My motorhome, my family, my adventures, my life.
Copyright 2003-5 Randy Charles Morin
In November, I started preparing the backyard for the icerink. I put the never used swimming pool away. Actually, we used it one weekend at the Daytona Speedway. I set it up at home in the backyard and they never used it once.
Extra firewood that I stick in the corner for next summer.
Guess where the swimming pool was located. Hopefully the grass grows back in the spring. You can see that I've already laid out the boards for the icerink.
More to come.
On August 31st, we stayed at the Port Huron KOA north of Detroit. We've been there about a dozen times in the last 3 years. It's the best KOA and campground within 4 hours of Toronto. We were going to the Tigers baseball game on the 1st and needed somewhere to spend the night. Best thing is that it's cheaper than most every campground. So, it's good. And it's cheap. Quite a combo.
Port Huron has a great variety of sites from regular tenting to high end executive concrete RV pads. They also have low-end and high-end camping cabins. However you like it, they got it.
The WiFi was awesome, but more on that in a later post. We returned 3 days later for the labor day weekend. Stay tuned for that post.
My second favorite restaurant in the world is Zehnders. We went Monday, August 24th. More later on my favorite restaurant. Shhh! It's across the street.
If you ever go to Frankenmuth, then Zehnders is a must. And don't order anything but the Family Chicken Dinner. The chicken is a little salty. The chicken is good, but the best part is the fixings.
Bread. OK. Kids liked it with the jam.
Green Beans with Dumplings. OK. We didn't finish it.
Butter Noodles are awesome! We had two or three bowls.
Gravy for the mashed potatoes. Jam at the top left.
Stuffing. Good.
Pate and Crackers. Ate it before I took the pic. Couldn't resists.
And of course, beer. That's Hofbräu Oktoberfest.
And there's much more.
Two weeks ago, I added one new bumper sticker, which I picked up when we were at the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona Raceway.
The full collection.
I've had more bumper stickers in the past, but got bored of some and removed them.
One of our favorite campgrounds is Jellystone, Frankenmuth. We been here plenty of time in the last year. It's a short walk to downtown Frankenmuth or you can take the shuttle, which seems to run summer long now-a-days. Birch-Run shopping outlet is a 10 minutes drive.
The campground itself has an indoor pool, miniputt, nightly movies and plenty of activities for the kids, even thru the weekdays. We stayed from Sunday afternoon, August 23rd to Thursday morning, August 27th. WiFi was great and I got a lot of work done.
Here's a pic of me at work at my summer office. The eating table in the RV.
Although we RV most all of the summer months, I still work at least an hour and sometimes as much as eight, seven days a week. We stay almost exclusively at campgrounds with good WiFi to make this possible.
On Saturday August 22nd, we stayed at Emmett KOA in Michigan. This was a great KOA for the kids. Swimming and fishing pond. Wagon ride. Mini-golf. Bouncing pillow. Sunday breakfast.
After the Michigan race, we went to the Flint / Holly KOA (August 16th-17th). Last year, this was a Jellystone campground, but they converted over the winter to KOA.
Since it use to be a Jellystone park, this is an awesome KOA for kids. They had tones of parks, swimming, jumping pads, games, awesome mini-putt. My kids really enjoyed it.
I didn't like the fact that they had no sites with sewage. Neither did I like the fact that their WiFi sucked! I got 1/2 hour free, but then when I went to pay I had all kinds of problems. Basically, their PayPal-based payment option is broken. The lack of sewage and good WiFi is likely enough that I won't be going back much. Still, the kids loved it.
August 14th to the 16th, we stayed at the Monroe/North Toledo KOA. We previously visited this KOA in July and liked it so much that we put it on our list of campgrounds to visit in August. Being only 45 minutes from the Michigan Internation Speedway, it was a perfect stop during our NASCAR weekend.
The kids ate corn dogs and slushies all day at the snack bar.
They have an awesome 1 acre swimming pond with a 200 foot waterslide. We swam twice on Saturday.
They have the cutest little tree houses that you can rent.
On the negative side, they gave us the dumbest firepits. Trying to make a fire in this pit was a challenge. Cutting corners by having ridiculous firepits doesn't seem very business savvy to me.
August 8th and 9th, we went to Santa's Village in Bracebridge, Ontario. This place is a great bang for the buck. Camping and a small amusement park for the family for less than $200. We've been the last two years with my brother and sister's families.
Everytime I go to the show there, I get picked from the audience to participate in the show. Yep, that's me in the pic below. I'll post video later (my sister took it).
There's lots of kids rides and even a small roller coaster. The best ride (for adults) is the boat ride.
If these guys had WiFi, then we'd go all the time. I wish I had better pictures. This place is great for kids 2-10 yrs old.
We left Pocono/Hershey on August 6th. Our plan was to drive past the house and up to Santa's Village in Bracebridge. I took the interstate back (big mistake) and didn't make it to the border. There's only three KOA's in Western New York State. The NASCAR race was at The Glen, so the Watkins Glen KOA was full. We chose the Niagara Falls KOA on Grand Island.
I called them up while driving on the interstate.
One site please.
That'll be $85.
But it's not the weekend.
Yep!
What's your cheapest site?
$65.
I'll take it :(
I wasn't too happy. And the price obviously scared everybody else away. It was almost empty. I suspect they get a great weekend crowd, as they are located immediately next to the Fantasy Island amusement park.
We won't be back at that price.
While on our Pocono vacation, we twice visited Hersheypark. We also went last year and we liked it. I suspect we'll be back annually during our Pocono Raceway excusion.
Before entering Hersheypark, we always hit the Chocolate World. Chocolate World is free and has a free ride. There's also chocolate. We always buy a bucket of small chocolates.
Hersheypark has an awesome waterpark, full of some of the best water slides I've ever seen. Lot's of rides even for the kids. A gigantic wave pool. And wild rides for the teens. Check out this ride.
I think we ate 4 times (or more) in the 2 days at Prairie Dawgs. Our kids loved the Corn Dogs.
Hersheypark also has a lot of high energy roller coasters. My kids were chicken to test most of them, but we did go on one water coaster.
The best show is at their acquarium. Two sea lions save the day from three high diving villains.
The only bad park of Hersheypark was their theatre production. It was a really horrible Beauty and the Beast knock off. Neither my wife, the kids or myself had any idea what was happening.
And don't forget to check ZooAmerican, a small zoo attached to Hersheypark.
On Tuesday August 4th and Thursday August 6th, we were at the VF Outlet in Reading, Pennsylvania. I think this is my wife's favorite place to shop.
While my wife shopped, I hate shopping, there's a few shops in the area that I tried. West Reading Tavern was a nice place to have a beer, but they didn't have WiFi. I left.
Bistro 614 was an interesting little restaurant, but it was too expensive and again, NO WiFi.
I hung out most of my time at Hard Bean and Haute Chocolat Cafe. Both had WiFi, but the signal and coffee was better at Hard Bean.
It had to be a lucky weekend, Adelaine found 3 four-leaf clovers in the grass at the Pocono Raceway. More to come here and the Talk-Sports blog. We did get lucky. Very lucky. Come back and see how.
More pics about Pocono over on the Talk-Sports blog.
http://www.talk-sports.com/game/default.aspx?search=pocono
We always take the Pennsylvania Turnpike from Allentown to the Poconos (we were headed to the Pocono Raceway for the NASCAR event). It's a toll road with very few onramps and turnoffs. In fact, from the Allentown KOA, you have to go south to Allentown for quite a few miles to get on to the turnpike, because there isn't any onramps until you are half-way to the Poconos. Along this path is the LeHigh Tunnel. The highlight of this short trip.
On July 29th, we stayed at the Allentown KOA. It's the second time we've been there. We arrived late. It was raining. It rained very hard. We left early (went to NASCAR's Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono). For the 2nd time, I didn't take any good pics of the campground. The WiFi was good. We didn't fish, but we previously did and the creek that runs thru the campground was stocked. This year, the creek's water level was much higher and the current was much stronger.
See my previous stay at this campground.
http://www.vacationrace.com/blog/default.aspx?search=allentown
Campground website.
http://koa.com/where/pa/38110/
On July 27th and 28th, we stayed at the Elizabethtown/Hershey KOA. This is a great campground only a half hour drive from Hersheypark (our current destination). We stayed the first night in site 310, snuggled into the wood (awesome layout). WiFi was OK. The second night we stayed in site 202, right at the front. Wifi was awesome!
Lately, I've been charcoaling instead of propaning. I find it funner! It's a word.
We drove down Hwy 15 from North Western New York to Elizabethtown, Pennsylvani. That was a fast drive. We didn't go fast. It's just a lot straighter than previous routes I've driven.
If you ever see this sign at the front of a campsite, then you know you've found us. We don't always put it out. Only if we are staying awhile.
On July 26th, we stayed overnight at the Jellystone Niagara. The Internet was good. We've stayed there before. Not much new to report.
Here's a previous post about this campground.
http://www.vacationrace.com/blog/?guid=20080709105750
Campground website.
http://www.jellystoneniagara.ca/
After getting stuck in the mud, I made it into my camping spot a Bass Lake. As usual, the bugs were overwhelming. The management changed this last two years since my last visit. It's no longer in the care of my uncle and there's new staff. Still, it was my family reunion and I had to beat my kids with a stick, kicking and screaming to leave.
