Wednesday, 1 Sep 2010 - Gettysburg, Penn

Three days on the road and we've finally found an RV site with decent internet service!

We left Monday morning after the requisite stop at Tim Horton's and happy to be on the road again. It lasted until we crossed the border at Ogdensburg and realized the fumes we'd both been smelling...and ignoring...were the brakes overheating. A quick stop at the local Dodge dealer resuled in a diagnosis of 'over-tightened' and after 4 hours of hanging around, we were on our way again with the lowest repair bill we've ever had. We stayed at Association Island RV Resort near Watertown, which is far too fancy a name for the accommodation. I figured at the rate we were going, we'd get to Virginia by December.

Tuesday was hot, hot, hot and it seemed as though each time we stopped for something, the van took longer and longer to cool down. It was well over 90 degrees and we didn't realize how hot the outside temp and sun were making the inside of the van until we left the interstate and drove along a tree-lined highway in the shade! By 3 pm we'd decided that a campground with a pool was necessary (my body was starting to confuse hot flash and heat stroke) and found the Forest Shoreline RV Park in Hop Bottom, Penn, which turned out to be the answer to the body heat issue. It was a great park...mostly seasonal campers but they had a nice area for short-term campers/trailers. We thought about extending our stay for one more night until our neighbour behind us started building his deck at 9 am. We were out of there by 10 am and pulling into the KOA at Gettysburg by 4 pm. It has been a hot, hazy couple of days with not much to see as we've stayed on the interstate and probably won't do any meandering on secondary highways until after our next stop when we head west.

The heat here is crazy and from the news reports, Ottawa is having much the same (who's the @#%$ that shut down the pool?). We're keeping a close eye on the hurricane and have made reservations for the weekend in Richmond, Virginia which is far enough away from the coast that we should be fine. If things settle down we will make daytrips to Williamsburg and Virginia Beach...otherwise we'll check out the Richmond area. Heaven knows there are enough historic things to see to keep us busy for the long weekend.

L-O-V-E shopping in the states...especially groceries. Considering Loblaws is foreign territory to me at home, grocery stores in the states are a whole different ballgame. I squealed like mad when I found single serving sized portions of Hagen Daaz ice cream for $1 each...in all the best flavours! We had the best steak frajitas...$5 for 'everything in a bag' from TGIFridays. Everything is packaged for both 2 or 10 people and all those little packaged things are excellent for the van. We don't lack for many luxuries on the road.

We are here for 2 nights and planning on taking a tour of the city tomorrow. I only had a taste of some of the beautiful old homes on the way in and anxious to see some of the magnificant restored houses. KOA provides a shuttle into the city and we can pick up a tour...on a big air-conditioned bus.

Till next time...keep cool.