8/23/2011

After having breakfast we drove to the other side of the state park and took a tour of My Old Kentucky Home and drove through the historic part of downtown Bardstown. We visited the old Talbot tavern. Among those who have stayed here are Daniel Boon, Jesse James and Abraham Lincoln. The Tennessee Volunteers who died in the Goliad Massacre left from here. We hooked up and left for Louisville. On the way we went tothe a Jim Beam distillery and had a tasting but didn’t take the tour. Just south of Louisville we went to Best Buy and got me a brand new camera. We will have to let it charge all night and I will use it tomorrow. We couldn’t find a cheap place to stay in Louisville so we drove across the Ohio River into Indiana and stayed at Charlestown State Park. This place was virtually deserted. There were only about 6 campers and there were 160 sites. We got settled and then drove back across the river into Louisville and went to 3 brewpubs.

8/24/2011

We had a little rain this morning about four but it didn’t last long. We decided to head out for Indianapolis and found a place to stay just south in Greenwood at a Camping World. They have electricity hookups and you can stay for free. After unhooking we drove into downtown to the U.S.S. Indianapolis memorial. Mother’s brother and my uncle was on the ship on July 30, 1945, when a Japanese submarine sunk it. He lost his life with over a thousand other men. I called my mom and her three sisters and her brother to tell them we were at the memorial. We made several tracings of Uncle Albert's name from the monument. We then went to one brewpub and two breweries. Two weren’t open for tasting until Thursday, Friday and Saturday but they were really nice and let us taste the beers since we were from Houston and were only in town for one day. Jim then took me to eat at a restaurant featured on Diner’s Drive-Ins and Dives. We had really good comfort food. He had beef and noodles with mashed potatoes and green beans and I had meatloaf, mashed potatoes and mixed veggies. Yum. We left from there to go back to Camping World before rain set in because we are under a thunderstorm warning. Tomorrow after it goes through it will be a little cooler.

8/25/11

We got up and Jim bought us breakfast at a Bob Evans Restaurant. We left Camping World and drove to Ohio. When we got to Dayton we stopped to visit the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. This included the Wright Cycle Shop, Huffman Prairie Flying Field Visitor Center and the Wright Memorial. Huffman Prairie was where Orville and Wilbur Wright tested and perfected their airplanes. This was after the initial flights they conducted at Kitty Hawk. After that we toured the National Museum of the United States Air Force and National Aviation Hall of Fame. This museum was on the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. This is the Air Force base where the UFO that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico was reportedly transported for study along with the bodies of the aliens. The museum had airplanes from every era from WWI to the present. Jim’s favorites were the B-36 and B-52. These two planes were HUGE! We left at closing time and continued to Cambridge, Ohio, where we stayed in the Cracker Barrel parking lot for the night. I cooked and then Jim went in and bought us each a peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.

8/26/11

After I fixed breakfast this morning we drove only 24 miles down the road to the AEP (American Electric Power) Recreation Area. This is a 10,000 acre area that has been reclaimed from strip coal mining and made into several really pretty parks. A couple of them are day use and picnic and the others you can camp at. We got a site at Bicentennial Park right on a beautiful lake. The parks have no hookups but do have central water hand pumps and pit toilets. They don’t charge to camp in any of them. We came here to cool our heels and see what hurricane Irene will do to the northeast before we travel any farther.

8/27/11

Hurricane Irene made landfall in North Carolina this morning. It is clear and 58 degrees here this morning. Jim made sweet potato pancakes for us this morning from the box that I bought from Cracker Barrel. They were really good. We decided to drive to the other campsites in the AEP Recreation Area. One of the sites was a memorial to all the people who have worked at the coal mines. A really cool, colossal, 240 ton dragline bucket (Big Muskie) they used for excavation was on display here. We were really close to a town and we drove there to a small Kroger and bought a few groceries and then drove back to camp, set up the satellite dish to see about Hurricane Irene.

8/28/11

We just drove from one camp to another today since hurricane Irene didn’t seem to be as bad as it could have been. The trip took us across the 13 miles of West Virginia. So we were in 3 states today. Thank goodness we drove through Pittsburgh on a Sunday and the traffic wasn’t as bad. We drove past the Steelers and Pirates stadiums. They weren’t playing today. The drive was beautiful but very hilly. We got a campsite in the Allegheny National Forest, Red Bridge campground. Our site is right on the Allegheny Reservoir. We don’t have hook ups but they do have showers and a dump station with water scattered around the campground. We are at the north border of Pennsylvania near New York. The temperature was 58 degrees this morning and at 7:30 pm, now, it is 64 degrees.

8/29/11

It was 49 degrees when we woke up at 7:30 this morning. After breakfast we decided to move across the road to a site with electricity. After we got settled we took a drive on the scenic loop road and checked out the other campgrounds. The first stop we made was at an historic powerhouse that supplied power to nearby oil pumping units from 1939 until 1989. We made a couple of stops at overlooks on the reservoir. We didn’t pack a lunch today so we stopped at the Kinzua Wolf Run Marina and had burgers and local beers. We needed to find wi-fi to update the blog and returned to the town of Kane. While looking for the library we saw a VFW post and stopped for a beer and they had wi-fi. So we updated the blog there. The locals wanted to know what we thought of Rick Perry when they found out we were from Texas.

8/30/11

We left camp and drove north to Barcelona, New York, so we could drive Hwy. 5 which runs by the shore of Lake Erie. This was a really pretty drive with houses along the edge of the lake. Highway 5 took us right through Buffalo, New York. We got a site to camp at Cinderella Motel and Campground on Grand Island, New York. This island has the Niagara River running around it. We got set up and then drove to Niagara Falls. We took pictures of American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls from the edge and then from an observation deck. Afterward we walked over a couple of bridges above the Niagara River to Goat Island and took pictures of Horseshoe Falls.

While driving into Buffalo we saw Pearl Street Brewery so we went back into Buffalo and had dinner there. They had about 10 different beers that they make there on tap. I had half chocolate stout and half raspberry stout. It was really good. Jim had double IPA. The food was really good also. This place is in an old building downtown and it is four stories tall. You can rent the third or fourth floor for events. The first and second is the restaurant and bar. From the front balcony you can see downtown and from the back one you can see the Niagara River. The lower level has a deli. We really enjoyed this brewpub. About a mile from the RV park there was another VFW hall so we stopped there, too.

8/31/2011

Today we drove across the Rainbow Bridge into Canada. We went to see the falls from across the river. When you are on the same side you can’t see them as well. Niagara Falls, Canada is known for all its beautiful flower gardens. While there we saw some men dressed in costumes with really big heads of the presidents on Mount Rushmore. After coming back into the USA we went to the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site. When President McKinley was shot in 1901 at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt traveled to Buffalo and stayed with the Wilcox family. When President McKinley died from his wounds, Roosevelt took his oath of office as the new President in his friend’s home. While we were there, the big headed presidents showed up and we took a picture of them. The house also contained a replica of President Roosevelt's West Wing office. While in Buffalo we went to the Anchor Bar and Grill. This is the bar that lays claim to being the first to make Buffalo wings. We had a platter. After coming back to the island we went back to the VFW for a beer and then on to our camp. We had to do laundry tonight.

9/1/2011

We got up a little earlier to take showers before leaving. I wanted to see the Erie Canal so we went to Lockport near Buffalo. Locks 34 and 35 are in this town. After going to the visitor center we walked about a half a block to the canal. Just as we got to the locks there was a boat ready to go through. We got to see the locks in action. It was very neat to watch.

We drove a few miles down the road to Gasport, N.Y. where there is a brewery and winery. They didn’t open until noon but they filled a small growler we had in the trailer so we could take some with us. We passed through the town of Rochester and got us a site at a county park in the town of Webster. After unhooking we drove back into Rochester because Jim wanted to see the George Eastman House. This is the Eastman of Eastman Kodak. In 1888 he perfected a portable box camera that used flexible film. He named the camera “Kodak”, a word he created. They also had a gallery with a special exhibit on Norman Rockwell. This exhibit showed how he made his paintings from meticulously posed photographs. Sometimes more than one photograph was used to complete a painting.

There is a brewery in Rochester that makes Genesee Beer and Dundee Beer. Jim went by there but they don’t have a tasting room so he took us to brewpub and we had a beer. On the way back to camp we drove to the shore of Lake Ontario and took a picture just as the sun was starting to set. At camp I cooked dinner, pork chops, green beans and fresh corn on the cob. Everywhere since Kentucky we have seen cornfields and we finally bought a couple of ears.

9/2/2011

We left camp and drove the scenic road along Lake Ontario. All along the drive there were orchards. We stopped and bought some apples and peaches. We then continued on and drove to Seneca Falls, N.Y. The Women’s Rights National Historic Park is there. This is an exhibit about women’s rights and equality through the years. It started in Seneca Falls in 1848 at the first women’s right convention to protest laws and customs that discriminated against women. The meeting was at the Wesleyan Chapel.

We went in the VFW post 1323 there also. It is in an old building on a canal that flows into the Eire canal. It was a really pretty setting. We continued on to Syracuse, N.Y and stayed at the Camping World. We unhooked and Jim drove us to Middle Ages Brewery. Their beers were all named things like: ImPaled Ale, Dragon Slayer, Black Heart Stout, Swallow Wit and Wailing Wench. All of their beers were really good. We then went to two brew pubs that were a block apart. One was really bad (they used malt extract instead of malted barley grain) and the other was good (Empire Brewing). Empire Brewing had a wheat barley wine. We went back to the Casita and talked to Allen about our mail for the week.

9/3/2011

After breakfast we left and went to Rome, N.Y. to see Fort Stanwix National Monument. The park ranger was from Tyler, Texas, Jim’s hometown. We talked to him awhile and then went through the fort. The fort was involved in the French and Indian Wars and the War of 1812. While in Rome we went to the VFW there. The men at the VFW in Syracuse had told us to make sure and stop by. The VFW in Rome is in an old historic red stone house that looks like a castle. The people who were there gave us a tour. The house still has original woodwork, fireplaces, chandeliers, clocks, furniture and beautiful ceilings. The ladies room has a beautiful overhead frescoe. The first floor is used as a gathering place and bar. The second floor is offices and restrooms while the third floor is a ballroom. This was a beautiful house. We had a beer and talked to the members and then left for Cooperstown, N.Y. Cooperstown has the National Baseball Hall of Fame. On the way we tried to see the Remington arms manufacturing museum but it was closed for the weekend. We spent two hours in the Baseball Hall of Fame and we went through really fast. You could have spent days reading everything. In Cooperstown there was another brewery that makes Belgian style ales by the name of Ommegang. We had some really good pomme frites (French fries) and two beers. We asked them if we could stay the night on their property since because of the holiday everything was booked. They told us yes and we had a really quiet site in a pretty field.