Our Silver (Shadow) Honeymooniversary

jim65wagon

TundraBird1
Our Silver (Shadow) Honeymooniversary

OK so it's not really our Silver Anniversary (yet) , it's really only our 20th (but we started dating 5 years prior so we have been together for 25 years), but for our Anniversary present to each other we did rent a Silver Shadow (it looks Platinum in color so that is fitting for the 20th) and spent a week touring new places.

Honeymoonivesary, well just because every time we spoke about our trip and plans for the trip (even before it was a teardrop rental - in the depths of winter it was a VW van rental in Cali) we called it our honeymoon and someone always corrected us that it was really our anniversary…..

 

During our discussions of where to go and how to go we stumbled upon Miller Trailer Sales in Perkasie, PA. It turns out they rent teardrops by the week. Serendipity. Our future plans (some of you have seen them) involve a homebuilt tear (and the selling of everything else) and a yearlong adventure. The one concern we had was if we could stand to be cooped up in a tear - they are quite small you know. Finding a rental in the midst of our planning (both for the “Big Trip” and our Honeymooniversary) allowed us to plan this trip and try out the teardrop life (it would be a bad thing to find one of us claustrophobic after building our own) if only for a week.

Our trip was convoluted, and encompassed many hours and miles of driving for seemingly nearby locations. Due to logistics of dropping the kids off with Grandparents, picking up the trailer and getting to our 2 state parks, dropping the trailer back off and picking up the kids and then home we logged over 2000 miles of road time for 3 days of driving (we were gone 9 days total, camped for 7 days)

After picking up the trailer in Perkasie we headed north to Hickory Run State Park in PA. Why? It was nearby and we'd already been on the road for 7 hours that day (July 2nd) Hickory Run has a huge campground of 381 sites…..it was absolutely full for the holiday weekend.


Of course we had reservations (remember we had been planning since winter) so our spot was there. We pulled in and I carefully backed the trailer (wow! That short of a trailer turns quick!) into its spot. The nice thing about a tear is - if it's not quite right it doesn't take much to readjust it's position. I could push this thing over rough ground easily…


With camp set up we at an easy meal of Crab Soup and French Bread (baked in the Coleman oven) and retired early for the night. It rained…..we discovered that although this tear is not a claustrophobic inducing nightmare, it does need its roof vent and windows open to let in fresh air. Guess what? If it rains you have to close the vent…..and the windows. You know what else? It rained, not a nice little summer shower but a cats n dogs type rain

the next morning In the pouring rain we reconfigured our camp, much to the delight of our neighbors (we of course named them by group - the boring college kids, the Family, the Japanese (all five sites full complete with a Matriarch over them all) and Kindling Man, who only quit making kindling long enough to go purchase more firewood to make more kindling with). Our Kelty tarp had the job of covering the roof and doors of the trailer (and did exceedingly well at that for the Sunday nights rainstorm.). This let us keep all the windows and vent open in the rain without dampening our spirits so to speak….




We took a cruise on Sunday afternoon to the Boulder Field. Really cool. If you're in the area, stop in and see it. Boulders everywhere in the middle of the forest.

I found one I liked



We spotted the turtle….



And it looks like I fell down……just trying to get a bugs eye view of the field though….concern yourself not for my injuries….


We also decided to brave the “Shades of Death!” trail.


I'm not real sure how it got it's name, but for the first part of the trail (we started from the lake end) it was more like the “Lack of shade” trail. We persevered the sun and humidity and found the trail leads through a nice rhdododendren forest and then along a very nice stream. Good hike and worth the effort.





MMMmmmm….barbecue ribs, cornbread and mashed potatos, teamed with a Pinot Noir.


After supper it came another cats and dogs downpour. We spent some of the time under the FirstUp canopy. The new siding we got for it worked great to keep out the wind and rain, but the 5 year old top began to leak everywhere through the fabric.

The next morning we packed up our kit, hitched up the trailer and headed for Jaimaca……Vermont. We did take a side trip through Albany New York. We planned on a stop at a WalMart for a new top for the canopy or at the least some waterproofing spray to revitalize the old top a bit. Plugging WalMart into our Garmin 780 gave us a heading into downtown…….lots of buildings, but funny thing…..no Wal, no Mart. We paused a minute and tried WalMart Supercenter which put us back across the river…..of course to get back across the river we wound through the ,um, shall we say, more interesting section of Albany. If you see Shanaynay with her blonde dreds wrapped around her head tell her we said “Hey” WalMart found, waterproof spray in hand we headed on up to Jamaica.



Jamaica State Park happens to have of the cleanest campgrounds I've ever seen. When you pull in to your site the place looks like a zen garden. There's a groundskeeper that goes around with a rake, whenever someone checks out he rakes the site to perfection, (after the firepit crew comes around and empties the fire pit).

We carefully set up our trailer/Kelty tarp combo (in case of rain….good idea in the end).




We lazed around the rest of the evening…..and the next day…..all we managed to accomplish was naming the chipmunks that were not afraid of us at all (Alvin, Simon and Theodore of course) and a trip into Manchester to buy inner tubes and floated the river much of the afternoon. The West River flows almost right by the site (with an easy “Rails to Trails” path alongside) and a short hike upstream lets you put a tube in the water and float down to the beach through a fun set of rapids and rocks bringing you to the swimming hole (and the site of the Salmon Hole Massacre - more of a skirmish in my book, but your history may be different than mine and Massacre certainly has more of a mental image than skirmish).
 
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jim65wagon

TundraBird1
On our Honeymooniversary Day (Wednesday the 6th) we planned a little trip up North to the Queechee Gorge (we read in the Gazetteer that it was a must see) and the Queechee Village (oohh, antiques!). We rolled up to Queechee but we were a little disappointed as the best view was from the road that crosses right over the gorge and traffic was bad enough to make crossing the road a challenge. Chicken?


There were signs warning us of rapidly rising water (which I would have liked to see)


and an easy trail down to the bottom. The end of the trail was at a swimming hole and some interesting rock formations.






The “village” turned out to be one large antique mall selling on consignment. The best part of the village was the Cabot Cheese Store….mmmm….cheese. We hopped in the line and rolled around the sampling table along with 20 other shoppers tasting (some, I think were really just eating lunch) mmmm 5 year Cheddar, 1 year Cheddar, Bacon Cheese, Colby, Monterey Jack, Sage, Wasabi, Bacon Cheese. Oh yes, I said Bacon Cheese twice…..it was that good.

We bought our lunch of cheeses, summer sausage and Stewarts Root Beer (and Ginger Beer) and cruised around until we found a place to chow down.

On the way “home” we found D.A.P. Enterprises and could not resist stopping a looking at the Rovers. I'm not normally a Rover person (I do like the looks of the Series IIs and Defenders though) but I thought the pickup truck was the bomb.








Our “special” supper for the night was two giant Porterhouse steaks, a side of homemade French Fries and crusty bread. Beth sliced up the potatoes for the fries, while I readied the Cadac grill for the steaks. A little tip from Americas Test Kitchen is to put your fries in cold oil and let them cook until golden brown…..do not try to unstuck them….they unstuck themselves at just the right time.

Just as the time came for the steaks, a wind kicked up. Strong enough for me to grab the hammer and stakes (not the Porterhouses!) and tack down the FirstUp. Beth dropped the sidewalls down just as the rain started. I put the grill under and we cooked fries (in boiling oil, remember) and grilled steaks in a downpour and wind that made us nervous. A tree fell about three sites over. The waterproofing spray worked great and the windwalls keep out the wind and rain…..what they also do is keep in smoke. By the time the steaks were done (medium rare please) our eyes stung and it was difficult to see. We had to open the wall on the lee side before we eat. A side benefit - we both smelled awesomely delicious that night!

The next day was our tour of the Green Mountain National Forest. Disappointing in the fact that only three roads were open. Most had signs that read “No Motor Vehicles Beyond this Point, Due to Maintenance Costs” We drove the open roads, watched for Mooses (Meeses? ) and found a great little stream to lunch by and swim in.










We also found the site Daniel Webster spoke to thousands of people….I did a fine impression…..starting with the “A”s….


It was campfire pizza night (one of my favorites) and if you have the cast iron pie irons you should add these to your menu.


Our last full day of fun we began with a hike through Jamaica. Climbed up to the River Overlook (um, you can't see the river……you can see the town of Jamaica though),


and then on up to Hamilton Falls (gorgeous) with big bowls of fast flowing water begging you to swim.




The sign begs you not to swim, and they've installed a very nice ladder to get you out just in case.





The bottom of the falls is even better than the top, you could relax easily by the stream…







Our last supper for this trip was Brie, Bread and Escargot….yumm! Yes, I know they are snails, they really are tasty though……



Sadly this brought our Honeymooniversary to a close. Saturday we had to pack up and drive 5 hours to the trailer place then another 7 hours to my in-laws to get the kids. I will add that this was the most relaxing trip I've had in a while, no bears, no woman-eating raccoons, no screams in the night. Just an all around quiet camping trip.
 
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njjeepthing

Explorer
Nice write up of you trip. I have Miller Trailer bookmarked for our own adventure. I"ve been meaning to get over there and check them out!
 

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