Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 23 Wednesday, July 31

Traveled to Natchez Trace State Park, Pin Oak Campground

We got an exceptionally early start--8:35--due to being in a full hookup site and Ed skipping his morning TV show. It wasn't necessary, but we were glad to get the drive through Nashville over with. Nashville isn't supremely trafficky, but the Interstate takes at least four left-right-left-right splits requiring a lot of lane changes.

After a 28 minute rest stop and a 17 minute gas stop, we arrived at the visitor center at 12:39.  4:04 total time; minus stops--it matches up pretty wel with the google map time. 3:19 vs. 3:27 or so.

Sadly, the visitor center wasn't the end of our journey. It was about 10 miles from there to the campground and when we arrived there was a camper and two cars occupying our site.  It turned out that they had originally reserved the site across the road, but then changed it and were assigned a site up the hill. But they mistakenly read the tag on ours and occupied it. They graciously agreed to move--we wouldn't have minded swapping with them, but the other site 30 that they thought they had (but didn't) was really unlevel and just would have been a beast for our plan to hookup the Jeep in site, behind the Motorhome.  That would give us a much faster exit time in the morning, and the morning's drive is NOT a 3:37 drive. It's 4:10, last time I looked.

But this is a beautiful, beautiful camp site. Right beside a lovely, clean lake. Full of fishies and no power plants in evidence.  I'd love to come back when we can stay longer.  (And it's not so damn hot.) It's only about an hour from Memphis (plus the 25 minute "inside park" drive time) and well worth another stay.

 

BEAVER alert!  Just after supper, when Ed was sitting outside and I was doing the dishes, at about 7:00, a beaver appeared on the mowed grass in front of our campsite. He lingered there for a while, gnawing up grass roots or some such edible, until Ed decided to take a picture and (mildly) harassed him into leaving so he could get a picture including the tail. From my higher viewing point in the motorhome, I could see it fine when the beaver shifted position.

 He didn't appear to be all that scared--he simply waddled down to the water and slowly swam away.

Wow, totally.

The campground will also be memorable for the "3D target range". Molly and I took a walk on the roads since I didn't have a trail map and it was too tired to waste energy looking for one. We went down to the day use shelter area where they had something called a 3D target range.  What the heck?

It was a small trail winding around plastic statues of the hunter's target animals.  I saw a deer which much perturbed Molly, who wouldn't believe it wasn't real until she got close enough to smell it. And a turkey, and a coyote. I didn't go on further to see what else they had. Wrestling Molly over the deer statue was bad enough--I didn't see the point it fighting over the others.

Note to trip memoirs: I hereby dub Tennessee as "the land of lots of beautiful water."

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 22

 Tuesday, July 30
 

Day off from traveling, hurray!  We went over to the Ozone Falls State Natural area, where a painful little walk (aka scramble over rocks) took us to the bottom of a very tall waterfall. Lovely!

I found it worse going down than returning back up, because I was wearing the cheap sneakers I'd bought for walking Molly on road surfaces and gravel. But this surface was rocks and sometimes slippery rocks, so I really needed my hiking sandals.  After slipping a couple of times, my steps became so tight and uncertain I could barely move and ended up wtih exhausted legs for the climb back up.

Lesson learned, and a rationale for why I have no fewer than 8 pairs of shoes in the motorhome. Waterproof walking shoes (that hurt my feet on a long trek), road walking shoes, hiking sandals, hiking boots for cold weather, swimming shoes, flip-flops (2), and scuff-type sandals for stepping outside when I have socks on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After returning from the Falls, we lounged around for a bit and then did lunch. Lazy day.  There were thunderstorms moving in, predictably, so Molly and I took our afternoon walk early, leaving at about 2:30 I think. We went down the Byrd Creek trail (the yellow trail), jumping on at the spot right beside our neighbor's campsite. It ducked into the woods and then meandered creekside for a mile, joined a short segment of paved road and a bridge over the creek, then meandered back on the other side of the creek to join up with the red trail which went to the historic CCC bridge and the old mill.  Really cool old stuff.

 

Talked to a ranger with a gas-powered weedwhacker across the creek for a minute, then later met a lady walking a young dog. She (the lady, not the dog) wanted to talk and talk, a lot. But we soon got away and went on.

About three-quarters of the way around, I finally decided I needed to go pee really badly. I tied Molly to a tree and squatted, and about that time a lightning bolt struck pretty close and a thunderboom sounded soon after. Maybe a half mile away. Molly was upset, but she handled it okay.  But needless to say, my relief stop was not very effective.

Made it all the way back to the gift shop when Molly decided to drop a turd by the road. No baggies left, so I took her up to the entrance to the campground where a poo station had the supplies we needed, grabbed a couple, and quick-stepped back. Couldn't find the dropping, and the rain was starting to pepper down.

So we gave up looking (the rain would hide the evidence) and ran for Magnus the Mighty. We got rained on pretty well but not critically--plenty of tree cover to deflect the first raindrops. And returned.

Tomorrow is moving day again, so I need to quit now and start planning the route.

Back to our scenic view of the power lines. That's our motorhome way off in the distance.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 21

Monday July 29

 

Trip to Cumberland Mountain State Park.  Drove in rain off and on, more on than off, all morning. It finally started clearing about halfway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our spot

Arrived at Cumberland Mountain state park at 2pm-ish with the time change giving us an extra hour. Not until I went for a walk along the lake did I start to recognize the place--apparently we were here in June of last year, for a one-night stay on the way to Massachusetts.  I'd walked the handicapped/kid friendly trail along one side of the lake, then later we'd eaten a spectacularly mediocre dinner at the park restaurant.

It's a great park and well worth a do-over. Some of the sites in Loop 1 (like ours) are full hookup. There's a great network of trails. This time Molly and I walked the handicapped trail to the end, then went on the Pioneer trail loop for 1.8 miles to the swinging bridge (not while I was on it!).  At the bridge we returned on the trail up the other side of the river until we reached the boat rental. We tried to go back on the road, but it had been over an hour at that point and I didn't know the best route back. So we just went across the bridge there and returned on the handicapped trail. 

 

We were walking for about 1-1/2 hours total.  Merlin heard a hooded warbler but I didn't see much--I was too busy walking.  Oddly enough, we met several people during our walk. I heard a voice ahead of me saying, "Oh look, there's a waterfall." when the voice came in sight, I saw it was a young lady alone, narrating the walk to persons unseen through a headset.  We met about four other people and everyone was pleasant except for the two park workers doing trail maintenance. They weren't unpleasant, just grumpy.

Ed grilled fish for supper.  Bedtime came with a crash because we were both so zombified by the time change. We did manage to stay up until 10:00, but only barely.

More trail pics. Not crossing that!

But we will cross the "swinging bridge" so long as there's NO swinging while we're on there.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 20

Sunday, July 28
Breakfast at the KOA diner. Very nice, but my gravy was half sausage and my biscuits had margarine melted on them. Good tasting but nutritionally disastrous. I ate it anyway, because I love sausage gravy on biscuits. But why the extra grease?

Molly got to go to the dog park, but she didn't care about playing. After chasing the ball just once, she stood by the gate and asked to go walking. Poor little dog.  She's so ready for this trip to be over.

 A few KOA pics

 

Horrid drive traffic-wise, but we got an early start, just after 9, and made good time. Stopped for lunch at a brand-new and gorgeous rest area in Virginia. It was very vertically challenged--both Ed and I wondered how they could possibly to mow it. Even with a tractor it was going to be some steep ups and downs.  Going sideways would have been out of the question.

 

 

And on to the Fort Chiswell RV park.  Everything it advertised to be, and the only faults I could find are that the pool is too shallow and there's no dog park. But they've marked a couple of dog walking areas on the map, so Molly and I will check chose out later.

Ravens flying overhead, plus robins, chipping sparrows, and probably goldfinches.

 

 
Later remarks: Such a lovely place. They've mowed a few little "islands" in and around the creek to make delightful walking places. Plenty of rabbits. Tons and tons of goldfinches.  A ridiculous number of robins. A good number of hummingbirds--in our three walks I saw some every time. Many sparrows I couldn't identify but merlin found a field sparrow, a song sparrow, and--damn it!--a vesper sparrow that perched on the wire, serenaded me with a single song, and flew away. I didn't see it well enough to count.

And while watching all this, along with the likely ravens and turkey vultures and crows and mourning doves, I saw a very large bird that might have been a juvenile golden eagle. Or a juvenile bald eagle, but it didn't fly like a bald eagle. It soared slowly low to the ground on a distant cow pasture, then vanished into a dip out of sight. There were goats up the hill, maybe it was hunting? Not likely but there were certainly enough rabbits around to feed any number of eagles, hawks or other big things.

Not enough time for birdwatching, ever. Poor Molly really wanted to run and play, but she couldn't on a leash. It's possible I could have turned her loose in the smallest of the mowed areas, but I was afraid she'd smell a varmint and burrow into the surrounding bushes.

The cows were funny--they were just beyond a barbed wire fence from us, and I'd gotten used to having cows ignore me.  But there were easily spooked--when Molly and I walked down to a place where the wire crosses a creek with trees grown up all around, the cows took off like I was chasing them. Very odd.

Looking like rain at bedtime.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 19

 Saturday, July 27

Uneventful trip to the Hagerstown KOA. Even at a place as nice as this--right on a river, with a pool, diner, great warm showers, and a country road that Molly and I can jog on--Saturday night at a campground in July sucks. It's so very, very crowded. Pretty much all the RV sites are occupied and I only see a few cabins and tent sites that don't have any cars...yet. More people will continue coming in until all hours.

The nice lady at the desk didn't have any memory of my necklace being turned in, and the lost-and-found bucket on the porch didn't contain it. I might look again tomorrow morning just to be sure.

The people are mostly all very nice, but I just don't care for the crowds. And the dogs. But Molly and I got a decent (hot and slow) jog down the road and back. I saw a Green Heron in the river, plus tons of swallows that I really needed to have gotten a good picture of--they may be that blue-green version of swallows we don't have down in Texas. Shoot--wish I'd thought of that sooner.

If all of the people would leave, it would be a place I wouldn't mind spending a couple of days at.  There are canoes you can borrow. There's plenty of shopping centers just over the highways (we're at the intersection of I-81 and I-76).  We picked up dinner at a brand new Jimmy Johns; I got a Mediterranean veggie wrap that was excellent.  There's Taco Bell, too.  And there are civil war battlefields in the area, which would be interesting. We have great Starlink reception (on the ground behind the RV and beside the Jeep). And some of the sites are very, very nice. Not ours this time--we're in a row of pull-thru RV sites with neighbors front, back and either side. But last time we had the premium site with a little private deck. Worth the extra $25 or so per night, but not available this time.

So maybe we'll be back. But for now, it sucks and I'll be more than happy to leave in the morning.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 18

Friday, July 26

From Partridge Hollow to Promised Land State Park in Pennsylvania. We tried to get an early start but needed to wait until 9 to have someone open the gate to the dump station. It turned out the office staff wasn't available and we could have asked the maintenance guy, who was out and about at 8:30. But we weren't delayed by much.

The short drive through Massachusetts,  Connecticut, New York and then Pennsylvania turned out much longer than expected. Partly because I'd planned to get gas on the previous day but forgot, so we had to get it this day. It turns out that we can comfortably go 450 miles on a tank with the generator running and with idling the motor during setup, dumping, and tear-down. That leaves a quarter of a tank for emergencies and stupid road  construction slowdowns.

When we arrived at the park, we tried to use the water fill station at the visitor center/checking place, but it had no water pressure.  We later found out that it was only for filling water bottles, not RV tanks. Panic ensued, but we went on the the campground where the official water fill stations were scattered about, and there we found decent pressure. The only problem is that while we were filling, we had to sit in the middle of the road idling the engine and blasting diesel exhaust at a dozen other campers, plus blocking the road if someone needed to drive by. That is the most idiotic setup I've ever seen.

Then when we finally got to our site, we discovered a water fill station within reach of our long hose. it was not on the map!   

Need to write a review and note this, plus that we're in site 2, Deerfield loop (?)  Very, very crowded.  Last week in July on a Friday evening and we're close to Hartford and other big cities.  So what did I expect?

Not all that noisy. Lots kids on bikes but so far, not a lot of noisy drunk adults. Ranger cruised through once that I know of.  But still, it's like camping in a city apartment complex without walls.  No birds AT ALL.

And the rest of the camping turned into a disaster. The site is down at the end of the area and should be perfect for taking Molly for a walk....except I couldn't. The area is divided into halves, pet and no pet, and the only walk we could possibly take went right past dozens of other sites with dogs, mostly tied up but not all. We tried a different route and encountered a small girl with a dog on a leash, alone. Probably okay but not worth the risk.

So we meandered around in the woods and walked the 30 foot stretch of road up and down right beside our motorhome. Poor Molly. And poor me--after all the stress and aggravation of the last few days, I couldn't even take a long walk with my dog.

I wrote:
If the Jeep had been unhooked I'd have driven her to the lake and went for a walk there. But it's not worth the trouble for just one night. Can't wait until tomorrow, when we can leave. I hate this place. Pennsylvania sucks. After three days of long confinements, Molly must be in agony.  The KOA tomorrow has a dog park. A tiny one but relatively unused. Plus we can walk down the road.

Things to be happy about:
1. People camping here seem to be friendly and nice, and almost all have their dogs tied up.
2. It's pleasantly cool--I'm sitting outside in a hoodie and light sweatpants, and only a little cold.
3. It's not raining.
4. We were able to fill our tank from the water fill, although we stopped at 1/3 full because it was taking too long. But that's really all we needed.
5. We get to leave tomorrow.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 17

Thursday, July 25

Bye, West Thompson Lake

Breakfast at Henry's Diner, a couple miles south of camp. We thought we only had a one-hour drive, so why not do breakfast?

 

Headed to Partridge Hollow (again). It was only supposed to be an hour drive, but I routed us up to the Interstate 90 and then over to SH 32 through Monson, which kept us on decent roads instead of the glorified cowpaths that Massachusetts takes for usable routes.  They aren't. Unless you're driving a horse and buggy.

The roundabout route plus the usual Motorhome overhead didn't get us there until sometime after noon.  Molly got her walk, cut a little short because I wanted to eat lunch, and then it started raining just as I wanted to give her a second walk. The rain moved through pretty quickly but my conscience had started hurting about this being our last day to visit with the grandchildren, so we soon packed up and left.

And didn't return for a long, long time. We finally pulled in at about 10:30, way past anybody's bedtime.  It wasn't the family's fault, though. I chose Texas Roadhouse for our final dinner, and the service was unbelievably slow. We had to wait for a table; then they called us to be seated and we had to wait while they cleaned the table; we sent back the waitress once (not bad); they forgot to bring our appetizer; ordering was slow, etc. They didn't bring the kid's and Edward's corn side dishes until almost the end of the meal.

But at least they kept the bread coming, and there were peanuts to eat.  Ethan and I played innumerable games of Tic-Tac-Toe.  He's getting the point of it quite nicely.

Earlier in the day we played with the kids for a while and ended up taking a bit of a walk up the hill. Elyanna is very taken by he grandfather, which is an amazingly welcome change from the last time we saw her. She even tolerates me!

Side note--one of the things I really like about Partridge Hollow is the birds. If you walk up the hill into the seasonal sites, looking for the bathroom which we never found, there are RVs where people have put out bird feeders.  The RVs are sideways to a big ridge with tall trees on it. (Plus more motorhomes up the hill; we didn't go to see them)

In the trees there were a pair of Cooper's Hawks, as identified by Merlin because I didn't see them.  I heard them pretty well, just didn't get the ID by myself. But while I was looking for the hawks, right there looking back at me sat a Scarlet Tanager!  So I finally have my new lifer that I wanted.

The trips is no longer a complete loss--I have a new BIRD!

And there's lots more walking a person can do, like go around the campground, go down into the back field where the ground hog and lots of rabbits live (and a yellowthroat), or walk down the road to the big marsh.  Lots of good bird country. I saw a male yellowthroat, too.

Note: we need to come back here to see the birds!  
Also note: that the first site on the right (next to the poo) in the "safari field" is excellent for starlink reception.

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 16

Wednesday July 24

Last night at West Thompson Lake. Love the trails!  This time Molly and I went cross-country behind our camp to get on the Lost Trail (which I call the Blue trail, on account of the blue rectangle markers), then headed to the lakeshore trail. We went a long way out the lakeshore trail.

A few notes about this campground. First, it's awesome. The road coming in requires a little zig-zag route from I-395 (or is it 595?). But it's okay for the Magnus RV's clearance and only takes about 10 minutes.  At the end, the road makes a 3-way split with the parking lot to the disc golf course on the left, the boat ramp on the center, and the campground to the right.

The disc golf course has got to be the most challenging course I've ever seen. First there are the trees, and second, there are the ferns.  And no fairway that I can discern. If your disc went the slightest bit off its line--as mine always do--it would bury itself under ferns and never be seen again. A person would have to put AirTags on their discs to play here.

But it is incredibly beautiful.  The ferns are otherworldly--bright green and not a dead frond that I could see, all the same and endlessly different, magical and mystical.

The campground has a basketball court (one hoop), horseshoe pits, a guard station, and then a road that circles around the bathhouse and playground in the middle and campsites all around the outside and inside. But all total, there are only about 25 of them, half RV, half tent, and a couple of floored shelters. No screens for bugs, but a very nice place for tenting in the rain.

It's water/30-amp electric only but there's a convenient dumpstation on the way out. The host said they'd started a conversion to 50-amp the year before, but stopped work when the contractor sued the government for some reason or other.

 

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 15

 Tuesday, July 23

 

Heard a funny bird call. Ignored it for a while, then pulled up Merlin. Merlin said it was a Scarlet Tanager!!!  I never saw it.  It's possible that some of the songs I'd been writing off as robin or red-eyed vireo were tanager too. The songs are a little similar.  Didn't I read somewhere that a scarlet tanager sounds like a robin with a sore throat?

Saw a brown creeper.  And a very annoyed wren with a lot of striping on the back; not a Carolina.

Molly and I went for a lovely long walk, starting at the Lost Trail trailhead by site 9 or 8 or something.  We went for a lovely long walk every day, but this one was interesting because we got "lost" on the way home.  We were headed on the trail back toward the campground, but the trail seemed to be going farther and farther away from the camp and out into the big empty space on the map.  I knew it was several miles long and didn't want to come back that way, so I checked it on GPS and decided to backtrack.  I think if I'd persisted, we'd have come out back where we started but I couldn't be sure and my legs were getting tired. Oh, well.  I wish for a day when we could go on and on and never think of getting back.

I think this was the night that we ate at a little Chinese buffet (Empire buffet?) not too far from the park.  Ed got a touch of upset stomach afterward. He had semi-diarrhea for a couple of days.   No such issues for the rest of us.  The place was small but more than adequate, and my veggie noodles were excellent.  I'd go there again if in the area. And if I could just remember which one it was.

At the playground,

Magnus Moves! Massachusetts and back, Day 14

 7/22 Monday at West Thompson Lake

 
This is an almost perfect little COE park. Sites are huge and roomy. Big playground and restroom in the middle, and the shower was large and had a locking door.  Only one shower in each end of the bathhouse (men/women), but with only 20 or so campsites and half of those for RVs, plenty.  Lots and lots of trails, fairly well marked. (Molly and I only got lost once, because the "Lost Trail" crossed itself. Weird)  The host was very, very nice. They lock the gates at 9pm; if you return after 9pm, you have to part by the overflow parking at the basketball goal and walk to your site. Which isn't very far. 

On Sunday we'd camped in site 2 which was right next to the restroom. It had no starlink reception (big trees). On Monday we moved to site 10, which was next to the overflow parking and just a short walk from the restroom. And it had even less than no starlink reception. But our cell phones worked fine, so we had hotspot to watch TV.

 

 

 

Not that we spent much time watching TV.  On Sunday we went to see the family and ate dinner with them, getting home at about 8:30   I believe that was the night we ate at 99 restaurants, a well-known chain of family restaurants in the Boston area .

One thing I have to say about 99 restaurants, they are extremely kid friendly.  They served bowls of popcorn for appetizer, then brought out a complementary ice cream sandwich for dessert.  For the kids only, sad to say.  And unfortunately, all three kids liked their ice cream sandwich.  So we adults didn't get any.

I had seafood chowder and a mediocre salad.  The chowder was okay.

At West Thompson Lake