Maybe I’m just not disciplined enough to keep a blog up-to-date. Once again, it’s been nearly a month since I last posted to this blog, and we’ve been very busy in that time, so we have a lot of catching up to do.
We headed over to Sugar Ridge RV Park in Danville, VT for what was supposed to be two weeks of peace and quiet before we bounced over to the 56th Escapees Escapade. Little did we know that Sugar Ridge seems to be the “whoop it up” location for most of the area. There were activities going on all day and evening long, many involving yelling children, and our RV site was straight across from the recreation building and the park’s two pools. And then there was the poolside DJ on Saturday nights from 7:30 to 10:30, blaring at a volume of what I measured (using a handy little cellphone app) to be 70 decibels right outside our fifth wheel’s door – so loud that we had to practically shout to each other even inside our RV with all the doors, windows, and vents closed tight. Not conducive for relaxing or even watching a movie on tv. So we actually decided to cut our stay short by one day – something we have never done – and head over to Escapade early, figuring it to be a bit calmer even though it was a huge rally.
During our stay at Sugar Ridge, we did manage to escape the chaos a few times by doing a bit of sightseeing. We went for a drive nearly up to the Canadian border and back just to see the gorgeous mountain and lake scenery, we visited Dog Chapel and Maple Grove Farms in St. Johnsbury, stopped into Cabot Creamery in the small town of Cabot, Vermont, and hopped over to Waterbury, VT to visit Ben & Jerry’s and chow down on samples of their delicious ice cream.
A view of the Vermont countryside up near Canada.
The outside of Dog Chapel. Note the cute slogan on the sign.
A portion of the inside of Dog Chapel. All the pictures and notes on the wall are memorials visitors have left to their deceased pets.
A different sort of graveyard – the flavor graveyard at Ben & Jerry’s. All those delicious flavors they no longer make.
When we arrived at the Champlain Valley Expo Center, where the Escapade was being held, we immediately felt more relaxed. Even though it was tighter than a lot of commercial RV parks we’ve been in, we were positioned with good neighbors on both sides of us (what else would you expect from Escapees?) and enjoyed chatting with them several times during our stay. We were kept pretty busy with a full slate of seminars and other activities – everything from a seminar on how to camp free on public lands to one on joining an expensive caravan group to Alaska. It was very informative and great fun, and we will absolutely make plans to attend another Escapade in the future.
Sunset over the 56th Escapees Escapade.
After leaving Escapade, we traveled to a one-night stopover at Twin Oaks Campground in Schoharie, New York on our way to the Finger Lakes region. For a simple stopover, we were very pleasantly surprised. The views were absolutely to die for and we were able to sleep with our bedroom window open for the first time in months. It was that quiet. Definitely a place we might return to someday.
After our one night stop, we continued on to Camp Bell Campground in Campbell, NY. So far we’re not extremely pleased with our stay – the sites are very tight and not even close to level, and most of the occupants seem to be either noisy weekend warriors or seasonals/permanents with so much stuff on their site that it looks like a junkyard. All of this wasn’t really apparent from the front office area, or we would have never paid for two weeks, instead moving on to somewhere else in the region. But now we’re pretty much stuck with trying to make the best of our stay here and hoping nothing of ours sprouts legs and wanders off, if you know what I mean. At least the Finger Lakes area has a few redeeming qualities – chiefly the 150+ wineries and vineyards in the region. Visiting some of them should help us relax a bit. Hey, it’s 5 o’clock somewhere!
The view from Ravines Wine Cellars, Hammondsport, NY.
Another beautiful winery view, this time from Keuka Spring Vineyards in Penn Yan, NY.
Until next blog post…
Fulltime Ramblings 