Day 1 – There’s so much uncertainty in the air! Hurricane Irma is currently destroying Florida, not long after Hurricane Harvey devastated parts of Texas. It’s not quite mid-September, and it’s usually warm to hot in NY. But it appears we’ll be having an early Fall this year; some of the leaves are already turning colors & for the first time since we moved to NY in 1989, we’ve had to use the heat at night in September. Southern California is burning, Mexico just had a HUGE earthquake, people are dying from the West Nile Virus, and we won’t even begin to discuss the political unrest here & around the world…..
We had planned to leave for this trip earlier & were hoping to be able to head further north, maybe driving through Glacier, Yellowstone, and the Grand Tetons before heading south to OR and CA. Because we’ve been delayed, we’re taking a different route across the country without many scenic stops until we get to the coast. The weather plays a bigger role than we’d imagined, and campgrounds close early (a lot of them on Labor Day) in the north. What IS certain is that we’re happy to be back on the road and on to a new adventure, wherever it takes us.
Knowing we didn’t have a set schedule and didn’t need to be somewhere at a certain time, we slept until 7 a.m. and unhurriedly put the final items in the RV. The cats, who are now 3-1/2 years old, knew something was up when we gathered their heated pads (yes, they each have an electric heating pad for cats). Rob had to chase 2 of them to get them to come along, and find the one that was hiding. Luna just hollered at us, “What, we’re not going to go on another trip now, are we?”
Did you say we’re leaving again?
We departed home at 9:30 a.m. It was 55 degrees, sunny and clear. The girls settled in right away, not a peep out of them – guess they’re used to this by now.
Heading West!
Not much traffic out & we were making good time, heading west towards Pennsylvania. We’ve gotten so much rain this summer in the Northeast, both NY & PA are very green & beautiful.
I-84 heading toward PA
As we entered PA, there were more hills once we passed the Delaware Water Gap – gorgeous out! It’s amazing how pretty Pennsylvania is. We took I-84 W to I-81 S to I-80 W, beginning days of travelling on this highway.
We drove for 3 hours, then stopped at a rest stop for lunch & to give the kitties a break. We’d brought sandwiches from home. Almost immediately the girls were lying in the sun on the dash board. It was 66 degrees and sunny. Back on the road for another couple of hours & it was time to start looking for a place to spend the night. I’d had trouble getting a signal while Rob was driving so we took another break at a rest stop & did some campground searching. Western PA has so many big hills; it was scenic with some farms here & there. We figured it’d be nice to stay in this area.
We reached Bald Eagle State Park and checked availability; they had plenty of sites, so we got off I-80 & drove North and West to the Park. We were allowed to drive thru and pick the site of our choice. The campground was clean and large, near a beautiful lake. We arrived at close to 3 p.m., 72 degrees, sunny and clear.
We decided on site #64, electric only (didn’t need full hook ups for 1 quick night). It was very quiet & we couldn’t see any other campers from our site. The kitties were great, settling in right away.
This is a huge campground. We decided to take a drive to check things out since there wouldn’t be much time tomorrow morning before leaving again. We checked out all the campsites: there are 3 different areas; the one we were in was electric only & allowed pets, another one had full hook ups & didn’t allow pets, & the third one was on the other side of the lake & was primitive camping only – all sites in the woods. The lake was large and surrounded by tall, tree-covered hills which reflected in the water. There were several boat launches & beaches plus the Nature Inn, a lodge up on one of the hills overlooking the lake. It was amazing to us that a place like this wasn’t crowded, but the size of the parking lots indicated that it would be very crowded during the summer. There were great roads for biking and plenty of well-maintained hiking trails. Also, a canoe/kayak launch site further south on a less-busy area of the lake. There were very few bugs out, so refreshing after the heavy mosquitoes June & July in Maine. After seeing all of the possibilities, we started thinking about staying an extra night so that we could take advantage of the biking & kayaking.
We headed back to the RV, had an early dinner, fed the cats, sat around and relaxed a bit, then headed to bed early. A really nice first day!
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