To start, after posting the blog yesterday, Laura and I watched the sky darken and tracked thunderstorms on our phone heading our way. Wouldn't you know, they all went around us. We never had a drop and the evening was very calm. We watched a movie on my computer - Hangover 2. It was funny and we both enjoyed it. I also have Hangover 3 so that's probably next on our list. FYI - I have 280 movies on my computer and flash drives that I've ripped from DVDs we've purchased. We watch them on the boat periodically and there are probably 20-30 we haven't seen yet.
After a very nice night's sleep, we were up around 8am and the temperatures had cooled enough to have our coffee outside at the picnic table. I loved it! Enjoying the outdoors on a quiet morning, watching the river run by the back of the trailer was just lovely. For some reason, no bugs. Yea!
We had our breakfast outside then decided to take a hike / walk around the campground. I put on my new hiking shoes and we headed off through the woods following a trail from our campsite. Unfortunately, it ended after just a couple hundred yards so we turned around and followed an overgrown road in a different direction. This also ended within about 10 minutes so we turned around and "hiked" the campground. It was pretty extensive with 100s of sites and we walked all the way back to the entrance so we could check out the dump station where we would have to stop on the way out to empty our grey and black water tanks.
On the way, we saw this family of peacocks - something you don't see everyday. There was a hen and (3) foot-long babies with the male perched on a trailer watching over them. My friend Ron had had a peacock as a pet many years ago so I recognized them immediately. I remember that Ron's was a great watchdog and would yell whenever anyone came onto his yard. It sounded like a small child yelling, "HELP!". Too funny.... Anyway, this male was very pretty and we walked up to about 6 feet away and we wasn't bothered. Maybe we could have petted him? After hiking probably less than a mile, we were back at the trailer. Laura decided to take a shower and headed up to the campground showers only a short distance away. Before leaving, she helped me back the truck under the trailer hitch and I got everything ready to leave. She came back a short time later and said it was pay showers. I had taken a shower on the men's side the night before and it was free. But, it was $.25 for women. What's up with that?
Shortly after coming back from the shower, Laura helped me make sure the lights on the trailer were working and we left the campsite. On the way out, we stopped at the "dump station" to unload our holding tanks. We were right in front of another truck and trailer so I had an audience for our first time doing this. It's not complicated and we were done in about 15 minutes. In hindsight, I should probably run more water into the black water tank so it empties out all the poopies better. We were about 2/3 full but more is better in this case. The couple waiting to dump behind us came and chatted for a bit. We told them it was our 3rd day out and our first campground. They had been out 9 weeks. Nice!
After leaving the campground, we set a course on Google Maps for cousin Mike's in Duxbury. Yes, once again I did select "no highways" so it routed us down all the back roads. It showed almost 3 hours for the 100 miles so we should have seen a problem immediately. We passed under I-95 3-4 times zig-zagging back and forth. Shortly after being routed through a housing project at 20 MPH I changed the "no highways" setting and we were zooming down I-95 at 60 MPH.
Our highway run down I-95 and I-495 was pretty nice. The hills were not as bad as the western end of Massachusetts so the truck didn't labor too much. It's funny that when we left Catskill we ran from New York to Massachusetts to Connecticut. After leaving Preston, we ran from Connecticut to Rhode Island to Massachusetts (again).
The Silverado seems to like running around 55 MPH pulling the 7,000 pound trailer. Faster or slower it has to downshift to second gear make it up the Interstate hills. She really sounds like she's working hard at that point. But, somewhere around 55 seems to be a sweet-spot and I try to hold it at that speed unless we're really backing up the traffic behind us. Then I speed up to 60ish. We'll see if holding 55 helps with the mileage. I'm not optimistic.
We arrived at Mike and Jane's around 2:30pm. Jane was on a business call so she waved us in and we explored the house, barn, pool and garage. The place is big and beautiful. Here's a picture of the camper parked next to their garage with the pool in the foreground and house in the background.After Mike came home from work, we had a cocktail and munchies out by the pool and talked for quite a while. Then we loaded up their SUV and headed for the Duxbury Beach. They let the locals drive right out to the ocean beach and we had lots of fun. Laura even found several pieces of sea-glass.
After an hour or so, we drove the the town beach. Our plan was to look for oysters at low tide and we were right on time. Mike and I walked way out to the shoreline and picked up several dozen, nice size oysters right off the mud. It was a first for Laura and I. I couldn't believe these beautiful oysters were just sitting around waiting for us. Why hadn't someone else picked them up. After only about 1/2 hour we had enough to almost fill up a 5-gallon pail. We took them back to the house where Mike opened several raw and roasted many more on the grill. Being only about 1 hour out of the water, they were just about the best oysters I ever had. Very flavorful and tasty.
Here are a couple Mike opened before I munched them down. Yumm!Jane made us a great dinner and we had several more glasses of wine while talking about old and new times. It was a great end to our day and we're looking forward to tomorrow when my cousin Tim and his wife Karen will arrive for a visit. We better get more wine!
Day 3 - Preston CT to Duxbury, MA
101 miles (all towing) - 290 miles total
$0 spent (how'd that happen?) - $314 total
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