Reading Old Journals

Mackenzie has been very sick with a cold the past 4 days, so we just stayed at their house today and did not do any activities or trips.  We plan to do the same for tomorrow.  We’ll be taking the girls on a weekend camping trip down to Long Beach, WA on Friday and we want Mackenzie to be well by then. 

I dug around the RV this afternoon and found some of my old travel journals I used to keep before the days of Blogging and taking a computer on the road with us.  It was fun to read some of the entries.  I kept a detailed journal in 1997 and 1999 when Bruce and I were able to get away from the family for 6 months and travel to the east coast.  And then I kept journals with sporadic entries on the trips we took my Dad on.  By then I was sending out an e-mail newsletter to people and so the journal entries began to fall off a bit. 

Here is an entry from August 11, 1997 when we were at Stone Mountain, Georgia:

We drove north past Macon to the Stone Mountain Park turnoff east of Atlanta.  We got a nice campsite and will stay for 4 nights.  Got settled in and ate lunch.  After lunch we drove around the mountain to the walk-up path entrance.  It was very warm but we decided to walk up to the top of the mountain anyway.  It was a long gradual climb, sometimes steep.  We had to stop several times along the way to catch our breath.  The last 100 yards or so was very rough, but we finally made it.  There was a nice air conditioned snack bar at the top – thank goodness.  There is also a tram that will take you from the bottom to the top, but we chose to walk.  The view from the mountain top was beautiful and we stayed up there and rested and had a snack.  Then we began the trip back down the mountain. 

My journal entry does not do justice to how miserably humid it was that day!  What was I thinking in letting Bruce talk me into climbing Stone Mountain in AUGUST????  He still thinks it’s funny.  Me?  Not so much.

In 1999 we took another trip east, going on the northern route toward Maine.  We found a listing for a Passport America park in King Ferry, New York.  The listing said it was open so we drove and drove and drove until we found it. 

My entry for April 26, 1999:

We drove south to Route 17 and then headed east to King Ferry.  Route 17 is a mess.  Very lumpy and bumpy.  Drove past Elmira and northeast through Ithaca.  King Ferry is way the heck out in the country.  We finally located the campground, Black Rock Campground, and it looked deserted.  We finally located a strange man working in a pottery shed.  He seemed to know nothing about RV spaces, most of which were still covered with brush and limbs from winter storms.  He instructed us to go a mile into town and see “Bill” at the antique store.  So we drove into King Ferry.  We found a woman at the store who said the camp didn’t usually open until May 30 (even though the Passport book said otherwise) but that she was Bill’s wife and told us to just drive out onto the grass by the pond and we could park for free with no hook-ups.  It was getting late, so we said OK.  We drove back to Black Rock Campground and did what she told us to do.  We promptly got stuck fast in the muddy grass and could not budge the motorhome.  We tried everything to free our wheels.  Bruce walked up to the pottery shed with the strange man to see what could be done.  No phone service at this campground!  Mr. Strange Man said “don’t worry, Bill will be by in a while and he can pull you out with his tractor.”  Around 9 pm Bill did drive up without his tractor.  He said his wife did not know what she was talking about and she shouldn’t have told us to park there.  No kidding.  He asked if we’d be OK to just stay there for the night and he’d come back at dawn to pull us out with his tractor.  We agreed and off he went.  We listed a bit to the port side but we managed to sleep OK.

My entry for June 9, 1999:  (Maine)

We left Acadia National Park today and continued our journey north on Route 1.  We came to Cobscook Bay State Park and paid for a 2-night stay.  They assigned us to site #4 in the RV section, no hook-ups but what a magnificent view!  Our site is very level and secluded and we have a view of the Cobscook Bay.  We pulled out our chairs and set them out facing the bay. 

It was fun to re-read all of those old journal entries.  Reliving the old RV vacations brings back good memories and sad memories.  Dad isn’t with us anymore but the entries from our trip to Alaska with him in 2006 were great.  We saw so many things and he was so glad he actually got to see that fabulous state. 

As a Blogger I no longer have to handwrite my journals.  I can just post a blog and then go back anytime to re-read it.  I like this way much better.  Did any of you keep detailed travel journals before blogging? 

It was another hot day (over 90F) so staying indoors was nice.  The heat wave should break after tomorrow.  Can’t wait.

Until next time…..so long for now!