The Ouseys in Victoria Page

Tuesday Oct. 28. We met a couple from Saskatchewan, pulling a fifth wheel, that are doing much the same thing we are. Travelling (rambling) roughly the same route, except they are going to Florida, were not. We finally decided to leave the Luray area and the Country Waye campground and head to Williamsburg. So we departed Tues. Oct 28. We drove the Skyline parkway in Shenandoah Park. It is a road that on top of the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The skyline drive varies between 3000 to 4000 feet in elevation. You can see spectacular views of the valleys on both sides. The park is quite beautiful and has many paths, sites, and museums. It has a campground which we stopped at to look around and decided to stay. We made it all of 32 miles. There is enough here to keep us a couple of days anyway. That is the beauty of traveling with no time constraints, or detailed itinerary for that matter.

Wednesday, Oct 29. My mother is having her pace-maker installed today so must call Bro. Dennis to see how it went, and arrange for some flowers to be sent. It rained all night last night and today is very variable. Rain showers, then sun, then more showers. We are at 3750 feet so the television reception is great.

Thursday. Mom is fine. She is now the “bionic woman”. Pacemaker installed and operating fine. She will be out of the hospital tomorrow. We made it a whole 170 miles to Williamsburg. Looks like a lot to do here so will stay the weekend and do it. Should have lots for my next blog.

The Luray Caverns are quite spectacular, although still not as good as Carlsbad. They also had a car and caravan museum which was quite interesting. The Shenandoah Valley is quite a touristy area, which explained the fact that the campgrounds were full when we arrived last Friday, at least for serviced sites. The local WalMart had NO overnight parking. Signs indicated that overnight parker’s would be towed away. The campground we stayed in allowed us to dry camp for the first night, we then got an electrical site on Saturday. I think the owner was partial to Canadians, since she was one herself, from Montreal. In any event the Shenandoah Valley is very picturesque with many attractions.

Just heard my Mom is in the hospital, possibly needing a pace maker. My brother's blog has more details at http://dousey.blogspot.com

We left Ithaca yesterday and got to a WalMart in Harrisburg for the first night. Today we proceeded on to Laray Virginia. We decided against Washington, as Carolyn wasn't interested and I had been to the smithsonian before, so we went for the caverns. We will be visiting the Laray Caverns tomorrow, they are about 3 miles fromt he campground that we are staying at. We couldn't believe it. We get to this particular campground and it is full for electrical sites, but they could give us a spot with no services. All the campgrounds around here are full for the weekend. They can't believe it themselves. Anyhow, were here or near here for a couple of days to explore. Weather great and everything working well, including us and the dog.

TTFN.

On Monday, October 20, 2003, John and Doreen took us to the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, NY. What a fabulous museum, a must for anyone coming down this way. It has a great display of the history of glass making, glass art work, including a “Dale Chihuly”. Glass pieces from all over the world and from any age. Innovations in glass, and, well, just about everything you wanted to know about glass. Give yourself a day to do the tour justice. We really quite enjoyed it.

Tuesday, 21st, found us in some occasional rain, and thunder showers. However, the were sufficiently spread out to allow us some touring of the Gorges and Falls of the area. We got Chuffley groomed and while he was in we went to Buttermilk Falls, close to Ithaca and then went to the Gorge which includes Lucifer Falls. They both were very spectacular. The gorge in particular was very picturesque and this added to the hundreds of pictures that we have already taken. The waters cut through layered shale which makes for rather uniquely shaped gorge walls. We are back to John and Doreens place for dinner prior to our departure tomorrow. We had a great stay with them and Ithaca.

Oct 14th: Nope, didn’t get away by Noon. In fact the wheel seal wasn’t installed and completed until 2:15. But that was the easy part. It took until 5 pm to sort out who was paying for it. Many calls to Winnipeg, who initially accepted responsibility, but as soon as the bean counters got involved took an extraordinary amount of time to come to the same conclusion. They paid and we stayed in Moncton another night.

We got away the next morning, Wednesday, 15th. Made it to Bangor, Wal-Mart and then Thursday, to the Wal-Mart in Hinsdale New Hampshire. Both uneventful days, except for the heavy rain and wind the first day for about 4 hours and the spectacular fall colours all around us. There is nothing to compare the trees in the fall on the East Coast. Carolyn has taken to the digital camera and has taken 75 pictures of trees all while we are on the highway. If all goes well we should be in Ithaca tomorrow.

Sunday Oct 19th: Yep got to Ithaca Thursday evening. Weather has been terrific. Carolyn, the dog and I are all feeling fine. Carolyn’s relatives made reservations at the Robert H Treman State Park. It is a rather large park (5km X 2km) and still open for the season. Only a few electrical sites so we were dry camping for the weekend. We will move to an electrical site later today. We are in amongst the trees, which are ablaze (with colour) in all their glory. Of course the wind, rain and thunder last night has us covered in leaves. Seeing Carolyn’s relatives again has been a real pleasure. Doreen and John Rudan have been great hosts. We had wonderful dinner last night at the “Boat Yard” restaurant. Today we will be going to tour the Cornell Campus (remember Carl Sagan?) and have dinner at their place. We will also tour parts of this park, it has a gorge and waterfall etc. They allow bow-hunting in the park and there is a deer hanging at the campsite across from us. Ycchh says Carolyn. Will be staying here at least until Wednesday as we have an appointment to get Chuffley Groomed that morning. Well off to Blog this.

On Oct 10th we departed for points west of Halifax. I had noticed a faint propane smell occasionally near the Motorhome entrance, and Carolyn noted she had as well. So we stopped in Truro to get it checked. Sure enough there was a small leak in the black pipe propane manifold underneath the rig. The place that checked it "holiday trailers" was not qualified for "black pipe" propane work, and recommended Elm River Campground. Here we could get it fixed and stay the night too. Which is what we did. Of course like all repairs he noticed something else that needed doing, and that was my left wheel seal was leaking. Well that was one of the repairs that I had done in Winnipeg. So phone calls to Winnipeg, resulted in us proceeding to Moncton where there was an International dealer there, that could fix it on warranty. We got to Moncton early Saturday Morning, but the trouble was it was the long weekend. Brentwood International in Moncton was open, but they would need to order parts and all the parts places were closed For the weekend. They gave me an appointment for Tuesday morning at 8 am. So we stayed in Moncton for the thanksgiving weekend. Weather was great, sunny and hot. We stayed at Magnetic Hill Campground. Sunday, it was too hot to cook and we went to Boston Pizza, where I had the special. Ribs. Without a doubt the best I have had in a long time. Went to a movie, “Under the Tuscan Sun”, excellent show. Then phoned the kids who were together for Thanksgiving and talked to them and wished them a happy thanksgiving. Monday was a dreary wet and rainy day, so Carolyn decided she would cook a thanksgiving meal of ham, scalloped potatoes, turnip, carrots etc. Was very nice. Saw more of Moncton than we expected but fortunately, we are not in a rush, but it does cut it fine to get the Ithaca NY for the 18th. Carolyn’s relatives the Rudans, are expecting us then. Assuming the repairs get done on time and barring any more problems, we will make it.


Currently in the waiting room, hope all goes well and we can be on our way by Noon. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend.

Monday we proceeded to Halifax and stopped at a WalMart on Bayer's Road. We stayed Tuesday as we noticed that the furnace wasn't working. Did some phoning and found a place that would fix it. Of course he said it was obviously the circuit board and he would order one. How he could know this for sure without seeing the rig is beyond me. Since the part wouldn't be in untill next day I took the furnace apart myself, and found that the sail switch was clogged and sticky, so I cleaned that up and it has worked fine since. Changed the plugs in the generator as well and so ended up staying in that Walmart another night. We then moved to Woodhaven Campground. We visited Sue Robinson, a friend from Victoria who was visiting her Mom and Dad. Good to see her. We then spent the day in Halifax, mostly on the waterfront. My Halifax sure has changed, pariticularly around the waterfront. In fact as we travelled around the greater Halifax, Dartmouth area we could hardly recognise many of the places we had been. Only when we got close to one of the houses did we remember things. Anyhow a great visit to the big city. Next To Moncton and on to Ithaca NY next week. We are all still fine and healthy and hope it stays that way. Carolyn has been quite happy, she managed to do some shopping in her favourite store Value Village, plus many other places of course. We have both been doing a lot of reading too. We both finished re-reading the first 4 Harry Potter books, then read the newest one "Goblet of fire". Haven't missed an episode of West Wing either.

After enjoying Annapolis Royal and Bridgetown we headed for a place where we camped with the kids many times in the 60's, for nostalgic reasons if not anything else. Thought we would stay for a couple of days. Well Kejimkujik is still there but I am not sure we could afford it if we were young and camping there now. It cost us 4.50 per adult per day plus 21.00 per day for camping, no on-site services either. It cost us $30.00 for one day, however it included taxes. There was also a charge of $3 per day per child. However, if you had a National park pass the charges per person per day would not have to be paid. In any event it is getting expensive to stop at National parks.

We saw what we wanted in one day and continued to Bridgewater and Lunenburg area. We stopped at a campground half way between them and found that it only charged $15.00 per day, including taxes for all services, (electricity, sewer and water). Now this was a big surprise, being so reasonable and since it was central to several spots we wanted to visit we stayed here 4 nights. The campground was right on a river and run by a little old lady who was just as pleasant as could be. We did day trips from here to Lunenburg, Cresent beach and Liverpool. Lunenburg is a very pretty city with a thriving tourist trade. Whereas many centres had shut down their tourist centers Oct first, Lunenburg was still busy and many visitors from many locations, going by the license plates. The Bluenose II was docked at the same place it was docked when we first went on it in summer of 1963. It had just been launched on july 24th 1963 and did not yet have its masts. We were on it with Lyn (who was only 18 months at the time). It was open for visitors and so we went on board. The crew keeps it in top notch shape.

We walked on Cresent beach with many memories of previous walks there. Once with My mom where she and I actually went into the cold cold water. It is one of the longest and nicest beaches on the south coast.

In our spare time we are trying to catch up with our NY crosswords and busy rereading the "Harry Potter" series of books, including the new one. Carolyn had a bit of sniffles, but otherwise we are healthy.

Well today (Sunday Oct 5th) it is raining continually, so time to see if I can connect and post this and my email. Later today the regulars of this campground and the owner get together for Thanksgiving dinner, an annual event going a long way back. Yep! a week earlier than actual thanksgiving because they close the campground soon and they winterize then go home and have thanksgiving with their families. In any event we have been invited and so we are looking forward to it.

We went and it was great. A great turkey pot luck and a good bunch of down homers. The owner will be letting me online so I can blog this and do my email. Tomorrow off to Halifax for a few days.

We are on the road again and just spent a day at Annapolis royal. They have one of the few (3 in the world) and second largest (20 megawatt) tidal power plant. It is just experimental but quite a feet of engineering. Enjoyed that and Fort Anne immensely. On the Kejimkujik Nat Park today.