It’s been a while since I wrote my “Week One” report; been keeping pretty busy and haven’t had much time for updating the blog.  I’ve finally freed up a little time and now I can finish my 2^nd week report for our trip.

Week two was every bit as good as week one.  The weather was outstanding; I don’t believe we had a single day of rain during our second week.  The days were in the 80’s, nights in the low to mid 70’s… just right for sitting outside during the evenings.

We stayed at the Locust Campground in Lewistown, PA.  My parents have a campsite there and keep a trailer set up permanently.  It was nice to have spent some time with my folks and meet some of the others around the campground.  On our second day we were invited to a pot-luck picnic, and let me tell you the food was outstanding!  We really enjoyed our stay.

From the Locust Campground we ventured off in several directions.  We spent a few days in my home town of State College, home of the Penn State Nittany Lions.  We had front-row seats at the Penn State 4^th Fest, an all volunteer fireworks display.   I’ve been to some pretty spectacular firework shows before, including Washington DC, but this show was beyond belief.  The show is synchronized to music, and coupled with the fact that we were sitting a short distance from the show in the VIP section (which made the firework display appear directly in front of your face), we were completely mesmerized through the entire event.  Without a doubt, the best 4^th show I’ve ever seen!

We spent a day in Amish country in Lancaster County.  More specifically, we spent the day in Intercourse (the town!).  A group of shops known as Kitchen Kettle Village left us hauling away a lot of purchases, specifically some jellies and jams that are made on the premises.  The rest of the day we enjoyed driving around the Amish farms, stopping at roadside flea markets, and anything else that caught our eye.

Our last day of vacation was spent back in State College for the first day of the Penn State Annual Arts Festival.  We spent the day walking around town looking at all the art (Laura found a purse she couldn’t be without), eating way too much food, and enjoying the day.  After a few hours we made our way to another nearby town, Boalsburg for another art festival, the Peoples Choice Festival Yup… more walking around, more eating, more art gawking.  We found an artist, John Stevens,  that Laura and I both liked, and purchased a couple of his lithographs.  If you click on John’s name, you will be whisked away to his web site where you can view his artwork.  We liked how he captured much of what we like about Pennsylvania; farms, farm houses, village houses, etc… and it looks great hanging on our walls at home.

The entire two-week trip was just what we needed, very relaxing!  Now its time to start planning our next trip (how far is it to Alaska from Florida???).

Enjoy the pictures!

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The first week of our trip was spent in Williamsburg, VA.  We stayed at the American Heritage RV Park and were very pleased.  The site was a back-in site, but it was fully paved, making leveling a breeze.  We looked at several campgrounds before selecting American Heritage, and we’re glad we stayed here.  If you’re looking for a campground near the Williamsburg area, I recommend staying at this park.

I hadn’t been to Colonial Williamsburg in at least twelve years.   We spent nearly a full day walking the streets, visiting the various shops, had lunch at Chowning’s Tavern, dinner at the Kings Arm’s Tavern… it was a great day.  My legs & feet were aching after all the walking!

One day was spent at Busch Gardens, Williamsburg and another at Kings Dominion.  Between those two parks, I think I got my fill of roller-coaster riding in for the year.  My head is still spinning from some of those rides.  We were very lucky in that the weather was outstanding for all three of these destinations.  However, the weather didn’t cooperate on the day we drove to the Shenandoah National Park. I used to spend a lot of time in that park when I lived in Richmond some 15 years ago.  Shenandoah has always been one of my favorite parks; some great trails are all throughout the park.  It was disappointing that one of my favorite, short hikes, Turk’s Mountain Trail, was cut short due to a torrential downpour that just wouldn’t let up.  We were at least ¾’s of the way into the hike when the skies opened up, lightning and thunder all around, etc… so we decided to high-tail it back to the car.  We were soaked!  Just visiting Shenandoah was nice, but I realized it will be some time again if I ever get a chance to return.

The rest of the time was spent doing what you’re supposed to be doing on vacation… relaxing!  I would wake up late, have some breakfast, sit outside listening to the radio, maybe doze off for a while, get up and have lunch, go take the dog for a walk, doze some more, time for dinner, relax a while more, then hit the hay.  My kind of day!

The trip was great.  Other than the rainstorm at Shenandoah National Park, nary a drop of rain fell on us.  Temps were in the 70′s and 80′s (nice change from the 90′s we’ve been having in Florida), and a nice breeze would blow through on occasion.  Being around trees other than Palm trees was a nice change as well.

I’ll post Week Two : Central Pennsylvania in a few days.  In the meantime, enjoy the Colonial Williamsburg pictures (below).

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It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on the blog, but frankly it’s been a while since we’ve been camping.  But I’m happy to say we just concluded a 2-week, 2200 mile trip with our travel trailer.  The trip went very well; only one slight mishap to report.  I forgot to fasten the lid on the propane tank cover and it blew off somewhere along the way.  Otherwise, everything worked extremely well and the trip was very enjoyable!

Our trip started in Melbourne, Florida, the first night was spent in Florence, South Carolina, and then the next week was in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Then it was off to Lewistown, Pennsylvania for a week, then back to Florence, South Carolina for a night, then home.  A lot of driving!  The 2008 Ford E-350 van pulled the trailer extremely well, the 5.4 liter V-8 did fine on flat runs, had to gear down a bit when pulling through the mountains of VA and PA, but the van was very stable.  I was quite impressed with how well an E-350 is as a tow vehicle.

I will be writing several articles about our trip over the next few days, so stay tuned.

My New Truck

After a couple of months searching Florida far-and-wide, I finally decided to go out of state and get my new T.V.  I had been looking for a 12-passenger Ford E-350 with the tow package (of course).  I would keep finding them outside of Florida, but never around here.  A while back I stumbled across AdventureVans in Charlotte, North Carolina.  They have an excellent selection of slightly used vans at very good prices.  The also had one that was pretty much just what I was looking for.

So I gave them a call and talked to them.  I explained my situation; I was three states away and couldn’t find what I was looking for around here.  They said to let them know when I could come up and look at it and they’d put it aside till I get there.

So I made the trip and ended up driving it home.  The folks at AdventureVans were excellent.  They were very easy to work with and were genuinely good people.  I highly recommend giving them a call if you are in the market for a slightly-used, low mileage van.

The van is a 2008 Ford E-350 with the 5.4L engine.  Axle ratio is 3.73, GCWR is 13,000.  I was very surprised at how well it rides.  Its got front and rear AC, AM/FM with CD stereo and speakers galore, power windows/locks/steering/brakes/etc…, back-up sensors, and a TON of room!  I am looking forward to pulling our trailer with this thing… I expect it’ll do just fine!

By the way… if you do call AdventureVans for a van, make sure you ask for Todd.  He’ll take good care of ya!

I added shelves in one of the two closets next to the bed.  The shelves are in place, but they are not complete.  I need to lightly sand the shelves and apply a few coats of polyurethane for strength and durability.  Plus I want to radius the edge of the support braces.  But for a CG mod, not too bad.  You can see the mod here.