TurtleToo is now a Pop-Up Trailer

July 19, 2008

TurtleToo became a pop-up trailer.

During June we healed, regrouped and worked on our next move - came real close to buying a sailboat, a 38’ Prout Snowgoose catamaran good for the globe, but then thought we’d be better off on terra firma for a while, taking the kayak with us for forays into mainly fresh water regions like lakes and rivers. We need fresh air rather than salt for a while, and a floating home is a little too much.

So TurtleToo is now a travel trailer, rolling across the planet behind our ‘92 Mitsubishi mini-pickup truck, with the kayak on the truck roof/shell.

On July 7 we got a 2003 Aliner Expedition trailer up in southern PA, based on an ad on the internet…but we had seen an Aliner at a FL state campground last winter, and V was enchanted with all the comforts – AC, heater, frig/sink/stove/microwave, table, bed, couch - especially when viewed from a tent.

So in this time of $4 gas we join the legions of motorists, nursing gas as we hold it to 50-55 mph near the shoulder on 65mph speed limit highways and everybody else breaking the speed limit (“Speed On Brother – Hell Ain’t Half Full”) like everything was normal with the economy and U.S. civilization as we knew it….but the truck alone gets near 30mpg (spark plugs – NGK Iridiums made a serious improvement – turned a Bosch platinum-sparked dog into a puppy) and with the trailer it’s around 27, except 25 when we crossed the PA Appalachians. So that’s 4 gallons for maybe 100 miles ever couple of days, wandering from campsite to campsite…or that’s the loose plan at this point.

We hit a campground on Raystown Lake (Corps of Engineers dammed Juniata River) in PA for a few days, then went and saw old pals (35 years back) Rich & Ei Arthurs and son Cub in Pittsburgh a couple of days and watched the Pirates lose, went N to the Allegheny River, and now we’re on Lake Erie. Three campgrounds, getting indoctrinated to highway mobility trailer living – towing parking plugging in wiring and watering…we have stuff in the back of the truck with a couple of folding bikes.

We rode a Rails-to-Trails along the Juniata River with does and fawns and groundhogs and chipmunks, kayaked Raystown Lake (swam across too) in deep forest greenery and ancient cliff stone, kayaked on the Monongahela and Allegheny and Ohio Rivers (the former 2 make the latter in Pittsburg) and pedaled around the city of Erie PA and on the NY grape coast of Lake Erie…here water’s too muddy for swimming, lifeguard rules etc, and to open breezy/choppy for kayaking…air’s been too smoggy for breathing…heading for Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River soon.

But these campgrounds are itinerant trailer parks with all kinds of big rigs and dually-wheeled landcraft with DirectTV dishes and screened awnings and big-rig people, it seems…largely large of constitution and flying U.S. flags with lawn ornaments set up for the few short days sojourn – max allowed stay is 2 weeks at most places…but they come and go. Strings of colored lights add to the festive atmosphere at these state and federal campgrounds, V&I rubbing our eyes and ears in wonderment. Retirees at seated rest, families with little kids riding bikes and scampering around playgrounds, pup tents and motorhomes jammed into Lake Erie State Park for the weekend, every spot taken...a far cry from a couple of months ago paddling and sailing through the raw and unprotected natural world. I guess we’ll learn this new world for a while…maybe a couple of years…figuring how to stay comfy and get out of the mainstem flow of vacationers. It’ll take some solarvoltaic panels.

We learned to make a weekend campground reservation, and we have another reservation at Cape Vincent next weekend, where Lake Ontario flows into the St Lawrence…but between tomorrow (Sunday) and Thursday we’ll cover 300 miles along Lake Ontario when reservations aren’t necessary…

But I thought I was a shoo-in for a hawk-watching volunteer job up at Acadia National Park on the Maine coast but instead got the shoe-out…you can’t count your chickens. Who knows or cares why – you never know for real...but we had dreams of being there from mid-Aug to mid-Oct and now that ain’t gonna be.

What we’ll do instead is continue on that route toward Acadia with no timetable at all except to show up at sis’ Betz & Leona’s place on Swans Island before September, stick around there a while and then head S…maybe FL for the winter or somewhere else warm.