This is where we are camping in Trexlertown, PA. That oval is the bicycle racing track that has produced world class cyclists.
Evening in the Trexlertown, PA Park
After dinner we spent some time catching up with emails and blogging. Here’s Rick using his iPad instead of his phone to send posts to this site. We are the only ones in the park and we are really enjoying the peace and quiet.
A Day in the Park
While Rick was doing his laps around the park, Simon and I did our own laps on foot.
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There’s a separate lane for fast cyclists, roller bladers and pedestrians or slow cyclists. We had the trail to ourselves most of the time.
We cooled off in the shade near the sandbox area where moms bring their kids to play. Even preschoolers were making short laps on the trail. Big biking community!
Got to ride today
Put in 20 miles on a beautiful loop at the Lehigh Preferred Cycle Center.
We’re camping in a field on the property. Nice and quiet, except for the crickets, but they’ll help put us to sleep.
Cracker Barrel campsite
We gotta figure out a better way for Simon to sleep in the LG. He likes to put his nose by the open window against the screen but we are concerned that he will push through it. He had to sleep outside last night. We’ll probably seek out Cracker Barrel again.
Sunset from our parking spot
Here’s our view of the sunset just as we’re parking in our spot for the night.
Clearfield, PA has a great Walmart for parking in.
Best shower ever … Almost
We stayed in this resort campground for the peace, quiet and hot showers. The morning was chilly and clear – this is what the lake in front of the bathhouse looked like when I got there.
This is the front of the bathhouse – The light was hitting it just right. I was luxuriating in the hot water running through my hair when I realized I had forgotten my bar of soap and MY TOWEL! Damn! I spent the rest of this awesome shower wondering how I was going to dry myself off and my hair too before stepping out in the cold air. I also left my hair dryer in the LG. There was a turbo hand dryer that worked pretty good and just then Rick showed up. He too had forgotten his towel so he went back for it and my hair dryer . My hero! Needless to say, I still enjoyed the shower and clean styled hair all day.
This is the drive out of the resort. Beautiful grounds and a great nights sleep!
Tip: Don’t forget your towels.
Nice quiet spot at Clay’s Park
Found a great place to spend last night at Clay’s RV Park and Water World. They call this “resort camping”.
Here’s Dennis that showed us where to camp. We needed to be shown because this place is soooo huge.
No one really around it seems this time of year. The place has lots of RVs parked in beautiful spots but no is here. Dennis says they just leave their RVs here all year round. This place even has it’s own airport.
Here’s the renovated shower building. Nice to get cleaned up.
Simon watches everything for us.
On to Shaker Heights today!
Random thoughts about Tuscola
As I think about our brief stay in Tuscola, I realized a couple of contradictions. First, arriving from the west, it’s a very depressed town with a few questionable businesses. As you head east, everything changes. There is a huge high end outlet mall there with a beautiful entrance and landscaping. That was across the street from the truck stop we stayed in.
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And then there are the trains. It seemed like they came through town every 20 minutes all night long horns a blaring. After a while, you don’t hear them and fall asleep. Can’t say I’d seek out Tuscola again. We are now Ohio bound. Sent from my iPhone
Feet in Ilinois
Good night’s sleep at the Pilot Travel Center in Tuscola. This is farm land. We liked for a camp ground but closest was 50 miles away and it was already 8 pm. Starting to get a new appreciation for truck stops. Seems like if there’s an open spot in one then you can park in it.
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The home schoolers on their field trip gravitated to Simon on the Mark Twain River Boat tour.
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Hoping to reach Little Guy world headquarters today and show em how the license plate holder doesn’t hold.
Some thoughts FTR
Last night stayed in a Limon truck stop. The guy said sure park anywhere. So we found a spot that seemed out of the way and just basically climbed into the Little Guy to sleep. We found that all the idling semi trucks was kind of like rain on the roof and slept pretty good. This is a shot I took in the morning from our spot.
Hwy 36 seems to go on forever. Hardly any cars. Got to listen to the Broncos game on an AM radio station. Yah! Go broncos!
We went right by the geographic center of the USA. I think it’s kids funny that it’s near a town called Athol.
Here’s our rig parked in a shady spot along the hwy.
Settling in tonight in a Walmart parking lot in Marysville Kansas. You can see our little guy way off in the west end of the lot. Hey it’s clean and well lit. Took Simon for a walk around the property. Probably more than mile of nice green grass all around.
This post is coming from my iPhone. We’re find connectivity sketchy at best.
Ridgeway State Park
Here’s a pic near our camp site for tonight. It’s late right now and I’m writing this on my iPhone. I just wanted to mention something we just thought of about the different kinds of sites we’ve stayed in so far with Shadow. The first night was a private RV park with some great tent sites. Next night was a US Forest service site near Lake Haviland. Now tonight is a state campground. All are nice in their own way. I think the USFS place was my fav so far. I’d like to talk about the differences sometime. Perhaps when I get on a keyboard somewhere.
Our Route Home From Bayfield, CO
Our First Trip
We picked up Shadow in Bayfield, CO and headed west for Durango not sure where we would stop for the night. It was raining pretty hard so at the first USFS campground sign we saw, we turned in. This was Lake Haviland and we got lucky! Cost for the night with our Golden Age Pass was $9.50. Site 30 was in the trees close to water and the bathroom. We set up quickly – Shadow was easy to turn to where we wanted him so we positioned it with the kitchen facing the picnic table just on the edge of the tarp. Setting up the tarp was a real challenge so first thing on our Needs List is a gazebo shelter.
We had stopped in Durango for food and ate a delicious meal of chicken with rice and veggies cooked on our stove . Easy cleanup with the counter tops and water handy. Simon was a happy camper too since we could let him roam a bit. The rain let up for a while and dried everything up. Simon is happier not sleeping in Shadow so Rick rigged up a tie-out for him and set him up under the camper. Sometime in the night he was asking to come inside and then the skies opened up again. Lightning and thunder and soaking rain. We were so glad to be off the ground, warm and dry.
Next morning we had our coffee and breakfast then headed out to the lake for a look-see. We went around the lake as far as we could go which was about a mile or so. So quiet and serene – we felt like whispering or just being with our own thoughts. Simon was having so much fun running off leash through the rocks and tall grass. We are so enjoying his spirit and energy.
We packed up at checkout (noon) and headed towards Silverton over Coal Bank Pass. The Subie did great with the elevation and steepness. We find it nice to have the Sport feature which allows us to use manual shifting to hold the speed with the transmission rather than the brakes. We got to Silverton a little tired so we found a spot in the shade and rested for a while. Simon barked every time the horse drawn buggy came by so we didn’t really sleep. Gotta get him to get used to horses.
Left there around 4 and headed over the Million Dollar Highway into Ouray, one of our favorite places. No stopping this time but we did stop in Ridgeway Town Park for a late lunch of leftovers from dinner the night before. We headed to Montrose and stopped in Walmart to see if they had a stove that would fit on the countertop and maybe buy some dinner. We did neither and decided to go home.
As we continued toward Gunnison, it was getting dark and we realized we would be home after 10 so we scoped out a couple of campsites and decided to stay at Stevens Creek along Blue Mesa Reservoir, another USFS area. Not much of a setting but it was $6 for the spot. We backed Shadow in, snacked on whatever was in the cooler, took a short walk with Simon and hit the bed again. So nice to be able to stop like that! Simon got some sort of burrs in him from running in the weeds so we spent some time getting those out. Again, he slept under the trailer until morning.
We had coffee and a snack in the morning in Gunnison, stopped at Gene Taylor Sporting Goods in our continued search for a gazebo, a stove and now a percolator. No luck there or at the local Walmart. So we headed home arriving around 11. Total mileage from Bayfield was 256 miles and we got 20.7 mpg even going over all those mountain passes. We were happy with that.
Our Little Guy Travels 