My motorhome, my family, my adventures, my life.
Copyright 2003-5 Randy Charles Morin
Frankenmuth is an awesome little town. Of all the tourist spots I've been to, this town does the best job of making sure their tourist have fun. We stayed at the Jellystone park in town. No taxis. Just a 10 minute walk to everything in town. Bronners is the largest Christmas store in the world. My wife loves Christmas. She returned with about 10 ornaments. Then there's the great restaurants in town. We had Zehnders the first night. They advertise a great chicken dinner and it was. The chicken itself wasn't good, not great, but they give you more than a dozen great side dishes and it's all you can eat. We wanted to test the Bavarian Inn chicken dinner as well, but we didn't find the time, maybe next time. Last, you have the Birch Run Prime Outlets; more great shopping for the wife.
http://www.bronners.com/
http://www.zehnders.com/
http://www.primeoutlets.com/
Last weekend, Thursday August 14th to Monday August 18th, we stayed at the Jellystone campground in Frankenmuth. This was an awesome campground that we'll be repeating every year. An indoor pool, lots of activities for the kids, across the street from the largest Xmas store in the world, 10 minute walk from downtown Frankenmuth and some great chicken dinners. The Internet connection was great. Because the campground is in town, they don't have firepits at your site. They do have a few firepits (a dozen), but not at the sites. We caved and bought a standup firepit to have at our site. It doubles as a charcoal Bar-B-Q. A great weekend.
Took some pics of my backyard trees the other day. We have two pear trees that have a bumper crop. The pears are not ready to pic just yet. Note the Japanese maple (a very expensive tree). We've giving that tree away this fall to some cousins to make room for a bigger icerink this winter. I love the tree with little orange berries (my favorite color). So the birds and chipmunks.
On August 7th, we stayed the Watkins Glen KOA in western New York. The campground is immediately across the street from the Watking Glen racetrack and the NASCAR race was the same weekend. You could hear the racecars. My kids are new NASCAR fans and were excited to be so close to the race. We didn't go to the race, but we'll come back another year, as it is only a few hours from our home.
But, if we come back, we won't be staying at this KOA. We talked with the owners and they are hoping to turn their campground into another Port Huron KOA (the best damn campground near Ontario). Unfortunately, they are far from. First, the wireless Internet connection barely worked. I gave up trying it was that bad. Second, everybody struggled to create fires with the firewood provided by the campground. Our neighbours resorted to using a flare. I've never encountered wood this stubborn. On the upside, my daughter did catch a fish in their pond.
August 4th to the 7th, we stayed at the Philadelphia KOA in West Chester. This is a very nice campground. They have snack bar with an interesting menu. Fishing and canoeing on a good sized river. Nice swimming pool. Our site was nicely nested in the wood. One problem. The campground is Extremely hilly. It was a chore to walking anywhere.
Sesame Place in eastern Philadelphia is a nice place on a hot day with kids. It's the same price to go for one day or two, so we went on both August 4th and 5th. Half of the rides are water rides and mostly for young kids. Teenagers would be bored, but anybody 12 and under would have a great time. If you watch the parade, sit in the middle of the parade route, where the pavement color changes. The floats stop in the center to do their shows. Anybody sitting at the front of the route would see very little.
The highlight of our 2008 summer vacation was two-nights inside the Pocono Raceway, where we watched the Pennsylvania 500. I've always wanted to park inside a racetrack during the race. I was excited and expecting a big disappointment, but it was better than I could've imagined. I didn't think I would be able to follow the race from the top of my RV, but it wasn't that hard. I had a headset ($25 rental) that played several race broadcasts and all the driver radios. A pair of binoculars and you are watching the race. It only cost $150 to park the RV inside the racetrack for the weekend. That's $50 for the RV and $50 per adult (kids free). At the end of the race, we walked down near the grandstand along the fenceline for a close up view of the action.
I tried to buy tickets to the Saturday race as it was $25 for adults (kids free), unfortunately nobody inside the track (not even the staff) knew how I could buy tickets without exiting the track. Late Saturday, I found a ticketbooth around the corner from my RV. They really should educate their staff better. Or even better, they should hand out maps to inform the RVers where everything is. I had to discover what is where by walking around a 2.5 mile track.
My kids are now big racefans. The eldest daughter like Jimmy Johnson, my son likes Dale Jr and the youngest like Kyle Busch (the M&M car). We'll be going to races every year from now on.
The night before we headed to the Pocono Raceway and the night of the race, we stayed the Pocono KOA. The WiFi worked. It didn't seem to have much to offer, but it was adequate for what we needed, a campground with WiFi near the Pocono Raceway.
After the horrible stay at the Jonestown KOA, we decided to switch to a KOA further away from our destination. We picked the Allentown KOA. WiFi worked. Because it was so far from our destination, we arrived very late at night and left very earlier in the morning, so I didn't get any pics. Well, except of us fishing.
This place had great fishing. The river was stocked with trout. Simply dip the bait into the river and the trout attack it immediately. The trout ranged from a few inches to more than a foot long. We caught one trout longer than a foot and we found another about 2 feet long, but he didn't go for our bait. We were using chicken hotdog skin as bait. I was surprised by the size of the trout in this river. I was expecting very small trout, so I used a very small hook. When the foot long trout bit, the hook ended up down his throat. I raced to the RV to get twizzers to pull out the hook, but by the time I returned the fish to the river, he appeared to be near death. He simply washed up on a rock. When we finished fishing, I poked the fish back into the river and he started swimming right away. My eldest daughter was glad that we didn't kill him.
We weren't sure what to expect from Hersheypark. What we got was one of the best amusement parks outside of Disney. Unfortunately, everybody knows it and the place was completely packed. You had to lineup 15-minutes to get a locker in the change room and 30-minutes to get a parking spot. Lots of roller coaster, water rides, a zoo and much-much more. Right next to Hersheypark is Hershey's Chocolate World, which was our true destination and great also. We visited both in one day, but we'll be back for more in years to come.
On July 28th, we stayed at the Jonestown KOA in Pennsylvania. I shoulda known something was wrong when I turned into the KOA and found it was mostly empty. When I registered, I owed a couple extra dollars beyond my deposit. I can't figure out why they don't just make the deposit exactly equal to your first nights stay, it would save a lot of hassle. Since the amount remaining was less than $10, I had to pay cash, as they didn't take credit cards for amount less than $10. I asked about their advertised WiFi. They told me it didn't work anymore. The horror stories continued all night. It cost $4 to play mini-golf. Their mini-golf had natural obstacles, it was covered with leaves and dirt. We didn't play. I bought a small tiny little bundle of firewood for $8. Also less than $10, so I had to pay cash. We went swimming in their pool. I found out the next day that it cost $5 to swim in their pool. I've never heard of a KOA that charged to swim. I wasn't sure if it was $5 per person or per family. I didn't ask. This KOA nickles and dimes their campers for everything. We decided that we'd try another campground the next night. The only great part of this campground is that it was full of fireflies at night. The kids loved that.
On Sunday July 27th, we went downtown New York. First, we went to Shea Stadium to watch a ballgame between the Mets and Cardinals. Read more about Shea on the Talk-Sports blog. Then we headed downtown Manhattan. The kids really enjoyed the Toys-R-Us, but I noticed the prices there were more elevated than other Toys-R-Us stores. We also ate at Bubba Gumps. We need to go back to New York again real soon as we didn't see the Empire State Building, the 911 site, Central Park and lots more.
The subway in New York is not very friendly to vacationers. I couldn't use their self-serve ticket booths, because I don't have a zip-code. I hate that. So, I had to wait in a 20-minute cash-only lineup with one attendent on duty and 3 attendent booths sitting empty. I did like that kids ride free.
On July the 26th and 27th, we stayed at the Newburgh KOA just north of New York city. This KOA is one of the best that we've stayed at. The sites were beautifully laid-out. They had great weekend activities for the kids. In the main field, they setup a DJ/Karaoke booth. Everybody was having a real good time. We didn't catch any fish in their pond (too much seaweed). If you drive into Newburgh, then you can park your RV (weekends only) at the commuter train station and take the train downtown New York. It was much cheaper than driving and the trains run hourly, even real late on the weekends.
Boston was very fun for me, not so much for my wife. The kids liked it, but only because they bought stuffed animals at the local Build-a-Bear Workshop (the Quincy Market is a great outdoor mall). We took the commuter train downtown on Wednesday the 23rd, then the subway to all the local attractions; Boston Gardens, Fenway and the original Cheers. We ate at Cheers and I purchased two Cheers mugs which were only $3 extra when you buy the $7 pint. Boston subways are extremely run-down. Somebody(ies) should be fired at their transportation commission. Buying a subway ticket was also very confusing. We had to ask an attendant for help. BTW, kids ride the Boston subway for free. I enjoyed simply walking around the Gardens, Cheers and Fenway. It was a great day!
Tuesday the 22nd to Saturday the 26th, we stayed at the Boston-Cap Cod KOA. Four nights. This KOA had lots to do for kids; jumping pillow, swimming, two parks, chess, checkers, mini-putt, etc. The first two nights we stayed in a 3-service site, but they wouldn't give us a 3-service site for the last two nights. In the end, several 3-service sites sat empty those last two nights. Other than this small inconvenience, the KOA was great. It's a few minutes from Cape Code, Boston and Plymouth (the major attractions of the area). We parked at the local commuter train station (15 minutes from the KOA) and took the train into Boston. They also have a shuttle to the train station, but it only runs once per day on their time. Plymouth and an Olive Garden were 15 minutes East of the KOA.
Tuesday the 22nd, we travelled into Cape Cod. I wasn't exactly sure where to drive in Cape Cod (it's quite large). But, we decided on Hyannis, where the Kennedy compound is located. We walked downtown Hyannis and drove in Hyannis Port in a vain attempt to find the Kennedy compound. The tourist information station wouldn't tell us exactly where it is, but they did say it was on the sea in Hyannis Port. I couldn't find it :-(
Monday was a travel day. We needed to get from Halifax to Boston in 2 days. This required a 8-9 hour drive to Canaan where we stayed at the Skowhegan KOA in Maine. We only stayed the night, but I was very impressed. Internet was great. They even had a very long wagon ride on the Monday night for the few kids in the park. It's a premium priced KOA, unlike those in the Atlantic provinces, but this could very well be a great place to take the kids for a weekend. No fishing :-( Nice playground.
Friday night till Monday morning, we stayed at the Halifax KOA. The campground had excellent WiFi, so I got a lot of work done, but the campsite wasn't very good. We had a split site (see pics), but most of the sites look great. They have a swimming pool and a nice playground, but they don't seem to do activities for the kids. That's OK, we had lots to do.
Saturday, we spend the entire day downtown Halifax. Went to the Alexander Keiths factory for a beer. Went whale watching, although we didn't see any whales :-( Walked the pier. Ate at Murphy's on the Water. They had an excellent Lobster deal for those that went on their tour board ($30 for a $45 1.5 pound-er).
Sunday, we went to Peggy's Cove. This is a picturesque fishing village turned into tourist trap.
Thursday, we drove all the way to Sydney, Nova Scotia. We stayed the North Sydney KOA. This was very disappointing. The kids spent 5 minutes in the playground before they wanted to leave. The swings were hung too high to be used by kids. The swimming pool was damaged and no longer in use. Even the Internet connection was horrible. We even changed sites to get a better connection, but even the better connection was dropping all the time and slow. On the upside, our fire-pit was amazing and the view was spectacular.
We drove that night to downtown Sydney and we weren't any happier. The place was filled mostly with seniors and bikers. There was nothing to-do. Everything closed early. At this point, we decided to cut our Cape Breton stay to one night and we took off in the morning. We didn't do Cabot's Trail.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, we stayed at the Cavendish KOA in PEI (Prince Edward Island). This was the first A+ stop of the trip. The KOA itself was great with activities for the kids, a petting farm, a jumping pillow, swimming pool and more. The Internet connection was very slow, too slow to play games or watch video, but usable. We spend two days next door at Anne of Green Gables. My eldest daughter has read more than half the book in the few days since. We also visited Rustic, a small fishing village near Cavendish, where we saw crabs and jellyfish in the water.
I was set this week to eat a great Atlantic seafood meal. We ate first at Sam's in Cavendish. Much of the fish was battered, which I don't like. The next day we tried the Friendly Fishermans. This was a buffet with only 4 seafood items. Quite disappointing. Finally we visited downtown Charlottetown and I had a great lobster and mussels dinner at Peake Wharf.
Last Sunday, I made my first mistake of the trip. I took highway 198 between Mont-Louis and Perce. Unless you were looking for a deathtrap roller coaster, you would be better to continue along the Route 132. There's no time saving as you can't drive fast on a road littered with pot-holes. My eldest threw-up and everybody felt a little sick.
In the end, the trip was worth it as we arrived at Perce. Still as beautiful as I remember it 30 years ago. Then onto an amazing campground called Camping Baubassin in Bonaventure. It's too bad it rained continuously while we were there as this had to be one of the best campgrounds we've stayed at. They have scheduled kids activities 6 days as week (not Sunday). Unfortunately, my eldest daughter speaks little French and the activity organizer spoke as little English. My daughter enjoyed it anyway. They have a small lighthouse, which you can explore. A long dock into the Baie-des-Chaleurs. It's also a marina and they have a nice little seafood restaurant, which we didn't try.
Last Saturday, a week ago today, we travelled along the St-Lawrence river in Gaspesie. It's a great ride, although slow at time. After you leave Highway 20, it's a local road with slow downs in every village with a population above 10. But the ride is beautiful and we finally stopped at a campground called Parc et Mer in Mont-Louis.
The campground's website doesn't work and neither does their WiFi, but the campground is gorgeous. I find most campgrounds other than KOAs that claim to have WiFi, actually have non-functional WiFi. The village is on a small bay with the campground on the river side of the highway. We picked up a cupful of sea-glass (beach-glass). Saw a groundhog. Ate at a small and delicious little restaurant in town.