Thursday, August 9, 2012

Another "must have"


The photo above has nothing to do with this post, it is just a nice one of the both of us taken during our boat tour of Bar Harbor, this is Little Cranberry Island.

When traveling full-time we have discovered a real techno-dependancy....GPS.  What a handy device.  We do not have a smart phone....but we can pretty much find our next destination, where to stay and what to see all by using our Garmon and our netbook.  We have an HP Mini 300 with an internal modum air card from Verizon and we are able to get internet just about anywhere (Canada we did use the wi fi at the campgrounds and it worked great there too.) We do have an actual hard copy of a great guide book called Road Trip USA  The book maps out a dozen routes that criss cross the US, north/south, east/west, coastal, and Appalachian Trail.  We are using a combo of east/west and some of the Appalachian....anyway, we type in the city of destination for our daily travel (we try real hard to keep it around 4-5 hours), get a listing of Walmarts in the area and then call ahead to seeif they let campers overnight...or, if we plan to stay over we will get a campground or state park in the area....we did this in Bennington, VT and had the pleasure of staying in one of thThee very best parks ever....Woodford State Park is the bomb.....and for $18 a night, we were totally impressed.  We wanted to spend a couple of nights as we went to the Bennington Museum to see the Grandma Moses gallery and eat at the Blue Binn Diner....5 Stars all the way!!! Our guide book gave us the hours of operation of the museum and entrance fees and also suggested the wonderful Blue Binn so we are very pleased with this book so far!  The Garmon is handy for all kinds of info and keeps us pretty much going in the right direction.  We do have an atlas and use that as well.  For example:  when we were deciding "where-to-next" after Bangor, ME.  we looked at the atlas and decided, after reading the guide book that we wanted to see Grandma Moses and Norman Rockwell on our way to the Baseball Hall of Fame, so we got on the internet and mapquested each town and realized they were each about 4 hours from each other, so we decided to drive to Bennington from Bangor and stay in the state park, then we headed out to Stockbridge and a nice tour of the lovely Norman Rockwell museum.  We left there by 2:30 and headed to Cooperstown which was a 4 hr. drive and are spending two nights at the Beaver Valley Campground.  We had all day to tour the Baseball Hall of Fame, also grabbed a delish lunch at the Doubleday Diner (another recommendation from the guidebook).  Now we are taking it easy at camp before we pack up and head to Buffalo.



The Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is first rate.  We spent 5 hours touring three floors of exhibits, relics, statistics, information, movies, photos, books, trading cards, anything and everything baseball....well-done and so very entertaining.  America certainly has a love affair with the game and we both enjoyed our time spent here. 



George Brett (far right) is a Kansas City icon....everyone loves him.  He has kept baseball alive in KC and that has been a hard thing to do....the Royals have not been doing very well since oh, say 1985....when they won the I70 World Series....





As of today, let's see....KC in the cellar for our division....oh well...


Paul is not a KC Royals fan, he prefers the Cincinnati Reds fan!
We will "shuffel off to Buffalo" tomorrow bright and early!
Tally ho,
Cathy

4 comments:

  1. For sure, a new GPS is a must-have! We talk to 'Maggie', our Magellan, all the time. ;-) I think I still have Road Trip USA in our bookcase; I must pack it for this winter. Thanks for that.

    ~ Hazel

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  2. We were "lost" without ours while in Canada...but we managed, like the good ol days ;-) used a map! ha! Where are you headed this winter? We plan to explore Florida for a while, then head west.

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  3. Buffalo is amazing! Sea Bar restaurant is a must...Buffalo Tours-a Segway tour is the greatest! Tour of City Hall is very good...noon every week day FREE! Elmwood village is VERY nice! Love to you both...XXOO

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    1. Sounds like lots of good stuff to see and do ....we only spent the night. BUT...I did get to Wegmans and Aldi....heheheo
      Next time we plan to stay longer. love you too

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