Two Travel Days

 Hello again,

We left Maine Monday morning with our destination 265 miles away in a state park in Rhode Island.  Even though foliage is not yet at its peak, we were enthralled all the way to the Maine/New Hampshire border with the beautiful reds, oranges and yellows.  It was such a beautiful drive.  Would love to have taken some photos but it is not very convenient to pull over while towing a trailer.  It rained a bit during the drive but wasn't bad.

Today was probably our worst travel day.  It was raining while we Ralph was hooking up the trailer (luckily I have inside duties).  It was rainy or cloudy and dreary much of the 290 mile drive from Rhode Island to Delaware.  The quickest route to Delaware was through the Bronx and we debated whether or not to take a longer way around to avoid NYC but it was a highway so we went for it.  Actually it wasn't too bad until we got to the New Jersey turnpike.  We got onto a toll road and about 80 or so miles later paid $58.15 for the toll!  About two minutes later we crossed the bridge into Delaware and had to pay another $10 toll!  We finally got lucky when our exit to the campground was the last exit before another toll road.  But on the offramp we got stuck behind a street sweeper going about five miles an hour and then he ran into a guardrail (maybe his first day on the job???).  We were able to edge our way around him and travel on. 

Right as we got to our campground, it started pouring (and this is the kind of rain we don't get in Santa Barbara), so we had to set up camp in the pouring rain.  It is raining hard right now and we are supposed to get another inch or so tonight.  The good news is that it should be done by 6:00 AM before we pack up and tomorrow is supposed to be sunny.  It is quite warm, still 70 degrees but raining like crazy.  I have mapped out tomorrow's drive to Shenandoah NP and we will be avoiding toll roads😉.

This is our campsite at Burlingame State Park in Rhode Island.  It is the biggest campground we have ever been in, around 800 campsites and the sites were huge.  Biggest campground in the smallest state.  There were very few people there but we imagine it must be a zoo in the summer.  

Exciting photo of us crossing the George Washington Bridge from the Bronx into New Jersey.

You can barely see the Manhattan skyline out the car window.  This shows the cloudy, dreary day that it was.