Day 2 - Sightseeing in Mystic, CT

After sleeping in a little today, we cleaned up and headed into Mystic for sightseeing.  Last night I had purchased on-line a Mystic Pass for both of us to see Mystic Aquarium and Mystic Seaport.  Buying them together and the day before saved us about $30.

We decided to hit the seaport first because it was another hot, humid day. We figured the seaport would be mostly outside (better in the morning when it's cooler) and the aquarium would be mostly inside (air-conditioning!).  It worked out pretty well but there were a few places at the seaport that had air-conditioning and a few outside exhibits at the aquarium.

Mystic Seaport is mostly authentic buildings from the 1800's that were transported to Mystic from around New England.  They make up a village who's main purpose is to support the many whaling ships that set sail from the area.  It is very interesting so see 1800 era doctor offices, ship chandelier, smiths, etc.  If interested, check out their website at Mystic Seaport.

I really enjoyed exploring the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan.   She's NOT a replica but the actual ship that sailed 37 whaling voyages from 1841 to 1921.  After a major refit, she again sailed into the North Atlantic for a 38th trip in 2014.  When we walked aboard, there was a gent just starting a "reading" of Moby Dick.  We heard, "Call me Ishmael..." and saw an older gent in 19th century dress walking the deck with about 30 people watching him.  As we watched, then toured the ship, he recited many pages of the book - from memory!  He was still going when we left.  How do you memorize a whole book?  Here I am standing near the bow.

The seaport was not very crowded when we arrived but gradually filled up in the early afternoon.  It was getting hot and humid outside so we drove over to the Mystic Aquarium with hopes of enjoying their air-conditioning.

The Aquarium was very crowded and I think it was "kids day".  We never found anywhere in the whole place where there weren't at least 50 children in sight.  Laura did get a chance to pet the rays just after we walked in.  I think she had to push a couple kids out of the way (only kidding).








There was also a huge pool with 4 or 5 beluga whales.   They were huge and beautiful.  Later in the afternoon, we saw them working with trainers who would ask them to do maneuvers and reward them with fish.  We watched this for quite a while.  It looked like a lot of fun!














The main exhibit had huge aquariums with fish from all over the world.  Outside aquariums included seals, sea lions and penguins.  The penguins were being fed by hand from an aquarium worker near the middle of the exhibit.  They were almost all standing patiently in-line waiting their turn at the hand-out.  It was fun and we watched for quite a while.






By mid-afternoon we were getting hungry and tired.  As we were driving away from the seaport, Laura saw a restaurant called Go Fish in a little mall.  We turn around and ate lunch there.  A little expensive but not too bad considering this is a huge summer vacation spot.  After lunch we headed back to our campground with a stop for gas along the way since we didn't have the trailer behind us.  Oh boy.  We had driven 151 miles with the trailer and 40 miles without.  The truck took 18.3 gallons which was just over 10 miles to the gallon.  Looks like our gas budget is going to be a little higher than expected.  Maybe it was all the hills yesterday in Massachusetts.  One can only hope.

Tomorrow we only have a 2-3 hour drive to my cousin Mike's house near Plymouth.  We'll probably leave sometime in the late morning and stop at the dump station on the way out of the campground to empty our grey (sink and shower) and black (poopie) tanks.

Day 2 - Sightseeing in Mystic

     38 miles (without the trailer) - 189 miles total
     $223 spent - $314 total
          $112 - 2 tickets for Mystic Seaport and Aquarium
            $55 - gas
            $56 -lunch and lemonade

RV Travels of Bill and Laura - Day 1 - Catskill to Preston, CT

Wow!  What a great first day!  Everything but the last 10 minutes was perfect.  I started writing this outside the camper sitting at our table and was attacked by a huge horsefly.  He drove me back inside for awhile.

Laura and I both slept much better last night.  I told our friend Lee it's like sailing off-shore.  The first night nobody can sleep with the motion of the boat and all the different sounds around.  The second night, you're so tired, you can sleep anywhere.

I slept almost 10 hours and woke up around 8:30 with a clear head and felt well rested.  I immediately started getting the trailer ready to leave the marina as Laura made us a small breakfast of scrambled egg and 1/2 toast each.  The only item added to our list in the night was hand-soap we needed from the boat.  I walked down to the boat, checked everything for the 20th time, grabbed the hand-soap and said a sad "Good bye" to Second Wind.

Lee stopped by as we were finishing breakfast to assist with getting underway.  He's owned a travel trailer and used it quite a bit.  I've been getting pointers from him the past few weeks.  He watched as Laura and I disconnected from power and water, lifted the jacks and stowed all the blocks in the back of the pickup.  I then backed up the truck as she directed me under the hitch.  It worked pretty well and we had the trailer hooked up with power and safety chains in just a few minutes.

I pulled the trailer off the lawn and into the parking lot.  We said, "See you soon!" to Lee (never say "Good-bye" to good friends.  We always see them again!) and drove out of the marina.  About 20 feet up the road was a good place to pull over and do a little planning. Bummer that we forgot to take any picture of us leaving.

I had forgotten our iPad doesn't have a GPS so we couldn't use the RV Life app on it.  Dang.  I had downloaded all the state and Canadian Province maps with the marina Wi-Fi so we could use the iPad off-line but had forgotten it was the "disconnected" model.  No GPS.  Instead, we used my iPhone which had the RV-Life app loaded but didn't have the state maps downloaded.  We downloaded NY, MA and CT while driving across the Rip Van Winkle bridge.  Then I pulled over and had it map our way to Mohegan Sun Casino.

A funny thing happened a short while later.  After about 1 1/2 hours driving, I decided to pull over and check the rig since we had been running it pretty hard up and down steep hills.  I found a place in front of a closed restaurant where we just fit off the road.  As I started to get out, Laura said, "I'm glad you stopped, I have to pee."  I guess I had a funny look on my face thinking she was going to walk around the side of the restaurant or something when she pointed behind the truck.  Oh yeah.  We were pulling a house with a bathroom.  Guess I'm not quite used to this yet.

Bill Tip - When you tell trip-planning software to "Avoid Highways", you'll be routed through every back-road in the area.  Don't do this!

After two hours of covering only 65 miles down many unimproved roads, we changed the settings on the app to just "Avoid Tolls" and not avoid highways.  Our trip to Mohegan Sun went from 4.5 hours to 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Yes!  We did end up on I-91 through Hartford but it all went pretty smooth.  I was glad to be off the (way-) back roads.  At one point in the morning, we stopped at an intersections and I looked ahead at the road ahead and it was very steep.  OK truck.  Let's go!  I tried to get up steam across the intersection but the truck never got out of first gear.  At one point we were only going 15 MPH and I had the gas peddle all the way to the floor.  Laura and I were both wondering we we were going to have to get out and push.  We held 15-20 MPH all the way up this 1/4 mile hill.  I was waiting for the engine temperature gauge to start going up but it never did. 

Laura spent a few hours looking up campgrounds around the Mystic Area in case we decided to not stay at Mohegan Sun.  There are no power hookups there and the temps all day today were near 90.  We might need our air-conditioning and we don't have a built-in generator - just my Honda 2000 in the back of the pickup.  The easiest way seemed to be using Google Maps on her iPhone and searching for Campgrounds.  She called several places in the $70-$90 range and finally found one that was only $50 with a river-side spot.  Nothing else she found was close to that.

None of the apps we've used so far (RV Trip Wizard, Good Sam Trip Planner, RV Life, Apple Maps or Google Maps) give campground prices.  If someone finds a way to easily see what each campground costs without called each one, please let me know.

 We were about 1/2 hours from Mystic Aquarium (our destination for today) when we passed a beautiful little lake just off the road.  I immediately said, "What a great place for a picnic" as we zoomed by a hidden road leading into a fishing spot by the lake.  About 1/2 mile down the road I found a small strip-mall and turned around.  We had found a great place for lunch!

Here is your first picture of our rig as we stopped for lunch.  2013 Chevy Silverado 1500 with towing package and 2012 - 23 foot Keystone Hideout.  See the beautiful little lake in the background?

As we munched left-over pizza from the night before with Lee and Linda, I looked up the Mystic Aquarium on my phone and saw they closed at 5:50pm.  It was already about 2:30pm and I was in no hurry to leave this beautiful lunch spot.  We talked about it and decided to stay at the campground with the river-side sites for two nights.  We'd use the truck for sightseeing around the Mystic area tomorrow and head out again on Thursday. 

I often say that our plans are always cast-in-jello.  On the water or on the road, we can change plans at the drop of a hat - no problem.

We punched the Hidden Acres Family Campground into my iPhone and were there in only about 40 minutes from our lunch stop.  I parked the rig next to the office and we walked in.

As we walked up the counter, a very nice lady said hello and we asked about a RV site for two nights.  I also mentioned that she had the distinct honor of being our first campground EVER.  She was very friendly and talked to us about a few available sights.  I mentioned we didn't have children or pets with us so she eventually gave us an isolated site away from the noises.  The sites were supposed to be $50 for river-side or $45 for the others.  Since she had picked the river-side site, she said it would only be $45.  $90 on our credit card and it was a done deal.  She had flagged down her husband who jumped into his golf cart and said, "Follow me..."

I had also told her husband this was our first campground EVER so he nicely gave me a few pointers about backing the trailer into the site.  One thing that helped was he said to walk around and look where we wanted the trailer to end up then scratch a line in the dirt with my heel to show where the edge of it should go.  I could see the dirt mark in the side mirror and line up the trailer accordingly.  After two or three tries to line everything up correctly, we were home!

Here is where we will be staying for the next two nights.  Beautiful spot under the trees and right next to a very shallow river.

After leveling the trailer and rolling out the awning, we set up camp outside to try and cool down.  Here's Laura sitting in the shade of our new home for the next two days.

I do want to mention what a pain-in-the-butt it is to level a trailer without hydraulic / automatic leveling jacks.  Even though I used a power drill to lower the jacks and level out the trailer, we were both completely drenched before we were done. It's hard to imagine being on the road every day and having to go through this each afternoon / evening.

This picture was our view from the back of the trailer.  You can just see a little dam someone made of stones in the river that built a little pond for wading.  After hooking up power and water to the trailing and turning on the AC, we put on our bathing suits and climbed into the water.  I was disappointed that it was warm and was hoping for cooler water.  But, it was refreshing and we both had fun.  It was only about 2-3 feet deep at the deepest.

After our swim we cleaned up and I washed, then hung-up the clothes I had been wearing because they were all sweaty.  We relaxed with a cocktail and ended up back inside with the air-conditioning to stop sweating and get away from the bugs.  I should mention that it is 91 degrees outside and no wind.  The next few days are supposed to be mid-80s so we're looking forward to that.

I'm hoping that today will not ruin the rest of the trip for us.  Our lunch spot and campsite were so scenic and beautiful.  Even the driving went well and the truck ran great.  Can the next 4 or 5 weeks get better?  Stay tuned....

Day 1 - Hidden Acres Campground, Preston, CT

     151 miles
     $91 spent - $90 for 2 nights at campground and $1 for air at gas station

Finish packing and stay another day

Yesterday (Sunday), we brought about 15 cart loads from the boat to the trailer.  I think I was making ruts along the marina grass and parking lot.  The boat got lighter while the trailer heavier.  I hope it still moves!  Laura and I worked all day with our bathing suits on.  When we were hot, we jumped in the pool and cooled off for a bit.  Our good friends Lee and Linda on Slow Cruisin' invited us over for cocktails and a little private going-away dinner.  Linda had a little package of gifts for us including a framed picture of Second Wind at the dock here so we wouldn't forget.  What a sweetheart!  After dinner and a couple bottles of wine, we retired to our (new to us) trailer and new bed.

Turns out neither of us slept very well because of the new bed, different surroundings and thinking up stuff we forgot.  Laura was up early (7:30) at her usual time and I slept in for another hour or so.

I'm big on checklists and we've been using an app called Wunderlist for several years now.  It works really well.  The best part is you can share lists with other people so Laura and I work together for adding and completing tasks on our own phones.  I've been working off of two lists the past several days - "Bring on RV trip" is all the stuff we want to bring with us and "Leave the boat" is everything I need for putting the boat to bed.  This works out great when you wake up in the middle of the night and think of something you forgot.  I just pick up the phone, add the task to the list then go back to sleep.  I don't stay awake thinking I'm not going to remember in the morning.

It's a hot, steamy day in Catskill and we're still here. We brought over another full cart load this morning of things we had forgotten yesterday and I finished the checklist for shutting down the boat systems.  My goal was to leave by 10am but it was 11 before we had everything from this trip packed in the trailer.  I hadn't had coffee or breakfast so we settled down for a bit in the air-conditioning and decided to stay another day.  About the only thing left is a trip to Walmart for a few items plus stocking up on fresh groceries.

I've been thinking a lot of how many / which tools to bring with us.  I have tools on the boat for repairing everything a broken hose to bad engine starter.  I decided I wouldn't need my big tool box or the many drawers of tools stored on the boat.  Instead, I just added a few things to Tom's small tool box and figured that would be enough for a small trailer.  Well....  This morning I finally had enough of the screen door sticking so decided to fix it.  Of course, I didn't have the right tool for the screws or big enough pliers to bend the hinge back into place.  Another two trips back to the boat for tools and it's working fine now.

This afternoon we did a small grocery run.  On the boat, we buy groceries in bulk because we have a large fridge and two freezers.  The camper only has a small fridge and freezer so it will take us a little time to get used to it.  After our "small" grocery run, both the fridge and freezer were packed full.

We relaxed the rest of the day swimming at the marina and doing small jobs.  I think we are ready!  Tomorrow morning we head out.

Our final day of packing, getting the travel trailer ready to leave and putting the boat to bed.  We can't believe it's finally here!

We've been sailors for 13 years - traveling the U.S East Coast, Bahamas, Cuba and Caribbean to South America plus a trip up the Pacific Ocean from New Zealand to Hawaii.  Thinking that we've seen most of the U.S East Coast after 28 trips up and down the Intracoastal Waterway, maybe it was time for new horizons.  We are typically slow and methodical when changing directions.  Not so much because we dislike change but more to "feel our way" and not make un-thoughtful decisions.  After almost two years of thinking and planning, we were ready.

For the past 13 years we've sailed our 43' Endeavour ketch Second Wind over 70,000 miles.  We started and ran a sailing charter business on the Hudson River (summers) and Marathon, FL (winters) for 7 1/2 years.  For 8 summers we managed the Catskill Marina in Catskill, NY and for the past 5 years I've been a Captain at Hudson Cruises driving a 100 foot party boat.  After giving almost a year's notice, last week we left both jobs and freed ourselves from any formal ties to this area.

If you are interested in more details of our sailing life, we have published four eBooks / paperbacks on Amazon which contain our daily blogs.  Here is a quick link to the books on Amazon - Sailing Travels of Bill and Laura.  Ok.  Enough of our "old" life.

Much of our research into RVing centered around what type of RV we thought would be most comfortable for us while being easy to drive and efficient (for an RV).  We looked closely at small class B vans like the Travato and class C motor homes under 25 feet.  Note that living on a 43 foot sailboat for 13 years has taught us much in the way of minimalism and we heartily embrace it.  Laura and I both like the simpler life and not having a lot of "stuff".

Last fall, we mentioned to my sister Denise and her husband Tom our plans for doing some traveling by RV this summer.  They immediately offered their 23 foot travel trailer which they hadn't used much in the past few years.  I mentioned we didn't have a truck to tow it with and they said, "Take the truck too and loan us your car while you are gone."  Wow!  An opportunity to taste-test the RV life with a minimal investment.  What a deal!

Tom and Denise have been getting the trailer and truck ready while we've been learning as much as possible about the trailer itself.  It was very easy to learn the trailer since they have it parked at our marina.  Yesterday we swapped their truck for our car and we're almost ready to go!

Trip planning has been on the top of our list for several weeks.  Since we've never traveled by RV before, we didn't really have any idea of how to find places to stay.  After reading some of the blogs and reviews on-line, a few weeks ago, I purchased RV Trip Wizard and started planning the trip.  Our goal was to travel for 3-5 weeks up the coast of Maine and through the Canadian Maritimes.   After 5 hours of working on the computer, we had a trip laid out for a big loop up the coasts of Massachusetts, Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.  Then back following the south shore of the Saint Lawrence Seaway. and down the Adirondacks back to central New York.  The trip was about 6 weeks and had us staying at specific private, state or federal campgrounds almost every night.  

After reviewing our plans, we realized it was a good exercise but would not work for us.  We wanted to be more free - stay longer at places we enjoyed and maybe drive longer days if we felt like it.  Still not knowing if not having reservations would be a problem, we decided to mostly wing-it and only plan a few days ahead.

I joined the Good Sam Club and purchased their Road Hazard insurance.  They have a deal for only 6 months so that worked out well for us. They have a trip planner which I've played around with and it seems nice too.  Problem is both the RV Trip Wizard and Good Sam Trip Planner are internet based.  You have to have an internet connection to use most of the software.  Then I found an app called RV Life.  This lets you download state maps to use off-line and will even use trips planned in RV Trip Wizard.  Nice!  I guess that's where we will start.

At least in the beginning, I would like to not take highways or toll-roads so we can see the countryside and not zone-out on the Interstates.  The RV Life app lets you configure these settings.  Our first leg would be from Catskill, NY to Plymouth, MA where we will visit my cousin Mike and his wife Jane.  When I plugged in the destination Plymouth, RV Life said it would be 11+ hours when not taking highways.  Yo!  Too much driving for our first day.  As we looked for a stop in the middle somewhere, I saw the southern coast of Connecticut and Mystic.  We are big on snorkeling and reefs so what better way to see underwater life than the Mystic Aquarium.  The app showed a free place to stop at Mohegan Sun casino - only a short distance from Mystic.  About 5 hours to the Casino then 5 hours to Plymouth.  Perfect!  Our destination for Monday (or Tuesday if we can't get everything ready) will be Mohegan Sun Casino where we will spend 1 or 2 nights and do some sightseeing.  There are no hookups at the Casino so we'll have to make sure our water tank is full and waste tanks empty before leaving.

I also have a Honda i2000 generator on the boat for charging batteries when needed.  I have this packed in the back of the pickup along with a 5 gallon jug of gasoline so we can have 120v power in the trailer when not hooked to "shore power" - yes, I'm going to mix in a lot of boating terms.  I've already tested it and our generator will run the trailer air-conditioner.  Good thing.  The next few days are supposed to be in the 90s.