A funny thing happened on the way to Atlanta – we kept going and ended up in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.  We needed to go to Atlanta to sign our contract for storing the RV while we are home and to get a few items repaired while they are still under warranty.  This happened quicker than we expected, so we decided that with the few extra days we had left before returning home, we would make a bonus trip to the Smokies.

In four hours we were there; we rejected the first campground we saw as being too far away from where we wanted to be.  The next campground was near one of the entrances to the park, on a river.  We arranged our spot which is right next to the river and continued one mile to the national park, parked the car, and went hiking.  In our walk we came across three waterfalls.

Day 2:  A half hour away from where we camped is the southern entrance to the national park which is located near the Cherokee Indian Reservation.  We followed Newfound Gap Road, Highway 441, which is a high mountain road that cuts across the ridge near the center of the park and goes from Gatlinburg, Tennessee to Cherokee, North Carolina.  (The park is in both states.)  It provided outstanding scenic views all the way to Clingman’s Dome, the highest point in the Smokies, 6,643 feet in elevation.  Once we got to the Clingman’s Dome parking lot there was still a ½ mile walk, almost straight up, to the observation tower that has a view above the trees.  Unfortunately, the tower was in the clouds and we saw very little.  We did have the feeling of success, however, at doing the climb.

As we drove down from Clingman’s Dome, after coming out of the clouds, we stopped at many spectacular turnoffs; we even saw a bear cub climbing a tree along the road.  We didn’t want to get out of the car for pictures because the mother was sure to be close by.

Also on the way out of the park we visited the Mingus Mill, a water-powered turbine, and still working, mill ­built in 1886 for the grinding of both corn (for cornmeal) and wheat, as well as for sifting the wheat.

Day 3:  Shabbat was exactly as we had expected and hoped for with lots of time to daven, talk, eat, and quiet contemplation.

Day 4:  We spent the morning and early afternoon exploring the Cherokee Reservation located just before the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

We began at the Museum of the Cherokee Indian.  A word about the Cherokee Indians:  They were one of the five peaceful tribes who traded with the pioneers and fought side by side with both the British and later the Americans.  They assimilated with the Europeans in both clothing and speech and many converted to their religion.  The Cherokee were an important part of Andrew Jackson’s army, to the point that one saved his life in battle; more loyal allies could not be found.

However:  In 1838, President Andrew Jackson forced the 13,000 peaceful Cherokee Indians to march from their native homeland in North Carolina to Oklahoma in what has become known as the “Trail of Tears.”  This was so white farmers and gold seekers could settle on their land.  About 1/3 of the tribe died along the way due to starvation and disease.

Supreme Court Justice John Marshall ruled that it was unconstitutional to forcibly evict the Cherokee from their homeland, but President Jackson refused to follow his ruling.  A handful of tribesmen disobeyed the government order and hid out near Clingman’s Dome and Mount Guyot in what is now the national park.  Their descendants, and those who returned on their own, are the tribesmen who live on the reservation today.  They are called the Eastern Band of the Cherokee; those who live in Oklahoma are called the Western Band.

We then traveled further into the reservation to view both the Mingo and Soco waterfalls, sites worth viewing, and a good ending to our explorations.

We are now at the campground, cleaning and preparing the RV for storage, and packing for our trip home.  Tomorrow we will return to Atlanta, spend the night in the storage facility’s parking lot (along with other “campers”), the next night in a hotel close to the airport, and then fly home.

It’s been an amazing trip; we have seen the quiet beauty of the land and experienced the pull of history, and are returning home with priceless memories, as you our readers know.  At some point, after we have returned home, we will write the last post, a summary of our travels and feelings.

This is not the end, it is only the first chapter to be continued with our next trip.

Thank you all for following the adventure and for your encouragement and support.

Bill and Sima

After our stay in Washington, D.C. we crossed the Chesapeake Bay (for the first time) and camped at Trap Pond State Park Campground in Delaware for Shabbat, voted one of the top ten state campgrounds, and we believe it.  After being in big cities it was nice to get back to nature.  There were more places where we could walk within techum Shabbat in this park than anywhere else we have been.  A nice lake, plenty of trees, and a large but quiet campground all added up to a restful Shabbat after the hustle and bustle of Washington.

 

From Delaware we went south, across 23 miles of alternating bridge-tunnel-bridge-tunnel-bridge called, fittingly enough, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel (the second time crossing the bay).  This was the longest bridge system we have ever been on – and it is pretty spectacular – but it was not the last.  Hopping from mainland to peninsula to island to mainland in North Carolina, we crossed over four additional bridges, two long and narrow (and a little hair-raising, if I had hair), two just long.  For anyone who wants to look at a map, we drove along a very narrow strip of land called the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with the Intracoastal Waterway on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other.  At one point, we could see both at the same time.

Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel:

Two things of interest with important messages:  The first was stopping in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to visit the Wright Brothers National Memorial.  This was both educational and impressive (and we had the opportunity to use, for the first time, our National Parks senior cards, so the entrance was free, as it is to all national parks and monuments and historic sites).  We were at the actual place where Wilber and Orville built gliders to learn how to fly, and then built their heavier than air airplane; finally succeeding when they flew it four times on December 17, 1903, an event that changed the course of modern civilization.  For years the Wright Brothers had trudged up Kill Devil Hill with their gliders, thousands of times, until their ultimate success.

A testament to perseverance, hard work, and belief in what you do.

We then drove through the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge; we didn’t see any alligators but the scenery was pretty.

The second was the solar eclipse.  We did not realize until just a few days before that North Carolina was right in the path of the total solar eclipse, and in the area we were in, it was about 90%.  So, we stopped at the side of the road to witness it.  Luckily, they had handed out protective solar eclipse viewing panels at the Wright Brothers Memorial, for without these panels, we would not have been able to actually see the moon passing in front of the sun, with just a very bright sliver of yellow showing.  (The day was still light, though; there was a slight graying of the sky, as if on an overcast day, but it was not dark.)

It was breathtaking.  (No pictures; you had to be there.)

A testament to the wonders of Hashem.

And, of all the explanations we read about Jewish sources and solar eclipses, the one we liked the best is attributed to the Lubavitcher Rebbe-Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson who explained that eclipses are meant to be opportunities of increased prayer and introspection.  And when we think that the eclipse took place on erev Rosh Chodesh Ellul….

Washington is an exceptional city and one of the most interesting places we visited in our travels, so much so that we stayed an extra day – four days in total – because we felt that there was still more we wanted to do and see, and did not want to leave without experiencing them.

On our first day we did the tourist thing – and the thing we like to do best: We walked all over and took as many pictures as we could.  We surely know that they are better photographed by professionals with professional equipment, but these are ours.

To say that we were totally impressed with the magnificence of the seat of the greatest and most powerful country in the world would be an understatement.  We will always be Americans living in Israel, we love the U.S. and what it represents; and we love Israel and what it represents, and where we choose to live.

The central part of D.C. is logically organized with a large number of sites and buildings situated around the “National Mall.”  The mall is a large (between the Capitol and the Washington Memorial it is 1.2 miles), oval walking area with grass and pools of water in between two streets.  Around the mall are museums, government buildings, and monuments; the quality souvenir shops are in the museums themselves.

Our second day was spent at the Holocaust museum, a very emotional five hours, in a well-designed self-guided walking tour which takes you from the rise of Nazism through liberation.

General (later to be president) Dwight D. Eisenhower’s quote: “The things I saw beggar description…The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering….I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations to propaganda.”  What great foresight to realize that there will be people in the future who will try to disavow or even change history.  Humanity, and Jews in particular, will have to be vigilant, “Never Again!”

One of the really good parts of the visit was being able to get together with my old friend Robin Cook.  The three of us went out to dinner at one of the very few kosher restaurants in D.C. (and saw a fellow Efratean there), and I had the first hamburger, and Sima the first grilled chicken, that we’ve had in the last three months.  One of the sacrifices of traveling the way we do (but well worth it, we think), and it sure tasted good.

The following are some of the places we visited:

Library of Congress –Thomas Jefferson Building.  There are three buildings that make up the Library; this is the oldest and the most opulent.

National Archives Building – housing the original Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights; also one of the four existing copies of the Magna Carta is here

Washington Monument

Lincoln Memorial

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

World War II Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Smithsonian National Gallery of Art – West Building for classical art; East Building for modern art

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum – two halves: one side of the building “air” and the other side “space”

Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History – specifically the collection of gems (including the Hope Diamond) and minerals, and the prize-winning nature photos

United States Botanical Garden – a stunning collection of plants from all over the world.  In the Mediterranean section, we saw several plants that we have in our yard.

 

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (a very rainy morning when we got there just before it opened, and no photography is allowed inside)

All Smithsonian museums (and there are more that we did not have time to see) and government offices are free to the public.

We also saw the White House, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol Building (but were not able to enter these buildings), as well as numerous, humongous buildings dedicated to assisting the three cornerstones of government keep the wheels of bureaucracy turning: Departments of Justice, Treasury, Agriculture, Interior, the Senate and House office buildings….

We spent more time in Washington than in any other place we have been and still feel we have only just begun.  This place is worthy of a return trip and additional exploration.

As we realized last night, our travels are winding down and we will be on the last leg of our journey.  In the next week and a half we will be making our way down the east coast to Atlanta, Georgia, where we will be storing the RV.

When I am asked what my favorite part of the trip was, now that it is almost over, I realize that it’s living and traveling in the RV.  For Sima, it’s the beauty we have seen. There is a quote on one of the walls of the Library of Congress, “Nature is the Art of G-d” – how true.

We’ve traveled with only a general idea of how and where we were going and had the freedom to change our route and destination on a whim.  The Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Madeline Island, Salem, and Boston were some of the places we went to just because we wanted to.  It is true that this way of traveling sometimes came at the cost of efficiency, but it gave us the freedom to follow our wishes of the moment.

 

On our way to Washington, D.C., we decided to make a stop in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (the history bug has bitten).  There, we took an open-deck bus tour of this famous Civil War battlefield where the Union and Confederate forces fought for three days in July (1-3) of 1863 and which is considered a turning point of the war.

Though the 6,000-acre battlefield area is filled with 1,400 statues and monuments honoring those who participated in the battle, the real point of interest was in seeing the actual locations where the fighting took place. Our guide was animated and interesting as he spoke of the military tactics which both sides used.

The Union fielded 93,000 troops and the Confederate army 75,000.  The following are the statistics of the carnage:

Union	Confederacy
23,049	28,063	Total casualties
3,155	3,903	dead
14,529	18,735	wounded
5,365	5,425	missing

In three days.

Though Robert E. Lee, commanding general of the Confederate forces, had won the first day – including the taking of the town of Gettysburg and its supplies – George Meade, commanding general of the Union army, ended the third day with a decisive win.  Lee had to retreat with a loss of a third of his troops.

The so-called glory of the actual fighting in battle is what most people talk of and read about, but the success of battle is often determined by other factors.  Many of the deaths were not due to the fighting, but to disease, lack of clean water, lack of proper bathroom facilities, and lack of healthy food.

After the armies departed, they left behind the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers (as well as horses) in the fields; most every building that remained standing was turned into a field hospital for the wounded.  Food supplies were almost completely confiscated by both armies and there was a shortage of adequate water for the town’s people and the wounded soldiers left behind.

While taking a walk in the city before the tour, we came across a monument dedicated to the musicians of the two armies.  On one hand, they were entertainment for the troops at rest.  But the trumpet, drums, and flag bearers were also – as we learned in Ticonderoga – the method officers used to communicate with their troops.  Different sounds and melodies represented the different orders.  On a side note (pun intended), the youngest soldier to ever win a Congressional Medal of Honor was a 13-year-old drummer boy who later became a general.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On November 19 of that same year Abraham Lincoln delivered his famous Gettysburg Address (in a dedication ceremony for the cemetery for Union soldiers killed at Gettysburg), 272 words that lasted two minutes, and which live on forever in the history of the country.  It was a call for hope and healing.

Thursday was a travel day; we drove from Fisherman Memorial Campground in Rhode Island to Newburgh, New York.  The interesting part of the story is that in trying to find a specific New York State campground and driving for miles down a winding, twisting, single-lane, two-way, dirt road, we ended up at a dead end.  Literally, in the middle of a forested area; the first time Waze has failed us.  Solution: we went to our favorite old reliable spot, Walmart, and that is where we spent the night.

Day 2:  We drove to Pennsylvania and checked into the Pitch Pond Campground.  It’s near a small and not that attractive pond, but it is a pond and thus the name.  We secured a campsite in a semi-secluded section which is exactly what we like for Shabbat.

Pitch Pond is in Lancaster County, home to over 31,000 Amish people.  (Pennsylvania as a whole has almost 64,000, second in the U.S. after Ohio.)  So, as we had Friday morning open, we drove to an old Amish farm house – now a visitor’s center – and demonstration farm and joined a tour.  From our interesting guide, we heard about this unique group of people leading a simple, religious life in their own way.

When you think of the Amish you usually think of them as farmers, but this quickly growing community – they have up to 10 children per family with only a small percentage of dropouts from the fold – are doing other things (such as crafts and small businesses) which allow them to keep their isolated lifestyles.

In other ways, though, there is a certain amount of mixing with the outside world.  They see doctors and use hospitals.  They shop at local stores, and places such as Target and Walmart have set up separate covered parking areas for their horses and buggies.

In driving through Lancaster County after the tour we found many extremely attractive, well-taken care of farms, without equipment lying all over the place, and beautiful houses and lawns: Amish farms.  The countryside is not grand as in some places – no lakes or mountains or waterfalls – but the sheer beauty of land that is well taken care of with obvious pride.

And on our drive, we found more covered bridges.  Pennsylvania has over 200 covered bridges, with Lancaster having the most at 29. The ones we saw were one lane for two-way traffic and are still in use.  Unlike those we found in New Hampshire, there were no name plaques on these bridges.

We also drove to a city called Efrata, spelled Ephrata; we had to go.  Small town, not much going on….

 

As our day ended, we returned to our campsite to begin preparing for Shabbat.

For such a small state, Rhode Island has had a major impact on one of the most important tenets of the U.S. Constitution.   It refused to ratify the Constitution (it was the last of the 13 colonies to do so) until assurances were made that a Bill of Rights including – most importantly for us as Jews – complete religious freedom would be a part of it.

The story has it that George Washington was miffed at Rhode Island for holding out and would not visit.  Once the colony joined the Union, he returned to the city, and from this third visit to the synagogue (he visited it twice as a general), came the famous letter he wrote to the congregation.  In response to a note from shamash Moses Seixas sending his good wishes to the administration, President Washington wrote, in part, that America “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.“  And he added, “…May the children of the Stock of Abraham…continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants….”

This was the guarantee of religious freedom; Jews were not here by tolerance, but by right.

From the beginning, Rhode Island welcomed people of all religions, and Jews found a home there.  The earliest Jewish residents came from Barbados and were of Spanish and Portuguese origin.  As the Jewish community grew, it requested that a rabbi be sent from Amsterdam to Newport to guide them.  Nineteen-year-old Issac Touro, a yeshiva student, was the only one willing to come as the chazzan (he was not ordained).  After being in Newport for a time, he worked towards the creation of the first synagogue.  Peter Harrison, a well-known architect, was hired, and the beautiful structure we see today was built, completed in 1763.  It is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Isaac Touro also immediately demanded that a school be built adjacent to the synagogue; through the school is the entrance to the women’s balcony.

Isaac Touro guided the synagogue through the Revolution, when the British occupied the city.  A loyalist, he offered the use of the synagogue to the British, and they occupied it for three years as their field hospital.  But Isaac Touro had another motive: at a time when most of the town was being destroyed, the shul remained untouched.

The building is almost a complete square and is considered one of the finest examples of colonial architecture: from its columns to the ornate chandeliers to the brass candlesticks – a gift from a member in honor of the bar mitzvah of their son and so inscribed in Hebrew.   One of its treasures is a 500-year old sefer Torah, gifted to it from Amsterdam when the synagogue was founded.

Touro Synagogue is the oldest functioning synagogue in the United States, is orthodox, and has minyanim twice a day and on Shabbat.  Three sitting presidents, along with other notable personages, have been among its visitors – George Washington as mentioned above, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy (who was married in Newport but not at the shul).  A special “box” is on one of the side walls  (the only part of the shul that is not symmetrical), and this is where the president of the shul and dignitaries sit.  The president of the shul today, who is a woman, sits upstairs.

Photography is not allowed inside the building, so these are taken from the open doorway.

   

After the tour of the shul – hosted by a knowledgeable and interesting guide – and the visitor’s center, we spent a few hours in the afternoon walking around Newport.  We found, by accident – as we got lost looking for our car which we had parked on a side street – a kosher vegan restaurant under the supervision of the rabbi of the Touro Synagogue.

As in Salem, we walked past old buildings from the 1700s still being lived in.  Large and small ships fill the harbor.  Lots of shopping, lots of tourists, a mixture of old and new – Newport was a delightful place for a pretty summer afternoon.

This had been an enjoyable, educational day, with what turned out to be beautiful weather.

At this point, the style of our travel has started to change as for the first time we are entering more populous areas.  On Thursday, we arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, a name that we tend to connect with the era of the Salem witch trials of 1692.  The witch folklore was not something we were interested in, even though the badge for the local police says the “Witch City,” so we stayed away from many of the tourist attractions.

There are, however, other points of interest that Salem has to offer.  Our campsite was in Salem Harbor, right up to the edge of the water, and the view was awesome.  So that we could have dinner watching the bay, we did not turn our front chairs around to face the inside of the van. We literally spent a few hours just watching the magnificent harbor and the hundreds of ships docked there.

Next to our campground were the ruins of Fort Pickering, a 17^th century fort operated as a strategic coastal defense for the port of Salem, which by 1790 was the 6^th largest city in the U.S.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning we took a walk around one of the oldest neighborhoods of Salem.  Many of the houses (people are still living in most) have signs giving the date they were built (late 1700s to early 1800s) and who built them.  Among the buildings we saw was the oldest house in Salem, the Narbonne house, built in 1675 and occupied until 1963 when it was turned over to the National Park Service.  At that time, an archeological dig of its backyard garbage pit (today’s garbage is the treasure of the next millennium) was done, and since Salem is a port city and most of the first houses were built not far from the shore, many of the finds were of European pottery that came over on ships – items that people living farther inland would not generally have.

We also visited the Custom House – built in 1819 and famous for being featured in the introduction to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (he also worked there) – where taxes were collected on imported cargo.  Note the gorgeous wood furniture and bookcases!

In the early afternoon we headed to the Circle CG Farm Campground, an hour’s train ride outside of Boston, where we stayed over Shabbat.  We had decided to go to Boston just a day before – it was not on our original itinerary because we had planned to stay away from large cities, but decided to make an exception for what is really an exceptional city – and tried to find accommodations with a community in the city.  It didn’t work out (thank you Heshy for your efforts), so we were glad to have campground reservations about as close to the city as possible.

On to Boston     August 6, 2017

After having a quiet but rainy Shabbat, it was time to head into Boston.  Sunday morning the sun was shining, the air was fresh, we got a ride to the commuter train station from the campground, and we rode a comfortable train for about an hour into South Station, near the city’s financial district.

As we walked out of the station it hit us:  We have been living in Israel for over 20 years and traveling for the last three months in mostly rural America, and we were a bit awestruck at seeing the massive skyscrapers and crowds of people.  Admittedly, the enormity of it all was both intimidating and disconcerting, and it took a while to get used to, but used to it we did (we are, after all, from Chicago).

One of our first objectives was to walk the Freedom Trail, a 2 ½ mile walking tour of many of the famous buildings and sites from the Revolutionary War times.  Conveniently, the city either painted or paved a red line in the sidewalk for tourists to follow the trail.  And what we learned about fifty years ago in history class was right there, in front of us.  Among the highlights:

Boston Common – America’s oldest public park (from 1634) and used by both the British and Colonial troops.

The Old State House – The government seat of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts; the Declaration of Independence was first read to the people of Massachusetts from here on July 18, 1776.

Old South Meeting House – Location of many town meetings, the most famous of which saw Samuel Adams signal the start of the Boston Tea Party.

Old North Church – The famous two lanterns were hung from the church in April 1775, signaling that the British coming to Lexington and Concord.

The Boston Massacre Site of 1770.

Paul Revere House – Where Paul Revere lived and the oldest home in Boston (about 1680).

We followed the trail all the way across the Charles River to the Charlestown Navy Yard and the U.S.S. Constitution.  Old Ironsides (as it is known) was launched in 1797 by President George Washington and is the world’s oldest commissioned ship.  She is known for her involvement in the War of 1812 against England and for fighting the Barbary pirates.  Visitors have not been allowed on the ship for the last two years because of restoration (first two years in dry dock and now in the water but still undergoing repairs), but plans are to allow visitors again in September 2017.

Even today, the U.S.S. Constitution is a formidable ship, and it brought back memories of when I built a mode of this ship as a kid.

Near the U.S.S. Constitution was the U.S.S. Cassin Young, a naval destroyer of the World War II era (and reactivated during the Korean War) with a distinguished record of service.  We were allowed to go on this ship and explore.

During our walk we also came across street performers in Revolutionary era costumes, and two marching bands participating in a parade commemorating a holiday of Italians of Sicilian descent in the Little Italy section of Boston.

Boston Day Two:  The weather report for the day was a strong possibility for rain in the afternoon, so we were glad we visited the sites we wanted to see the day before.  We grabbed our rain jackets, put them in our packs, and headed out to simply walk around and see what we could see, do what we could do.

The first objective was to revisit the Boston Holocaust Memorial which is located on a green patch of land between two busy streets near Boston’s government center.  It is also just a bit off the way from the Freedom Trail walk, and the proximity seems deliberate.  We had seen the memorial the day before, but as time was running late to catch the commuter train back to the campground, we only had time for a quick look.

The Holocaust Memorial is stunning and moving.  It consists of six glass towers, each 54 feet high, along a black granite path; each tower represents a major Nazi extermination camp.  At the base of each tower is a grate over a pit from which steam rises from coals at the bottom – an emotional hit.  Engraved into each tower and covering all of the panels from top to bottom are (random) numbers representing the six million who perished.  Etched in the panels are statements from survivors.

At the entrance to the memorial is a large black granite cube with key historical events of the Nazi persecution from 1933 to 1945, and the word “Remember” in Hebrew, English, and Yiddish.  A quote by Dwight D. Eisenhower describing what he found, and the need for his first-hand witness so that in the future no-one will be able to deny history, was also very moving and – in this day – important.

So effective is the memorial that just about every person that we saw who approached it (and many were not Jewish) read every word written.

Next, we just walked.  We feel we get to know a place by simply walking and, indeed, using our maps, we did get a great feel for the area of Boston we chose to explore – notwithstanding the fact the Boston streets go every which way, designed like spaghetti.  We happened upon North, Quincy, and South Markets, walked to the harbor and strolled along the wharfs, including Griffin Wharf where the Boston Tea Party took place,

revisited Boston Common, had lunch, and walked some more through downtown Boston and the financial district.  As we were heading back to the train station, we saw a sign saying, “Public Observatory on the 14^th Floor” (it was the Independence Wharf office building).  So, up we went for an amazing view of the city.

It was then back to South Station for our train to the campground and we said goodbye to the city of Boston.  We did not see and do everything there is to do; after all, we did not see the Red Sox/White Sox game, but we were left with a very impressed opinion of Boston and the rain held off until we returned to our campsite.

We drove to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  Every time we enter a new state we keep thinking it is more beautiful than the last, and New Hampshire is no exception: hill after rolling hill (well, compared to the Rockies we would call these hills; they call them mountains) of lush green trees.  We parked ourselves at the Apple Hill Campground for three nights, which we chose because we had heard in Montreal that there was a kosher hotel (for the summer) and a shul there.

Day 2:  The RV needed some electrical work done from a Winnebago dealer, and we found one in New Hampshire who agreed to look at the van the same day.  As it turned out, the shortest (although maybe not the fastest) route to the dealer was via the famous Kancamagus Highway, a 34-mile stretch of road that winds through the heart of the White Mountains.  We stopped at a few overlook sites along the road just to get a feel for the grandeur of the mountains.  There is a reason why the speed limit is so slow on this road as you keep turning your head, for every which way is an amazing view.

We got back to the van and prepared for the fast.

Speaking of food (sort of), we found in New England hummus – for the first time – and excellent pita chips.  The local supermarket in Bar Harbor, Maine had the first “kosher section” we had seen, with grape juice, matzah, candles, gefilte fish, and other products.

We also were introduced to the Vaad Harabonim of New England (thanks again to the Chicago Rabbinical Council app) for some pretty good (not pre-cut) rolls.

August 2, 2017

We left Apple Hill Campground with two destinations in mind: a ride up to the summit of Mt. Washington, and a close-up look at some covered bridges.

At 6,288 feet, Mt. Washington is the highest mountain in the northeast.  Begun in 1853 and completed in 1861, the first vehicle to climb it was an open carriage pulled by six strong, compact horses: a 4-1/2 hour trip up, then a change of horses, and a 2-hour trip down.  After every trip the leather brakes needed to be changed, as the coach driver’s foot was constantly on the brake.

Today, cars or vans take about 1/2 hour to drive to the summit.  As our van, at 21 feet, was too long for the road, we parked at the visitor center and signed on to a 2-hour guided van tour with seven other people.  Our driver/guide was knowledgeable and funny and I was thankful that I did not have to drive this narrow and windy road.

As we drove up the eight miles, we noticed the change in landscape: the trees became smaller due to the colder climate (similar to northern Canada or Greenland), and then disappeared as we rose above the tree line.

Once on the summit, we walked around, took many photos (of course), and looked at some of the statistics: in 1934, the highest wind speed gust ever recorded on the surface of the earth at 231 miles per hour was here (which stood until 1996), the highest temperature ever recorded on the mountain was 72 degrees F, and the lowest temperature -45 degrees F.  Scientists live at the Mt. Washington Observatory all year long, doing research in fields such as cloud physics, mountain meteorology, high elevation climate….  Mt. Washington also hosts races: runners, bicyclists, and high speed cars.

Tragically, 157 climbers have lost their lives climbing this mountain.

From Mt. Washington, we Wazed our way to three (of the 54 surviving – at one time about 400) covered bridges in New Hampshire: Bartlett, Swift River, and Saco River.  Only Saco River allows for vehicle traffic; Bartlett has turned itself into a kitschy souvenir store, and Spring River is only strong enough to be a walk-though.  But the architecture is similar: a roadway supported on each side by a wooden truss and roof, creating an almost complete enclosure.

We ended the day at White Lake State Park Campground.  Ironically, it was the first time in a long time we had good connection to AT&T but no electrical hookups.  We were able to post anyways using our generator.

 

 

As we walked along the paths and trails of Acadia, we decided to let the pictures do most of the talking.  It is just that beautiful.

However, a few things about the park:

Acadia, one of the smallest of the U.S. national parks, is situated on Maine’s Atlantic coast and takes up most of the area of Mount Desert Island (pronounced as in ice cream or a slice of pie, not as a place with lots of sand).  Acadia has everything: beautiful granite cliffs, the power of the ocean, the calm of the lakes, forest walks, mountains….  And:

• 120 miles of hiking trails.
• 45 miles of carriage roads (broken stone roads built by John D. Rockefeller Jr. for horse-drawn vehicles). Today, only walkers, joggers, bicyclists, and horses are allowed on these roads.
• 24 mountain peaks.
• Cadillac Mountain (1,530 feet, the highest point on the Atlantic coast) which, between October 7 and March 6, is the first place in the country to see the sunrise each morning.

Mount Desert Island also is home to several towns and villages, including the well-known town of Bar Harbor.

Afternoon of Day One:  When checking into our campground, we were told of the excellent shuttle service from many of the campgrounds and hotels to and from Acadia’s visitor center and Bar Habor, the largest of the towns on Mount Desert Island.  These buses connect to additional shuttles within the park.

It is a pleasure not to have to drive in traffic, look for parking in crowded lots or along the streets, and of course our favorite hobby of getting lost by just missing the turn-off.  The buses come often and the friendly drivers are willing to drop you off or pick you up at undesignated stops along their route.  The service is free of charge, partially supported by L.L. Bean.

So we decided to take the shuttle in, transfer to the Loop Road shuttle (which is just that, 27 miles that goes through the more popular sections of the park – coast and interior), and then return to our campground.  We made one stop, at the Acadia Wild Gardens, a microcosm of Acadia’s diverse plants – 400 species – in a brookside setting:

This gave us a good basis for the next three days of exploring.

Day Two:  Ocean Path Walk from Sand Beach (cold arctic water), past Thunder Hole (best heard at rising tide with a rough sea), around the peninsula of Otter Cliff (pounding surf and waves), to the Fabbri picnic area – a trail that winds along pink granite cliffs and rocky headlands.

Bar Harbor:  A very nice tourist town; pretty with interesting stores and a beautiful waterfront.  Many of the shuttle buses come through Bar Harbor on their way to and from the park.

Day Three:  Bass Harbor Lighthouse – lighthouse at the southern tip of Acadia.  On the way to the lighthouse we passed Southwest Harbor.

Eagle Lake to Bubble Pond – a walk along a carriage road from the lake to the pond.  (We have yet to figure out the difference between ponds and lakes, and when we asked we could not get a definitive answer.)

Day Four:  Jordan Pond – a 3-mile walk around the pond.

A little more story here since there is more story to tell.  After taking the shuttle to Jordan Pond we were advised by two rangers that the 3-mile path around the pond was very nice and not too difficult.  We guess their definition of “not too difficult” is different from ours.  The path started out nice and easy with beautiful vistas of Jordan Pond; then, because of soil erosion, it changed to a narrow plank walk along the muddy shore for about a mile (estimated).  Once we were finished with that obstacle and back on a normal path, we found that we had to climb in and out of major rock formations.  But, at the end of the hike we both felt the better for it, an accomplished challenge.

Friday was a travel day to Two Lakes Campground near Oxford, Maine, where we quietly spent Shabbat.  On Sunday, we traveled to a campground near a kosher hotel (very chassidish) where we spent the next three days, including Tisha B’av.

We’ve been asked about how we travel and what the RV looks like inside, so we thought we’d spend this post covering that subject.  We figure that reading about all the beautiful places we have been to might get tedious – though we are sure the pictures don’t – so it’s time to change the pace.

Some of the subjects we discuss here may have been covered in previous posts, but it might be good putting everything in one chapter.

First, the van itself:  Our Dodge Promaster extended cargo van, 21 feet long, is a pleasure to drive.  It does not feel too different from our old mini-van of the 90s.  There are two mirrors on each side of the front so that there are no blind spots, and though we have minimal line of sight through the back windows, we do have a backup camera.  When backing into a narrow camping spot, Sima gets out of the van to let me know when the van is getting too close to an inflexible object.  This may not always be necessary, but it’s a system that feels more comfortable.  The turning radius of the front wheel drive is impressively short for an extended van.  The van runs on regular unleaded gas and we usually use one level above.

The real negative is the navigation system that came with the van.  It is mostly useless; we are thankful that we have Waze on the cell phones, but it does go out when we lose reception, which happens often in the areas we are traveling.  We have found that the car’s GPS is good only within a limited radius from where we are but even then it has left us in the middle of nowhere instead of our destination.  We should, perhaps, be downloading maps but we have yet to figure out how to do that.  However, the compass on the GPS works very well, so at least we know in which direction we are traveling and we always know which way is east.

There were some rattles in the beginning, but we’ve figured most of them out.  All in all, it is a quiet drive.

Next, the Winnebago part of the Travato is impressively thought out.  Always keep in mind that there is only a limited amount of space in the van, so everything is a compromise.

Storage: It seems that every available space has been designed to use as storage.  We have six overhead cabinets that are similar to those you find on an airplane, two kitchen drawers, a book shelf, a large over-the-cab storage bin, two shelves in each of the driver’s and passenger’s doors, some in-the-floor storage, an under-the-bed storage area, a clothes cabinet for hanging with three drawers beneath it, and an under-the-cabinet plastic storage area – accessed from behind the van – for water hoses, tools, and an electrical hook-up wire.  (At least that’s what we use it for.)  When we buy things, they always seem to fit.  I don’t think we’ve used the capacity of the storage yet as we are still finding unused spaces where items can be put out of the way.

Kitchen: Small, very small, but usable.  There is no shortage of 110 electrical outlets and there are also numerous USB outlets all over the RV, but not much room for the appliances to plug into them.  There is a two-burner stove, a small stainless steel sink, a convection/microwave oven which we hardly use, a 4.3 liter battery powered compressor refrigerator, and two tables that slide out from hidden areas.

We bought an electric tea kettle, as well as a normal tea kettle for those times when we don’t have an electric hookup and must use propane, a bread machine (makes great bread), frying pan, pot, silverware, dishes, and other kitchen utensils (spatula, can opener, potato peeler, measuring cups…).  We have kept the pot and many of the utensils pareve; the frying pan, dishes, silverware, and other utensils are dairy. Though we have a fleshing knife, the only meat we have eaten has been vacuum-packed cold cuts brought from Chicago or Montreal and kept in our freezer.

In addition to the counter, the two tables that slide out offer more work space.  The two cabinets that are above the kitchen work area are for storing non-refrigerated food items.  There is also a large table that can be set up between the two couches.

Sleeping: The two twin beds are really not wide; however, the large table does lower and can be filled in with the two couch cushions to turn into a queen-sized bed.

Bathroom: The bathroom is slightly larger than the bathroom on an airplane.  It is called a wet bath which means a shower curtain surrounds the room so you can take a shower.  If the campground showers are nice – and some have been very nice – we shower there.

Outside the van:  There is an awning, 110 electrical outlets, input for the fresh water tank and city-fill water, and a dump tank pipe.  (You hook the pipe from the black tank (waste from the toilet) and grey tank (water from the shower and sink) to a hose and run it to a waste receptacle in the ground found at most RV parks.  This is called a dump station where, in addition to dumping, you can usually fill up on fresh water (different hose of course).

Power:  In addition to the engine battery, the RV has two 100 watt AGM batteries which are the power source for the living space and  which are charged by: a 100 watt solar panel on the roof, the alternator from the engine as the van is driving, and/or the gasoline powered generator.  In addition, in many campgrounds there are electrical hook-ups that also charge the batteries.

Water:  There are two sources for water: the holding tank, and city water that can be connected directly to the RV.

For all intents and purposes, the RV can be self contained with food, water, and power without any outside assistance for at least three or more days, depending on how frugal we are with water usage.

Shabbat:  Though we learned about making an eruv, we have not yet done so.  I use a Shabbat belt for the non-electrical car key which we had made specifically made for this use.  The rear van door can be disconnected from the automatic door locks so that opening and locking the back door does not affect the system.  This allows us to walk around the campground; often our campgrounds have been in beautiful areas (on the shoreline, for example) and we just sit and watch.

That is all for the mechanics, but in the actual use of living in the RV it is a must to follow the old adage, “there’s a place for everything and everything in its place.”  We can’t imagine being able to function in such a small space in a mess.  Each of us has their own jobs.  I do most of the driving, taking care of the dumping, and most of the RV’s needs.  Sima does the cooking , navigating, keeping track of our needs, and all the finances.

We’re happy on the road as we discover new challenges and explore new places.  This is a grand retirement adventure.  We miss the family and friends and look forward to being back home, but for now we are following a dream.