Monday, April 15th
We headed out of the D.C. area after morning rush hour so traffic wasn’t too bad. We traveled about 225 miles to Mohegan Sun Pocono, a casino in Wilkes Barre, PA. It was a night of “dry” camping, which means we had no hook-ups like water, electric or sewer. We’re camping in a parking lot. But, it’s free… if you don’t count my husband’s gambling. Plus we’re self contained with water, battery power, a generator, and propane. For those unfamiliar with the RV lifestyle, thanks to a wondrous thing called holding tanks, we can even use the bathroom! Life is good.
We both wandered over to the casino. Me to poke around in the shops, and Gary to play a little blackjack. Our family can’t afford two of us gambling so I don’t take part. I headed back to the camper and let Gary gamble. He came back to report that he had won $300! Woohoo.
We had dinner in our tiny home and watched some TV thanks to my iPhone and an HDMI cable hooked up to our TV.
Tuesday, April 16th
We headed off for another 225+ mile ride to Mohegan Sun in CT. Another night of dry camping in a parking lot but this one overlooks the Thames River. A lovely view, and it’s free. Can’t complain.
The difference with this Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT is that it is absolutely gorgeous! Beautiful interior design throughout the entire complex and a large Chihuly glass sculpture on display in the shopping area. I checked out the shops and appreciated the unique design elements in the complex with the waterfalls, lighting etc, and left Gary to play some blackjack. He came back in time for dinner and to report that he had lost what he had won the night before. He was basically “even” as of now. Not bad. We had dinner in our tiny home and had a quiet night.
Wednesday, April 17th
We didn’t have far to go today. Only about 90 miles to a campground near Patriot Place in Massachusetts. The plan was to head over to Mohegan Sun and enjoy their breakfast buffet since we weren’t in a rush to leave. While I was getting dressed I heard a loud noise and realized that it was only getting louder. Gary had already headed outside, and I joined him. It was a helicopter coming in for a landing just on the other side of the parking lot. Not a sight you see very often! I grabbed a pair of binoculars, and we proceeded to do a little spying. Shortly thereafter the shuttle bus pulls up in front of us with me spying on the helicopter with my binoculars. Not cool. But I shrugged, and she laughed. She admitted that she was new, only a few weeks on the job, and was surprised to see the helicopter as well. She checked her cheat sheet and there were no big wigs scheduled to be coming in. We chatted for a few minutes then she headed off, and I went inside to continue with hair and makeup and left Gary in charge of the binoculars and the spying.
The pilot had finally killed the engine and the blades stopped whirring. We caught the next shuttle bus over to the casino for breakfast, and just about then we saw the high roller role up for his chopper ride in his chauffeur driven car. Must be nice.
Breakfast was excellent. Then we took the shuttle bus back over to where our tiny home was parked. We had the newbie driver we had been chatting with earlier. Nice woman. Single mom with a special needs son who has a learning disability that he’s outgrowing. Her foster son had just died in November from stage 4 cancer who also happened to be her son’s best friend. The boys had a dream of opening a restaurant together. Her son took his friend’s death hard but now he, too, was working at Mohegan and would soon be promoted to doing kitchen prep. Her son had taken the attitude that he now had to live for both of them. Talk about taking a bad experience and making something good out of it. I said you must be very proud of your son. She said I am and teared up. Sweet. Love these little interactions we run across occasionally with random strangers. People are pretty awesome.
We hooked up the truck and headed out to Normandy Farms Family Camping Resort. The campground is privately owned and has been in the same family since 1759. The story goes that Francis Daniels was born in Normandy, France. When he was of age, he joined the French Army. While in the army, he was taken ill and was on a ship being sent home when said ship was captured by a Colonial privateer and brought to Boston, MA. Thru a series of events, he ended up working for a wealthy family in Wrentham and was deeded 53 acres of land after he had worked off his boat passage. There is in fact a record of the deed in Wrentham so this is a true story. The 53 acres have grown and are now the Normandy Farms Camping Resort and the 7th, 8th and 9th generations of the Daniels family are now running it. Quite the family legacy. Normandy Farms is considered one of the top campgrounds in the country by several sources. But campgrounds are a bit like art… it’s all in the eye of the beholder.
This is a huge campground located near Gillette Stadium where the Patriots play. We arrived in under two hours to a packed campground. It’s school vacation week in MA. This is what happens when you don’t have kids. You’re clueless about these things! We had a pull thru site not far from the ball fields. Twas a tad noisy with screaming kids…. at least they were screaming for a good reason and not a bad reason. It was a lovely day so I sat outside reading and enjoyed the mild weather. Gary opted to stay indoors and enjoy the peace and quiet.
Thursday, April 18th
The purpose of us being here is to visit Patriot Place, and more specifically the Patriots Hall of Fame. Also through a little research, I learned that there is a Bass Pro Shop at Patriot Place and behind that is a 7 acre cranberry bog owned and maintained by Oceanspray with a nature trail going around the whole thing. Cool!
Oh the difference a day makes. Today was cool (forget cool… it was cold) with rain threatening. A good day to be indoors. We headed over to the Patriots Hall of Fame, which was only about four miles from the campground. Unlike D.C. things here are not free… but the entry fee was actually reasonable into the HOF. Kraft and company did a very good job with it. Not surprising, there’s a 15 minute film which talks about the history of the Patriots and how awesome they are. One of our favorite displays was vintage (mid 1970’s) handwritten scouting reports on different players around the league including some quarterbacks. Very cool.
A surprising moment came when we stopped to check out a special tabletop display manned by a Patriot Place employee and another gentleman standing next to him. There was a pair of used player shoes on the table among other things. As it turned out the gentleman had worked for Reebok as a signing agent for players back in the early 2000’s. I mentioned to them that Gary used to work for Nike and had been a footwear designer and that started an interesting conversation about footwear. Both men were asking Gary some questions about how the shoe is constructed so Gary gave a mini lesson. Both men enjoyed it, but particularly the Patriot guy. He had a big grin on his face and put his hand out to shake Gary’s hand as we were getting ready to move on. A fun experience.
Also on display were the AFC Championship trophies and, of course, the Super Bowl trophies, and the rings. Only trophy and ring not on display were last year’s.
There was also a copy of the $15,000,000 check that Robert Kraft wrote in January 1994 as part of the purchase of the Patriots. It was in stark contrast to the $25,000 check written in November of 1959 when the team was first established. They were originally known as the Boston Patriots.
There were some neat fan experience kinds of things on display…. a warming bench, a chance to be part of a huddle, a helmet you could wear, and being in a duck boat and taking part in the Super Bowl parade with fans cheering. That was cool.
I still think it’s pretty awesome that in 2001 the Patriots chose to be introduced as a team at Super Bowl XXXVI. In every Super Bowl since then that is how teams are introduced. The Patriots had started that trend earlier that season. In Week 1 in Cincinnati the announcer had began the individual introductions before the guys were ready to come out so they just all came out at once. Then the players kept that up every week after. At Super Bowl XXXVI, league officials were insisting that the players come out individually as they were announced, and Bill Belichick said the players wanted to be introduced as a team and were planning to emerge together regardless of who was announced. Finally the officials acquiesced.
After visiting the Hall of Fame and getting lunch at one of the nearby restaurants, we headed over to the Bass Pro Shop which is really an outdoors person’s Disneyland. There is a pond inside with fish and turtles, a boat hanging from the ceiling, a shooting range, and all kinds of outdoor display types of things. Really quite amazing. We didn’t buy anything but it was fun to wander around.
Then we headed outside to the cranberry bog and took advantage of the 1/2 mile hike even though it was freezing. The cranberries were dormant. They harvest them in late fall, but fun to walk around. I always thought they were harvested by flooding the bogs and the cranberries, rise to the top. But actually there is also a dry method of harvesting that uses a mechanical picker, sort of like a giant lawnmower. The wet harvesting is done primarily for cranberries being processed and the dry method is used for fresh cranberries found in the produce section of the grocery store. Learn something new every day! We did have a lot of fun walking around the bog. And it does appear that they do use the wet method of harvesting at this one.
After that we headed back to our tiny home and warmth.
Friday, April 19th
Today we arrived home! We got home at about noon, managed to get our tiny home backed into where we wanted it, had some lunch and then started the unpacking process. As we were doing that our new neighbors across the street brought us a dozen eggs from their chickens. Little Samantha, who is about 5, wanted to welcome the neighbors home. How sweet!
We had a marvelous trip! Loved being in Brunswick, GA for three months and being able to really delve into an area and explore it. We were fortunate that there was so much to see there. We loved the marshes, proximity to the beaches, bike riding on Jekyll Island, exploring St. Simons Island and all our day trips to various outlying areas including Amelia Island, Savannah, Okefenokee, St. Augustine and various plantations, forts, state parks and historic towns. Plus getting together with a few friends and family while we were away. Just a blissful several months.
We also thoroughly enjoyed the 2 1/2 weeks that we spent slowly making our way back north. It’s energizing to be moving again in the RV and exploring new areas. Great fun to visit Myrtle Beach, the Crystal Coast with Stacie & Johnny as our guides, and Washington D.C. Traveling is such fun!
We’ve got a couple of short camping getaways planned over the summer but mostly we’ll be hanging out in New Hampshire! Hope you all have a wonderful spring and summer, and we hope to connect with many of you while we are home! Thanks for traveling with us! xxoo
