Recess is almost over! Oh me, we’d like to stay out and play but fall duties at our home call us. We have been away since August 7. Falling leaves are inevitable and their mulching must follow. Other home and life responsibilities are also calling.

We left you last biking with us along the Erie Canal near Verona, NY.

September 23, 2006 we headed for our last planned destination at Watkin’s Glen,NY. This Village is in the heart of the Finger Lakes and at the water’s edge of the longest lake. We actually camped across the street from the beautiful Seneca Lake right in Watkin’s Glen. Our rv park was an interesting municipal park with 50 amps, sewers on site and cable! It was not fancy and the service road to the city buildings was right in front of our motor home. And, would you believe that Super Walmart was just next door across the canal bridge? What luck.

Watkins Glen Sate Park is in the town of The Villages of Watkin’s Glen. This glacier formed miracle is breath taking. We climbed over 800 steps to the top and viewed deep water carved ravines and impressive waterfalls. The mile and three fourths climb took us about 2 hours. Roxie took many pictures along the way. Our reading of this area relates of many playing and partying at famous and now defunct hotels and restaurants. Much of this time was destroyed by a flood in 1935. But as we climbed we could fantasize about those venturesome folks. We did cheat and ride the shuttle back down to our car.

You may want to visit this park.
http://www.priweb.org/ed/finger_lakes/watkins_glen.html Watkins Glen State Park.

We found time in between rains to launch the kayak in the Seneca Lake and nose through the harbor in town to view gorgeous docked sail boats. The winds came up and we paddled hard back to the canal that was at the edge of our campground. Our screen saver pictures will refresh our memories.

We were within blocks of downtown Watkins Glen and biked to the shops one afternoon.

Our original plans mapped us to Lake Erie and Erie, PA for a day or two. But, plans change and as I pound out this blog we are riding through the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia heading home.

As we roll life goes on with responsibilities. We picked up our forwarded mail in Concord, NH and Verona, NY and kept affairs in it up to date. We still shop for food, prepare it, clean up after it, do laundry, clean house and monitor our banking online. But when we put down our “anchor” for the night we do our home chores viewing different scenery. What a treat. We have dined out 4 times since August 7. That would be two meals at Ryan’s Buffet and two “good for you Subway sandwiches.”

We have stayed in touch with the world through our cell phones, satellite TV and the Internet. We have accessed the cyber streets via our Verizon aircard and have had almost constant connection. As we roll today the Verizon aircard is keeping us online. My how times have changed.

So we are getting lined up to go in. Our recess will end after two nights on the road. To get home we have rolled through the Allegheny Mountains, Blue Ridge Mountains that frame the Shenandoah Valley and our Smoky Mountains. How magnificent it that? Hang around. We like recess. Always have. And…we will just have to get out again. Please come along.

Marstons: two calm greyhounds, one nosey beagle, and two laid back cats and us.

Do we ever love recess! And, we like having our friends with us. Makes playing more fun. Especially when we know you played where we have.

September 14, 2006 we arrived in Colchester, VT. Burlington, VT is just 10 miles away. And Burlington is on the banks of Lake Champlain. Now you know the true drawing card. We did launch the kayak in Lake Champlain in the town of Colchester. A front was approaching giving us some cooler temperatures. Since we are bank huggers we completely enjoyed skirting around sailing vessels of all sizes and shapes. Probably spent an hour on the lake.

While in Colchester we left a pound of hair at Lakeshore Hair and I got a much needed perm. We find that we can conduct all kinds of business on the road.

We enjoyed our Colchester campground that seemed to be home to summer birds as opposed to snowbirds. The campground was pretty and units nicely gardened. It is rare for a campground in the north lands to remain open past the middle of October. We did meet another greyhound, Jay, from Quebec. He was in town to see a grey doctor. You may recall that greyhound folks seem to have a magnetic attraction. We exchanged E mail addresses and may see these folks when they winter in FL.

On September 17 we stopped in Queensbury, NY (Glen Falls, NY) at Walmart to have about a 2 hour visit with Chuck and Mary Fuller. They are friends from our winter getaway. Then we drove on to the Schnectady area to visit with Elsa Sakacs., She and her late husband are neighbors of ours in FL. Elsa prepared a lunch for us and we enjoyed our afternoon with her. She played her new organ for us.

We are leaving The Villages @ Turning Stone RV Park in Verona, NY. This is the Oneida Indian Nation. We fell in love with this park in 1997! It is just a resort with beautiful landscaping and lakes and ponds. This has let us bike and walk to our hearts content. This is also the area where the Erie Canal was begun. We wanted to tour through The Village of Erie Canal, recreated with buildings moved to rebuild the village. However, it was closed to prepare for Halloween.

Lake effect rains are a true experience. The rains descend with force and are often followed by beautiful and bright sun. This is followed by a torrent of rain with mammoth drops. Not sure I ever want to be here for lake effect snows. One local told us this morning that it can drop to -40 and – 50. When he was a boy the family’s apple trees just split apart.

We watched several boats lock through the Erie Canal at Lock 21 close to Oneida. This smaller, single lock was manned by a friendly guy who loved spending time talking about his lock. Today we returned to try and launch our kayak in the Canal but the launch area was steep and the winds high. Instead we settled for an 8 mile bike ride along the canal.

Recess is not over just yet but we can see our “teachers” pacing. We will get in as much play as we can.

We are off to the Finger Lakes at Watson Glen, NY. Then we will stop at Lake City, PA which is on Lake Erie. We are watching weather at home and where we are going and it seems that maybe rains will be in our way. In TN. tornado warnings seem to be in the picture.

Take care. Catch a breath because we are not done yet.
Marstons

Looooooooog Recess! No need to line up just yet.

We arrived in Concord, NH on September 3, 2006 at the campus of the prestigious St. Paul’s School. This is a prep school for the wealthy where Charles’s brother Robin has worked for 20 years on the maintenance staff. The beautiful 150 year old campus, with stately buildings and trees, is a favorite for our for morning walks. Robin made arrangements for us to park on the maintenance property where we generated our electricity and had excellent security lights. We even had a pass code and key to the mlti-million dollar athletic center for our showers. This campus did suffer damage from flooding on Mother’s Day and repairs were still in progress. Go visit the school.
http://www.sps.edu/Default.asp?bhcp=1


We enjoyed time with Robin’s children. Andrew, 16, is playing football for Concord High. Rebecca, 15, is also attends Concord High. Mary is now 13 and Adam is 9. On Labor Day we hiked 3+ miles on the school property around the big Turkey Lake.

September 6 we said goodbye to Concord and drove a short distance to Freeport, Maine. This is home to LL Bean and a favorite of ours. Of course, we made a purchase or two in the 2 days we were there.

September 8 we arrived in Bar Harbor, Maine. This is our 4th trip here and we usually try to repeat our adventures. We spent some time on the Bar Harbor Pier and watched boats of all sizes come in. Some were for pleasure and some for working…lobsters and crabs and clams. Sunday afternoon we were treated to an Amsterdam cruise ship docking way off shore. The life boats of the ship were transporting passengers to and from shore and shops in Bar Harbor. By today it had simply vanished when we drove pass. Copy and paste the web address: http://usa.visitmaine.com/region/town_bar_harbor.php

This is home to Mt. Desert Island, a national park. High atop is Cadillac Mountain and this is the most eastern spot in the US. They boast that this is where the sun shines first in the US. We were there as a cold front had swept in and the air at that elevation was just plain “winter.” We also launched our Kayak in the crystal clear Jordan Pond. This beautiful lake was a treat. We saw no plastic cups or candy wrappers scarring the environment. The lake is big and blue and framed with towering trees and a hiking path. The trees are quietly hinting at fall with displays of red/

Bar Harbor and Mt. Desert Island was the playground of the very wealthy in the first have of the 1900s. Rockfeller had an elaborate carriage road system made. We captured a horse drawn wagon. Carriage roads go over car roads and are beautifully constructed of granite with impressive arches.

September 11 has been much on our minds. Flags over Bar Harbor are at half staff.

September 12 we will head west to Hanover, ME. This will be a stop over. From there we will go to Colchester, VT. We will enjoy and make photos of Lake Champlain.

We have plans to visit with Holiday Travel Resort friends we enjoy in FL. They live in around Schenectady, NY. It will be fun to see Elsa Sakacs and Mary and Chuck Fuller.

From there we will spend time in Verona, NY and be off to Watkins Glen, NY and the Finger Lakes. Generally we are headed west and will eventually fall south to TN. We plan to land there at the end of September.

Just love those days when the teacher lets us stay out a bit longer!
Glad you are here with us.

Marstons

September 2, 2006
Welcome back! Back to our recess.

We spent Friday, August 25 through August 27, 2006 near Richmond, VA where relatives live in McChanicsville and points beyond. Our campground was AmeriKamps at Ashland. Avoid it if you can. It so close to I-95 that you can tell what brand of cell phone the drivers are using. The noise is unreal only 24 hours a day.

These accommodations put us close to Marston relatives. We visited with Carolyn and Jim on Friday evening in our motor home. Saturday we spent the morning with Tim Marston and children at Sharon’s house. My how Ethan, Victoria and Travis have grown. Charles climbed into the fort and helped 4 year old Ethan pound more nails into the structure.

Saturday afternoon Chris, Susan, Megan and Samantha Marston arrived for the afternoon. The girls are now 15 and 13 and growing into lovely ladies. Sammy brought her Colonial dress and her American Girl Doll and matching dress to pose for a picture. We had the doll dress made in FL last winter to match her dress.

Sunday afternoon we went back to Sharon’s and spent the afternoon. We did a little more work on the Marston Manor webpage and sent information to the webmaster in California.

We traveled through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The scenery along the way is beautiful. On Aug. 30 we were in Milford, PA. Cookie and Bob Paul from our winter retreat in Leesburg, FL (Holiday Travel Resort) drove from their summer trailer to visit.

We travel along with our 5 pets: two greyhounds, one beagle and two cats. All get the daily good camper awards.

We are now rolling away from Durham-Middlefield, CT and right into the split apart Ernesto! What a break to be on dry roads. We enjoyed Allan and Evy Dean and Susie and Lloyd Blair while there. We met the Deans in 1981 while we spent a month in CT for Roxie to learn the Slingerland Multisensory Approach for teaching language disabled students. The Deans were camped next to us while building a house down the road. The Marstons played on the campground and Roxie indulged in a month of long sought training. Camping friends have a special bond that seems to last.

It is September 2 and we are traveling to Concord, NH. We will be dry camped on the campus of the exclusive St. Paul School where brother Robin Marston works. This is a prep school full of wealthy kids from around the world.

We stay in touch via Verizon phone and air card for our Internet access. And, we love having each of you with us. Please write to us at our regular E-mail address that you have.

Thanks for coming along with us,
Marstons