Sunday, June 24, 2018
Posted from: Aqua Vista Valley Campground - Petersburg, NY
Miles driven: 409
Total miles: 3,664
Today we had a travel day first. The truck’s transmission overheated. Well, huh. In the over 15,000 miles pulling this trailer across the country, over mountain passes, in 100+ degree heat, this has never happened. More on this later.
Today we are traveling towards an overnight stop near Albany, NY on our way to Niagara Falls. We backtracked through Maine and Massachusetts, and then made a sharp right turn towards the west to drive through New Hampshire and Vermont. For the first time this trip we were traveling towards home.
The hills started out with long and gradual hills. Some with 6-8% grades. The truck does great with these. No problem.
It was a cool day with a little rain.
And then it happened: This view is brought to you by an overheated truck transmission.
The hills in Vermont became steep and short. A lot of quick ups and downs mixed in with some longer steep grades. Apparently this was a bad mix. The transmission gauge kept moving toward the red. We were only 35 miles from the campground, but Matt said we needed to stop really soon.
As luck would have it, there was a huge scenic view pull off right around the corner. Plenty of room for the camper. Whew!! There was also a gift shop. We had lots of time to kill while the truck cooled down so we went exploring. (I should add that there was also a brewery on the hill right across the street. Dad got teased for somehow planning the whole overheating scenario, so we would be stuck here for a bit. We actually never walked over there.)
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| Might as well enjoy the view. |
After about 30 minutes, it was time to head back to the truck. We did take the opportunity to walk into the gift shop to purchase Vermont maple syrup (when in Rome!), and some meat and cheese.
Thankfully the truck had cooled. Matt gave it a little pep talk assuring it we only had a few more miles of this. (I want to make a comment about guys and their toys, but honestly the talks seem to work. Matt’s new title: The Truck Whisperer.)
This sign became known (perhaps only in our truck) as the pooping rock sign. We have only seen it in Vermont. We have seen the more standard falling rock/rock slide sign in many other states across the country. But we agreed this one is way better. Well done Vermont. Well done.
We may have completed all of our Christmas shopping here... I mean seriously, who on our list wouldn’t want...well something, I’m sure, from this place.
In a moment very reminiscent of our initially questionable campground at Mammoth Cave, Matt had to practically pull a U-turn to drive down a narrow path to what we hoped was our campground. This exact point is where Goggle dropped us and said we had arrived. I didn’t take a picture of the couple houses along this road, but we were pretty sure (please God) that we had in fact NOT arrived.
We drove and drove and drove down this path... not sure how we were going to get out. No cell reception. This is how people die on vacation. Pretty sure.
But then there was a cute campground sign and a pretty cool campground came into view. Matt’s campground selection skills were once again redeemed. This place was primarily a full time campground. We were the only non-full timers since it was a Sunday night, which was cool because it meant we had a huge yard. We were going to get out games, and start a fire, and...and...and...Mom forgot to check the weather. About thirty minutes after we got set up and I had put together dinner (we enjoyed the cheese and meat from the gift shop), the boys came back from exploring and said the campground people were closing everything down because of a lot of rain coming.
Matt and I were unusually exhausted (curvy hilly roads are not our thing...for different reasons), so the rain and relaxing movie night could not have come at a better time.
It started raining and didn’t stop until about 2am. So we ate and made the dinette and couch into beds so we could relax and watch a movie. It was stormy so we watched Harry Potter 7 for effect. And Caleb cried when Dobby died. So sad.
Travel firsts almost always make for a great story...after you survive them.
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