Day 4 Thursday June 13,
2019 We departed our WalMart “Resort” at 7:15AM and headed for
Evergreen Lake Park Campground in Conneaut, Ohio in a slow drizzling
rain. It rained off and on all the way. There was lots of road
construction along the way and lots of roads that needed to be worked
on. We had to go through two road toll booths but they were both
using the Ez-Pass system so it was a matter of just pulling through
the booth really slow. We put the Ez-Pass transponder on the
motorhome in March so they automatically bill our account. Now if
they would just use the toll money and fix the roads.
We arrived about 11:30AM,
checked in and setup in site B18. We had just finished lunch when a
large thunderstorm hit with winds and heavy rain. Sure glad we got
here early and did not get caught on the road in this heavy rain.
There was a break in the rain so we drove 3-4 miles to the town of
Conneaut Ohio which sits on the shore line of Lake Erie. Since we
were this close we wanted to at least say we had seen Lake Erie.
Before we got back to the motorhome another rain front moved in, so
we did not get a chance to walk around the campground as we would
have liked. It has 250 campsites but from what we can see it looks
like most of them are seasonal (people that park their camper here
and stay all season or just come on weekends but don't take the
camper home with them). The campground looks well managed and clean
from what we can see but we can hear the traffic from nearby I-90.
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| Lake Erie |
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| Boat Dock at Lake Erie shore |
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| Geese enjoying the lake |
Day 5 Friday June 14, 2019
Its on to New York today so we departed at 8AM but we only had
about 150 miles to our destination of Porter New York on the shores
of Lake Ontario. We will be a guest of a couple that are members of
Boondockers Welcome. This is an organization of people that are
willing to let campers with self contained RVs stay on their property
basically for free for one to a few nights depending on the hosts.
Usually there are no hookups like in a campground. We have been
members since the organization got started several years ago and this
will be our first time as guest but we have hosted campers on our
property.
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| We made it to New York |
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| Buffalo NY |
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| Buffalo NY |
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| Buffalo NY |
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| Buffalo NY |
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| Buffalo NY |
We arrived at 11:20AM and
unhooked the Toad and backed the motorhome into their driveway. Lake
Ontario is right out their backyard. They provided us with a water
hookup and a 15AMP electrical hookup which is all we need to keep the
batteries charged without having to run the generator once a day.
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| Lake Ontario |
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| Lake Ontario |
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| Lake Ontario |
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| Our Host's house |
After eating lunch and a
little rest we drove to Old Fort Niagara to check on using the free
Trolley to get to Niagara Falls without having to fight the traffic
there. Then we drove through Youngstown and stopped in Lewiston. Both
of these small towns sits on the shores on the Niagara River.
Lewiston is the first town in Western New York to be settled by
European Explores. It is a pretty town with a lot of thriving
business, some located in historic buildings. Both towns had lots of
very nice large old homes that are well maintained.
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lewiston NY |
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| Lighthouse at Old Fort Niagara NY |
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| Old Fort Niagara NY |
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| Old Fort Niagara NY |
Day 6 Saturday June 15,
2019 We drove to Old Fort Niagara and at 9AM boarded the free
Trolley. There are 17 trolley stops and the one for Niagara Falls is
the last one. We were the only passengers for the entire trip which
took just over an hour. This is not a trolley tour but the driver
pointed out highlights all along the way. On the grounds of the Old
Fort Niagara there was a Prisoner of War camp that was used to house
German POWs during WWII. He told us some of the houses that we were
passing had tunnels in the basement that run under the road and go
out to the Niagara River on the other side of the road and the story
is that was how some of the slaves were helped to escape.
We got off at the Niagara
Falls Official Visitors Center and when in to get directions and a
map of the falls area.
The falls are quite
spectacular with the amount of water that is cascading down. I
couldn't get Lena to take the Maid of the Mist boat ride that goes
right up to the bottom of the falls or the jet boat ride that runs
through the turbulent water and gets everyone onboard wet even
thought they give you a rain poncho. We were able to get some great
photos and I did a few short videos. We did a lot of walking by the
time we got back on the trolley. We got off at the Niagara Falls
Underground Railroad Center that just opened in May 2018. This tells
the story of the slaves that were able to escape and through the help
of many people were able to get to freedom into Canada. By the time
we got back to the car our “dogs” were really barking. We are not
accustomed to walking 4 miles or so on pavement plus we had been on
our feet about 4 hours before we got back to the car.
One of the stops was the
Niagara Power Project but we were too tired to tour the facility plus
the trolly driver this morning said we needed to be back to get our
car by 5PM because they close the fort on Saturday at 5PM. This hydro
power plant was built after the Schoolfellow Hydro power Station
collapsed into the Niagara River on June 7, 1956. It took 3 years,
12,000 workers, working 24/7, to construct the new power plant which
provides electricity to millions of residents and thousands of
business and industries. Today it is the third largest hydro power
facility in the US.
Day 7 Sunday June 16,
2019 After breakfast we had to go to Ramsonville to a hardware store
to get a piece to fix the sink plunger in the bathroom sink. From
there we went to visit Lewiston again. They were having a Garden Fest
in the Historic District. They had closed off Center Street and the
street was lined with vendors selling every kind of flowering plant
you can imagine. The Garden Club in town is active and all the well
kept private yards and streets reflect their work. Several residents
had their yards open to allow visitors to walk through and enjoy. We
checked out a few but the Eckerts yard was by far the prettiest. They
have spent 25 years developing it, including a Koi pond, walkways,
sitting areas, swings and fountains and lots of flowering plants and
ground cover. Mrs. Eckert told us that part of the ground cover was
planted by their smart squirrels.
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| Beautiful Home circa 1830 and gardens |
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| Lewiston nameshake |
Lewiston ranked “Top Ten
Best Small Towns in America” by Rand McNally. We think it is well
deserved.
There was a container garden
contest for adults and children and the public could vote on their
favorite. After viewing the gardens and all the vendors along the
street, we had a great lunch at Apple Annies before returning to our
motorhome to rest up for tomorrows drive. We will cross into Canada
tomorrow. We have had a great stay in this area and have enjoyed the
quite in our host's driveway. We would have liked to walk out onto
the beach in their backyard but the water in Lake Ontario is up 42”
above normal we have been told and all the beach area is under water.
We were told that the area had more than normal snow this past Winter
and then more than normal rain for this time of year.
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| Our choice for Children's Prize |
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| Our choice for Adult's Prize |
Day 8 Monday June 17,
2019 We pulled out of our Boondockers Welcome site at 7:22AM headed
for Ontario, Canada for a one night stop before joining the Caravan
Tour on the 18th. We made a wrong turn as we were leaving
the Niagara Falls area and that took us into Canada. As soon as we
made the turn we knew we had made a mistake but there was no way to
exit without going through the Canadian Border Checkpoint. After the
agent asked a bunch of questions he had us pull over and two other
agents came and searched our motorhome and car. They didn't find
anything that excited them so they sent us on our way. By following
the GPS we were able to get turned back around and went back into the
USA in a few minutes and had to go through the US Border Checkpoint.
We finally got headed in the right directions. On our 2015 trip to
Alaska we crossed the Canadian border numerous times and they never
looked inside the motorhome.
Then a few miles down I90 as
we were traveling along about 60 miles an hour in the rightmost lane
a car that was in the lane to our left made a hard right turn in
front of us to get to the exit ramp that we had already passed. He or
she was so close to the front of our motorhome we could not even see
the pavement between the front and their car. He almost hit the
guardrail as he pull onto the ramp. Luckily no one was on the exit
ramp at that point or there would have been a wreck. It happened so
fast I didn't have time to hit the brake or the horn. Idiot.
We arrived at Happy Green
Acres Campground in Ontario Canada about 2:30PM and checked into site
48 for the night. I decided to do a little cleaning on the exterior
of the motorhome to get some of the road grime off so it would not
look so bad when we meet the caravan group tomorrow outside Montreal.
After I finished cleaning we got our lawn chairs out and set outside
and read and relaxed for awhile. It is quite here in the campground
since we are off to ourselves in a large grass area, but we do hear
the road noise from the highway about a half mile away.
Day 9 Tuesday June 18, 2019
We were rolling again this morning by 7:30AM headed for Montreal.
Canadian highway 401 was on of the better highways we have traveled
on so far. About 40 miles from our destination we filled up with fuel
so we would have a nearly full tank to start on the caravan tour
with.
Below is a map of the route we will take on this adventure.
We arrived at Montreal South
KOA about 11AM, which was 3 hours early for normal check-in but the
young lady switched us from site F10 to F11 so we could go ahead and
setup, since the occupant in F10 had not departed yet. We got set up
and ate lunch and went to the Wagonmaster's site to check-in for the
tour. The tour officially starts tomorrow but they recommended
everyone arrive at least one day early. We got all out check-in
material and Nick had us to go through a booklet of all the places we
will be eating that are prearranged by the tour company and prepaid
in our fee so we could pick out which meal we wanted. We chose
lobster every chance we got. This will allow the restaurant to be
better prepared for us when we arrive because we have 48 people in
the group. We also got a booklet with the daily inteniery and a turn
by turn detail of the route between every campground.
When we got back to our site
the Tailgunners came and put Fantasy RV Tours decals on our motorhome
and car with our assigned coach number (5). That way we will be easy
to spot along the road and in the campgrounds. Mark also went through
a checklist of maintenance items for the motorhome to see if we were
up to date with our maintenance. So far we are impressed with the
efficiency of the planning that has been done.
Lena washed some clothes
while I went to the nearest car wash to get some road grime off the
Jeep. It probably will be dirty again in a few days but at least we
will start out with a clean car.
We had our first
get-to-gether at 6PM at the Wagonmaster's site. We learned that there
are 25 RVs on the tour including the Wagonmaster and Tailgunner and
everyone is here and checked in. The tour company decided to allow
one more to join the tour. There is only one other couple here from
NC. We had an interesting conversation with a 81 year old lady in our
group that is traveling solo and driving a 40' motorhome and towing a
car. She also walked the entire Appalachian Trail when she was 55
years old. You just never know what interesting people you will meet.
Day 10 Wednesday June 19,
2019 When I looked out the side window this morning I had a small
pond of water beside the motorhome. The quick disconnect I use on the
water hose was spraying water and probably had been all night. After
breakfast we went to a local hardware store that is almost like Home
Depot and bought a new quick disconnect and then we stopped at the
WalMart right across the street to get some groceries. We will be in
Quebec in a couple of days and once we leave there I think all the
towns we come across will be much smaller and may not have so many
grocery choices.
AT 1:30PM we attended a
short class presented by the Tailgunners on using our handheld
radios. We have been using them for years to communicate to each
other when we check the lights on the toad after hooking it up and
when we are backing into a campsite. Everyone was requested to bring
a set because that is how we will communicate to the Wagonmasters and
Tailgunners leaving and arriving at a campground.
Then at 2PM everyone
introduced themselves to the group and the Wagonmasters and
Tailgunners explained how things will work on the tour and opened the
floor up for questions. It appears we are going to have a very
interesting 61 days on this tour.
Day 11 Thursday June 20,
2019 Everyone boarded a tour bus at 8:30AM for a guided trip to
Montreal. Montreal is actually a large island on the Saint Lawrence
River. We picked up a local guide in town.
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| new bridge opens in a few days |
We visited the Montreal
Trade Center and the Montreal Basilica. It took about 40 years to
complete the inside of the Basilica because most of it is hand carved
from wood. There was one piece that was had carved from on large
tree.
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| Hand carved from one tree |
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| Very large pipe organ |
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| A section of the Berlin Wall |
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| This is water |
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| Inside the World Trade Center |
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| Inside the World Trade Center |
We boarded the bus and drove to Grand Prix Race Track. The driver took us around the track in the bus but not at the speeds they run the race cars around it.
Then we stopped at the
Atwood Market, which was an amazing place. There were several large
greenhouse type shelters full of about any kind of plant and flower
you could think of, then inside the building there were dozens of
shop selling anything from lobster, wine, fresh fruit and vegetables,
meats of all description and any kind of bake goods you wanted.
Our guide picked up our
lunch and we drove out to Mont Royal to have our lunch. She had
planned to take us up to the top of the what she called a mountain
(Mont Royal) to overlook the city but it had started raining so she
said we would not be able to see the city.
So we drove to the Olympic
Village and road a gondola (funicular) car up to the top of the 536'
tall Montreal Tower. It is built on a 45 degree angle and has been
certified as the tallest inclining tower in the world. The top of the
tower has a mass of 8,000 tons and the base is in the ground over 30'
deep and it weighs 145,000 tons or more than 3 aircraft carriers.
From the top we had a panorama view from the Observatory of the city
of Montreal.
Our last stop was the Botanical Gardens. It had lots of
varieties of plants in several large greenhouses with paved walking
paths through them. It was still raining so we did not walk out to
the Japanese and Chinese gardens. I think everyone was tired by the
time we returned to the campground.
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| Lipstick Plant |
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