All good things...

...must come to end. And even though this amazing vacation ended nearly two weeks ago, I thought I ought to do one more entry to have a full record of the trip.

So, pretty much right after I posted the last entry in St. Martins, we were getting ready to go to bed when we hear fire engine sirens and then realize that they are IN the campground! Dad and I went outside to see if we could see what was going on and ended up pointing a few of the volunteer firemen (in their own cars) in the direction we had seen the fire truck go, but we didn't walk as far as the actual fire site. We didn't want to seem obviously nosy, but you could see a huge cloud of smoke rising over the campground. When we left the next morning, we did deliberately drive down the road that the burnt-out camper was on and it was awful. Completely gutted. Luckily, the owners had not been in it the previous night and it didn't seem that either of their neighbors had been there either. They all appeared to be "perms" (as dad calls them) - people who leave their camper at a campground all the time.

Before leaving, we also enjoyed the view of the Bay of Fundy - the mist coming off the bay in the early morning was beautiful.

From St. Martins, we had about 100 miles to get to the border at St. Stephen. We wanted to hit the duty-free shop and stock up on some more candy and last-minute souvenirs. The border in "downtown" St. Stephen is TINY and we drove right past the duty-free shop - which looked like it was closed. So before crossing the border, we turned around and went to the New Brunswick visitor's centre and found out that the shop had actually been closed since the opening of the new border crossing point. This border had only been opened about 6 months earlier, when they completed an extension of Trans-Canada 1, and so it didn't show up on the GPS. So we did a little backtracking and headed to that border, getting excited when we saw that the duty-free was a big building.

We were sadly disappointed when we found out that the big building was pretty much empty. They really didn't have much at all, which really bummed us out. But again, our last visit to a duty-free shop was at the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls, which is a much bigger tourist spot. All we bought was a box of Allsorts licorice (mom) and a bottle of Malibu rum (me). Then we headed to the actual border.

Much to our relief, we were all allowed back in the country. Two border agents did come on board the motorhome and they ended up confiscating our grapes and tomatoes. The grapes they took because we didn't have the original bag which stated their country of origin and the tomatoes they took because apparently in the last couple months there has been a big issue with Canada importing tomatoes from whatever country and then sticking a "Grown in Canada" sticker on them. Don't talk to mom about it - she is still mad! (They were really good tomatoes.)

Dad said, "They're probably going to go have lunch now. With the mayonaise they took off the last camper and the loaf of bread they confiscated yesterday!"

But anyway. It was good to be back in the States - we headed back down Route 9 with the Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful playing on the stereo. :)

We went back to Christie's - which we all agreed looks much nicer in the sunshine. Dad visited with the ducks again and the next morning we had one last breakfast at Tim Hortons. I really wish I'd bought myself a can of Tim's coffee - I don't know why I didn't think of it! Anyway, it was just a short ride down 95 to Freeport, ME - aka the town that the Bean family built. Here is the flagship L.L. Bean store, as well as an L.L. Bean outlet, the Boat & Bike store, the Hunting and Fishing store and the Home store. Amazingly, I really didn't spend TOO much money while we there. We met up with Stephen, Erica and Silas again - they had been in Maine for about a week visiting with Erica's adopted family, the Marshalls. After about 6 hours of shopping, we followed them back to the Marshalls' house, where we "camped" in their driveway and spent a nice evening visiting.

The next day, all the Macumbers departed Maine and drove about 5 hours to Erica's sister's house in Massachusetts. We "camped" in Jessica and Scootie's yard and again enjoyed a nice visit. Silas got to play with his cousin Carter, who is five, and we got to see Erica's new neice, Kenzie Jo, who was born in February. On Saturday morning, Jessica drove us over to Canaan, CT (only about a mile away) and showed us where their grandmother lives - unfortunately, she was visiting family in Colorado and Arizona, so we weren't able to see her.

From Massachusetts, we went through Connecticut and into New York. Following the GPS instructions, we got on the Taconic State Parkway, which is apparently intended to primarily be a commuter highway for Duchess & Westchester County residents to use to get into NYC. As we were getting on, we saw a small sign that read "passenger vehicles only." This caused quite a bit of consternation - did we qualify? Were we too big? And if we weren't supposed to be on this road, what could we do about it now? We were on the entrance ramp - we couldn't exactly go into reverse. And it is a limited-access road - there wasn't really anywhere to get off. We were only supposed to drive it for about 17 miles, so we decided we'd risk it. And with a mile and a half to go, dad got pulled over by a NY state trooper. Turns out it's illegal for anything besides a car or very small pick-up to drive on a parkway in New York State. Luckily, it was pretty obvious we were from out-of-state and clueless, so the trooper let dad off with a warning. We stopped for a Starbucks break and all agreed that the experience had actually been scarier than the re-entry border crossing!

Anyway, eventually we made it to the campground in Milford, PA, which was kind of an odd place. It's not so much a campground as it is an exclusive summer trailer-park. It's almost entirely permanent summer residents with about 10 spaces reserved for Coast-to-Coast members. It was on the edge of a big hunting preserve along the Delaware River and in the morning, we saw an honest-to-God BEAR just strolling down the road in front of the camper. Scared us all half to death! We also saw a deer on the way out.

From Milford, we drove through the rest of PA, through Maryland and into Virginia. I finally got a meal at the Cracker Barrel (a road trip requirement as far as I'm concerned) and then we made it to Shenandoah Crossing Resort in Gordonsville. This place was fancy. Each campsite had a furnished patio and a gas grill. Some also had an outdoor sink and counter space and a few even had a private Jacuzzi. At the bath house, there were three shower rooms that were completely private rooms with heat lamps and fans and a huge shower. Dad and I walked to the lodge that was within walking distance and saw the general store, meeting room area, arcade, fitness room, life-size chess board and the incredible outdoor pool complex. They had a sprinkler area for little kids, a hot tub, a small pool that only went four feet deep, a larger pool that went up to about 6 ft and I think another hot tub. We didn't see the other lodge, with the restaurant (that you could eat at and charge to your campsite, like at a hotel!) and the indoor pool. We also didn't see the lake or the equestrian center. This place was insane! Definitely the kind of place you could come and stay at for like a week. And only about an hour's ride from DC, so you could do siteseeing there too. Of course, we didn't get there until about 8 or 8:30, so it was too late to enjoy anything, but oh well.

Monday morning, we got up and headed down 29 to come home. It rained most of the way, which was pretty miserable, but it was so nice to finally be home, after nearly 4,000 miles!

It was truly an incredible trip - we had so much fun! Don't think we're gonna do any major driving for a while, but we've got plenty of ideas - I want to do the 'Little House' trail - Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas and Missouri - and mom and dad really want to drive the old Route 66. And there's always the fancy RV park at Disney to think about trying out!