Monday July 11th 2016

Summer returned today. The sun came out around noon which drove the temperature up to the low 80s. The temperature combined with the low humidity for a very nice day.

My focus at the house was filling up the junk pile to be removed by the junk man. I have a service coming tomorrow afternoon. So far I have a pile of stuff 6 feet wide by 9 feet long by about 5 feet high. This bunch of junk along with the old Washer and Dryer should fill the junk truck. I will have more junk to get rid of, but this is a good start. It is amazing how much junk accumulates over 30 years in one house. A lot of the stuff only turns to junk when you need to clear out the house. Before that it’s the in might be useful sometime stuff.

The campground has more available sites tonight. Many of the travelers have moved on. The Alaska and New Mexico RVs have been replaced by Illinois and a different New Mexico. This New Mexico license plate is entirely different from the one here over the weekend. Another group of sites are occupied by units from Georgia. Georgia is not unusual to see, but this is a group traveling together. Must be a real caravan on the highway.

Tonight’s Fire

I had another fire tonight. I got it started about 5PM and kept it feed until about 7PM. The bugs drove me in as it started to get dark, so I let the fire die out. I still have enough wood for another fire or two.

Inside, I continued to fight the bugs. Somewhere along the way I left the door open. A good collection of bugs have managed to get in. Once I turn on the lights they start to swarm. I’ve been busy with the fly swatter. There are half a dozen dead bugs on the counter in front of me that I have to clean up. I think yesterday’s rain may have produced a bumper hatch of flying bugs.

Sunday July 10th 2016

Tonight’s blog entry is not very interesting. I’m going to blame the weather. It certainly impacted everything else today.

The calendar says it is July, but the weather is behaving like April. Today we had April showers with a high temperature in the mid 60s.

My work at the house was once again restricted to the interior. I moved more stuff into the junk to be removed pile. Tomorrow I need to get the junk man scheduled.

When I got back to the campground it was still raining. During my drive through the campground to my site, I noted that there were many empty sites. I’ve heard a couple of RVs go by since I got back so a few more sites are occupied. I haven’t walked around because it keeps raining. The focus of the evening will be TV watching.

With any luck tomorrow will be a better day. I hope to wake up in the morning to the sounds of the baby birds in the nest high above my motorhome or the taping of the Woodpeckers in the woods behind the site. Both of these have been daily occurrences on the good days.

Saturday July 9th 2016

If yesterday’s weather was similar to a May day, today was an April day. It didn’t get above the high 60s all day. I awoke to a dull cloudy day with mist in the air. It cleared off some during my drive to New Hampshire, but it didn’t last long. The outside tasks I had planned were not in the cards. I focused my work on the collecting the junk into one area of the basement. I plan to have a junk removal company come in next week.

The weather in New Hampshire deteriorated quickly. It started to rain early in the afternoon. The rain wasn’t hard or continuous just rain. I drove out of the rain on my commute back to the campground. It hadn’t rained yet in the Littleton area.

There was more turnover in the campground today than I would have expected. Sites on both sides of me were vacant when I returned. I had expected them to remain occupied all weekend. Soon after I got back, RVs arrived to occupy those sites so I needn’t have worried.

Tonight’s fire.

I made another fire at about 4:30. I wanted to get in before the bad weather caught up with me. I enjoyed the heat of the fire. It’s not often you need a fire in July to keep warm. I took the ax to a few of the pieces of wood to burn it quicker. I don’t want to have to have a fire on the humid 90 plus degree days predicted next week.

This concludes another blog post that talks about the weather and campground occupancy.

Friday July 8th 2016

The weather reverted to May norms today. It was in the low 70s with very little sunshine. So it was good weather for getting things done around the house.

Today, I got more stuff moved into the trash pile in the basement and made another trip to Goodwill. The pots and pans are now gone from the house. I’m going to try and get the trash pile removed on Monday.

I was reminded it was Friday by the traffic this afternoon. It took a little longer to get back to the campground. There were no serious traffic stoppages, just heavy traffic.

Back at the campground there were more reminders that the weekend is here. The campground is full tonight. Most of the sites are taken by weekend campers, but the usual compliment of travelers is here. In addition to the Alaska and California RVs, there are 2 RVs from Oregon, one from Iowa and one from New Mexico. I don’t recall seeing New Mexico here in the northeast before.

The distance traveled award goes to a couple of families from France. They are in two motorhomes rented out of Quebec. They pulled in this evening and went right to the pool to cool off. At least one of the women spoke English well. I suspect they all could do a lot better with English than I could with French.

Starting the evening with a campfire.

Embers of the dying fire.

One of the things I did at the house this week was collect more scrap lumber. I had a campfire this evening and will have a few more to burn the wood. The fire felt good in the cool evening air. The smoke also served to ward off the bugs that are a royal pain.

Thursday July 7th 2016

Tonight’s blog post will be brief. I am experiencing internet access issues. The campground’s WiFi is jammed with fellow campers and I’m right at the limit of my cellular data allowance for the month. Tomorrow starts a new billing month for my Verizon Wireless account so I’ll be back to normal.

Today wasn’t as hot as yesterday, but it was just as humid. It really impacts how much physical labor I accomplish. This morning was cool enough to be productive. Once the sun broke through the clouds around noon the day went downhill fast. The threat of thunderstorms sent me back to my RV home, my progress for the day was over.

I’m not making anywhere near the progress I need to be making. I need to head south in little over two weeks. My goals of having the house cleaned out and on the market are getting less likely to be accomplished. So I’m starting to think about alternatives. I don’t know where the time went. My ability to multi-task is nowhere near as efficient as it was in my working days.  I seem to be focusing on one thing at a time and I’m slow to switch to another task when the one I’m working on reaches an obstacle.

The campground has filled up with locals for the weekend. There are still a few travelers, but the majority of the sites are occupied by people from Massachusetts and neighboring states. I expect the few sites that are still empty will be filled tomorrow night.

Wednesday July 6th 2016

Today, the focus of my activities was getting the car repaired. My plan to get an early start didn’t happen. This campground is dark and quiet. I didn’t wake up until almost 8AM. After a quick breakfast with coffee, I was on the road around 9AM.

My day started at the Honda dealer.

I didn’t have an appointment at the Honda dealer. My hope was that with all their extended hours, they could fit me in. At the very least I needed confirmation that I wasn’t hearing things and an appointment. My luck held, they were able to work on the car today. Four hours after they took the car, I had the diagnoses. The air conditioner clutch was broken causing causing the engine to rev and creating the symptom of a lot of noise. At seven this evening I had a repaired car and about a grand less money. Other than tires this is the first significant repair in 5 years. I have nothing to complain about.

While the car was getting repaired, I tried to work on stuff at the house. Between concern about the car and the heat and humidity, I didn’t get much done. Only a few minutes of work and I was dripping. Thank goodness for the shower.

After I got the car back I still had errands to complete. The larder was bare. I stopped at grocery store on the way back to the RV to re-provision. In addition to basics like bread and milk, I picked up a cooked chicken for a late supper. Of course that meant I had to cook the stuff to go with the chicken when I got back to my hot RV.

It is only now, at 10:30, that I have slowed down enough to write this blog. My RV home has cooled off to a tolerable temperature. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get a good nights sleep. I have many more tasks to complete.

Tuesday July 5th 2016

It rained last night. This is becoming the norm for a moving day. The last three times I moved camp it rained the night before. There were two differences this time. First I did most of the outside tasks the night before and second the morning high humidity stayed all day. The humidity may have even gotten worse.

I got the inside packed up along with the remaining outside tasks and got underway shortly after 11 this morning. The leftover weekend traffic departing the Cape Cod area slowed my progress from the start. My first 5 to 6 miles were in stop and go traffic. Eventually the volume thinned out and the travel was fine. I stopped for gas along the way and was happy to see the price was down a couple of cents from last week. I put in about 41 gallons. I prefer to fill at the start of the day whenever I’m under half a tank.

I arrived at the Boston Minuteman Campground in Littleton MA just before 1PM. At check in I was assigned site 12A. It is a water and electric site in the back of the campground. When I booked a site two weeks ago they had difficulty finding a site that would be available for the entire 2 weeks I will be here. It is a great site with everything I really need. I can easily go 2 weeks without a sewer hookup.

Site 12A at the Boston Minuteman Campground. Picture taken from behind the fireplace.

Most of the sites here have better separation than at the campground in Middleborough. My site is just barely deep enough for my 35 foot RV, but the site is very wide. My fireplace is thirty feet or more away from the motorhome. I really like this campground.

I walked around the campground a couple of times after I got setup, had lunch and cooled off a little. Most of the rigs I thought would never leave have left during the two weeks I was down in Middleborough. They have een replaced by other travelers from all over North America.

There is a motorhome here with Alaska plates. I’m betting it has never seen Alaska. It is a new unit that was purchased in Texas. It is likely it was bough over the winter by Winter Texans. That is the term used for people who snowbird in Texas. Why snowbird isn’t enough is beyond me.

Monday July 4th 2016

Happy Fourth of July everyone.

It was a beautiful day to relax and enjoy summer. The weather was perfect, not to hot, not to humid and just enough of a breeze to keep it comfortable. I baked a package of blueberry muffins for breakfast and lunch. The two meals sort of combined as I really spent a long time over my coffee.

The campground got off to a lazy start. I don’t think I heard anyone making noise until 9AM or so. The last few days the activity and noise started around 6:30AM. Today everyone seem to be taking it easy. The people departing today left gradually. The 11AM checkout time came and people were still getting ready to depart. The folks beside me didn’t leave until about 4PM. I suspect they paid extra for the privilege. This campground wouldn’t miss that opportunity to make money.

Trash overflowing the dumpsters getting compressed by a backhoe.

Two of the campgrounds 5 trash dumpsters are across the road from my site. By mid morning they were overflowing. The staff’s solution is to bring in the backhoe and compress the contents of the dumpsters. They did this last week as well. By late this afternoon the dumpsters were overflowing again. The other dumpsters in the campground are equally overflowing. I think the trash pickup is on Wednesday.

This afternoon I started picking up the outside of the motorhome. I need to relocate tomorrow. The head start on getting things packed will help tomorrow morning as rain is forecast. Having less to do in the morning will also keep me from getting exhausted in the heat like I did two weeks ago preparing to come down here.

For dinner this evening I grilled some chicken on the gas grill. This is always a challenge not to burn the meat in a grease induced flair up. I was successful this time by keeping the heat down and using the four corners of the grill.

Tonight is 4th of July celebrations on the TV. I have Boston, New York or Washington DC to choose from. So far, all the concerts leave something to be desired and fireworks on TV have never been much to enjoy.

Sunday July 3rd 2016

When I got on the road this morning the car was sounding louder than normal. I let my paranoia build as I drove north. About 20 miles up the road I turned around and came back to the campground. It didn’t make sense to be on the road on a holiday weekend when nothing was going to be open to support me if anything was significantly wrong. My quasi educated interpretation is one of pumps or alternator driven by the serpentine belt is about to give out. I’ll sit still the rest of the weekend and get the car looked at Tuesday or Wednesday after I relocate back to Littleton MA. The car is drive-able so I’m not stranded. I’m just being overly cautious.

It continues to be a busy weekend here at the campground. I think the park was full last night and is probably full again tonight even with more RVs than I expected leaving this morning. The campground staff continues to run activities for the kids. They added a pseudo hay ride to the mix of activities today. I say pseudo because there was no hay. It was just a tractor pulling a wagon with benches to sit on. For the holiday they added red, clear and blue blinking led lights to the back of the wagon.

Today seemed to be visiting day. The number of cars in the campground doubled. It was difficult getting through some of the areas because of the parked cars. The campground charges per visitor so they must enjoy the added revenue. Unlike a normal weekend, there has been a campground staff member at the entrance checking passes.

I’ve been trying to get some research completed and some purchase made on the internet. The campgrounds WiFi was pretty bad when the campground was empty. With a full campground it is not usable. Unfortunately, the cell tower in the area seems to be saturated as well. I keep getting dropped from 4g speeds, to 3g speeds all the way down to a nonexistent connection. Hopefully, as people leave the area tomorrow things will improve.

The town of Middleborough fireworks were tonight. They can be seen down the power line from the campground. I would estimate they were three or four miles away. They were good but brief. They probably lasted about 15 minutes. I didn’t have anything to steady my camera so my attempts at photography are interesting. Then my camera battery ran out of juice. A fitting way to end the day.

Saturday July 2nd 2016

Today’s lesson, post offices without parking lots can result in adventure. I set out this morning to mail a couple of things at the post office. With a little help from Google maps, I had no problem finding the local post office. The only issue being it was in the center of town with no parking lot. I had nothing else planned so I kept going south toward the Cape. There were other post offices I knew how to find.

I wasn’t thinking about the potential of traffic until the Interstate started to slow down. Still confident that I know my way around, I got off the highway onto the lesser routes. These were fine for few miles. Soon I was in a bumper to bumper crawl for about 6 miles. It took about an hour to cover the distance that would usually take 20 minutes.

I parked at the Corp of Engineers Railroad Bridge parking area and walked to the Buzzards Bay post office. It was less than half a mile along the main road. I was making about as much progress as the traffic on the road. I walked back to the railroad bridge along the canal service road.

Primrose bush along the canal service road

Canal Cruise boat with very few passengers. I blame the traffic.

Sail deployed to assist the engine against the current.

The canal was full of small boats. Some of them had to keep their engines wide open to make slow progress against the current. Some sailboats kept their jibs deployed to assist the engine against the current. I’ve know stretched my sailing terminology to the breaking point.

The canal service road was not as busy as usual. Perhaps the traffic was impacting access to the parking areas. The parking lot was only half full. The number of people taking advantage of the beautiful weather was less than it was on Thursday.

I spent about an hour on the canal trying not to get a sun burn. There is next to no shade available. On my way back to the campground, I stopped for lunch at the Lobster Pot. The rest of the day was home at the campground.