Toward Niagara Falls…A Bucket List Item

We departed Auburn, AL on 21 May and headed north making our way toward Niagara Falls, NY.  When we were first planning our full-time RV lifestyle, we made separate lists of places we wanted to visit and the compared the lists.   Neither of us has been to Niagara Falls, so it is no surprise that it made it on both our lists.  Visiting friends in Maine that we have not seen in decades is also on the list, so we decided to focus our travel on the North East United States this summer.

We use several trip planning tools when planning our route.  The Good Sam Trip Planner is good for long trips because you can put in multiple locations as well as your RV size/weight limitations.  I make the initial plan and Pattie uses the Allstays App and Google Maps to revise our route.  We also keep a Rand-McNally Truckers Atlas in hard copy for times when Internet and satellite service fails.  On the first leg of our trip, I had picked a state park campground in North Carolina for our first stop.  As we got close to that location, Pattie called to see if the y had spots available and there was only one back-in site left.  Since we cannot back-up unless unhooking the Jeep and didn’t want to drive 7 miles of back roads only to find that one spot had just been filled, Pattie quickly found a Wal-Mart along our route that allows RV’ers to stay overnight for free.  Of course, we always end up spending money there stocking up on essentials, so “free” is relative.  I am still amazed that we can stop in a parking lot when it is pouring rain, turn on the generator, run the air conditioners, cook a nice dinner, and watch satellite TV in comfort. We are very thankful that for the first time since we have owned The Bus that the hot water, heat, and satellite TV are working at full capability. 

We revised our route and made reservations on-line at the Gauley River Recreation Area in West Virginia for the next four nights and Lolita State Park in Pennsylvania for four nights after that.  We were basically burning time to get past the Memorial Day weekend because all the campgrounds near Niagara Falls were full for the holiday weekend.  The Gauley River Recreation area is a beautiful part of our country.  The Summersville Lake and river rapids nearby are breathtaking.  I bought a four-day fishing license and enjoyed catching small mouth bass in the lake.  During the days, we hiked and explored the area with the Jeep.  We were able to get back into areas where the river guides set up remote camps for whitewater enthusiasts.  

I asked one local if there were any Jeep Trails nearby and he said, "No, not really"which I thought was a bit odd considering the location and terrain.  We decided to explore on our own and found County Highway 19/25 that runs near the river hoping to see some more beautiful scenery.  Well, the map shows the county highway crosses a creek several times.  It didn’t say there were bridges and there were not any.  We twisted though the mountains for about 6 miles making 50 water crossings and a few mud bogs before rounding a bend and finding a huge Beech tree had fallen very recently across the road.  The base of the tree was over four feet around.  We knew that we were near a connecting road that would lead us to some river vistas and eventually out; so, I made an attempt to winch the tree far enough out of the road to maneuver around it.  I put about 12,000 lbs of pull on it and moved it several feet, but not enough.  We were forced to turn around and drive out the way we came in leaving the tree for someone with heavy equipment to move. I joked with Pattie that I should write the county highway maintenance department a strongly worded letter on the state of their highway.

County Highway 19/25

We had to depart on Thursday because this area was fully booked for the Memorial Day weekend.  As we left, we dumped our tanks and refilled with fresh water.  Many of these state parks have only electricity at the campsite and one central sewer dump station.  We arrived at Loleta State Park Campground that evening and found the campsite that we reserved through the Memorial Day weekend.  This site only offered a 30 amp hook-up and no water or sewer is available, so proper resource management was necessary.

Lolita State Park Memorial Day weekend

The Lolita campground is very remote. We did not have Internet access or phone because no cell service is available.  Fortunately, the new Winegard Trav’ler satellite antenna was able to lock on to two of three satellites, so we had most of our TV channels.

During the day, we explored the area in the Jeep and on short hikes. One day we drove an hour north to Bedford, PA to scout out the area we will be staying at for the Jeep Jamboree in late June.  It is a good thing that we did because some of the campgrounds that sounded good on-line turned out to be very sketchy and there were several restricted roads in the area.  Speaking of restricted roads, the Pennsylvania highway department seems to scatter “10 Ton Weight Limit” signs around like feed corn for chickens.  Almost all side roads off main truck routs have these blanket limits.  How does a gravel road have a 10 Ton Weight Limit? Sure, if there is a bridge or culvert along that road, but those should be clearly marked at the road feature.  I believe they are posting these signs to require commercial vehicles to purchase a bonding permit (tax) for traveling on those roads.  Whatever the reason, we escaped unscathed due to Pattie’s quick navigation skills to divert us away from the route the Good Sam Travel Planner made for us.  It is always a good idea to check your route with several sources.

Where we have camped so far

 Thanks for keepingupwiththejonesrv!