This summer, we took the RV to a couple of state campgrounds.  It was crowded and not so much fun.  Off-season RVing in Oregon was great – the weather was mild and the campgrounds were empty.  In the northeast, the campgrounds are only open from April to September, and they are very crowded.

The good news is that, in National Forests and on BLM land, there’s something called dispersed camping.  Basically, you can camp anywhere so long as you’re a certain distance from the nearest paved road, etc.  Unfortunately, the northeast has no BLM land and very few national forests.

The nearest national forest for us is Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont.  In September, we drove up to find the perfect campsite.

In all, we logged close to 80 potential sites.  Along the way, we found this great bridge:

One of the areas that we found had enough space to park the RV and opened up onto a secluded pond:

More marsh land beyond:

The kids ran around:

 

Zoological discoveries:

The road to get to this site was really bad, so I don’t know if we could make it towing the RV.  Come spring, I think we will give Green Mountain a try.

This Chol Hamoed we took the RV down to Assateague Island. It took a bit of time to get everything ready to go, so we didn’t leave until 2am on Monday morning (Motzei Sukkos). We drove straight through, arriving at 7am Monday morning. I was a bit sleepy at 3:45am, but after buying a soda at a rest stop I was fine for the rest of the drive. About 30 miles out, I realized that I forgot to pack B’s bicycle! Thankfully, $48.50 at Walmart solved that problem:

No sales tax in Delaware, hooray! We did have to wait in the parking lot for 10 minutes or so until they opened.

We got the RV set up and the kids explored a bit:

The horses were right next to our campsite:

We played on the beach for the whole day. Towards the end of the day, M and B built a little castle for themselves and sat inside:

Birds at play:

More digging:

Sunset over Assateague:

On Tuesday, we hit the beach again:

In the afternoon, we went to Ocean City. M and I left a bit early and started biking towards Ocean City. Trish caught up with us at the Frontier Town theme park. It was closed for the season, but the shark and boat were accessible:

In Ocean City, we rented one of those two-by-two family bikes and rode it up and down the boardwalk. We played Skee Ball, etc. That night, I took the kids down to the beach and we saw tons of crabs running around:

On wednesday, we had another day
of fun on the beach. M got in over his head, literally:

Later we went into town and went to Baja amusement park to ride the roller coaster and go karts.

Sunset over the campground. Our site is on the far left:

RV + sukkah:

We went out on the beach after dinner. Our RV is on the far left:

Trish and the kids are the glowing streak on the beach, lower left, and Jupiter is the bright “star” on the center left edge:

Annotated version:

And a bonus – Uranus!

Neat, eh?

On Thursday, we, that’s right, hit the beach again. This whole vacation involved a good bit of laying about on the beach, which was fine with me.

We found lots of Horseshoe Crab shells, but this was the biggest one. Note the shells living on it’s back:

I took B for a ride:

Later, Trish built a castle. Behold the smooth walls:

Kite flying:

On the water:

M set up “armies” of horseshoe crab shells:

Towards sunset, we rode down to the bay:

The bridge to the island:

Sunset over the bay:

Wading in the bay:

An island in the bay:

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A bit after sunset, we had a couple Sika deer in the campground:

We left at 10pm and got home at around 3am. Until next time, Assateague!

We spent the weekend camping at Housatonic Meadows State Park.  It was very, very hot and muggy, but we had fun exploring the trails near the campground.

On Sunday, we drove down to Woodbury, CT to a recreation of the Battle of Cedar Creek.  600 reenactors simulated a battle which pitted 32,000 Union soldiers against 21,000 Confederate troops.

  

 

Lincoln surveys the Union camp:

General Grant was in attendance as well:

  

 

Union guns fire:

 

The Confederate advance cannot be broken:

Union guns pull back:

Rebel guns fire:

Lincoln looks on:

 

The two armies suffered 8,500 casualties on that day:

The Union forces regroup and press the attack:

Having pushed back the Rebels, the Union troops return to camp:

 

General and Mrs. Grant:

 

 

 

We walked through the encampments:

 

 

 

Lincoln reflects:

 

The Union camp:

 

 

A replica of a Civil War era gatling gun:

Artillery pieces in the field:

…On the way home, we stopped in Tarrytown and skated for a while on the North County Trailway.  B and I used skates, Trish used blades, and M used his Razor scooter.

Other that the heat and humidity, it was a great weekend!

We spent the 4th of July weekend in the Catskills at Beaverkill campground.  It’s not a very nice campground – it’s basically a large field with a marker every 30 feet of so for each site.  No privacy at all, and from a distance with all the tents and campfires I thought it resembled a 3rd world slum.  We arrived late Thursday night to discover that the campground is locked up after 10pm, so while my parents were in the campground, we were locked out.  The ranger told us to camp overnight at the parking lot of a nearby lake, so that’s what we did.

 

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Friday morning, we set up the RV at the campsite and then went to the Apple Pond Farm for their “Farming with kids” tour:

Milking a goat:

 

More farm critters:

 

 

 

 

We then went for a ride on the Delaware and Ulster Railroad from Arkville to Roxbury:

 

 

There was a nice visitor center at the train station in Roxbury:

On the way back, it rained, so we went into a closed car.  We had the car to ourselves:

Tickle time!

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Saturday night, we had a little campfire:

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On Sunday, I went fishing early in the morning.  Beaverkill apparently has some of the best fly fishing in the US, so I was excited to fish the creek.  On Friday, we stopped at a fishing shop in Roscoe and bought some dry flies and a type of bobber that can be filled with water.  By filling the bobber with water, the line now has sufficient weight so that the fly (which weighs next to nothing) can be cast with a standard spincasting setup.

Anyway, I got to the creek at about 6:30am, and just as I got there, a pair of bald eagles flew over, which was great.  About half an hour later, I caught a 12” brown trout:

I took M and B back, and M caught a 8 3/4” brown trout:

They were tasty!

Later in the day, we went mountain biking on what I thought was a gravel road, but was in fact at best a jeep trail.  Everyone was a good sport, especially Mom.  Dad was, in retrospect, smart for staying behind.

M found a frog:

 

Here’s the “road”:

 

Here’s the route:

 

When we got to the end of the ride, everyone drove on to Mongaup Pond, while I rode there by way of a snowmobile trail.  It wasn’t all that far, but it definitely taught me that having a mountain bike that’s less than 20 years old would be really nice.

Here’s the trail:

This is clear, right?

Here’s the route:

Elevation map:

Back at camp, the kids went skating:

 

 

The creek behind the campsite:

After lunch, the kids rode their bikes around the campground:

We had out campsite reserved until Monday morning, but we decided to come back Sunday night.  The traffic was pretty awful, but by 10pm, we were home.

Fun fun fun!

This weekend we stayed at the Kenneth Wilson campground in the Catskills.  This was our first over-Shabbos trip with the new RV.  There was a good bit of poison ivy in the campground, so we had to be a bit careful.

On Sunday, we went to Saugerties for the Purina Mills Grand Prix HITS-on-the-Hudson III:

 

If you ever wonder what the world would be like without men, go to a horse jumping competition. 🙂

On our way out, we passed a ring with younger riders:

 

We then went down to Kingston to see replicas of the Nina and Pinta:

We then drove down to Springtown where we rode the nothern portion of the Walkill Valley Rail Trail:

The four of us rode our own bikes (no towing) for about 9 miles round trip.  We were very pleasantly surprised that B could ride the entire route unaided.

At sunset, we fished at the campground but had no luck.  We came back early Monday morning.  The campground was nice, and I suspect we will return in the future.