Charlottesville,Virginia

October 26, 2013 

Out of the mountains and into Charlottesville,Virginia for a two day stay. Upon our arrival, we realized that it was Halloween weekend at the RV park. The celebration fills the RV Parks and people come from miles around to celebrate Halloween and let their children trick-or-treat at the park. Of course we had no idea of the tradition and thus -no candy. To avoid being Halloween scrooges, we darkened our trailer and enjoyed dinner at a Thai restaurant returning only when the young children were in bed. 

In the morning our neighbor in the RV park, suggested we visited Carter’s Apple Orchard for apple picking day. Cars were ushered up the steep incline and we joined hundreds of others to eat and take a few apples with us.  By the time we finished, we had picked about 15 pounds of four different varieties and tasted some of the best apples we have ever eaten.

In the afternoon we toured the Monticello home (a replica is on the nickel)  and plantation of Thomas Jefferson. We came away with a greater appreciation and understanding of a man with an insatiable curiosity and proponent of free thinking yet a slave owner until he died. 

Replica of a sun dial created by Thomas Jefferson 

Shenandoah National Park

October

Motorhomes cannot negotiate the curves in Shenandoah National Park but our small trailer took the curves like Danica Patrick. We spent one night in the Matthew Arms Campground, an off the grid campground with access to numerous trails but a couple designated as dog-free. I guess not all dogs are as environmentally aware as Tucker.  Temperatures were a few degrees above freezing in the next morning. Campers staying in tents attempted to prepare breakfast in a brisk wind e. Although there is almost no R-Value in the trailer, the propane heater allowed us to have coffee and breakfast in comfort-ahhh.

In the morning, we hiked a couple miles on a fire trail that purportedly ended at a waterfall. We did not find the waterfall but did step over some bear scat. 

Gettysburg

The chapter in our high school history book could never convey the Battle of Gettysburg like our guide did on a cold windy morning in October. His grasp of the history and ability to place the audience in the Battle of Little Roundtop was like being part of a staged production.

Our second tour in the afternoon focused on battle artillery. Our guide had a good grasp of facts  and passion for his subject but he could not compete on the delivery with our morning guide.

To warm up, we stopped at an Irish pub in downtown Gettysburg for an Irish coffee. Sitting next to us was an Irishman who now lives in Boston; his brogue was so thick it required totally concentration to converse with him. I better go to Ireland so I can practice:)

The Gettysburg Museum and Visitor's Center is a day's visit in itself and would be a good place to begin a visit to Gettysburg rather than an end to it but worthwhile whenever it is visited. The short film narrated by Morgan Freeman provided an overview of the Civil War and the importance of the Gettysburg battle.

Following the film is the opportunity to view the Gettysburg Cyclorama Painting, one of three created in the 1880s by French artist Paul Philippoteaux. It is over 40 feet high and its circumference of 377 feet depicts Pickett's Charge, a battle the third day in the Battle of Gettysburg. The canvas is part of a diorama  and the building was designed specifically to display them.

After spending two days at Gettysburg, rereading the Gettysburg address penned by President Lincoln is a humbling experience.

Pottsville and Ticks

10/22-25/2013

History also comes in liquid form and we stopped in Pottsville, Pennsylvania for a tour of the lodes brewery in the US. We neglected to check the times of the tours and by the time we arrived the last tour group was entering the tasting room to sample the products. We joined them and enjoyed  several samples of Yuengling Beer.

We found several more ticks on Tucker that hitch-hiked with him from New York and they had settled in for a long stay. Initially I thought they were one of Tucker's old dog warts when I was petting him but I was wrong-yuck! Hoping to avoid a repeat of  uninvited travelers, we used a product on Tucker called Frontline. Steve had also found ticks on himself but opted for a shower rather than a tick deterrent.

Friends

October 19-22

After living in Alaska for over thirty years, Steve and I have friends who have relocated all over the USA. Ed, a rugby pal of Steve’s was our next stop after Boston where he and his wife, Kim and delightful daughter, Bernadette treated us like royalty. Of course Ed was still calling bullsh*# on Steve’s stories while Kim and I got reacquainted and Bern enjoyed a Halloween festival. 

~ ~ ~ 

When Steve worked for the Anchorage Fire Department, he was on the Water Rescue Team. It can be dangerous work, especially when diving under the ice so one of the top public safety  instructors in the world, Butch Hendricks, was hired to train the team members. After the training he and Steve continued to correspond and we stopped by to visit him and his partner, Andrea’s home in Hurley, north of New York City in the Catskill Mountains. The property was previously a rest area for General Washington’s soldiers and there are still remnants of a bathing pool used by the men. The four foot stone walls erected to keep the pigs contained are still visible. 

A few miles down the hill is one of the homes of George Washington. The town of Hurley, briefly the capital of New York, is on the National Register of Historic Sites and claims a building where a reception for President Washington was held.

Mixing it up a bit, we stopped for coffee in the town of Woodstock. The concert site is outside of town and not accessible to the public so I could only hum a few notes of the Joni Mitchell song, Woodstock, and take a photo of a garish sign.

Boston Commons

Visiting an historical landmark is an opportunity we could not forgo and we spent an afternoon in and around Boston Commons, the country's oldest public park. In 1634 it was sold to the Puritans and provided a convenient place to graze cattle and hang those who failed to adhere to the Puritan doctrine.  Later it was a center of Revolutionary War activity although the version we heard from our guide differed from that espoused by Sarah Palin.

Touring is thirsty work and we stopped for lunch at a replica of Cheers. On the show, the service was much better and the characters more "three dimensional" but hey- we're tourists.

Our last stop for the day was a self-guided tour of the USS Constitution often referred to as Old Ironsides because the cannonballs would not penetrate the hull of the ship. It was built after the Revolutionary War and saw action before and during the war of 1812. 

Photo from naval today.com

Arrival in Boston

10/17/2013

We were waiting for the mailman to deliver our two-day express license plates for the Alto in four days but the Columbus Day holiday messed up delivery; yet another reason to eliminate it as a federal holiday. Steve and Carla were expecting us in Boston so we left anyway and I will pick them up when I return to Maine for a few days in November.

Because of our late start, we arrived in the Boston vicinity after dark and one wrong turn took us through the heart of Boston at 7:00 pm in the evening. I am using Google map to direct Steve but by the time I determined what turns are required, it is too late to change lanes. Steve told me to put my hand out the window to let the driver in the other lane let us in but it was not effective. The streets seemed about 12 feet wide-for both lanes and an hour late to our destination and a planned birthday party I was a candidate for a jacket with long white sleeves.

After a dinner of curries, wine and chocolate cake (Tucker snuck into the kitchen and licked the side of the cake before anyone could stop him), conversation turned to Alaska. Steve and I initially met our host Steve in Alaska but this was the first time we had the pleasure of meeting his wife, Carla Kaplan. Coincidentally, one of Carla's high school classmates and best friends is on the Board of Trustees for Alaska, a nonprofit environmental law firm I worked for the previous five years in Anchorage.

In anticipation of our visit, I purchased Carla's newest book, Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance. I regretted that there was not time for her to show me how she organizes and researches material for a book of that caliber but I hope to make a return visit for a longer stay.

Fast Forward-a closer look at the Alto

For  a small trailer, the Alto has an amazing number of features, but it was not until we were in Charlottesville, NC  and met Joe that a video was recorded. Joe, author of the the blog, bookofjoe, used Google Glass to create two videos; both are posted on YouTube and on his blog.

http://www.bookofjoe.com/2013/10/south-from-alaska-in-an-alto-safari-condo-through-google-glass.html

          http://www.bookofjoe.com/2013/11/alto-safari-conda-through-google-glass.html

While Steve and I were still in Maine and "outfitting" the Alto, I snapped a photo of the outdoor shower. Thus far we have not used it as we have been staying in campgrounds and with friends but we are headed to a warmer climate and will try it out.

Backing up a trailer has never been one of my strengths so Instructor Steve took me out for my first lesson. He is a good teacher and I am better than before, but then the bar was set pretty low.

Turkeys, Pumpkins and Monhegan Island

October 13, 2013

About a two hour drive from Orono, Maine is Monhegan Island, home to artists, fisherpeople and incredible views. It was dark when Steve and I traveled on winding rural roads to catch a 9:00 a.m. ferry at New Harbor, Maine. Wild turkeys feed along the roads although I have heard they are not not the species Americans associate with the Thanksgiving turkey.

For the view and my stomach, I sat in the open deck of the ferry. Along the route, hundreds of buoys mark lobster pots. From a distance, some of the buoys look like gray seals and a couple of the passengers got pretty excited but quickly deflated when they discovered the seals were pieces of floating plastic. Not far from Monhegan is Southern Island owned by Jamie Wyeth and who continues to paint in his studio.

Not only is the island spectacular, but the fish and chips and a pint from a local brewery are alone worth of a visit.

While on the island, a couple stopped to pet Tucker and mentioned it was the last week for the pumpkin festival in Damariscotta, a few miles north of us. We did miss the pumpkin regatta but captured a few of my favorite pumpkins.

Hiking in Maine

October 5-10

I know a blog is supposed to be timely but at this stage of the trip, it is not so I am backtracking about three weeks. During our stay in Maine I was impressed with the number of easily accessible trails within a 15 mile radius of my sister's home in Orono-one a block away. In addition to State and Federal trails, Maine Land Trusts have given visitors and residents alike access to hundreds of miles of trails for biking and hiking. They are not rutted by four-wheelers and trash along the routes is almost non-existent. We arrived in Maine during the government shutdown; the national parks were closed so we viewed Arcadia Park from the top of Chick Hill in Clifton, Maine. In the parking lot was another car sporting Alaska plates.