Winter Excursion 1, Day 152 (Final Day....HOME!)

Left Geneva State Park this morning at 0830. Weather was beautiful, but cold (29 deg when I got up at 0700).
Headed up I-90 the entire trip. roads were clear, and it was a nice sunny day. A little breezy, but it was a tail wind.
Saw a little snow in the Erie/Buffalo area, but just traces.
When we got close to home on Tug Hill this is what greeted us near Barnes Corners (20 miles from home).

But, when we got to the house there was no snow. Here's a pic coming up the driveway.

House is fine, a little dusty and dirty (we will clean tomorrow), but all is well. Got the water and propane turned back on and all is working fine. We will stay in the camper tonight and get the house squared away tomorrow. Monday we will visit Mom.
So here is the little surprise that I mentioned a few days ago.
Here's the Map of our Winter Excursion. Purple lines are our approximate routes. Green dots and Blue flags are some way points that we used, discard them as we tend to travel the back roads instead of the highways.

Again, disregard the green dots and blue flags. All the "pine trees" are campgrounds we stayed at. There is close to 20 of them. We have meet some super folks (all campers) along the way and are staying in touch with a few of them.

Here's some stats from the trip:
     We drove 11,960.6 miles. I estimate that 90% of this was on "back-roads" (not Interstate). Of course not all of this is towing the camper. I can estimate that the camper has about 8000 miles on it now, so we drove about 4000 miles seeing the sites.
     We were in the truck for 356.56 hours! That means the Vizsla likes her truck.
     We used 1101.7 gallons of gas, that means I put a dent in my wallet, as we estimate the average gas price was $2.15 per gallon, so that's $2367.15 in gas, worth every penny!
     And if you haven't already figured it out, average gas mileage was 10.9 MPG!
We are happy to be home, but are already planning our next winter's excursion. We had an absolute BLAST on this one! Hope everyone enjoyed the blog, I had a good time doing it.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 151

Slept in a little late listening to the wind and the lake. It sounds like a train. When I got up around 0800 it was snowing, that's the second snow we've seen on this trip! There was no snow accumulation here, but some of the inland areas had 8 inches. Lake Erie is really kicking, I'd estimate 6 footers!
Played some cribbage, had a nice breakfast, and watched TV until the rain stopped. The campground is an absolute LAKE! The rain finally stopped, but the wind is howling. That's good as it will dry this place out.
We left camp to gas up the truck. Back at camp we packed up as much as we could for the trip home.
Long drive tomorrow (380 miles), but it's all interstate.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 150

DAY 150! WHO'DA THOUGHT!
No pics today. It was grey, rainy, and cold. We hung out in the camper, played some cribbage, and did a little clean-up. We did manage to get Kaylee out for a walk in between the rain storms. The entire campground is a sponge, any walk requires mud clean-up, but Kaylee doesn't understand that. The ground is so saturated that our outside door mat slides around every-time we step on it, you have to be careful not to slip and fall. We are glad we have a good satellite signal and fast internet connection, as we've been watching TV and cruising the internet.
We did manage to run to the quick stop as we needed some milk.
Yard Bird, rice, and asparagus for dinner. Movie, some wine, and then off to bed. Only two more nights before we are home.
Make sure to tune in on Sunday morning, that will be the last post for this trip and I have a surprise for all. We will probably stay in the camper our first night home, as I have to get the water and power back on in the house.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 149

Didn't get up until 0730 this morning. The wind had died down and the sun was out! We are the only camper on the A loop and the B loop has only one also.

We drove south of Cleveland to Cuyahoga Valley National Park late morning. As usual we took the back roads. It was a nice drive through some pretty country, spring is staring to come on in Ohio. Visit the website on the link above, this is a really interesting National Park. It did not become a park until 1974. While there, we visited one of the falls, here's a couple of pics.

Notice the Wild Vizsla butt in the lower right corner.

And yes, we did get our passport stamped!
On the way home we stopped at the beach in Geneva State Park (our campground) to let Kaylee run. The beach was very windy and chilly as the wind is coming off the lake. The beach had all kinds of rocks and driftwood that had washed ashore from the rains and storm yesterday and last night. Rock hunting was good! Kaylee ran around like a nut and managed to find some skunk scent. Of course she had to roll in it, so back to camp for a peroxide, soap, and listerine bath. Chalk it up to the joys of Vizsla ownership.
Steak sandwiches for dinner tonight, a movie, then off to bed to listen to the rain, storm, and wind we are going to get tonight. Rain tomorrow also, I think it will be a cribbage kind of day.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 148

Nice drive today. We started around 0930. A few showers this morning but final packing up and hook up went well. We drove the back roads for most of the drive. Here's a few pics from Millersburg. This was a really nice, clean, kept up to date Ohio town.

Finally had to hit the interstate just before Cleveland, but that was the best route to get through that mess.
Stopped for lunch and split a pizza.
Arrived at the campground around 1500. We are the only camper in the entire place! On top of that the place is pretty much flooded (all 150 sites). We had reservations for site #16, as that is our favorite (we have been here before), but we moved to another site that was the lesser of evils as far as flooding goes. The office was closed and we haven't seen any park employees yet, so they don't know we've moved. They had a reservation sign on site #16, but I moved it to site #32. I'll tell them in the morning. As the place is totally empty I don't think it will be a problem.
Spaghetti and fixins' for dinner, some TV, maybe a movie, and then off to bed.
The wind is howling!

Winter Excursion 1, Day 147

Last day at our site at Dillon State Park. Rained on and off today, but we managed to get almost everything packed up in between the raindrops
Took a drive northwest of here. We visited Mt Vernon and Mansville, both old, quaint towns. We gave what was left of our firewood to a couple with three kids at another site, they were thrilled.
Out to dinner this evening at a local joint. The beer was cold and the food delicious.
Quick movie and then off to bed.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 146

Started out with a cool morning, 30 deg, welcome back north.

Here's two pics of camp.

You might notice all the stumps looking down the road. This State Park has been hit hard with Dutch Elm Disease. Just from our site we can see at least a dozen stumps from recently cut trees. The tress were cut about 2 months ago and the park allowed folks to come in and cut them up for firewood. There are still a few logs around, but most has been cleaned up by the locals.

We did a few errands this morning and then visited Dillon Dam.

Our campground is located across the lake to the right, you can see the boat ramp.

 Here's a shot of the dam.

 The spillway.

 Top of the dam.

 Right on the spillway.

And a quick video of the spillway.

Back at camp we had a nice relaxing afternoon. Temps got into the 70s and with the sun it turned out to be a beautiful day.

Dinner and then hit the hay. We are going exploring tomorrow.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 145

Today was a travel day. Left Ft Knox and did all back roads through Kentucky. 320 miles, but Kentucky was beautiful, one of the most pretty states we been through. The last few miles were really interesting; Gypsy (GPS) took us through some really back roads. Thought for a few miles we could not get the camper through, but we made it to camp. Camp is really nice; I'll post some pics tomorrow.
Nice dinner, early to bed, tomorrow is another day.

Winter Excursion 1, Day 144

Slow morning, waited for the laundry machines to get free, then Cath did laundry. A little rainy today, but not bad.
Moved Kit's camper for him as he had to change sites, but he also had to go to work. Got our camper ready to move tomorrow and then just chilled.
Kit came over for dinner and brought three really nice T-bones with him. Made some baked potatoes Kit style, That means rubbed in honey, coated with salt, and baked till they are done. Skins came out fabulous, but the salt needed to be rubbed off. The steaks were great! Thanks Kit.
Early to bed as we have a long drive (320 miles) on back roads.
Pics tomorrow of the new camp site.