A Long Overdue Family Vacation

[blm2003 2]

This is going to be my first attempt at a trip report so bear with me please and hopefully we can all get through this together. Although this wasn't a WDW vacation we did visit an amusement park, a zoo, a really cool museum, and had a side trip through Gettysburg on the way home to make it educational for the little ones.

 

I had to do all the driving on this trip, my darling wife doesn't like the highway in her car, let alone a 3/4 ton truck with a 32' 5th wheel hanging off the back. This makes for some long days for dear old dad. And it also detracts from my picture taking ability as DW just isn't quite as into taking pictures of the cool stuff we are going by. After 8 days on the road she was getting a little better, but still had to be poked with a stick once and a while and reminded she had a job to do making sure I had plenty of photos so my first ever trip report would be a success. I'll let you guys be the judges.....

 

A little back story, my wife hasn't had much of a relationship with her mother throughout her entire life. She was raised by her grandparents and never knew her mother until about 17 years ago. they had a few meetings and a few phone calls but the fact that there were 1,000 miles between them and neither one was on particularly solid financial ground prevented them from spending very much time together. Long story short, my wife has been needing this relationship for a long time, and after her mother had a health scare last year I kind of made the decision on my own that we were going to get out there and spend some time with her mom and step dad. This was the best decision I've made in a long long time. Hop in my time machine and let's head back to the morning of August 17th.......

 

My wife got home at 2:30 in the morning, she had been working at Gillette Stadium at the Patriots Pre-Season Game. We volunteer at all the home games and several concerts / soccer games though-out the year and the Kraft Family donates a portion of what the stand earns to our sons Boy Scout Troop. They earn A LOT of money each year through this program and we have A LOT of fun doing this! A good portion of the troop just came back from a trip to Alaska, that Bob Kraft paid for most of. Anyways, because of this we didn't get to leave at 6:30 am like I wanted to.

 

We left our sleepy little town of Whitman, MA at 9:30 on Saturday morning. Our destination for the night is State College, PA, about 450 miles. After a quick stop by my parents house to drop of keys for animal sitting we were officially off at about 10 am.

 

The first picture my wife took for us made me think for a few miles of how lucky I am that my family was all together and we were all safe. 

 

 

I didn't know we were going to pass through this area, then DW says, "is that the one from the news?" It sure was. 

 

As we got further and further from home we started seeing these strange things on the median of the highway

 

 

Why in the world would the good people of CT put this on the roadway for us Bostonians to drive by on vacation I wondered. Then I got my answer just a few hundred yards down the road

 

 

I am a big fan of driving through our Country. I have flown several times in my life but I really do prefer travelling by car. There are so many beautiful places to see I really hope that we are able to full time in an RV when we get a bit older. I would love to travel around the Country and see what there is to see. These are a few of the sights we saw in NY

 

 

 

 

 

 

It wasn't long before we were approaching this sign.

 

 

There are some hills in this part of the state

 

 

 

Our campground for the night was the Bellefonte / State College KOA, almost in the middle of the state. I can't believe we drove halfway across PA and my DW took a grand total of three pictures, but these are the last two pictures we have from day 1. 

 

 

 

I'm ashamed to say that the DW's picture taking phobia rubbed off on me and I took no photos while at the campground. We pulled in about 7:30pm and got the chariot set up for the night. We had pizza and subs from Pizza Mia and it was pretty good. A little on the expensive side for my taste but it was priceless since I didn't have to cook it. My youngest son and I headed to the rather clean bathhouse for a shower then it was off to bed for the night. Had to get some sleep, the alarm was going off at 6:00 AM!

 

Up next...another 420 miles with a lot more picutres....and then a visit to one of the best zoo's I've ever been to! Hope your enjoying the trip so far, we took 800 + pictures so this may take a while! (I believe in TCD's philosophy of quantity over quality!) 

 

[Grumpy and Grandma 739]

Your off to a good start, keep'em coming.

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Wow. I can't believe I'm the first!

 

Thanks for jumping right in with a trip report.  I like reading about everyone's trips, too, and this one is starting off great.

Can't wait to read more....  looks like you're heading to my neck of the woods...

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Wow. I can't believe I'm the first!

 

Thanks for jumping right in with a trip report.  I like reading about everyone's trips, too, and this one is starting off great.

Can't wait to read more....  looks like you're heading to my neck of the woods...

[GOBA Mom Lynn 18]

Well, I guess I wasn't first after all.  

And KFK 's ghost got me as well.......

[blm2003 2]

Moving right along, we got up at 6 am and had packed up, eaten, fed the dog, and were on the road by 7:30. Not to bad by our standards. The dog kept sliding off the seat I built for her and laying halfway on my 11 year olds lap.

 

 

He didn’t mind. The dog wasn’t happy about our early morning start though, as evidenced by this photo

 

 

This is why we try to avoid letting our oldest (12) take our camera, we end up with 100’s of these excellent selfies!

 

 

Several hours later we came upon this sign! We were all very excited as this meant we were at least in our destination state.

 

 

Ohio is a pretty big place though, so it was a couple hours yet until we took this picture with our destination on the sign.

 

 

Dayton it is. We drove through a lot of farmland out here. It was gorgeous! The wife took plenty of pictures of farmland, I’ll share a few with you here.

 

 

 

 

We also started seeing a bunch of these

 

 

My DW thought she would love to spend some of our money time in these places. I was able to keep the truck out of the parking lots for the entire week. I was surprised. I actually would probably have enjoyed going through here myself, but the money just wasn’t in the budget, and we aren’t very good at window shopping!

 

Some more farmland for you

 

 

 

I loved seeing the barns with the paintings on them. Couldn’t get enough of them!

 

 

I had never been to this part of Ohio before and didn’t realize just how big the Dayton area is. We were camping on the north side of the city, and my in-laws were on the south side of the city. About a 30 minute drive. That was ok, there is NO traffic in Dayton Ohio! None, I drove all over the area for 5 days, at all times of day, and never had to stop for traffic. It was such a wonderful change from the way things are at home, where my 32 mile trip to work can take 60 to 90 minutes on a regular basis. Why do I live in Boston? I keep asking myself that.

 

We did finally make it into the Brookville / Dayton KOA and set up camp. This was one of the nicest KOA’s I’ve stayed at. They have 250 RV sites and almost all of them have been given a concrete patio. Your RV is parked on a bed of stone and the surrounding area is grassy. I really enjoyed the way they had things set up. The young lady who escorted us to our site came over and asked us if we had requested this site. I told her no, that we had never been here before. She saw the two boys in the truck and the dog and said she thought we might be more comfortable on site 112, it was bigger and there was a huge field behind the site the boys and dog would enjoy. She took the boys and I over on the golf cart to show me while the DW stayed in the truck with the dog. The site was great, so we went back and she escorted us over to the new site.

 

Here we are, almost set up

 

 

If  you look under the front of the camper you can get a glimpse of the field behind the site. It was very big, and had llamas and sheep in it. Was nice waking up to the sheep baying in the morning.

 

Here’s a picture of the gazebo that was outside the office at the kampground.

 

 

That’s my self hiding in the gazebo while the DW was taking the photo.

 

The gazebo was really nice, had built in double swings, as well as two stationary benches. And nice landscaping in the area. Here is a picture of the roof of the gazebo

 

 

These plants were hanging all around the gazebo

 

 

And a close up of one of the flowers around the gazebo that the wife thought was nice.

 

 

This is the campground train that they gave rides on daily at 4pm, and the office in the background.

 

 

 

This campground had a brand new bathhouse they had built over the winter 2012-2013. It was the nicest bathhouse I have ever been in. There were TV’s in this thing! Tiled floors and walls from floor to ceiling. Air Conditioning and all the hot water you could ask for. The shower stalls were much bigger than the average you would find, and they had an HP accessible stall that was the size of a large walk in closet. And of course, I failed to get one single picture of the bathhouse while we were there.

 

That’s enough for this update, tomorrow we are heading to the Zoo. I hope you like pictures of Rhino Butt, because we have them!  Something for you to look forward to.

 

 

[blm2003 2]

Your off to a good start, keep'em coming.

 

Thanks for checking in, much more to come! Hope you enjoy it!

 

Wow. I can't believe I'm the first!

 

Thanks for jumping right in with a trip report.  I like reading about everyone's trips, too, and this one is starting off great.

Can't wait to read more....  looks like you're heading to my neck of the woods...

 

Well, I guess I wasn't first after all.  

And KFK 's ghost got me as well.......

 

Second is just as good as first! Thanks for reading along

[ImDownWithDisney 342]

Great TR so far. I like seeing photos from areas that I have never visited. FWIW, my wife doesn't drive our rig either, and I am perfectly fine with it. ;-)

BTW, We spent a week in Boston 2 weeks ago. We loved it, but way too crowded for me.

[michele j 9]

Very good start!

 

Your doggy is beautiful :heart:

 

We have the same grill you have

[blm2003 2]

Great TR so far. I like seeing photos from areas that I have never visited. FWIW, my wife doesn't drive our rig either, and I am perfectly fine with it. ;-)

BTW, We spent a week in Boston 2 weeks ago. We loved it, but way too crowded for me.

 

Thanks for the comments! I couldn't agree more, there is no shortage of people here in Beantown! As for my wife driving, I don't mind either, just makes for some long days. 

 

Very good start!

 

Your doggy is beautiful :heart:

 

We have the same grill you have

 

Thanks for the puppy love! She is my four legged fur daughter!! This was her first trip with us, I was a little apprehensive about how she'd do all day in the truck, but I made her that seat and she laid down and slept most of the time we were driving, I was thrilled! 

 

I Love that grill. It folds down so nicely for storage in the basement of the 5er, and it cooks great. 

[Helmsey......Todd 134]

Great start! I'm officially in for this trip.

[mouseketab.....Carol 1,261]

Looks like an awesome trip!!!

[DaveInTN 3,247]

I'm in! 

 

In some of those pictures of fields, the clouds don't even look real.  Looks like a painting. 

 

The campground in Dayton looks nice.  Looking forward to seeing more.

[blm2003 2]

Great start! I'm officially in for this trip.

 

Looks like an awesome trip!!!

 

Thanks for reading along! 

I'm in! 

 

In some of those pictures of fields, the clouds don't even look real.  Looks like a painting. 

 

The campground in Dayton looks nice.  Looking forward to seeing more.

 

The campground was so nice, I really wish I had more pictures of it. I will have to check our cell phones and see if there are more on there. Next update coming right up

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

Great start on your TR!  Looking forward to more.

[blm2003 2]

Great start on your TR!  Looking forward to more.

 

More is coming right up! Glad your enjoying it!

[blm2003 2]

Let’s get this report cranked back up. I did find a bunch of photo’s on my phone and uploaded them so we have even more fun to share with everyone!

 

These next few photos are of day 1 and 2 at various times

 

I’m fairly certain by the fence in the background that my wife snapped this while I was doing a walk around the rig in our driveway before we left. Do they look excited to be hitting the road?

 

 

Another shot not to far from home with all 3 backseat drivers in it this time!

 

 

Here’s two more shots of the beautiful gazebo at the front of the campground:

 

 

This photo shows one of the stationary benches, on the left, and one of the gliding rocker benches, on the right, that were in the gazebo. Very nice, we spent some time sitting here and just enjoying the peace and quite.

 

 

I call this photo, “Sunset in Ohio over the office, over the golf carts, and over the train”

 

 

Relaxing in the shade after a long day in the truck

 

 

Those are the last of our pictures from day one. DW’s mom and step dad came over to meet us at the campground and we spent a few hours at the picnic table talking and catching up. It was really nice and we started making some plans for the coming week!

 

We didn’t set an alarm for Monday morning, but those of you with 11 and 12 y/o’s as well as a fur family know that you don’t need to set an alarm to get up with the sun.

 

A highlight of this trip for me was breakfast. We don’t have a Waffle House anywhere near our house. I Love Waffle House, it’s probably a good thing that there isn’t one near us as I’d be in even more trouble with my Doctor than I already am!

 

We headed over to the Waffle House and I got a couple pictures of Pood Forn for all of you:

 

Hash Browns covered and smothered & eggs over medium

 

 

A blurry waffle and a great cup of coffee

 

 

And of course my favorite, biscuits and sausage gravy!

 

 

We really enjoyed breakfast and listening to the locals chatting about what was going on in the community. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy breakfast at Waffle House. When we were done we headed back to the campground to meet DW’s Mom, step dad was working most of the week so we would be seeing him later in the day. DW really wanted to go to an “animal park” so Mom suggested we head to the Cincinnati Zoo. What a great choice.

 

Here is the sign for the parking lot, the bridge you see over the street crosses from the big parking area to the Zoo on the other side of the street.

 

 

These guys guard the entrance to the zoo in case you were considering any devious after hour entries.

 

 

If you look closely you’ll see someone broke off the baby’s right ear. I wouldn’t want to be around when Mama notices someone picked on her little baby.

 

We got to the Zoo a little after noon time, and apparently it was “Feeding Time at the Zoo”. This is a Sumatran Rhino showing you his backside while he’s eating in the corner of his display.

 

 

 

Fortunately lunch was just about over and he came out and made an appearance for us.

 

 

 

We are pretty sure this was the baby Rhino at the zoo based on his size, but I’m no Rhino expert.

 

Next up, a blurry picture of a Red River Hog

 

 

He had already eaten and was ready for an after lunch nap.

 

 

Across the walkway from that cute little guy was an enclosure with one of the largest eagles in the world, a Stellar’s Sea Eagle. This is the best picture I could manage of him. He was enormous.

 

 

Next to the Stellar’s enclosure they had this display that showed the different wingspans of many large bird species in the world, the boys wanted to compare their wingspan to the great birds. DS 1

 

 

And DS 2 would not be outdone, he had to try too

 

 

My MIL didn’t tell me we’d be meeting a celebrity today, if only I’d known I would have gotten dressed up. I left the bird display and found one of my favorite TV stars around the corner.

 

 

“Woot Woot…What day is it?”

 

The kids had a good time (so did I) annoying the DW and MIL by repeating this line over and over again!

 

 

Beside the TV Star was a little guy I’d never heard of before, a Przewalski’s Horse.

 

 

The description provided from the Zoo is, “Though closely related to the domestic horse, Przewalski’s horse has never been domesticated and is truly a wild horse. Highly social, the horses live in harems consisting of a single male and several females. Young males often form bachelor groups until they are able to lead their own harem.” They were very beautiful animals.

 

There was an EMU resting next to the Przewalski’s Horse. The Zoo certainly had an interesting way of arranging the animals.

 

 

This brought us to the end of the “Wildlife Canyon” and we came out of here and entered the “Reptile House”! The boys were so excited, they have been begging for a bearded dragon for over a year now. They don’t seem to understand that the dog and two cats that we already have in the house would not be very welcoming to a 3 foot lizard.

 

One of my favorite displays of the day:

 

 

 

 

 

Those are Chinese Alligator’s. They were sitting so still in the display that I wasn’t sure they weren’t statues, until one of them started moving around. It was very cool to see them interact with each other. There were turtles in the display with them, I guess Chinese Alligator’s don’t like turtle meat?

 

A lot of the reptile displays were very crowded and getting a good photo wasn’t very easy. I managed a couple, here is one cute little guy and his sign describing him:

 

 

 

That brings us up to 30 photos if my count is right….are you having fun yet? I hope so, I’m enjoying writing it for you and I have a long way to go. This was a 9 day trip and we are only on day 3. I hope you all like zoo photos, we have a lot more coming up!

 

 

[Judy in Texas 150]

The Ohio Bicentennial Barns... If I remember correctly, one barn in each county was chosen to be painted like this for the state's 200th anniversary.

As for your wife not driving the truck and camper... does she know how to drive it good enough to at least get the family home safely if you should get sick or hurt? Learning in an emergency situation would certainly add to the pressure.

I was in Boston several weeks ago. The traffic is bad enough... the old narrow roads add to the congestion... and then add all the rotaries!

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report.

[CCIntrigue...aka Gwen 547]

You're doing such a great job writing this TR.  It's hard to believe it's your first!

[blm2003 2]

The Ohio Bicentennial Barns... If I remember correctly, one barn in each county was chosen to be painted like this for the state's 200th anniversary.

As for your wife not driving the truck and camper... does she know how to drive it good enough to at least get the family home safely if you should get sick or hurt? Learning in an emergency situation would certainly add to the pressure.

I was in Boston several weeks ago. The traffic is bad enough... the old narrow roads add to the congestion... and then add all the rotaries!

Looking forward to the rest of your trip report.

 

Thanks for the comment Judy. That is really good advice and something I had not given any thought to. My wife is not currently comfortable enough to drive us home. She has pulled the 12 ft motorcycle trailer around town a time or two, but she isn't even comfortable with that at this point. I will keep this in mind and make sure to have her practice before our next trip far enough from home that a family or friend couldn't easily rescue us. Thanks again for this great piece of really important advice. 

[ftwildernessguy 778]

You went up about 100 places in FWGuy's book for those pictures of the Waffle House breakfast. One of the greatest days of my life was when they opened one within a couple miles of my house.

[blm2003 2]

You went up about 100 places in FWGuy's book for those pictures of the Waffle House breakfast. One of the greatest days of my life was when they opened one within a couple miles of my house.

 

HaHa, I am very jealous of my inlaws and I let them know, they can walk to a Waffle House from their house in about 5 minutes. I would consider moving in with them if they offered just for this reason! Thanks for reading along

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Do you have another photo of the seat you made for the dog?  We've been trying to figure out how to bring our huskies with us and neither one of them wants to sit on the floor. LOL  Great trip so far.

[blm2003 2]

Do you have another photo of the seat you made for the dog?  We've been trying to figure out how to bring our huskies with us and neither one of them wants to sit on the floor. LOL  Great trip so far.

 

I don't think I do, but I will take one and get it posted here when I pick up the truck, probably Tuesday.

[alexwyattmommy 181]

Thank you tons!