Rail trail, Cabela's and RV Dreams' friends

Because we had stayed more than 3 nights using our Thousand Trails Zone Pass, we had to stay out of the Thousand Trails system for at least 7 nights before we could use our Zone Pass again.  Also, in plotting our way up to New England and Canada, we did not want to travel anywhere near New York City. 

We subscribe to the Big Rigs Best Bets online campground directory.  What I like about this particular campground directory, is they list campgrounds they have visited that accommodate bigger rigs (40’ ft and up).  In other words, if they stayed there, we can stay there.  Plus, we needed to stay where we had full hookups and 50 AMP service so we could get caught up on our laundry.  We decided to stay at one of their recommendations, Pine Hill RV Park, in Kutztown, PA.

We had to do a little “back-tracking” on the Atlantic City Freeway but traveled around the north side of Philadelphia this time rather than the south side. 

 

Tolls were expensive again.  The most expensive one yet:  $20 to cross the Ben Franklin Bridge back into Pennsylvania.  They sure like their bridges and toll roads up here!

Pine Hill RV Park is located a short distance off of I-78,

 

 

 but still out in the country.  

We had site #D-13.   It sure was nice to be able to use both air conditioners again.

 

The Pennsylvania countryside is absolutely beautiful… 

…with farms dotting the countryside everywhere.

 

On Wednesday, we drove to the Schuylkill River Trail in Hamburg, PA.  We started at the trailhead in Hamburg, PA…

…and rode for about 30-45 minutes one direction and then headed back.  The trail was formerly a railroad track and had been converted to a bike trail made of small asphalt-type gravel which was fine even for street bikes like ours.  Can't you just imagine what it would have been like to ride a train through here?

The rail trail had a slight gradual climb on the way out which meant we hardly had to pedal at all on the way back. 

The portion of the trail on which we rode was shaded almost the entire way.

 

Parts of the railroad (and now rail trail) were cut through rock.

Part of the rail trail goes under I-78.

 

A small portion of the trail we rode on opened up to give us this view of the hills surrounding Hamburg, PA.

And we crossed over an old railroad bridge also.

This old railroad bridge crossed over another active railroad track below.

Part of the trail followed the Schuylkill River…

…which was higher than usual due to recent heavy rains.

After returning back to the car, we drove through the old town of Hamburg.

While we were sitting outside enjoying the nice evening after returning from our bike ride, we saw a couple walking by.  Chuck said “I think they were at the RV-Dreams Rally in Hershey.”  And sure enough, it was Ken and Bonnie Hosler who we met last year at the rally.  We remembered all the fun we had at the RV-Dreams rally and talked about the different places we had camped since then.
 

On Thursday, we drove to an RV dealer in Hamburg to buy a new strap for one of our window awnings that had broke.  While in Hamburg, we thought we would just “run into” Cabela’s for few minutes to look for a backpack.  Cabela’s in Hamburg is a very big store – 2 or 3 times bigger than Bass Pro Shop in Nashville.  As soon as we walked in, we knew we would not be just “running into” this store for a backpack.

Cabela’s has the most extensive display of mounts we have ever seen.  They had a spectacular elk and mule deer display.

They had polar bears...

...brown bears...

and grizzly bears.

They had moose...

 

and rams and mountain goats (and a cougar at the top of the hill).

 

Part of what make the mounts so interesting is how the displays were action scenes like lions chasing prey…

…and crocodiles eating their dinner.

Check out this rhinoceros…

Just when we thought we had seen it all, we found this room to the side with hundreds of mounts of trophy deer everywhere.

Needless to say, we stayed at Cabela’s for about a couple of hours rather than just a few minutes.

When we got back to the campground, Ken and Bonnie invited us to their campfire that night.  We met their friends Fred & Delores and Sam & Cathy.

They taught us how to make snakes.  (What????)  How you make snakes is you wrap a crescrent roll around the end of a stick (like a snake).  The stick is about 3/4 inch in diameter and has had the bark stripped off about 3-5 inches on the end.  Cook the snake over an open fire.  When it is done, it will slide right off and you fill it up with chocolate, peanut butter, marshmallows, jelly…whatever you want.  They were delicious.

It was a terrific evening swapping old camping stories and eating snakes.  We look forward to seeing them again sometime down the road.

Cape May-Lewes Ferry

In trying to determine what our next day trip from Mosquitoland would be, I looked at the map and could tell we were very close to Delaware, a state to which we had not been yet.  I was also trying to find places where we could ride our bikes.  Driving to Wilmington, Delaware, and back was one option, but it did not look very interesting.  The other option was to drive to Cape May at the tip end of New Jersey and take the Cape May-Lewes Ferry across to Lewes, Delaware.  Cape Henlopen State Park which had some bike trails was within just a couple of miles of the ferry.  We decided to take the ferry.

Because I was not exactly sure how long it would take us to get to Cape May, I waited to purchase the tickets online (there was a discount if the tickets were purchased online) on my smartphone about 30 minutes before we arrived.  We arrived just in time for a ferry departure and since there was room on the ferry, we drove right on board.  (That’s not us driving on board; it’s just a picture of someone else driving on to the ferry.)

The cars were parked on the first level of the ferry (that's our car with the bikes).

It was a beautiful day for a ferry ride. 

The ferry backed out from the docks…

…and we were on our way.

We sat up on the top deck for most of the way.

The cruise takes about an 1 ½ hours to cross 17 miles between Cape May, NJ, and Lewes, DE.  About halfway, you almost feel like you are in the middle of the ocean.

There was a restaurant and gift shop on the second level of the ferry.  I was craving a cup of coffee so I walked downstairs to get me some coffee, a bottle of tea for Chuck and some banana bread for us to split.  It was a perfect morning to just relax and drink a cup of coffee.

You could see big cargo ships out in the distance.  Do you see them?

How about now?

I walked back downstairs to throw our trash away.

As we approached Lewes, Delaware, you could see a big wind turbine off in the distance.

We started pulling into the Lewes harbor.

I walked on down to the car level...

...while Chuck rode a while longer at the top level of the ferry.

As the ferry was docking, they announced for everyone to return to their cars.

After the ferry was tied off, we took our turn driving off the ferry.

We drove to Cape Henlopen State Park and found a place where we could park the car while we road our bikes on the 3 mile paved bike trail around the park.  Fort Miles was used as a military base at Cape Henlopen at the onset of World War II as an observation point to watch for enemy ships and to defend Delaware Bay and River.

Bunkers were constructed to be camouflaged among the dunes. 

From the top of this large dune, there was a nice view of the coastline.

There were several people enjoying the nice day at the beach below.

The Fort Miles barracks are still standing.

Large guns ranging all the way up to 16 inch barrels were installed at Fort Miles.  This gun had an 8" barrel:

This was the big 16 inch barrel gun. 

This is the “bullet” for a 16 inch barrel gun.

Several observation towers were constructed in and near Fort Miles.  This tower was open to the public.

You could see the barracks…

…the big 16” barrel gun…

…and the beach from the top of the tower.

We rode by another bunker on the bike trail.  Reminded us of "LOST".

We rode our bikes back to the car and had our picnic lunch.

We had headed back to the ferry parking lot and waited for the next ferry departure.  We were the first car on the ferry on the way back.

We stayed in the restaurant lounge on the way back because it was so windy.  We were the first ones to drive off the ferry too. 

Of course, we had to wait until they removed the chocks and the deck was lowered to drive across.

On the way back home, we drove by this country club at Seaview Golf Resort where an LPGA golf tournament was occurring.

On Sunday, we went to church about 20 miles away and watched the Coca Cola 600 later that evening back at the motorhome.  We stayed at the camper on Memorial Day and were very ready to leave Mosquitoland Tuesday morning.