Back on the Road Again

Bill and I are now headed to Maine for our first Adventure Caravan trip this year. We dropped off our friend at the airport Tuesday morning and decided to begin our trip in the afternoon instead of Wednesday morning.

As we headed toward the Bay Bridge, we met up with Daughter Alicia and Grandson Shane for our final farewell. Our trip was pretty uneventful reaching cities before or after rush hour. We made it to our first destination in Connecticut at 9 p.m. but in the future we will take the route we took in 2008. (On this trip, we took the G Washington Bridge into New York, but it wasn’t far enough away from the city for our liking, not to mention the tolls were higher and the road was in desperate need of repair.)

We started our first morning with a fascinating tour of the Creed Monarch facility.







































This is the company that designed and built the D-Brake that we installed on our truck last year for our trip out West. We went thru several systems, and for those of you who kept up with our travels last year, you will remember that we worked out most of the bugs for them. We just replaced the system prior to this trip and feel that it will work 100%. For anyone interested in purchasing a braking system for their truck, we highly recommend the D-Brake. We could not have asked for a more customer oriented company than Creed Monarch.

Richard’s dad started the company in 1953 so we were lucky to have Richard give us our tour. It’s so interesting how companies start up, evolve and grow. We quickly learned that Creed does more than D-Brakes. It’s basically a tool and die shop. They make parts for all kinds of things, guns, pipelines, cars, etc. Richard explained to us how the company evolved and how the machinery and robots are a big part of the company, but the most important part of the company are the people. I like his philosophy, and I’m sure he is appreciated by his employees.

Richard than passed us over to John, who is the inventor and the person we’ve been working with on the D-Brake system. John showed us his trial and errors on the D-Brake system and demonstrated how they simulate and test the equipment in the shop. John was happy to work with us in getting the system to run correctly on our truck, and we are happy he did! He also showed us his “Professional Tow Brake,” which they are selling to Blue Ox for tow cars, known as the Patriot.

John took us to a great Italian Restaurant “Paradise” where he introduced us to a little taste of growing up in the town of New Britain, Connecticut, home of the universal meat grinder and toaster. Speaking of grinder, that is what they call their “Hoagies” or “Subs.” I just had to try their special of the day, Chicken Ranchero Grinder, which was very good. John has also promised to send me his mother’s recipe for Canadian meat pie. When we get back home, I just might try it and feature it on our blog.

We met up with our friends Bobby and Marcia in Freeport, Maine, at the outlet shopping area. Bobby gave us directions off a different exit than the one he took, which got us into some construction and the need to turn around. What a mess. Then as we headed back in the right direction, our trailer started to make a squealing noise. HERE WE GO AGAIN! As we got closer to our meeting place, the noise got louder and louder. We thought for sure it was the D-Brake again. We called John to give him the bad news, and Bill was back under the truck taking it apart. That did not seem to be the problem, so checking out the rest of the truck, Bill and Bobby concluded it was a bad rotor in one of the wheels. JUST WHAT WE NEEDED! Another trip to the Ford Dealership…. Well, at least we got our extended warranty extended again. As Bill was putting things back together, he took another look at the wheel causing all the noise. We weren’t even sure we would be able to drive it the 5 miles to the dealership. GUESS WHAT HE FOUND. A tiny, little stone stuck between the brake rotor and a sheet metal protection thing. Once he removed the stone, NO MORE NOISE. Boy, the dealership would have had fun with us on that one! We immediately called John so he could also have a good laugh. (he needed one) We concluded it was all Bobby’s fault because if he didn’t give us incorrect directions, we would not have been in the construction zone and picked up that stone.

Solving our truck problem, we had a great night’s sleep and headed the next morning to Hermon, Maine, to shop for our trip and prepare for our guests.

Lewis & Clark Expedition

June 15th was the first day of our Lewis & Clark Expedition tour with Adventure Caravans. Bobby and Marcia are the Wagonmasters and Bill and I are the Tailgunners.

We began our Lewis & Clark Expedition in St. Charles, Missouri, with orientation and a wonderful dinner with a guest speaker. We were surprised when our guest speakers appeared in full dress costumed from the Lewis & Clark period.

Norman, on the right, participated in 75% of the reenactment trip and Tom on the left participated in a lesser time because of his job. These participants are all volunteer member of the heritage organization. They pay for the uniforms themselves, they pay for their travel to get to the reenactment and back home. The participants that did most of the trip would take a week off periodically to go back home and regroup. While on their trip up the Missouri and Columbia River to reach the Pacific Ocean, they stopped at different sites to educate the children and they felt that seeing the children learn a very important lesson of our American History was their pay. These people are very dedicated.

Historical East Coast Trip

Our bus driver, Art, was the best. He manuevered that bus through the narrow streets of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Alexandria, Virginia. I would not want his job. But he loves his job and we love him!

The Viet Nam Wall is extraordinary. You can see a few people doing "rubbings" of their loved ones. As you can see the names on the wall are small and the wall is very, very long.......

They guard the tomb 24 hours a week, 7 days a week. There was only one time because of the weather (I believe it was a hurricane) that they were released from duty, but they chose to continue the guard. They are amazing!

If you have never seen the "Changing of the Guard" at the tomb of the unknown soldier, this is a "must do." What an experience! These men make huge sacrifices for the honor of guarding the tomb.

This is the Naval Academy Chapel. Alicia and I have videotapped weddings here. It's just breathtaking with a VERY LONG aisle.

Living in the Baltimore area, I never realized how beautiful Baltimore is.

One of our many highlights of the trip was that some of our group were picked to help the Park Ranger at Ft. McHenry change the flag. Every morning at 10 a.m. they lower the small flag and raise the large flag. It was quite an honor.

Every party has one....

We had quite a few Birthdays and Anniversarys during our trip.

While in Philadelphia, PA, we had Betsy Ross as our tour guide.

While in New York, we went on an exquisite gourmet dinner cruise of the New York Harbor. The Statute of Liberty is quite a site at night from a ship.

Carol and Bill in New York Central Park.

We left Florida to be the "tailgunners" on Adventure Caravan's 26 day Historical East Coast trip. We started the trip in Boston, MA, and ended in Williamsburg, VA. We took a half day to go whale watching leaving the Plymouth Port.