Road Trip #9, Part 1 – Fall Colors in New England

Working our way north

My best friend growing up (a brother from a different mother) and I get together every September alternating years at each other’s home.  This year is our turn to visit Ken and Carol in Copake, NY.  This year’s trip has been on and off ever since we got back from Road Trip #8 in May.  Unfortunately I’ve experienced a lot of breathing issues.  Ultimately I apparently had developed “walking pneumonia”.  My breathing has continued to improve since that was cured, but I still need the help of O₂ from time to time but that’s not going to slow us down.

During the past few weeks we have been planning this trip.

   

We got rolling the day after Labor Day and covered 270 miles that first day, ending up in Kingsland, GA at Country Oaks Campground & RV Park.  This is a really nice park as these picture testify..

Since then we have worked our way north to an intermediate destination for the first leg of this road trip.

The Dream Becomes Reality – Road Trip #1, Key West

Barb retired from the Sheriff’s Office on April 30^th of 2015 and we were on the road to Key West on May 9^th.  The first night out we stayed in Homestead, FL.  (We try to limit driving to 3-4 hours daily).

Before continuing to Key West, we toured the Coral Castle in Leisure City, outside of Miami.  Back in the ‘20s, Edward Leedskalnin emigrated to the United States from Latvia. Ed’s fiance broke off the engagement and cancelled their wedding the day before the blessed day.  As a result Ed left Latvia and came to America. He settled in the Miami-Dade area and spent 28 years building his home.  A man’s home is his castle and that’s what he called his work.

Mr. Leedskalnin single-handedly harvested blocks of coral on site and built and sculpted this amazing structure.  As you can see from these images, Ed had an awesome imagination to come up with the ideas for his homestead.  (www.coralcastle.com).

The Beginning

Forty-six years ago, in 1970, we bought our first camper, an 8’ Mobile Traveler cab-over truck camper.  We were living in Roanoke, VA, in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains.  This area was full of opportunities to spend weekends in the wilderness enjoying mother natures’ beauty.

During those forty-six years we have lived full-time in our camper on two occasions; the first time for two and a half years and the second for seven years.  We are now Livin’ The Dream in our ninth camper (7^th trailer).

We’ve Come a Long Way Baby

Week 32, Theme 3 – Before and After

CAUTION!  VIEW AT YOUR OWN RISK

THE CONTENTS OF THIS POST COULD BE UPSETTING

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When this fly landed on the swatter, he was not aware that he was in the presence of a world-renowned fly killer; my wife Barb.  As you can see, Mr. Fly met his “Waterloo” with one quick swat.  Here rests Mr. Fly “Before and After”.  

Week 31, Theme 23 – Letters

We get “letters”, we get lots and lots of “letters”.

Week 30, Theme 38 – Powerful

These three Union Pacific diesel-electric locomotives were captured in intermodal service in the Mojave Desert of California.  Each locomotive weighs 426,000 pounds and carries 5000 gallons of diesel fuel.  The electric generator is powered by a 16 cylinder diesel engine.  Each of the 6 axles is driven by individual traction motors creating a total of 4400 horsepower.  These three locomotives “lashed” together generate 13,200 horsepower.  Now that’s “Powerful”!

Week 29, Theme 12 – Diamonds

Although “Diamonds” are a girls’ best friend, I’m not going to talk about that kind of diamond today.  Instead I’m putting on my railfan hat and will talk briefly on railroad “Diamonds”.  These diamonds are properly known as crossings, where one track crosses another at the same grade.  Crossings are generally 90^o but can be constructed at varying safe angles to accomplish the needed result.  It gets its nickname from the shape of the space in the center of the crossing.

One of these crossings can be found in Plant City.  The Union Station Depot was built in 1908-1909 by both the Atlantic Coast Line (east-west line) and the Seaboard Airline Railroads (north-south line).¹  Across from the Robert W Willaford Railroad Museum at the old Plant City Union Station Depot is a train watching platform and tower built in 2013.  The tower is a super vantage point to watch railroad activity with rail traffic northbound toward Wildwood, Jacksonville and Atlanta; westbound to Tampa and Bradenton; and eastbound to Lakeland, Miami and Orlando.¹ Some information was obtained from the Plant City Government website.

Week 27, Theme A2 – Christmastime

We spent “Christmastime”  2015 with family in Virginia Beach and Stafford (in northern Virginia).  While in Stafford, the entire family was there for Christmas Eve and dinner on Christmas day.  With three young’uns celebrating Santa’s visit, Christmas morn was a wild time.

Stafford, VA is about an hours’ drive from Washington, DC.  Blessed with warm and dry weather, we drove to Washington the day after Christmas and took a quick car window tour.  We visited the United States Navy Memorial and thoroughly enjoyed our tour.  I couldn’t resist this picture of two “Old Salts” (my brother-in-law and me) with the Lone Sailor and also this one of the Navy Christmas Tree.

Weeks 25 & 26, Themes 7 & 37 – Circle in a Square and Part of a Whole

To complete these two themes I had to utilize a “Circle in a Square”, Theme 7.  Theme 37, “Part of a Whole” contains the word or object “hole” and you can clearly see that in the center of the circle.

Week 23, Theme 48 – Three of a Kind

It seems like the three Corps of Engineers campgrounds that we camped at, Sweetwater, West Point and Eastbank, all had Canadian Geese residing in the park.  Gee “Three of a Kind”.  I was fortunate enough to get some pictures of Mom and Pop with their young ones.  Here’s a picture of the parents and “Three of a Kind”  times 2.