Andover VT

When I arrived at the campground in Vermont, they gave me my site and said, don’t worry about the road being covered in water.  I thought they just had a bit of flooding due to recent rains.  Oh no, the road was built right through a creek!  You could see where part of the pavement had been washed away.  I was hesitant, but everything looked passable so I went for it.  I figured I would just go slow enough, and hope I was heavy enough, that the water wouldn’t sweep my RV off the road. 

I made it safely to the other side and set up camp.  I was in a field all by myself.  Later in the week I would be joined by other RVers coming to a LOWS rally.  Loners on Wheels.  I was pretty excited to finally be around a bunch of single people who also travel. 

When I fired up my computer I was horrified to see I had no signal.  Absolutely nothing in the way of internet or even a phone.  I wasn’t sure I could survive a week with no access to the outside world, but at least I got a satellite signal and could watch TV.  I later discovered that if I walked over to the office and stood right under the router, I could get enough wifi to check email and FB but not much else. 

I decided it was time to do some RV maintenance.  I had just stocked up on supplies from Camping World, all I had to do was actually use them. First I climbed under the RV to grease the tracks that the slides are on.  Hmmm that wasn’t too bad.  Next I had to load a grease gun for the ball bearings on the wheels.  Ok, that was a bit more tricky.  The biggest problem I had was not being able to figure out how to load the cartridge into the grease gun.  (why read directions, it can’t be that hard, right)  Basically, it said to put this end first, which I did after peeling off the cover.  I did not, however, take off the cover on the other side.  I guess I thought  the bottom lever would just push the whole thing up as it went.  Not so much.  After squeezing the trigger and pushing the bottom up, I had built up quite a bit of pressure.  When I took the gun apart to try again, the grease basically exploded all over the grass. Well, that’s not good.  I tried to scoop up the grease to put on the wheels, but I quickly discovered why the grease gun had a pointed nozzle.  There was just no way to get the grease in the hole.   This time when I loaded the gun, I removed both ends and it worked just fine.  The last thing on my list was to  spray dry silicon on the seals for the slide outs.  But after reading the directions, I noticed I had to wash them first and that just seemed like too much work.  I could do that later.  I went hiking instead.

One reason I wanted to come to that area was to hike the Long Trail.  It’s a hiking trail that goes the length of the state.  I found the parking lot and headed out.  OMG what a tricky trail.  First off, I lost the trail after about 15 minutes because it took a sharp right turn, but another trail led back to a camping area.  I retraced my steps and found the correct tree markings.  (like most trails, it is marked by blazes spray painted on trees.)  Almost immediately I came to a steep hill, littered with huge boulders.  I started climbing.  The boulders with covered with green slime which made them pretty slippery and I thought - this sucks!  I wanted to hike, not rock climb.  I came to an open space in the trees and had a great view of the mountains around me.  When I looked up, all I saw were more rocks.  Some were boulders that you had to go around and some were small enough to step over, but the thing they all had in common, it was rock climbing and not walking along a nice flat trail.  I knew the higher I went, the more I was just going to have to come back down and the more it would kill my knees, so I turned around a went back after only 45 minutes.  It took me longer than that to get to the trail, so I was pretty disappointed. In looking at the terrain, I knew that any other place I tried to hike would be more of the same.

The next day I went to ‘town’ with my computer and phone and sat at a little outside café all afternoon.  The wifi was free and I got a cell signal with the added bonus of the opportunity to people watch.

People started to show up for the LOWs rally and I was glad to have some company.  Eventually we had about 12 and it was a really fun weekend.  We had happy hour every evening and breakfast every morning.  Most of the breakfast group stuck around all day and it was so nice to just hang out and relax.  One day we went to a really cool Vermont Country Store.  It was basically an old time country store with everything imaginable in it. They had clothing including men’s night shirts; brands and products from the past such as FullerBrush mops, Lifebouy soap, English Leather Cologne, Lemon Up shampoo and much more.  They had a food section were you could try almost everything from chip dips, to honey to cheese to jellies and candy.  Very few of us bought anything but we all enjoyed looking at everything.  No need for lunch as the samples filled us up, so we all went home for a nap. On the way back, all 3 cars pulled over at a wide spot in the road.  This was a magic spot where a signal got through.  A UPS driver pulled over to see if we needed help.  He said he saw a bunch of women on the side of the road on the phone and thought there was some kind of emergency!  

One night we all went over the mountain and down dirt roads to a really nice place for dinner. The food was great and after dinner everyone sat on the benches outside with their nose stuck in their smart phones.  We got a great signal and no one wanted to leave.  Except the 2 in the group with no smart phone that is. And of course they were both in my truck, so back we headed, to the land of no outside contact. 

Another day 3 of us took a 45 min drive to the big city.  There was a really nice farmers market with all locally grown or made products.  After looking around for a while, we bought lunch and headed to a park bench were once again, we all had our nose stuck in the smart phone.  I wonder how we ever survived without them!

On the last night there I brought out my TV and DVD player and we had movie night under the stars.  It was really cool, we had a big fire and all our chairs around a little TV.  All went well, until the movie stopped playing about 1/3 of the way through.  When I looked at it, the DVD was cracked almost in half.  I couldn’t believe it played as long as it did. 

The next morning everyone said our goodbyes with promises to stay in touch.  The same group is having a bigger rally in NY, about 45 min from where I stayed in the Adirondacks.  I would love to go, but will be in Mass on another Habitat build. 

My next destination is back to Toms River and a 3 week Habitat build.  I can’t wait.

Pictures link: https://plus.google.com/photos/118205599704530902363/albums/5909049720108462961?authkey=CMfvuIP63rzdaQ