May 7 – State College – Northeast – Niagara-on-the-Lake
We are on the road again. The start of the trip involved a lot of logistics, with a Statistics Conference, musical performance in Niagara-on-the-Lake, family matters and appointment at our RV dealer.
I (Naomi) wanted to go to the Rao Conference at Penn State on May 6, as the keynote speaker was one of my “statistical heroes” Grace Wahba. We needed to be in Northeast (a town in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania) for an appointment to repair our RV, on May 8. And we had tickets to attend Brigadoon in Niagara-on-the-Lake (NotL) with Naomi’s brother and sister-in-law and cousins also on May 8. To keep everything on track, we loaded the RV on Saturday and then returning it to our storage place. As well, Chuck thoroughly cleaned our storage compartments and washed the RV exterior.
Loading Saturday gave us time to think about what we might have forgotten on Sunday. We did forget a few things (which we did not discover until Wednesday at the campsite) but mostly we were over-zealous, e.g. packing the tools we needed to attach our bicycle rack to the car. Fortunately, our friends Susie and Phil had what we needed, and we were able to attach the rack while enjoying dinner and family time at their house. We also dropped some of our things off with our friends Don and Mindy.
On Monday, Naomi spent the time at her conference, reconnecting with some old friends and having a chance to meet with Prof. Wahba.
Naomi skipped the conference dinner in favor of dinner with our friends Amy, Bob, Margaret and Bill.
On Tuesday, we started with breakfast at The Waffle Shop before picking up the RV at its winter storage in Port Matilda.
Although Chuck has done all the RV driving since 2016, we decided that I should drive on every driving day. 2 years ago, our nephew Jake adjusted the suspension to make the RV more stable, but driving it is still terrifying for the novice (i.e. me). Complete with towed car and bicycle rack, we are about 50 feet long and just over 13 feet high. The height matters, not only for underpasses, but also because it means that we catch every breeze — including the gust of air that comes with passing vehicles. We are sitting quite high up, which gives a nice view, but means that we feel the tilt of the road surface on curves and on bridges it feels like we could slide right off.
We are also wider than a car, which means that is it critical to drive in the center of the lane, particularly when there is construction or going through the many toll booths we encounter on interstates. It also means that the driver is sitting to the left of where they would in a car, so that one gets the impression that you are too far to the left in the lane. Because of this, I use the side mirrors more than I do in the car, keeping the lines behind me in view to make sure that I am centered.
Did I mention that we do not have a rear view mirror. (This is obvious if you think about what would be involved.) We do have a rear view camera, but the optics are difficult. It does allow us to see that the car is still attached, but not much else.
In any case, on day 1, Chuck did most of the driving, but I did drive one harrowing stretch of I90.
Our first stop was the RV dealership in Northeast (a town in Pennsylvania near Erie), where we originally purchased our RV. The RV is a Ford truck with a house on the chassis. The house has a full set of plumbing and electrical wiring, an electrical generator, as well as a propane system for heating, the stove and as an energy source for the fridge. The whole shebang travels on highways and dirt roads, over ruts, etc. There are lots of parts that can break or dislodge, and most of them do at some point. Now that we are no longer under warranty, we can, in principle, got to any RV service place for repairs. In practice, more service places are also dealers and give priority to their purchasers. So, we make frequent trips to our dealer in Northeast. On this occasion, the needed repair was a replacement motor for our slideout. If you have seen an RV campground, you will see that many RVs have rooms that pop out of the side of the RV.
These slideouts slide back in when you are on the road, and slide out to give extra space when “camping”. Our slideout moves less than 2 feet, but it is 25 feet long. It is practically impossible to slide it in and out manually, so we need the motor. In particular, if it gets stuck in the out position, we cannot move the RV, so we were happy that when the motor finally failed, it was in. We also decided to have some minor servicing while these repairs were being done.
The dealer kindly allowed us to drop our bikes and kayaks in his garage for our trip to Canada. This was not necessary, but the kayaks on the car create a lot of lift (Bernoulli effect) and really reduce our gas mileage. Having taken care of all this, we headed to Canada and the pretty tourist town of Niagara-on-the-Lake (NotL), where we were booked into the Copper Dreams Bed and Breakfast. NotL is on the tourist circuit partly because it is Canadian wine country, but mostly because it hosts the Shaw Festival – a drama festival that always features some works of George Bernard Shaw, but also other plays and musicals.
Naomi’s brother Donald and his wife Judy have been going regularly for at least 35 years, and arranged for us to meet up with our cousins Stephen and Elaine to see the (non-Shaw) musical, Brigadoon.
Copper Dreams proved to be a small B&B just a block from the main drag, with a very friendly host, Robert, and a very friendly Akita (dog) Kaiya.
We had supper at the Irish Harp, a few steps away, and then walked down the main street to look at shops and view the sunset over the lake.
Breakfast in the morning was prepared by Robert’s partner, Kelly, and was delicious. After more strolling in the various shops downtown, we met Donald and Judy at the Stage Coach Restaurant for lunch. (Apparently this has become their traditional lunch spot.) We then walked to the Festival Theatre for our musical, meeting Stephen and Elaine at the door.
The production of Brigadoon was very enjoyable. The singing was powerful, the dancing enjoyable and the acting more than satisfactory.
We then all went for dinner at the Old Winery, a pleasant restaurant at the edge of town.
Everyone else headed home, and we headed back to our B&B. The next morning they kindly gave us an early breakfast, as we were due in Toronto, a 90 minute drive at 11.
The Toronto plan was to meet with 2 family friends, Rina and Margie, and conduct some family business with Donald and Judy. Unfortunately, there were several mix-ups over the schedule with Rina, and we missed each other. We did successfully complete the family affair, and the four of us had lunch with Margie (who is a role model for successful aging).
We returned to Northeast for the RV after hours. The dealer arranged for us to pay by phone, so we could pick up the RV and camp for the night in our traditional spot in Westfield. However, due to the pouring rain, we decided not to load up the bikes and kayaks, but instead to come back the next day.
We shocked at the steep bill for “dewinterizing” the RV. Since the RV has a water system, the plumbing needs to be protected during winter storage. “Winterizing” consists of draining all the water, and filling the pipes with non-toxic anti-freeze. “Dewinterizing” means flushing out the antifreeze and also sanitizing the water tank. This task is easy enough, but it involves lots of water, most of which gets dumped. Needless to say, campgrounds are not eager to have you do this on their property. Except for draining and filling the pipes and tanks, most of the time is spent waiting several hours for the sanitizer or bleach to do its job. We were expecting a charge for labor and inconvenience, but the bulk of the charge (and it was quite a bit) was for pumping water in and out of the tank. We are chalking this down to experience, and will do it ourselves next time.
Our first night back in the RV was chilly and rainy, but otherwise uneventful. We discovered that Westfield rolls up tight at 8 p.m., but also discovered that the only open place, Larry’s Bar, serves excellent burgers and fries. The grocery store is open until 10, so we were able to stock up.
Friday was basically an organizational day – putting away items that go into the slideout, buying a few things we forgot about, and of course, picking up the bikes and kayaks. We both have some work still pending. Chuck talked with his father about the software they market, and I e-met with my student Frank and his co-advisor Qunhua. It was an even chillier night, but our small electric space heater was enough to keep us cozy.
We need to be in Durham NH by May 17, so we prepared to leave the next day.