Maine Lobster

First, select your lobster
Then weigh your lobster

Drop it in a net in boiling water

15 minutes later, lift it out

Voila, one cooked lobster, ready to eat

When you come to Maine, you enter one of the best places in the USA to get lobster. I thought I would resist until we got to our friends Bev & Ross in New Brunswick as they are having a dinner party the night we arrive, and lobster is on the menu. However, when we checked into our campground yesterday afternoon, there, in the campground office, was a large tank of live lobsters. You look in the tank and pick out the size you want, then name the time you want to eat, and the staff will have your lobster ready. I melted some butter, expertly removed the lobster meat, and had a delicious meal. Now I can't wait to get to Bev & Ross and try their local New Brunswick lobster! Judy do you remember the fabulous lobster feast we had at your place in Vars, Ottawa with our British, US and other Canadian colleagues? See you on June 17th!

Cape Cod, Massachusetts

JFK Museum

JFK & Family

Early Days JFK & Jackie

Cape Cod Seaside Cabin

Cape Cod, Massachusetts is another one of those places I had always heard about, and wanted to see. After our 3 day visit to the area, we agree it is one place we would love to have a cottage overlooking the sea and spend a whole summer enjoying the sun & the sand. This place must really buzz during the big US summer holiday. The weather here in spring is so variable - last week it was glorious and next week it will no doubt be the same. but for our visit? Not so lucky.

There are two main island masses to the south of Cape Cod, one is Martha's Vineyard, and the other Nantucket. Both of them are the playgrounds of the rich & famous, but we decided to visit Martha’s Vineyard. We took the 9am passenger ferry (35 min) across and spent a pleasant 4-5 hrs touring the area. The ferry landed in the NE of the island, and our bus tour took us from there south then to the most western point, before returning on a northern route completing our circumnavigation. The reason the island is so popular as a summer escape for film stars and ex=US Presidents etc is that the properties are so large that all you can see from the road is scrub – their cape cod homes are on the beachfront, well away from prying eyes. Did you also know that property ownership here extends to the low tide mark, so no one can access their bit of beach, as it is private property! There are some lovely public beaches, but they are well away from the private residences. The view of the cliffs and lighthouse at the western point Aquinnah was pretty, but I think we have been spoiled for cliffs after seeing the Cliffs of Mohr in Ireland, and our own cliffs along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. The tour bus driver told us that the permanent resident population is 22,000 on the Island, and swells to 120,000 residents in the months of July, August, and that is not including visitors that catch the ferry over like we did. A similar growth explosion happens on the neighboring Nantucket Island.

As we continued our drive up Cape Cod, Massachusetts, we couldn’t resist calling into Hyannis Port and visiting JFK’s museum. We wanted to drive past the Kennedy houses, but they are only accessible to homeowners. I recall so many of the photos of the Kennedys’ in summer was set with Hyannisport as the backdrop, with their houses just one lawn away from the water’s edge. A really beautiful place to spend the summer - sea, sand and seagulls.

This morning we drove up to Provincetown, the northernmost tip of Cape Cod - we saw lots of lobster shacks and typical Cape Cod houses (built to withstand the wet, windy weather and notable for shingled (each shingle made from white cedar wood that weathers to a grey colour) roof and sides). Very picturesque.

Newport, Rhode Island

Our route of today in red..
Bonnet Shores

Narrow street in Newport

Cliff Walk

Some of the mansions on our cliff walk

Downtown Newport

Lunch spot Newport

Today we visited Newport, Rhode Island and now we have seen all 50 US states. We looked at each other and commented that 10 years ago we had no plans to even visit the US, let alone reach this amazing milestone. Although we have now been to all the US states, we have made some lovely friends and keep returning to some states repeatedly. We will also get to see a few new Canada provinces this trip - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and perhaps Manitoba. We have visited Ontario & Quebec previously. So still a few left to see.

This morning it was my turn to drive, and it was so pretty driving through our first hour in Rhode Island. We passed through a small town of Bonnet Shores on the Atlantic Ocean, and the views were wonderful. Before we knew it I was driving over the Newport Bridge (so bumpy Murray had trouble getting a good photo) and arrived in Newport, a city that was founded in 1639, and is located 30 miles south of the capital Providence. I navigated our 32' long and 8' wide RV along the narrow streets until we reached a lovely spot at Fort Adams in the SW corner of Newport and had morning tea overlooking the water.

We then did a local tourist attraction, a Cliff Walk that has the Atlantic Ocean on one side, and meanders past large mansions on the other side. The weather was cold and overcast, but we were very fortunate not to experience any rain until just as we were leaving Newport. After our cliff walk, we parked the RV on yet another narrow street, and walked a block to have lunch at a little cafe on the water. To suit the occasion, we each had home-made clam chowder. Yum. From our lunch spot, we could see a local fish shop that sells clams, lobsters, shrimp and all fish caught in the area. We ended up buying some fresh salmon that I will use to make a salmon mornay with tonight. Next stop was a few shops that sold sweaters and caps - our brother-in-law Bill has a boat in Ballina, and we were searching for a mariners cap for him. This being a busy seaport (not to mention a major pirate center in the 17 & 18 century) we were sure we would find just the thing, but no luck. Sorry Bill!

See Fifty US States? Tick That Box

Old Seaport of Mystic, Connecticut

Mystic Street

That's right, in the last two days, we have visited the only two states we had yet to see in the USA. Connecticut & Rhode Island. I wonder how many people have visited all 50 US states? We left our campground and drove through the most eastern area of New York, and crossed into Connecticut. Can you believe it though, as we were travelling on the Merritt Parkway not long after entering the state, we were pulled over by a highway patrol car that had been tailing us for several miles. We knew something was happening, when he pulled out behind us, slowed down to be level with us and effectively between him & us, we had blocked the road behind us, and cars and trucks were piling up. We wondered if he was just checking our Rv registration or whatever, anyway, it turns out he had forced us to a certain exit to get us back to a main road, as up ahead were bridges that would be too low for our 12' high rig. As we did a tight turn onto this particular roadway, we just caught the tail end of a sign, as we were busy focussing on not hitting the curb on the turn. I mentioned to Murray that the sign mentioned something about articulated vehicles and 7,500 lb. We knew we were 8,000 lb, but weren't articulated, so never thought too much more about it. The fact that there were no other signs was pretty poor. Apparently there is a fine for vehicles who are over the weight limit who use the road, but the officer was very pleasant and said he understood we weren't from the area and let us go.

Not long after that we pulled into New Haven and drove past Yale University - I felt a frisson of academia waft across the highway to me. It is hard to comprehend the universtity was founded over 300 years ago, and has educated 5 US presidents.

We know we are heading north as the dogwood trees were on the tail end of blooming back in Arkansas in mid-April, and here we are 5 weeks later and the trees here in Connecticut (CT) are still blooming. How nice to have such an extended spring. I daresay as we keep steering north and end up in Canada next week, spring will just be springing there too. What a delightful time of the year.

One thing that really surprised us in the little town of Mystic, CT where we stayed last night was the amount of Dunkin' Donut shops that we saw. There were 4 within a few miles of each other, and they were just the ones we saw from the highway, imagine how many others were down side streets. Mystic Seaport is a nostalgic trip back in time to when life was a bustle along the water's edge - ships delivering goods and picking up coal. Very quaint. This town is one of the states tourist attractions, not that we knew that until I read it in an RV publication while Murray was putting air in the tyres earlier yesterday! I'll cover Rhode Island next...

Gone Bush in New York (state)

View from our Campground
Our Bush Walk

Spied the Deer (can you see it?)

Ground Hog vanished down this hole

Blueberry Pancakes

We are on the tail end of a very indulgent and relaxing 5 days at our campground in the back woods of New York state. Miles away to the west of New York city. Despite it being the Memorial Day long weekend here, the park had a few extra campers, but it was not at all full which made it enjoyable. Our own internet connection keeps dropping out here, but fortunately the campground has free WiFi to all sites, and the speed is great and facilitated a skype with my brother in Japan, and my sister in Ballina, New South Wales (home).

Although thunderstorms were predicted for two of the days here, we only got a few distant claps of thunder, no lightning and about 5 drops of rain. Lovely warm days with a pleasant breeze has been the norm - very nice. We had a campfire on our first night here, and will have another one tonight, our last night. Each morning we have done a 2.5km walk to burn off the lovely blueberry pancakes that I prepare each day to eat with pure maple syrup. I use a basic pancake mix, add milk and an egg plus tinned whole blackberries. So lovely to sit outside with the bush behind us and listen to the ever present bird sounds as we sip our coffee and enjoy the pancakes. On our walk today we took a track through the bush and surprised two does. Then we saw some ground hogs, but by the time we reached where we saw them, they had disappeared down the hole pictured.

It will be sad to drive off tomorrow and leave this lovely stop, but every day on the road brings us a day closer to our visit with Kim, my daughter in Nova Scotia, plus our friends Bev & Ross who live only about 3-4 hrs this side of Kim.

Atlantic City, New Jersey

Our New Jersey Route (Red Squiggle)
Entering Atlantic City

Atlantic City Boardwalk (sand/ocean on right)

I initially thought this lone sunbaker was driftwood...

Thought this Atlantic City paediatric clinic was cute

Lunch Stop on the Peninsula, New Jersey

Finally, a smooth ride...

Yesterday we had an early start and checked out the coastline of New Jersey, from Atlantic City almost down to Ocean City. Atlantic City is like a mini Las Vegas, only it is on the beach with a boardwalk that is a tourist attraction in itself. It is 4 miles long and 60 feet wide. When tourism died after WWII, casinos were built to lure the tourists back - one main difference between the casinos in Vegas and Atlantic City is that you can still smoke inside casinos in Vegas.

We drove from Atlantic City towards Ocean City (10 miles south), but it was such slow going, not because of traffic, but every corner had traffic lights, and they were not synchronised. After continually stop-starting, we decided we didn't need to see Ocean City that badly, and turned around. We then moved out to a main traffic parkway where it was a relief not to have traffic lights, however, the road was so bumpy, we had the most bone-shattering drive we have ever had in our RV. Obviously some roads have some damage and you expect that, but this was a major road system, and the road surface was uneven for over 20 miles. We did a side trip out on the peninsula and the road there was even worse! Unbelievable - if we had false teeth I think they would have clattered to the floor! I think we will need to walk inside & outside the RV with a Phillips head screwdriver and tighten up anything with a screw.

We ventured out to the peninsula hoping to find a seaside cafe to have our lunch. We drove and drove to no avail. In the end, Murray noticed a picnic area on the waterfront, so we pulled up in the RV, turned on the generator and boiled the billy for a cup of tea, cranked up the toaster and had avocado on toast. Delicious. Finally we made it to a major highway that had 8 lanes of traffic each way, and we could zip along smoothly at 65 mph. We passed New York city which was on our right, but it was a bit too far away for us to get a glipmse of the skyline. Fortunately we have visited there numerous times before, and had no compulsion to visit in the RV - none at all. I would love to go back to the city another time, but fly or train it in.

We arrived at our New York state campground yesterday afternoon, and will be here for the next 4 days as it is the Memorial Day weekend over here. A lot of Americans hit the road this weekend, so we prefer to stay off the busy roads during this period. After we arrived we had a skype session with my daughter (Antigonish, Nova Scotia) and then one with my eldest sister (Ballina, NSW). This morning we went for a brisk walk, and I was caught without my camera - we saw 3 huge turkeys and 3 deer within metres of our RV. Tonight we are having a campfire and have invited a few ladies who were interested to see our Australian flag, to join us. Great weather today, although thunderstorms are predicted for tomorrow. My sudoku is calling...

Amish, Pennsylvania

Amish Countryside
Amish Girls Walking in Fields (Typical Dress)

Amish Lawnmowing with Mules

Amish Tilling with Mules

Amish Farm

Jennie's Diner

We have just had 4 fabulous days in Frederick, Maryland, which is where I used to work during my USA posting in 2002/2003. Our good friends Jan & Dick provided a picturesque driveway in their wooded property where we parked our RV. While Murray went on a fishing trip, Jan & I watched one movie each day, shopped and beaded. Fun! Dick came with us to see Tom Hanks in the new release 'Angels & Demons' and we all enjoyed it. The movie was set in Rome and each incident in the movie took place in a well known tourist area where the 4 of us had visited together in 2003, so it was fun to watch the movie together and remember our visit there! We also got out the DVDs 'Nights in Rodanthe' (a chick flick that I enjoyed especially after driving through there so recently) and 'Doubt' - Meryl Streep is always good. We also saw Will Smith in 'Seven Pounds' - took a while to work out what was going on. Murray had a 3 day trip with Buz up to the family cabin in Pennsylvania, almost up to the Canada border. Buz's 4 brothers also joined the guys and they say they caught over 120 fish (trout & Bass) between them. They also saw a black bear and 2 cubs in the woods, and some wild turkeys (they also drank some Wild Turkey of the bourbon kind!).

Today we woke to the best day of all, but sadly, it was time to leave and we were driving out by 8.30am. We only got 20 mins up the road when we realised we didn't have our mobile phone - I had left it downstairs when we watched a movie last night. So we turned around and retrieved it. Within an hour of us starting out the first time, we were on our way once again.

In less than an hour we entered Pennsylvania and drove past Gettysburg. We recalled our previous interesting visits there at the Civil War sites. Travelling another 50 miles we reached Lancaster which is the heart of Amish country and the oldest Amish settlement in the USA. Being spring, the countryside is at its best and looks so rich and fertile. I have taken several photos to give you an idea of what we saw today. The Amish continue to use horse-drawn power, and wear plain clothes - usually dark material. For those who are interested in knowing more about the Amish people and their traditions, you can check out this link, which has additional links down the bottom of the page. http://www.800padutch.com/amish.shtml. We drove for miles around the farming areas before finally checking into our campground for the night.

Just out of Lancaster we saw a Diner where we had our first ever American Diner experience back in 2002, so we just had to call in again and have lunch in Jennie's Diner. On our first visit we couldn't work out why there was a queue out the door - we found out from a chap in the queue that this Diner has retained the genuine 50's era set up (right down to the mini jukeboxes at each booth), and is supposedly world renown. He said it was the second-best Diner in America although it didn't register on the top ten American Diners when I checked today, so perhaps it was a personal assessment! Anyway, as before, the service and food was excellent.

One Night in Rodanthe, North Carolina

Touring Outer Banks, NC
Atlantic Beach, NC
Morehead City, NC

Ferry at Sunset

Black Headed Seagulls

Sand in Rodanthe (Main Hwy)

More Sand...the Atlantic Ocean is on the Right behind the House

Eat your heart our Richard Gere, we have had our night in Rodanthe too! For those of you who aren't aware, Rodanthe is a tiny seaside town on the Outer Banks of Nouth Carolina. When I say outer banks, I mean, outer banks - it is off the mainland as you can see from the photo of the area taken from space! To get here from the south, we had to take two ferry crossings, one that took us from Cedar Island to Ocracoke and lasted 2.5 hours, and the second was only 40 mins and went from Ocracoke to Hatteras. The day before our ferry crossing it was a stunning day and we called in on a lovely beach at Atlantic Beach, and had lunch overlooking the water - hang on, our table was on a jetty that was over the water! That was Mothers Day actually, and what a lovely day it was too. We arrived at our campground near the beach and ferry terminal and it was so nice we went for a sunset walk along the beach and took a photo of our ferry. The next morning was a different story - windy and showers of rain. Thankfully the ferry crossing was smooth, although it felt odd perched in our RV seeing the turbulent water below our vantage point. We had a bit of a wait for our second ferry crossing, so enjoyed watching the seagulls (notice their black heads), but they must have been a bit bored to, so they thought they would entertain us!

It was disappointing that our first and probably only trip to the Outer Banks was so grey and damp. It didn't stop us calling into pay a visit to the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum. However our photos of the area will be quite dismal I am sure, and not show the interesting houses in their full colours. When we got to Rodanthe, we were hungry and cold, so we thought nothing would be better than a nice pizza - it was great. On the way though, we noticed lots of sand on the road, and apparently the wild winds keep blowing it on the road. It is a constant job for the council workers to use their graders and scoop it back to the beach.

We woke up this morning to a bright and beautiful sunny day, and walked the few yards from our RV to the beach. It was around 9.30am and there were lots of fisherman sitting on camp chairs fishing in the surf. They say this area is second to none when the fish are biting - we didn't see anyone pulling in a fish while we were there, so perhaps there was a lull! Next stop is the Wright Brothers National Memorial at the north of the Outer Banks, and then we will head over to historic Richmond for the night.

Plantations in Charleston, SC

Magnolia Plantation House
Stutting Peacocks

Slave Cabins with Resident Slave

Well Hello Raccoon

Tea Plants

Angel Oak Dwarfs Us

One of the first Charleston tours we did was to the Magnolia Plantation which was established in 1676 and is the oldest public garden in the USA. The gardens are magnificent and a delight to visit in any season of the year. According to their advertising, you can enjoy the azaleas in spring, the hydrangeas in summer, the camellias in fall and winter among many other plants. The original plantation used slaves, although they were very well cared for and were even taught to read & write, which was against the law for the times. We had a lovely day for our visit, and enjoyed watching the resident peacocks display their finery (note there are two peacocks in the photo) for their female companions. We took a boat ride in the plantation's private waterway, and saw numerous alligators and water birds. A delightful day. On the way back to our campground, we noticed the pictured raccoon up in a tree. He felt safe up in his tree while I took his photo...

Two days ago we paid a visit to a nearby Tea Plantation, the only one in North America! Did you know that tea is the world's second most-consumed beverage after water? Did you also know that whether you like black, green, white or oolong tea, it is all made with the same leaves - just the processing is different. Black and oolong have a longer oxidising stage, whereas green tea bypasses this stage. It was a very intersting interesting tour that included a tram ride around the crops, and a narrated tour inside the processing plant. Each new crop is started using cuttings from existing plants , and they wait 3 years before the first harvest. Tea plants are very hardy (even the local deer don't eat them) and there are some plants that are reportedly over one hundred years old and still producing fine quality tea (probably in China). They are not bothered by pests or disease.

Only 10 miles from the tea plantation and on our way home, we pulled off the road to stand in awe at the base of the oldest living thing this (east) side of the Mississippi: a live oak tree that is believed to be around 1200 years old. Records show the live oak was on land that was part of a land grant made in 1717. Known as the Angel Oak, named after previous owners, it is 65' tall with a circumference of 25'. Very impressive. One of its branches is 89' long.