steps of their museum, they relented. The tour guide was interesting and shared lots of tidbits:

• Philadelphia has the second largest student population in the country, after Boston.
• William Penn introduced the concept of religious freedom and Philadelphia was the first in the nation to embrace the concept.
• There is a statue at the top of City Hall, which is the largest statute on top of any building in the world. It’s of William Penn and stands 37 feet high.
• The Chinese Friendship Gate at the entrance of Chinatown stands 40 ft tall and is held together with no glue, nails, etc. …. just craftsmanship.

We headed back to the campground thinking Kya was probably ready to have a pee break, and figured we’d come back into town tomorrow to continue with sightseeing. We had a pleasant evening and sat outside in the late afternoon and enjoyed the mild temps.

Friday, April 13th

During the night Kya’s tummy let loose with the goose poop. At about 3:30 in the morning Gary and I are having a very serious conversation in the middle of the living room, worthy of open heart surgery, discussing the best way to get said poop off the carpet in oh-so-many-places. We settled for wearing blue throw-away gloves, and used paper plates, paper towels, warm sudsy water and sponges to clean up the mess. Kya blissfully slept through the whole thing. 40 minutes later we were back in bed. We decided to ditch the plan of going into the city today since we didn’t want to leave Kya. We opted for a quiet day instead and hoped her tummy would settle down. Luckily it seems to have done so. It’s about 80 degrees and sunny! We’re taking advantage and sitting outside and enjoying it. A treat since it was still quite winter-like at home when we left.

We figure we’ll be stopping at this campground again on future trips so we’ll have the opportunity to visit Philadelphia again and see some of the things that we missed this go around.

Tomorrow we head on to Assateague Island National Seashore in Maryland.