Chuck and Naomi Adventures in RV Land

Littleton, MA (May 17): Chuck, who is doing 95% of the driving, prefers to keep to major highways with the RV. Much as we hated to retrace our footsteps, there are no major roads east from Bangor.  We either had to head northeast or southwest.  Since we wanted to have our RV dealer in Erie PA replace our bedroom fan, we decided to head back to Boston and then take I90 east.

We pulled into a very lovely wooded campsite about 50 miles northeast of Boston, and returned to RV life. After 5 days in hotels (6 if you count Boston) we realized that we could not do this trip living in hotels, and it was nice to be back “home”.

It also seemed like it was time to do some cooking, but when I turned on the propane tank, I could smell the gas (actually the additive that is included so that you can smell the gas) and hear the hiss of escaping gas. I quickly shut it off and thanked my fear of propane tanks. Many RVers leave the propane on while traveling to run the fridge and at our first service stop the repairman had asked why we preferred the generator and assured us it was safe to drive with the propane on. It is not clear to me what the consequences might have been having this leak with a lit appliance, but I am glad I did not find out.

Due to the seriousness of the problem, our RV dealer agreed to allow us to jump the queue on their service schedule and will look at the two problems (fan and propane) on Monday. They will not order the fan or the propane regulator until they have confirmed that they need to be replaced, but Winnebago agreed to rush the parts to us them if necessary. (Honestly, we feel that Winnebago should replace the RV, which seems to be a lemon, but I don’t think we’ll get far with that!)

With an assurance that the soonest the estate sale person would be available would be Tuesday, we decided to spend a relaxing 90F day at this lovely wooded campsite, basically just lazing in our recliner chairs. Unfortunately, the swimming pool was not yet open for the season, but we enjoyed the wooded setting, tossed a few horseshoes and relaxed.  I biked into town for some groceries as well.

We finally worked our way through most of the left-overs, but we are well equipped with electric appliances and ate well without our propane stove.

Bangor, Maine (May 11): Our trip to Maine was complicated in many ways.  My sister-in-law, Karen, being the family travel planner, arrangements for her son’s graduation from U. Maine had been made well in advance – long before we had even started looking for an RV. Given our difficulties in arranging accommodations in State College for Elisabeth’s graduation, we had decided to book our non-refundable hotel with the rest of the family for the evening before and night of Jake’s graduation, figuring that the cost of leaving the RV at a campsite, if necessary, would be small compared to the inconvenience of not having a hotel room if needed.

As the date approached, however, we realized that there was an additional problem – Rumple. After several discussion about the room, RV sites, and the dog, we found that the hotel would not allow Rumple in the room, but did have a place for us to park the RV. We decided our best option was to park the RV at the hotel and leave Rumple in the RV at times when he could not be with us.

As it is more than a 4 hour drive from the Normandy Farm campground to Bangor, we decided to leave on Thursday to be sure we would arrive on Friday night, to be on time for the graduation ceremony on Saturday.  We scheduled our RV service appointment on Monday. However, Chuck also realized that we needed our standard maintenance of the truck mechanisms. To make a long story short, he made an appointment at a truck service station for 7 a.m. on Friday and at the RV service center on Monday.  With all this in mind, we decided to arrive Thursday night and then stay in Bangor until at least Tuesday p.m. in case the servicing could not be done in one day, and to make sure I had internet and phone service to remotely attend a Ph.D. exam at Penn State.

This meant that we needed 3 places to stay in Bangor – a place near the truck service center on Thursday night, our hotel with the family for the graduation, and a place where we could stay with the dog in case we did not have the RV on Monday night.

For Friday night we got permission from the truck service station to camp in their parking lot.  The RV is designed to live off the grid using propane and a gas generator. With our propane out of service, we had only the generator, which is quite noisy. Since the freezer was still quite full of La Cantina left-overs, as well as home-made pesto, we wanted to keep things cold, but we also did not want to run the generator at night.  Fortunately, the truck service center asked us to park beside their office, which had both an electrical outlet (which we used) and a water hose (which we did not use). As a result, this was almost as comfortable as a campsite, although we could not use the slide. It was a bit spooky to be parked with the trucks and no-one else. Apparently it spooked the night watchman as well, as no-one had told him that someone would be staying in the camper. He saw me enter the camper after walking Rumple, and thought someone was breaking in.

All of the mechanics of the truck were in good shape, and we were soon able to leave for the Hampton Inn. With the RV in the parking lot, we did not have an electrical option. However, the hotel kindly offered to let us put food in their freezer. The fridge food fit nicely into the room fridge. Rumple got some extra blankets to sleep in the RV without heat – fortunately it was not very cold.

Chuck’s father and brother arrived in time for supper, and we took  our graduating nephew Jake out to dinner. Like us, Jake likes to have left-overs and our steak dinner was more than ample. Unfortunately, Jake put his “doggy bag” on a chair when he got home, and one of his 2 dogs thought it was his.

When we got back to the hotel, Karen, her friend Ed and Jake’s sister Jill had arrived and we spent some family time together with Chuck’s father. The next morning, we all met for breakfast and then the most immediate family went off to graduation activities with limited attendance. Chuck and I hung out with Rumple until the ceremony was about to begin.

After weeks of cold rain, the weather cleared up for graduation. It was a perfect day.  The graduation speakers were, in my opinion, better than usual. (As a faculty member I get to go to quite of few graduations.) I particularly like the keynote speakers, who were recent U. Maine graduates and local entrepreneurs.They spoke about their personal journey in finding their own path and what was important to them – much better than many speeches I have heard from famous people. Whether one is there as a faculty member, parent or relative, with several hundred students going up individually to get their degrees, graduation ceremonies are both tedious and joyous. The birding binoculars at least gave us a chance to spot our favorite graduate in the crowd.  When it was all over, we went into Bangor to celebrate.

During my evening walk with Rumple I discovered something interesting – the lampposts in the hotel parking lot had electrical outlets. We could have plugged in the RV after all. I initially thought that this was so that electric cars could recharge overnight, but Chuck’s father had a better explanation. In Maine’s cold winters, many drivers use block heaters for their engines.  My father used to manufacture these devices, which are also common in Canada, and this makes perfect sense to me.  However, since the food was already transferred to the hotel, there was no need to plug in the RV.

In the morning, Chuck’s father and brother left for home, while Jill, who still had three exams, left for U. New Hampshire. The rest of us went for breakfast before leaving the hotel. The weather had returned to rain, and was nasty.

Our new accommodations at a Howard Johnson’s close to Bangor airport were spacious and clean, but not as nice as the Hampton Inn. Although they had room to park the RV, they did not have space for our freezer goods in their fridge – instead we put on the generator. However, being able to have the dog in the room for a great benefit as the weather had turned cold, windy and rainy. And the price was certainly right.

The microwave in the room was fine for heating up yet more La Cantina leftovers and we decided to venture out to the supermarket and then hunker down for the evening.

At the RV service place the next day, the mechanics checked out our problems. They confirmed we would need a new bedroom fan (sorry – it takes a week to get one in) but the propane worked perfectly. The mechanic thought there might have been some dirt in the mechanism that had caused the problem.  We returned to the hotel and switched the fridge to propane.

Jake had decided to live in a travel trailer RV for the summer near Bar Harbor. He picked up a used one at a good price, and had brought it home on Sunday. So we went off to his house to see the RV and take him out to dinner again.

 

 

 

Jake’s hobby is stripping down and rebuilding old vehicles and boats. He has a large pickup truck which he entirely rebuilt, suitable for towing the RV. When we got to his house, we were not too surprised to find that he had already started ripping up the insides of his RV to replace the flooring and carpets. It was a real lesson to us to see how leakage around the slides had damaged the adjacent floors and wall. We certainly could not have done this ourselves, but Jake has the know-how.

A discussion with Jake also confirmed Chuck’s suspicion that we should have done an oil change on the generator quite some time ago. Perhaps “I can do it” attitude inspired Chuck because the next morning, while I was remotely attending a Ph.D. defense, he went to the car parts store across the street, bought the required supplies and changed the oil himself. I had foretold an oily mess, but it all went well.

 

With the weather having become quite pleasant, we decided to go into Bangor for the afternoon, and do the river walk along the banks of the Kenduskeag River. This took us from one end of the town,, where the Kenduskeag meets the Penobscot, through downtown Bangor, and then out to the other edge, where it is mostly whitewater. Jake had told us that it had been cold and rainy for weeks before our arrival. The river was certainly high and the current was impressive. Tides as high as 12 feet reach Bangor, and the end of our walk was just after high tide, so the water going through was really moving. We were surprised to learn that every April there is a canoe, kayak and whatever race down the river into Bangor – it looked much too perilous for people who are not whitewater experts, with lots of rapids and a number of small waterfalls. To date they have not had any serious accidents, but we were not tempted to put this event on our calendar – perhaps as spectators, but certainly not as participants.

We decided to stay one additional night at the hotel to ensure that Chuck had internet for a work meeting in the morning. As well, we needed to decide where we were going next.  Although our original intention had been to tour the Canadian Maritime provinces, there was a possibility that we would have to go to Toronto, and we did not want to head out until we were sure whether we would be heading east or west.

For various reasons, my brother Donald had been handling most of the logistics of handling my mother’s estate since September. However, one of the remaining tasks, organizing an estate sale to sell off her belongings, was wearing on him and I wanted to help. We finally found someone who could manage the sale for us in the required time frame and Tuesday evening we decided that I should return to Toronto to work with the agent.

So, Wednesday morning I packed up while Chuck held his work meeting, and we headed back towards Boston. We are not sure when the agent will want me in Toronto, but there is plenty to see and do along the south shores of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and meanwhile we will be within a day’s drive of Toronto.

Normandy Farm, CT (May 7)

Our plan was to spend 3 days including a visit to Providence, a visit our nephew who is graduating from Worcester Polytechnical Institute and trip to Boston where I am teaching as part of a short course – all without moving the RV.  The Normandy Farm Camping Resort, about 50 minutes drive from each of our locations, fit the bill perfectly.

This was probably the fanciest RV campground we have been at, with all sorts of sports facilities, a huge fenced in dog walk area, disk golf in a large wooded area, a nice fishing pond with hiking trail, 4 (!) heated pools, one of which is indoors and includes a whirlpool and spa. As well, they have separate games rooms for the kids and adults and a large social hall, (shown) big enough for a small wedding. We would really have liked to stay and take advantage of some of the facilities, but at this point we were on a schedule. So, it was either Providence or the resort, and we picked the former.

Dinner was a simple affair of reheating left-overs from La Cantina in the microwave. It was not worth heating up water for the few dishes we used. So it was not until the morning that we discovered that the propane hot water heater was not working. It was lighting and then going out. The procedures recommended in the manual and on-line did not work. So we called the service department at our RV dealer, and after some experimentation with the propane stove, determined that the problem was the regulator on the propane tank. Accordingly, we turned off the propane and made an appointment for servicing in Bangor (our next stop). This was not too worrisome – the resort had washrooms with showers every few sites and we expected to be eating either left-overs or in restaurants for much of our time before our service appointment. Still, it was yet another failed system in our new RV. It is nice to have the warranty, but it is nicer not to need it.

After spending the morning working on the propane problem, we headed to Providence. It does not seem to have a lot of “must-see” attractions, but we wanted to walk around the city. We had lunch on the “East Side” near Brown U. and then walked downtown along the edge of the campus of RISD (Rhode Island School of Design).  The photos below show the Brown entrance, a piece of “art” and a section of garden on campus.

 

 

 

 

We then walked around downtown. It is a pretty little city. It looked like it would be pretty lit up at night, but we had walked ourselves out by about 5:30.

 

 

We returned to the campground and enjoyed more left-overs before jumping into the hot-tub.

 

 

 

On Tuesday, I needed to be at Northeastern U. to teach by about 2:30. The course put us up at the very fancy Colonnade Hotel – not only was the room very nice, but they allow dogs, which was a great help.

(Aside: We had planned to leave Rumple overnight in a kennel near the campground. However, the kennel requires a dog interview to ensure that any incoming dogs will get along with their regular clientele and they had no interview appointments available. And no, this place was not hundreds of dollars per day …)

Chuck went to meet a long lost friend, and I went to teach some bioinformatics. I love teaching in these summer short courses – the students are always enthusiastic and smart.

For dinner, we took Elisabeth to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant, which served as much meat as you could eat – several types of beef, pork and chicken prepared in various ways, as well as a salad bar. The food was excellent and we came away thinking we would not need to eat again for a week. (Although that never happens …)

The next morning I was on the teaching schedule again until coffee break. We then checked out of the hotel and hung around Boston for a few hours before heading to Worcester. The Boston Museum of Art is just a few blocks from Northeastern and had an exhibit, “Matisse in the Studio” which was wonderful. I spent most of my time there, although I also had a bit of time to visit their exhibit of mesoAmerican Indian artifacts, which are quite spectacular.

In the late afternoon, we headed out to Worcester to meet nephew Erik and his girlfriend Maria – both newly minted engineers. They both exuded maturity, competence and enthusiasm, and we are sure they will do well in their new jobs. We had a nice dinner together, and they also gave us a campus tour.

We were sorry to miss their graduation ceremony, but given that they both had substantial numbers of family members expected, we probably got to spend more quality time with them than we might have had we come for the ceremony.  Here they are after the ceremony.

Then it was back to the campsite to prepare for our departure for Bangor, Maine where we planned to attend the graduation of another nephew.

Since Chuck’s parents were not home when we last visited, we decided to head back to Deep River, see how they are doing and give them a tour of the RV.  They are expert RVers, and we are always eager for their advice about various aspects of RV life.

With a large storm forecast for the State College area, we rushed to pack up and head out.  We are glad we did – the storm was intense with power lines down and a possible tornado.  However, we left about two hours before it all hit, and did not have any wind or rain for our trip.

Chuck was quite intent on getting to Deep River in one day – a trip that can be difficult even in the car.  However, we know the route well.  We took a couple of long stops and made it in time for a late dinner.

I have been impressed at the extent to which highway rest stops are mini nature preserves.  Now that I am uploading to eBird (a citizen science project to obtain information on bird distributions) during at least one dog walk daily, I often take a bird count at rest stops.

This particular one on Hwy 81 did not have many birds (that I could spot), but it did have a nice forested area and many wild flowers.

Our activities in Deep River are centered on seeing family and friends.  We have spent quite a bit of time with Chuck’s parents.  They are always busy and active.  We also spent time (and dinners) with both sisters and their significant others.

We also arranged to have dinner at La Cantina with Chuck’s high school friend, Joe Markley who is now a Republican state senator for CT.  I had only met Joe once previously, and Chuck last saw him at a high school reunion in 2012.  So there was quite a bit of catching up to do.  Joe managed to convince me that there are some reasonable Republicans left.

We went back to La Cantina with Chuck’s parents the following night.  Did I mention the enormous servings?  The 2 dishes shown here are after a full loaf of bread and a huge salad.  An the dish in front comes with a side of pasta, too.  Each of these dishes provides enough left-overs to feed both of us twice, so we now have 8 meals in the freezer.

 

 

The Chester boat show was on Saturday and we went with Chuck’s parents to see the boats.  The emphasis was on power yachts, but there were also some very nice sailing boats.  We enjoyed touring the boats, but Chuck and I are sticking to the RV for now.

My nephew Max just spent several months doing service projects in several developing countries.  He was supposed to arrive home on Saturday.  We were hoping to see him before we left.  However, whether it was the weather or just the vagaries of modern air travel, his flight was delayed until after our departure on Sunday.  🙁

 

 

Bellefonte KOA (April 25): We were not planning to spend so much time in State College this year, but Chuck’s dentist has dictated otherwise.  We needed to come back on the 27th to visit the dentist.  However, Chuck was contacted by his board game buddies to come to a potluck and game night at the Unitarian Universalist (UU) Church on Wednesday.  Since Wednesday is also our faculty social lunch in the department, we decided to come back Tuesday to be sure not to miss any events.

The view from the wide windshield of the RV is excellent.  I was struck how the emerging spring foliage is a pastel version of the fall foliage, with soft reds, orange, yellow and of course green, as well as the occasional tree in bloom (mostly white, but also some redbuds in hot pink.)

It was great to see everyone in the Dept.  I miss those lunches!  I also hoped to go to a talk, but Rumple refused to stay quietly in my office.  Since Chuck was hanging out in Schlow Library, I decided to hang out in the office until supper time.

The potluck at the UU was a big deal.  They were on the verge of hiring a new minister, and had a huge turnout in her support.  They had also asked some of the social groups that have members outside the UU (e.g. the board game club) to invite their attendees.  So, it was a very big dinner and a chance to catch up with some of our UU friends.

After supper, the game group started some games.  However, I needed to revise an article.  By the time I was done, the games were well underway.  However, my old folk-dance group was also participating in the event, so I danced until Chuck was done.

The next day we both went to our respective hair-cutting establishments, and Chuck went off to the dentist before we met our friend Don for dinner.

After a few phone calls, we decided to stay until Monday morning so we could have dinner with various friends.  Otherwise, we mainly hung around the KOA, which is quite nice.  They serve coffee in the morning, and I became friendly with one of the staff members, who is a birder and a very nice person.

On Friday night we had dinner with Susie, and on Saturday we met her downtown for the Climate Day events.  However, a sudden intense storm brought these to a sudden end, and we ended up at our usual haunts – the library, the campus and the downtown Panera, while waiting for our dinner date with the Mortensens.

Our friend Mindy is letting us stash some of our things in her basement.  We spent some time adding to the pile and rummaging through papers that we had left there.  We also discovered that we had a huge heap of mail at the house despite having picked up mail only 3 weeks ago.  Mindy was at a conference until Sunday, but met us for dinner when she got back.

And then it was time to head back north and east to celebrate some family events.

 

Potomac, MD (April 21): 5 years ago I got an unexpected phone call from a group of my high school friends most of whom I had not seen since my sophomore year of college.  One of the nicest consequences of that call is that I am back in touch with my friend Susan Arbuck, who now lives in Potomac.  A semi-retired oncologist, she planned to go to the March for Science, and invited me to stay with her and her husband Marty, also a life scientist.

Although we have got together briefly a couple of times in the past 5 years, this was the first lengthy visit, so there was a lot of catching up to do.  Susan had a varied career as a professor, oncologist, and member of a drug-development pharmaceutical team, while also having 2 kids.  I am sure there are a lot of details I missed.  However, what is most important is that she is still the lively, charming and wonderful person I was friends with 45 years ago.  I cannot imagine how we lost touch.

We had a very nice evening together.  However, Susan was in the middle of writing a report and felt that she could not take off the next day for the march.  Instead, she dropped me at the metro and I made my own way.

In anticipation that Susan might be too busy to go with me, I had contacted the Penn State Science Policy Club, who had travelled to DC by bus with a number of other Penn State folks.  We met up at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) building and then walked to the Washington Monument together.  I really enjoyed meeting the group, who were mostly graduate students.

The weather was challenging – constant rain and chilly.
However, the turnout was good, although in the 10’s of thousands, rather than the 100’s of thousands of the Women’s March.  I had joked with Chuck before I left (in the rain) that I ought to market a protest umbrella, with the poster hanging from the spoke.  It seems as if this was an idea whose time had come.

Four hours of speeches were planned, and the podium was properly set up so that we could actually see and hear.  However, after a while I became more interested in the crowd and started talking to random people.  This included (during Michael Mann’s talk) a mathematics student who was carrying a sign in support of climate science (although he was more interested in deep learning than in climate modeling), a group of friends who were dressed up as a school of fish (and 2 predators – perhaps penguins?),

an environmental scientist who explained to me the economics of piping oil from the Canadian tar sands to the Gulf of Mexico, and others.  I also ran into some old friends from Cornell.  There were a lot of very clever signs.

Since I have been involved in questions of how the use and misuse of P-values has affected science, I recorded a few P-value posters.

The march started at 2:00 and went right past the EPA building.  If any EPA scientists were working on Saturday, they would have been cheered by the considerable support they were given by the marchers.

 

The march ended at the Capitol Building, where many of us left our signs.  Mine is the one that says STEM in the top center.  (The Savannah College of Art and Design had an exhibit of the signs from the Women’s March and I hope that some other art or political science students thought to do something similar with the signs from the March for Science.  Of course, there are a lot of marches this year, so perhaps it is too much to hope for.)

A random thought – buy shares in companies that provide markers and poster board when the politics get contentious.

Things began to dissipate by 4:00 and so I took the metro back to Susan’s stop, where she picked me up.  We then had the evening to chat some more (after Marty’s gourmet salmon dinner).

Sunday morning we hung out at the house, eating more good food (thanks Marty for the pancakes and melon) and downing enough coffee to keep me going for the trip back to the Poconos.  I also got the garden tour – Marty has done wonders with a lot that is very shaded (and I miss my garden).

After that, it was time for Susan to return to her report, and for me to take the uneventful drive back to Promised Land State Park, where I found Chuck well but lonely.

Pickerel Point (April 17):  Back when we lived in Ithaca in 1996, we discovered Promised Land State Park, in the Pocono Mountains.  We loved it for camping with our very young children, because the Pickerel Point campground sticks into the lake, with tent sites right by the water.  And in late July, our preferred camping time, Pickerel Point is prime blueberry country.  We camped there for 2 summers, but in 1998 a strong tornado    hit the park and adjacent town.  That summer the park was closed.  We drove down the road to have a look – huge trees looked like a giant had twisted off their tops and thrown branches into the sides of buildings.

I am not sure how long it took for the park to re-open.  We moved on to other parks and campsites.  However, once we moved to State College, the park was on our route to CT, and whenever we passed by we would note that we should go back.  So, this time we did.

The weather was not co-operative, but Pickerel Point is still very nice.  The RV campsites are up a bit from the water, but you can walk along the shore or go down the road along the spine of the point which takes you to a small beach.  There were lots of warblers and other birds.

One thing that we did not notice in 1996/97 – there is no cell reception, GPS or wifi.  Sadly, I turned out to be the type of person who cannot live without her phone for 24 hours!  In fact, even my bird-watching was impacted, as the bird id app requires GPS!

Among our motivations for camping at Promised Land is its location at the junction of highways 84 and 81.  I zipped down to Washington for the March for Science on Earth Day (the subject of another post) leaving Chuck to dog-sit in splendid (or lonely) isolation.

Our last day at Promised Land we had better weather.  We took a birding walk on Conservation Island, (which is more of a point than an island) and also did a paddle in the lake.  It is still a lovely spot and I want to visit again in blueberry season (although perhaps not this year).

 

 

April 14: Once the tire was replaced, our trip back to Deep River was uneventful.  (After driving the RV, driving the car for a few hours never seems like much.)

Chuck and I often have dinner with his high school buddy Rob and his wife Robin at the wonderful Cantina Restaurant in Middletown.  As Robin could not make it, I sent Chuck off to see Rob on his own.  The clearly was a good idea, as Chuck did not make it back until nearly midnight.

I spent the evening reading “Prisoner of Tehran”, an autobiography by Marina Nemat, who as a teenager had been incarcerated in the notorious Evin prison for political activism deemed to be against the Ayatollah.  It is a fascinating book and makes a good complement to other autobiographies of the same era such as “Reading Lolita in Tehran”.

Speaking of fascinating books, while in Boston I also read “The Boy who Harvested the Wind” the autobiography of a young very poor Malawian boy who taught himself how build a wind generator.  This is a really inspirational story.

Saturday we literally just sat around the house.  I might have headed for Hartford for the tax day protests, but by the time I realized they were happening, they were over.  Instead, we read, blogged, and relaxed.  (OK, Chuck also spent some time trying to catch up with his work – which I should also do.)

Sunday was Easter.  Chuck’s sister Karen had us over along with all the other sibs and family who were available.  Our biggest regret in living so far from the family is that we are so seldom able to be part of these family events.  It was great to have this opportunity to be together.

 

April 10: We arrived in Boston in time for lunch with Elisabeth and unloaded piles of cooking things and kugels in her dorm in MIT and kitchen before checking into our hotel which was near Boston Commons (quite a distance away from MIT).We then returned to Cambridge, did some last-minute grocery shopping and set up the seder.

Elisabeth’s dorm has several kitchen/social areas with a lounge, nice cooking area and table that seats 10.  With some nice paper and plastic settings along with some cut flowers, Chuck and I transformed this into quite a nice space.
Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the set table or the guests but Jonathan’s fiancee Amy took a short video from which I abstracted the two pictures attached here.   (The color is truer in the upper photo.)

Shortly after 7, my brother Donald and his wife Judy, son Jonathan with his fiancee Amy and Elisabeth’s friends Joey, Agnes and Charles all arrived and we began the seder.  We did only the first half of the service and then launched into the meal, which included salad, baked salmon, BBQ chicken (thanks to the supermarket) and roast brisket (thanks to Sam’s Club) as well as matzah ball soup and the 3 kugels.

Donald and Judy brought some incredible macaroons (coconut, chocolate, almond and pistachio) and a chocolate torte from the wonderful Harbord Bakery in Toronto.  It was a lot of fun and we came away stuffed!

We returned to the hotel with Jonathan and Amy rather late.  In the morning we headed out to Au Bon Pain for breakfast, and then back to Cambridge to meet Elisabeth for lunch.  We always make sure that we walk by Chuck’s undergraduate dorm.

 

And of course we walked by some of the iconic MIT buildings: 

We then all met for lunch.  As seems to be our habit when visiting university towns, we also ran into a nonlocal friend –  Mindy, from State College.  (We knew that Mindy was also visiting Cambridge, but we were not expecting to see her.)

 

Jonathan and Amy had to return to NYC (having jobs does that), but after we dropped them at the train station we returned to the MIT campus.  It was a spectacular day (in the 80s and sunny).  MIT has sailboats that MIT students can borrow, and so we went sailing on the Charles River with Elisabeth.  

All of the sailing clubs were out in force – we dodged around the MIT, Northeastern and Harvard Clubs, as well as some rowing groups.

Elisabeth then went back to work to prepare for her rather hectic Wednesday schedule, and we met my friend Zhenzhen Yang and her husband Li for dinner in Cambridge.

They are both biologists/bioinformaticians and are returning to China after graduate studies and post docs in the US.

We had planned to meet for Shanghai food (as Shanghai will be their next destination).  However, the restaurant was closed and we opted (with some prompting from me) for Eritrean instead.  This proved to be a memorable but unhappy choice, as our waitress refused to accommodate our request for spoons.

(No-one but me was comfortable scooping up the food with the spongy bread).  As well, the unfamiliar spices did not suit any of our palates.  Oh well, as I always say – there are good experiences and memorable ones.  The food was very photogenic however!

Part of the Boston plan was to visit my cousin Bob on Wednesday.  He is a hard guy to reach, and we went to bed on Tuesday night with no communication from him.  However, on Wednesday morning we finally got in touch and Chuck, Donald, Judy and I traipsed out to Newton to see Bob’s new house.  He was quite scarred up from creating a seder for 145 people in a small oven (and getting many small burns in the process) but otherwise seemed to be doing well.  We share grandparents and spent most of the visit filling in gaps in family history.  The new house is enormous and has a gorgeous yard adjacent to a wetlands, with lots of birds.  Unfortunately, Bob’s wife Karen was at work and we did not see her.

Elisabeth had her restaurants picked out, and we had dinner with her in Cambridge before moving into her dorm room for the night.

On Thursday we arranged to meet Chuck’s college buddy Allen and his wife Jenny for lunch.  We had known for some time that Jenny and Allen are friends with Mindy and had met Jenny when she visited Mindy in State College a number of years ago.  But somehow, Chuck and Allen had not got together.  Meeting Mindy in Cambridge spurred Chuck to get in touch with Allen.  So, a 40 year gap in the friendship was mended over lunch in Cambridge.  Hopefully we will keep up the momentum and see them again soon.

Elisabeth took the afternoon off, and we explored North Boston, which includes Boston Public Market, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, as well as Paul Revere Square (pictured above with Mr. Revere appearing to gallop through Elisabeth’s hair).

Elisabeth was very eager to have dinner at Oleana’s, a mezze place in Cambridge that is very very popular.  All of her attempts to get us a table had ended in failure, so we decided to show up when they first opened and try to get seated before the people reservations came in.  We met up with Joey at 5:30, and all went according to plan.  The dinner was great and we can certainly see why it is so popular.

Our plan was to zip out of Boston right after dinner, as the plan was to pick up Rumple on Thursday night.  Unfortunately, the tire pressure indicator on the car started beeping right after we dropped off Elisabeth, and the tire that we had filled just a couple of days before was again flat.  Careful inspection showed a nail in the sidewall and air could be heard gushing out.  Chuck’s hypothesis is that we had picked up the nail quite some time ago (leading to the low tire pressure earlier) but in parallel parking we had driven it deeper into the tire and expanded the hole.  In any case, it was clear that we could not drive on the tire, and getting a new one in Boston after 7 p.m. did not seem feasible.

It was then that we learned that many newer cars (ie. our Ford Focus) no longer carry spare tires, but instead have a repair kit that plugs the hole and reinflates the tire for a few miles – not however for 120 miles on the highway.  (Actually, it turns out that these kits are really only good for holes in the main tread, as the gunk that fills the hole cannot be directed to the sidewall.)

In the morning Chuck had the bright idea of asking the dorm front desk if they had a bicycle pump.  It turns out they have a battery-powered pump which did a fine job of refilling the tire enough so that Chuck could drive the half mile to the tire place.   In the photo to the left, Chuck is pushing in the nail to plug the hole while inflating the tire.  In the photo below the rather large brown head of the nail can be seen.  

 

April 6: Since most of Naomi’s family will be there, we are heading for Boston for Passover.  Chuck’s family live in Deep River Connecticut, only 2 hours drive from Boston, so we decided to go there for the weekend, leave the RV and the dog and then head for Boston by car.  In Boston we will stay in a hotel.

Deep River is about a 6 hour drive from State College – too much to do in one day in the RV.  Appointments in State College kept us busy from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, but we decided we could pack up and put in a couple of hours of driving before it got dark.

This is a route we know well, as we have been driving to CT from home at least twice annually since 2001.  There are several RV parks about 1.5 hours from State College, and that seemed like a good stopping point.

What we did not count on is that in the northeast, the camping season has not yet begun.  We were not able to contact the manager of an “open” campground – with no-one on the site she closed up the office to attend to some personal business and did not get back to us until very late –  and the other campground was not yet open.  Chuck’s “Overnight” app saved the day by finding a service center that has overnight parking.

There are several businesses with large parking lots that will allow RVs to spend the night usually for free.  This includes some Walmarts, Cracker Barrel restaurants, and truck stop service plazas like Flying J.  Lots of experienced RV people do the north-south route with few stops between, and use these parking lots as quick and cheap overnights.

We pulled into a huge Flying J (gas, diesel, truck repair shop, store, driver services, church, Subway, restaurant …) and after some meandering around, found their free RV parking.  This did not include water, hook-up or sewer, but we can be quite self-sufficient for several days.  And all truck stops include restrooms and showers.

We made up for the free overnight by having supper and breakfast at the restaurant.  The latter was a very good value – $25 covered dinner and tip for both of us including entree, soup and salad bar and dessert bar.  (So much for my weight control plan.)  As only a ditch separated us from the highway, and trucks were constantly arriving at and leaving the Flying J, it was a bit noisy.  However, I slept well until in an early morning bathroom run I stepped on the dog (who then demanded his morning walk).

In the truck stop, there was no room to use the slide-out.  This is not a problem for basic living – everything but the dresser drawers is still accessible.  However, Rumple likes to sleep as close as he can get (and he is not allowed on the bed).  With no floor space in the bedroom, I put a rug down in the bathroom for him.  Stretched out, he pretty much fills the entire bathroom floor, so I guess a conflict between my feet and Rumple was inevitable.

The next day we had a doable 4.5 hour drive to Deep River – in theory.  In practice, the highway goes through Danbury, Waterbury and Hartford, any of which can create congestion.  This time it was Waterbury.  However, despite that, we got to Chuck’s parents home by about 6 (so we were on the road for about 7.5 hours).

All of Chuck’s 4 siblings live close to the parental home, and it was only a few minutes before his youngest sister Karen showed up – having seen the RV in the driveway while coming home from coaching high school softball.

We decided to cook, shower, etc in the house, but sleep in the RV.  This avoids any problems with Rumple wandering loose around the house.  (Our previous dog chewed up a window sill and since then our dogs have been canus-non-gratus in the house.)

30 years ago, Chuck’s parents purchased an old factory mill on a stream that goes to the Connecticut River, and converted it into a unique house.  The stream actually has 3 waterfalls that were built to control the flow for the original water-powered equipment.  (It was some type of iron foundry, as evidenced by the large quantity of iron scraps found by Chuck’s parents around the property and particularly by the chimney where the forge stood.)  The house, which was built around the factory building, takes advantage of the stream.  The kitchen windows overlook the 2nd waterfall, and the upper walk-out deck is over the lower and most turbulent falls.  The bottom deck is less accessible and less used.  At one time, the lower falls was used to generate hydro-electricity.  The equipment was still there when the property was purchased (from the son of George Spratt who worked with the Wright brothers and developed much of the wind tunnel technology for which they took credit).  Chuck’s father, who has great engineering skills and loves to tinker with old equipment considered reconstructing the generating plant but the cost/benefit ratio proved poor – especially with other interesting projects that could be done.

In any case, for us being at the property is like being at a lovely resort.  If it is chilly, we can sit in the kitchen and watch the water from there.  If it is warm, we can sit on the deck.  And all the sibs are in and out of the house.

Chuck’s sister  and brother-in-law  kindly offered to look after Rumple while we are in Boston.  Their dog seems to have decided that Rumple is no threat to his territory, so Rumple has a home for a few days.

By the time we had had a cup of tea and supervised the doggy introductions, Chuck’s youngest brother Scott and wife Michelle were already at the house wanting to see the RV.  Chuck then went to their house for lunch before heading out to the local high school to cheer on the softball team Karen coaches.

No-one would ever call me a clean-freak, but after several RV pack-ups in the rain, I was eager to wash carpets and floors, with lots of time for things to dry.  So, I hung out at the RV and vegged out, until dinner at a BBQ restaurant with Karen and boyfriend Ed.

Sunday was more family visits, including Chuck’s brother Craig and also cooking day.  I made 3 kugels (potato, zucchini and apple) for the seder.  Unfortunately, a leak in the kitchen sink complicated things, but it was nice to be working in a full-sized kitchen again.

A kugel is a generic name for a savory loaf.  It usually has a starch as the base (e.g. potato, matzah crackers, rice, noodles) some other ingredients mixed in and everything held together with eggs.  They can be sweet or savory or both.  The classic kugel (which I have never made) is a sweet kugel made from egg noodles, cottage cheese and sugar.  Kugels are usually eaten as a vegetable or starch with the main part of the meal, not as dessert.

In the morning, we packed up the car with food, cooking utensils and our overnight gear, locked up the RV in the driveway, dropped Rumple at Deb’s house and hit the road for Boston.