Lake Navajo, Colorado

We left Colorado Springs on Saturday, August 24^th, after hitching up the boat to the motorhome. Julie followed me in our GMC Yukon and we headed down I-25. We had planned to stay a RV park outside of Monte Vista, but it had gone out-of-business and was overgrown with weeds. We had stayed there last September on our way home from Lake Powell.

We looked at our RV park guides and decided to stay just west of South Fork at the Riverbend Resort. They told us on the phone that they had a pull-through site that would be long enough for our motorhome towing a boat. We had driven past this RV park many times over the years but had never stopped there. We learned while checking in, that the resort was used in the movie “Vacation” with Chevy Chase, as Clark Griswold and Bevery D’Angelo who played his wife.

The Riverbend Resort was a typical RV park in the South Fork area, with many, many Texans staying there for the summer. We had a challenge leaving the next morning getting out of our site and the RV park as the turns were a little tight with the boat in tow.

We stopped for breakfast in Pagosa Springs on our way Navajo State Park. We really looked forward to our 2-week stay at Navajo as it really feels like we’re full-timing and not on the road every couple of days. The majority of the lake is in New Mexico. You cross the state line right outside of the boat ramp we launch from.

The lake level was down 70-feet, the lowest it’s been in over 10-years, according to the park rangers. The lake is low because little snowpack last winter and because water has been released for crop irrigation downstream.

We took the boat out on Wednesday and although the lake was down, it was still 150 to 190-feet deep in the main channel. The water was beautiful blue-green and we went 25-miles down the lake to the dam. We stopped at the marina and enjoyed ice cream before we headed back to Colorado. While at the marina, we saw an improvised “houseboat” using a tent trailer camper. 

My sister Marcia and brother-in-law Mike joined us at Navajo on Wed, Sept 4^th for 4 nights. On Friday, we rode the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge railroad train up to from Durango to Silverton and back. It was the first time any of us had ridden this train and we had beautiful weather. We head to Page, AZ and Lake Powell next.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

sandjcornelius@msn.com            

Moved into a new home

We took a side-trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, on Saturday, August 3^rd, to look at a new 2012 Itasca Meridian 43-foot motorhome. The exterior and interior colors were perfect for us and the dealer had substantially reduced the price. We weren’t really looking for a new motorhome, but this 2012 Meridian 42E had the floor plan and the extra storage space we wanted, and a washer and dryer, which will save us many trips to laundromats. Our 2008 Meridian was starting to show some wear and tear. We drove it 37,000 miles in the 18-months we had it with many trips between Colorado and Texas, and separate trips to Florida, Utah, California, South Dakota, and Virginia.  

Old Home

We left Colorado Springs on Monday, August 12^th and headed back to Lincoln to take delivery of our new home. We planned to take delivery on Wednesday, but the dealer was fixing a couple of minor issues we pointed out in the walk-through. We moved from our old Meridian to the new Meridian on Saturday, August 17^th. It took us about 4-hours and many trips between the two motorhomes.

New Home

On Sunday we headed to Sioux Falls, SD to overnight. Then on Monday we went to DMV to take care of the title work and get our South Dakota license plates. We headed back to Lincoln on Tuesday to have the dealer take care of a hydraulic jack leveling problem. They had to replace a faulty pump motor. On Wednesday, August 21^st, we began heading back to Colorado Springs for a couple of days, before we head to Navajo State Park this weekend, in southwestern Colorado, for a 2-week stay at the lake there. We’ll be “off the grid” at Navajo, with no internet service and poor cell phone coverage.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

sandjcornelius@msn.com            

Back to Colorado Springs & Pueblo

We left the Wright-Patterson AFB Family Campground on Thursday, August 1^st. We renewed a new friendship with an Air Force retired Chief Master Sergeant we had met at Nellis AFB (Las Vegas) this past March. He was working at the Nelllis Family Campground office where we had stayed and he gave us some tips on flying space-available. It’s the second time we’re run into someone we had met at another place. We told him we’d see him next March when we go to the Las Vegas NASCAR races.

We left Dayton and headed west on I-70, where we overnighted in Mulberry Grove, Illinois at an RV park. On Friday we drove west through St. Louis and overnighted in Blue Springs, MO at a nice county park. We went out to Gates Barbeque and tried some of their “Kansas City-style” ribs. They were good, but our favorite ribs are still from the Country Tavern, near Tyler, Texas.

We left early on Saturday morning, August 3^rd, and headed out on a side-trip to Lincoln, Nebraska, to take a look at a motorhome. We overnighted near York, NE on Saturday and on Sunday, we headed to Wilson Lake, near Sylvan Grove, Kansas. We stayed at the Minooka corps of engineer campground and it was well worth an overnight stop. The lake is long, with blue, clear water, and we had an awesome view of the lake from our campsite.

We arrived in Colorado Springs on Monday, August 5^th and stayed at the Air Force Academy FamCamp for 2 nights. On Tuesday, Julie and I both had dental appointments. Then Tuesday evening, we met some friends for dinner at Hacienda Colorado to catch up on everything since we last saw them several months ago. We really enjoyed the evening with Vince, Lisa, Sal, Terri, Rick and Wendy.

On Wednesday, August 7^th, we got our boat out of storage, picked up my two granddaughters (ages 7 and 10) and headed to Lake Pueblo State Park. The girls were really looking forward to going out on the boat, but it rained most of Wednesday and Thursday. My youngest daughter Jenny (the girls’ mom) joined us for dinner. Finally, the weather was sunny and warm on Friday morning so we went out for a couple of hours, before we had to take them home to Colorado Springs.

 

Our friends Rick & Diana came by our campsite on Friday night to grill out and enjoy dinner together. We grilled out, but ate dinner in the motorhome. During dinner, it started raining and then the skies opened up.

On Saturday, August 10^th, I took our GMC Yukon to get the parking brake repaired. It stopped working a month or so ago after I accidently left it on one morning and towed the Yukon behind the motorhome for several hundred miles. We were lucky the brakes didn’t overheat and catch the car on fire. Our friend Wendy joined us for dinner on Saturday night.

On Sunday, our friends Candice, Mike and their daughter Misha, came down for the day. The weather was perfect with sunny skies and temperatures in the upper 80s.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

sandjcornelius@msn.com            

Washington DC and Dayton, Ohio

We arrived at the Andrews Air Force Base Family Campground on Thursday, July 25^th for a for a 3 night stay. The campground was right in the middle of the Andrews three beautiful 18-hole golf courses. The clerk at the campground office told me that President Obama had golfed there the previous Friday and came over to the campground to say hello to everyone.

On Friday we drove to the nearby Metro station and rode the train into DC. We decided to go see a few things we hadn’t seen before, so the first stop was the Ford Theater, which Julie had never visited.

 

 

 

After touring the Ford Theater and museum, we walked by the White House and along the Mall. We stopped by the World War II memorial to see it again. The Washington Monument is covered with scaffolding as they repair the earthquake damage from two years ago.

 

We walked to see the new Martin Luther King memorial and although it was dedicated in August 2011, they’re still finishing up its construction.

 

We walked a ways to the nearest Metro stop and then rode the train to Dupont Circle. We went to Hank’s Oyster Bar for drinks and dinner. We got a table outside to enjoy the nice weather day. We shared jumbo peel and eat shrimp for an appetizer. Julie had fried oysters and I had seared sea scallops for dinner and it was yummy. We’d recommend this place to anyone looking for outstanding, fresh seafood in DC.

We left Andrews on Sunday morning and the traffic was light as we’d hoped it would be. We drove north and connected to I-70 to turn and go west. We overnighted at Salt Fork State Park, near Lore City, Ohio. The park was very nice with large grass areas between campsites.

On Monday, July 29^th, we had a short drive to Dayton, Ohio where we had reservations for 3 nights at the Wright Patterson AFB Family Campground. We planned to spend a few days here so we could visit the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force (my idea of course). I had visited once several years ago, but couldn’t spend much time because I was on a business trip and the museum closed at 5PM.

We went to the museum yesterday and spent most of the day there. Julie and I were both surprised that it wasn’t just a bunch of old airplanes on display. It was a large (3 hangers), very well organized museum and its exhibits included a detailed history. We saw exhibits of all the airplanes that Julie’s Dad flew when he was in the Air Force, including the C-7A. The C-7A was a short take-off and landing cargo aircraft that he flew the year he spent in Vietnam.

 

Steve & Julie Cornelius

sandjcornelius@msn.com

Civil War Battlefields

We arrived in Luray, Virginia on Thursday, July 18^th for the weekend and a family reunion. We stayed at the best KOA we’ve ever stayed at, hands-down. The RV sites were spacious and there was lots of open space in the campground. We had a beautiful flowering bush next to our site, called a butterfly  bush.

 

The family reunion was on Saturday and there were about 25 attendees from Arkansas, California, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and us.

On Monday, July 22^nd, six of us went to New Market, VA to visit the New Market Civil War national battlefield and museum. The battle was interesting in that the Confederate Army leaders called up cadets from Virginia Military Institute to fight and they marched about 30 miles to the battlefield from VMI. Many of the Civil War battles were in Virginia with the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fighting the Federals or Union Army.

Tuesday, we departed Luray and headed north through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to the Gettysburg KOA for a 2-night stay. It was only a short 2 ½ hour drive.

Once we got set up, we decided to drive over to Sharpsburg, MD to see the Antietam National Battlefield. Julie’s great grandfather (her Dad’s grandfather) was a wheel wright for the Union Army at Antietam. We found it interesting that the North referred to this battle as the Antietam Campaign where General Lee invaded Maryland. The South referred to the battle as the Battle of Sharpsburg. Same battle, but referred to by two different names. Using different names was common throughout the Civil War.

 

On the way back to the Gettysburg KOA, we stopped for dinner in Fairfield, PA at the Taverna 5450, a small tavern-restaurant. Our server told us that anything on the menu with that contained the word crab was worth ordering. We ordered crab bisque, crab cakes, and crab ala vodka. We weren’t disappointed! Highly recommend it if you ever pass through Fairfield.

On Wednesday, July 24^th, we toured the Gettysburg National Military Park. This is the Sesquicentennial (150^th anniversary) of the Battle of Gettysburg. Earlier this month there were reenactments of the three battles on July 1, 2 and 3. We went to the National Park visitor center, where we saw a film, a cyclorama painting (depicting the battles), and an excellent museum. Afterwards, we did a self-guided auto tour that took us 2 ½ hours. Gettysburg far exceeded our expectations because there was so much to see.

 

We drove to the Andrews Air Force Base Family Campground today to stay for three nights. Tomorrow we’re going to ride the Metro into Washington, DC and do some sightseeing.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Michigan, Canada and New York state

Leaving our camp site at Tawas Point State Park on Wed, July 10^th, we had a small problem. The day before it had rained and our sandy site ended up about four inches under water. When we began backing up the motorhome, and I turned the front wheels, the front wheels dug huge holes in the sand and we were stuck. I stopped and exited the MH to survey the situation.

A nearby camper came up and said he had a pickup truck and a strap and offered to pull me out. I think I hurt his feelings when I told him I didn’t think that would work, because the MH weighs about 30,000 pounds. Later, I thought I should have asked him if he had a Tundra pickup…since they can pull the space shuttle and I’m sure the shuttle weighs quite a bit more than our MH. Anyway, we got out of the sand okay on our own and were shortly underway.

We headed north up I-75 about 150 miles towards the Mackinaw Bridge. We hadn’t crossed it in about 30-years and it’s an amazing engineering feat between Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas.

The wind was blowing a little, and warning signs had RVs cross the bridge at 20 mph. We checked in at Straits State Park at the northern end of the bridge in St. Ignace and were pleased with the park. Our campsite was long, level and had a nice grassy area next to the site. After we got set up, we went over to our friend’s house to visit and have dinner. We met Eldon and Cindy Patton on our trip to Alaska in 2011 and had seen them again in Florida in January 2012 and 2013. It was fun catching up.

 

On Thursday, we took the passenger ferry from St. Ignace to Mackinaw Island. We also took our bicycles with us. The only modes of transportation on Mackinaw Island are bicycles and horses. After a nice lunch, we enjoyed a leisurely 8.2 mile bicycle ride around the island. The road was fairly flat and there were many bicyclists, mostly on rental bikes.  

After the bicycle ride, we parked the bikes and walked through town to the world famous Grand Hotel.

 

 

 

 

We enjoyed treats at a new ice cream shop, but the portions were way too much. I had a turtle sundae and Julie had one scoop of ice cream.

 

On Fri, July 12^th, we got up early and left St. Ignace for Sault Ste. Marie to cross the border into Canada. There was a long line of traffic waiting to cross into the USA, but we didn’t have to wait long to cross into Canada. Then we headed east towards Sturgeon Falls, Ontario, where we had reservations at a KOA, about a 300-mile trip from St. Ignace.

Saturday we drove about 20-miles east over to North Bay, Ontario, to see how things have changed over the past 30-years. We lived in North Bay, population 54,000, when the U.S. Air Force stationed us there 1982-1985. We enjoyed seeing our old house, the local indoor mall, and other areas of town. We were disappointed to learn that they had just demolished the old St. Joseph’s Hospital in April, where our son Paul was born in May 1983.

We laughed when we saw this truck and how much the Canadians love their politicians too…

We decided to leave on Sunday morning, rather than try to drive through Toronto on Monday morning. We got up at 5:30AM on Sunday and were on the road before 7AM. Toronto is about 4-hours south of North Bay and we drove through Toronto around 11:30AM with some traffic. We crossed over to the USA at Lewiston, New York (rather than the much busier Niagara Falls crossing), but it still took about a half-hour to cross.

We stayed for 3-nights at Four Mile Creek State Park, in the very northwest corner of New York state, and it was an awesome park. We had large grassy sites and a great view of Lake Ontario. We could barely see the Toronto skyline across the lake about 50-miles away.

 

 

 

On Mon, July 15^th, we went into Lewiston for lunch and enjoyed The Silo, with fantastic views of the Niagara River and its green colored water.

After lunch, we headed a few miles south to Niagara Falls. Julie and I hadn’t been there since the early-80s and there seemed to be more tourist clutter around the area. It’s a shame, since the natural beauty of the waterfalls is so amazing.

 

It was a warm day, in the upper-80s and very humid, so we headed back early to Four Mile Creek to cool off.

Tuesday, we decided to head to Lockport, NY, about 20-miles away to see the historic Erie Canal and the canal locks there.

 

Today, Wed, July 17^th, we began heading south, through Buffalo and around Pittsburg to a campground about 30-miles south of Pittsburg. Tomorrow, we head towards Luray, Virginia near Shenandoah National Park, for the weekend and a family reunion.

Steve & Julie Cornelius

sandjcornelius@msn.com