Our Travel Blog

Today was the first of our trips away. We decided to go mountain climbing (in the truck). About 40miles away is a mountain called Sugar-Loaf Mountain which is a US State Area and also the location where part of a Mel Gibson film (Edge of Darkness) was shot.

We decided to splash out on the toll charge and took the Mass Turnpike part way. The toll charge….. .45c! The countryside around here is all wooded rolling hills, very picturesque.

As we approached the area we started looking for signs of the mountain….. nothing! We followed the directions to the State Area, still no mountain. Finally arrived there, paid our $2 to allow us to drive up the (wherever it may be hiding) mountain and up we went. To be fair there was one switchback, and we did climb. The top was at 674ft!, the campsite is over 700ft, hence the title. Anyway it was one of the taller lumps around, and we did have a great view from the top. Once we had seen the views and the mighty Connecticut River we left the dizzy height of the mountain and drove down to the old village of Historic Deerfield.

On the way we “happened” (mustn’t let Lyn navigate too often) to drive past the Yankee Candle company store. Evidently Yankee candles are well known among candle officianados . I have to admit the store was amazing, very large and full of candles of every scent you could imagine (and quite a few that you couldn’t). Not only were there candles there was also a large area given over to a Bavarian Village, all decked out with Bavarian Christmas decorations. The final part of the store featured old country style children’s toys.

Back on the road again, we reached Deerfield. The village was part preserved houses open as museums or for public viewing and part lived in houses. The village dates back to the mid 1600’s, old for the USA I guess. Below is the village Post Office

Deerfield, MA Post Office

To save the outlandish toll charges we took the cross country route home. Again it was all wooded rolling hills, there was no sign of any large communities, just houses along the road or the occasional small villages.

A good day out, with lots of good scenery.

Having finally got everything setup and working, it was a day for rest, relaxation and exploring.

The campsite is located on the site of an old farm which has long since ceased operation and has become naturally wooded. As a result most individual sites are nestled in the trees. The site map shows some walking trails so it was time to exercise. As we left the trailer we noticed a hole in the ground near the picnic bench, not wanting to catch a foot in it, I filled it up with small stones.

We headed off to the trails, through the now busy campsite. Friday night saw the arrival of many weekend campers, most of who have trailers set up permanently. The trails wandered off through the woods, but were not very well defined, not surprising really as the majority of campers here rely on golf carts to get them from A to B, when the distance A to B is greater than 20yards!

After about half hour walking we got back to the site, only yo discover that the whole I had filled in had been partially excavated. Not wanting to have some evil creature living on the site, the hole was again filled in.

Later in the day Lyn was sitting at the table and saw a very unhappy chipmunk hurling stones out of the hole. This time I left the hole open!!

Due to unforeseen technical problems (I forgot) there is no blog for today.

Well, we survived the setup last night, or so we thought! We didn’t have the trailer fully level but thought “it would do”. After walking around for a while, and noticing doors closing on their own, it became obvious that it wouldn’t do! In addition, the fridge wasn’t working too well…. took a long time to cool down both on gas and hydro.

This morning was a continuation of yesterday, wet,wet and more wet. It was decided, for better or worse that we would not pack up the trailer to level it, rather we would jack up the axles on the offending side and place big “lego” blocks under the wheels.

This was a great plan, until a hunt through the trailer AND the instruction book failed to locate a jack! Ummm, must be a jack in the truck, sure enough there was. It had never been unwrapped or used, but looked like a good hydraulic jack. This should be easy!

Foiled again, aforesaid-mentioned jack looked like a hydraulic one, but in reality it was a wind up one. This should be fun to use under the trailer. Anyway, it all worked out in the end, the jack worked, the wheels got blocked, the place got level, the fridge cooled down and I got wet.

Once that got sorted, it was time to work on the WiFi. The campground has a WiFi hotspot and the signal just about reaches our site if there is a following wind. Last night we had about 15 minutes of signal which was just enough to write the blog. Today nothing. At the hotspot all was well with an excellent signal, but not so in the trailer. No problem, we previously bought a 3G dongle to use cell phone access to the web so that we wouldn’t be reliant on campground WiFi, just top up the account and off we go…. easy!

Wrong, after 20 minutes arguing with Virgins automated moron named Alex I finally upset him enough that he connected me to a human agent who proceeded to take all my details so I could use my credit card to top up the account. Ten minutes later he came back and told me I have a Canadian Credit card, correct says I, we don’t take foreign credit cards says he, )(*(0@@%@$!# says I and hang up.

By now it’s lunch time, I am a wet and not too happy a camper, Lyn is hiding somewhere, away from flying objects and expletives,  reading her book and we have no food. Time to cleanup and go shopping. Just as we are about to leave my memory wakes up and remembers we have the remains of last nights pizza in the fridge…. a good and wholesome lunch!

Finally hit the road in search of a Radio Shack where I can buy a Virgin top-up card with my foreign credit card. Radio Shack wasn’t to be found, but Staples was. Unfortunately Staples don’t sell the right top up card, but they did sell the Iconia Tablet I was looking for…. things are looking up at last. We discovered that radio shack was hiding in the mall across the street. On the way there we stopped off to do the grocery shopping …… a relatively non event. Found RS and got the top up, headed back to the camp site and discovered the booze store…. MA is like Ontario in being rather backwards with its booze selling.

Finally made it back to the campsite with two more jobs to do, set up the WiFi and set up the Satellite TV. I was dreading setting up the TV as we are in a heavily wooded area, but much to my amazement it was set up in under 10 minutes with the best signal strength I have ever seen. Things are getting better! Next came the WiFI, that only took 5 minutes…. on a roll now.

Time to go play with the tablet, maybe camping isn’t so bad after all!!

Well, here we go again. Up at the unearthly hour of 6:30 AM. Finished the packing, and out to get some breakfast. We had everything hooked up and on the road before 8AM.

Weather looked OK, high overcast which is good as driving into the sun gets a bit too warm for the long haul. Unfortunately, shortly after crossing into the States, the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee  unleashed themselves upon us. We finished up the last 7 hours of the trip in heavy rain. At least the truck and trailer got washed.

We arrived at the campsite a lot earlier than expected, remind me not to trust mapquest again! We were also introduced to the tolls on the New York thruway, $32.50 later we left NY and joined the Mass Turnpike, another toll road. We did half the distance on the turnpike as we did on the thruway, and got charged one tenth of the price.

We arrived at the camp ground and got setup (in the rain). From what we have seen the campsite should be pretty good with fairly large, wooded sites. Haven’t yet set up the TV so not sure whether the satellite signal will make it through the trees, but at least there is some WiFi, haven’t tried the phone out yet, so not too sure how good it is.

By the time we had the place set up, it was too late to go shopping, specially as the local supermarket was taken out by a tornado back in June, and hasn’t yet been rebuilt!

We went into the local town of Monson, and had a pizza… the shopping can wait til tomorrow.