Rhode Island to Wilmington, DE

Well, I have stood at the folding counter in the laundry at our current campground for the last hour, waiting while my pictures slowly uplink, and I don't think I am going to wait any longer. I'll just post what I have written up until yesterday and do the photos later. (There's a campfire and a glass of vino waiting for me with our next door neighbours in this campground - a couple from the Okanagan!)

We made some miles after leaving Massachusetts and still find it odd to think that you can drive through 6 different States in a day: Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and then into Delaware, which is where we are now with our good friends, Jim and Alan, in Wilmington.

Maggie was exemplary! She whipped us through the mish-mash of spaghetti highways around big cities. We didn’t even try to get into New York City (having just been there in June), but I did manage to snag a couple of shots of the Manhattan skyline as we hurtled down the Bronx Expressway and over the George Washington Bridge. We got spat out aat the other end of the mish-mash and the highway settled down again from being 12 lanes – 6 in either direction under and over a bunch of bridges and found ourselves on the (relatively) quiet I80 heading East. Ended up at a place called Netcong and saw snow - yes snow! – at the sides of the road and on the roofs. We found a campground, but couldn’t find a soul in it. I used their phone to call to get someone but no answer. There were other RVs there, but we didn’t see a single soul. However, just over the road was a very nice, new looking mall, with a Walmart so, yes, we did our first Walmart parking lot stay. And very nice it was too. We had a beautiful aspect from the camper (see photo) and there was a bakery/cafe there that had an internet signal that, unfortunately, degraded as the evening wore on (probably with the large number of customers) so I wasn’t able to get pictures uploaded. It was a very nice, quiet night and Walmart was open early in the morning (they might have been open all night for all we know around our nice, quiet corner of the building!), so we were able to use their washrooms in the morning before getting on the road.

We headed on down by a circuitous route looking for propane (which proved quite difficult). Our route took us through Princeton, an area of magnificent estates. Jim said he was surprised they actually let us drive through there!  We arrived in Wilmington during an exceptionally cold wet front (two fronts as it was), to a very warm welcome from our friends and a lovely pot roast dinner! This is a lovely area with lots of very old homes – many of them of stone that look just like houses from Cornwall, England.

Today, Sunday 19th, Jim and Alan took us to Longwood Gardens by a circuitous scenic route. Pierre S. du Pont purchased this magnificent property in 1906 to save some centuries-old trees that were slated to be cut for lumber and thereby created what has become a world-class gardens and arboretum. We visited Longwood last time we were here (about 5 years ago) but it’s constantly changing with the Seasons and today we had a wonderful Fall Tour there. I’d love to see it at Christmas! The weather even cooperated and gave us a dry day to stroll the grounds.

And now, at this moment of writing, we are enjoying 'Menage a Trois' with Jim and Alan - that's a California wine that is a blend of Cab Sauve, Zinfandel and Merlot - just in case any of you might have had some other thought!

Oct 19, 2009

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