Rover and Dover Adventures

  8/8 - Little Buffalo state park, PA to Shenandoah national Park, VA After a FULL day at Hershey Park yesterday, we were all a bit slow to get started today.  This was probably especially true because we had a long drive day in front of us as we got closer and closer to home.  As we got ready and walked through camp, one of our fellow campers said that they were concerned about us since we left camp early and were still gone when they slept. Great to know that there are fellow campers will look out for you!   Our drive started out on the back roads through rural Pennsylvania before we got onto I-81 which would be the majority of the miles today. While interstate travel is largely boring, it does get you from place to place fast.  We headed south and entered Maryland followed quickly by a bonus state that we didn't expect to visit on this trip - West Virginia. Since it was almost lunch time anyway, we stopped at the welcome rest area for a picnic lunch We m...

8/7 - Little Buffalo state park to Little Buffalo state park  It's Hershey Park day!  We had a quick breakfast and then enjoyed a lovely drive to park down the Susquehanna, though still haze from the fires in Canada.  The park didn't open until 10, but we arrived early which gave us a chance to go to The Hershey Story Museum which had lots of things to buy, but also a ride which gave a pseudo tour of the chocolate factory.  It was a bit "It's a Small World", but it was a nice tour all the same.  Perhaps most importantly, it finished with a free piece of chocolate.  Not bad, right?!!  The only downside was that the ride stopped right as we entered the bean baking zone.  Needless to say Amy, who seems to always be hot, wasn't thrilled.   We got into the park and immediately split up because Robinson wanted the big coasters and Sebastian did not. So I went with Robinson and Amy went with Seb. We had to wait for them to open the gates, but o...

8/6 - Chenango Valley State Park, NY to Little Buffalo State Park, PA We woke up to cool dry air this morning after an amazingly quiet night (especially considering camp has over 100 sites).  We all started our day with oatmeal.   Today was planned as a bit of a casual transition day - we didn't expect much of the day other than to get us to Little Buffalo State Park which would serve as our launching point for tomorrow's big day.  As such, we packed up and got on the road. Because we had yet to find a good maple donut, we continued our search and planned for a stop at Manni's in Binghamton.  Unfortunately, in all my driving, I had gotten lax with my attentiveness and failed to notice the combination of narrow roads and high curbs that Binghamton offers.  As such, I made my left hand turn a bit sharp and took out curb with the Pathfinder.  Before I could react and stop, I looked in mirror and watched as the trailer went airborne with its own bump off t...

8/5 - Half Moon Pond state park, VT to Chenango Valley State Park, NY We had a damp start to the morning which is different than what we've had last few days. The haze from the forest fires remains so in addition to the moisture in the air, there was also a light layer of ash on the camper.  I sent the boys and Amy to go repeat my hike from last night (they were pretty jealous of my porcupine spotting) and I stayed back to pack up camp.  Unfortunately, they didn't have the same luck I did and only saw saw some ducks and a tiny salamander (still cool!).  I picked them up as they were about halfway back to camp from the hike and we hit the road. We had do navigate old school for a while as there was no cell phone service near camp. We made it though and very quickly we were in New York! We stopped in Schenectady at the miSci museum. It was a smaller museum, but the boys spent about 90 minutes exploring their exhibits. They had some unique ones that we hadn't seen anywhere e...

8/4 Moosebrook State Park, NH to Half Moon Pond State Park, VT Today we would transition from the White Mountains and into the Green!  Sebastian helped Amy pack up camp while Robinson and I caught and examined tadpoles.   We decided that we really liked Moosebrook so we got bumper stickers and Amy got some "Moose Smooch" coffee before we headed west. As we headed out, we realized that our drive was taking us past the "Presidential" mountains that are all part of the Appalachian Trail.  While it would be amazing to hike just one of them, we just didn't leave the time in this vacation for it so we had to admire them from afar.  Unfortunately, the forest fires of Canada were creating a lot of smoke and so we were left with a white haze in the air all day.   As we headed west, we had a good distance of non-interstate roads.  In fact, on three separate occasions, the roads we were taking were unpaved.  Now that was unexpected!  However, becau...