Category Archives: State Park

The East End – Montauk Point

Well, after a several month hiatus from traveling around the United States, Louise and I are back on the road again. The impetus for our latest trip was the wedding of my cousin Jeanne’s son, Michael and his lovely bride Emily. Since all the family was gathering at familial homes, we decided take the RV, to allow is the maximum flexibility with, and the least impact on, our wonderful relatives.

brideThe wedding was wonderful. The bride was beautiful, the groom was handsome, all my relatives looked stunningly attractive, the party was great, the band was terrific, the dancing was awesome, the food and the wine were delicious and plentiful. The event was one of those place markers in your life that you measure things before and after from. After the ceremony, we caught up with a number of cousins that we had not seen in a long time, and then afterwards, politely left to explore the East End of Long Island. I have been coming out to the East End of Long Island during the summer since I was born. I attended college at what was then Southampton College of Long Island University, and we’ve continued to visit family with my wife and kids since that time. I can’t remember an August when we didn’t visit the East End of Long Island. Those visits however, have always been a time for family and not for exploration. Louise and I both have free time now, and we decided that this would be a great time to see places we haven’t seen in many years. Continue reading

Drive to Provo

roadToday was a long day.  We’ve been through some empty places, but the empty places we saw today, after being in the beauty of the Tetons, was too much of a contrast.  On the plus side, the weather at the start of the trip was a little overcast, so driving wasn’t so blinding. Continue reading

The Black Hills

We got off to an early start by way of not sleeping in. For some reason, I was up and ready to go at 6 AM, probably because I’m still on East Coast time – vacation mode will do that to you.

We had a great breakfast of Taylor ham, egg and cheese on a hard roll, a New Jersey treat.  The hard rolls we found were good, an unexpected surprise. I’m sure that today that we were eating the westernmost Taylor Ham and Egg sandwiches in the United States. Continue reading

St Louis

The fields in western Indiana show signs of spring, planting and new growth, compared to the western Ohio and Eastern Indiana fields.  It was definitely spring in the east, and it’s definitely full blown summer in western Indiana.  It was warm and buggy in the evening, but when we went to bed, we opened up the RV and slept quite comfortably.  We slept so comfortably that we overslept.  There were no birds chirping, no traffic noise, no people, no airplanes overhead, no whispering trees,  no nothing.  I think that it’s one of the quietest places that we’ve ever stayed. Continue reading

The Start of Great Things

We are embarking on a two month adventure, where we will revisit places where we have had great times, and stop at new places where possibilities abound. We left without still being attached to any electrical cords, or other mishaps. It was quite pleasant. No excitement, no crisis, very anticlimactic, very nice. Pennsylvania is a wide state, and gave us plenty of time to realize what we left behind.  Fortunately, this is a nation of Wal-Mart’s, Targets and hardware stores, and what was left behind was small stuff to make things more comfortable. Crossing Pennsylvania takes about six hours and things went well until we discovered our route went through a tunnel that prohibited compressed flammable gasses.  We were outlawed because of our propane tank. We reached our destination, family just outside Pittsburgh, about a half hour late. Continue reading