Family on the Roads Rally 2010 was held at Jetty Park in Cape Canaveral, FL from January 14th – 17th. The weather was beautiful and it was a pleasure to leave the below freezing temperatures behind. We arrived on Thursday, January 14th around lunchtime after spending the night at Camping World in St. Augustine. We settled into our site and walked out to the common area to meet some of the other families. Since, we were out of milk and bread we made a quick grocery store run and then back to the campground to get ready for the bon fire, roasting marshmallows and Starbursts. Carson enjoyed roasting marshmallows but he did not eat the smores once I put them together, but he did enjoy a Hershey bar. Zachary enjoyed playing football with the older boys and girls while Carson found a hula hoop so he could show off his talent, he even talked me into trying and I sure was glad that no one was looking (although he said that he counted to 10 before I dropped it). We enjoyed meeting more of the families and kids enjoyed playing until 9:30. It was interesting to see that many of the other families had similar backgrounds and travel stories as ours.

Friday morning started with yoga on the beach, followed by other fun activities including a presentation by the Act!vated Storytellers which Zachary and Carson participated, and then wacky science experiments making gooey slimy stuff in the afternoon. The kids enjoyed making the gooey science experiments and it was neat making a solid turned to a liquid just by holding it in your hand. Friday night we enjoyed a pot luck dinner and watching a video of the families that were visiting the rally. The kids had more time to play and we enjoyed socializing too.

Saturday brought more fun including tie dying t-shirts and relay races on the beach. We had surprise visit from the Loeckin family whom we had been following their blog for over a year as they traveled the US doing random acts of kindness as they traveled. Jay, Beth and their family spent the afternoon with us and the other families and enjoyed the relay races on the beach. It was nice getting to meet them since their adventures sparked our interest in traveling in 2008. Even the rain on Saturday night could not keep us indoors since it was the premier of the move RV which we could all relate to at least one situation that Robin Williams faced in the movie. After the movie Zachary was invited by Kimberly and Dennis (the Act!vated Storytellers) to take part in a pod cast with which he narrated as three separate characters, Carson was too tired to participate and he was asleep before Zachary came in that night.

Sunday morning started with delicious pancakes along with eggs and fruit. The kids ran around spending time with all the new friends they had made over the weekend. The adults exchanged email addresses, phone numbers and website addresses, so that traveling experiences can be discussed after the rally. Most everyone was scheduled to leave for other destinations but we decided to stay a couple of extra days to enjoy the warm weather in Florida and leave on Tuesday morning for a meeting with one of our vendors in Orlando. By mid afternoon most everyone was gone except 3-4 families and the campground was much more quiet without all the kids running around. Sunday afternoon was a nice lazy afternoon sitting outside watching the cruise ships pass by heading out to sea. The kids decided that they wanted to take a Disney cruise, maybe when we finish traveling.

On Monday it was almost sad that most of our new friends were gone the boys had a few kids left to play with and we sat outside sharing stories on our adventures for the past 7 months. Monday night we decided to so we decided on one last “get together” before we left on Tuesday morning, so we setup the projector and played a movie on the side of the motor home complete with Monkey Munch, popcorn, and Coke with the Browski and DeMichiel families that were also staying until Tuesday. The rally was a great success thanks to Katie Evans & Kimberly Goza who have years of traveling experiences and lots of advice for a “newbie” family such as us. We will definitely keep in touch with many of the families while we travel and hopefully we can meet again in the future. We decided that our travels would definitely be more enjoyable spending time with other traveling families.

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Elkhart, Indiana is known as the RV Capital of the US, since it is where a large majority of the recreational vehicles are built. Our motor home was built in Elkhart in 2006-2007 but since the manufacturer went bankrupt the new company has moved production to another state. We stayed at the Elkhart Campground which had wireless internet on the site and decent online reviews.

We had the pleasure of touring the Heartland manufacturing plant and even though this company builds travel trailers the inside production concept is very similar. The tour was very informative but we are still glad that we purchased a motor home instead of a fifth wheel that we originally thought about purchasing. If we ever decide to stop traveling full time and want to down size we will definitely consider purchasing a Heartland fifth wheel, most likely a toy hauler model.

Another outing in Elkhart was the RV Hall of Fame Museum; it is 50,000 square feet building built in 2007, housing vintage units from 1913 up to the 1970s as well as current models. Our favorite part of the museum was going into the older units and looking at the advancements that have been made over the years. The museum is operated by retired volunteers (most were rv owners) who give their time to show people around the exhibits and answer any questions.

After leaving the museum we rode to the American Countryside Farmers Market built by the Amish community. The log building was three stories, showcasing many of the local arts, crafts and foods including whoopie pies, organic vegetables, handmade rugs and candles. The only purchase that day was by Carson and Zachary who bought new Webkinz pets in one of the stores. They were not interested in most of the inside area but they really liked the petting zoo outside where they wanted to buy a baby goat to keep Bella company in the motor home. We had to break the news to them that we could not travel with a goat, even a miniature one.

We have been traveling since June but in Elkhart, we discovered what happens when your campground has really bad water. The shower, the toilets, and sinks all turned pink from the water. We did not wash any white clothes fearing they would all turn pink and we had to throw out our water filter once we left Elkhart.

While in Elkhart, we were able to pickup some parts that Brian needed to fix our inside control panel and a new water filter so we could replace the one that was now contaminated from the water in the campground. Next stop will be Indianapolis, Indiana to visit the Children’s Museum.

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This is a catch up post.  There will be several.

On Tuesday, September 15th, we arrived back into the US from Canada to visit the Niagara Falls area. We stayed in Lockport, NY which is approximately 15 minutes from the falls. Entering back into the US was not as complicated as we had anticipated and we did not have to surrender anything at the border, we only had to declare the items that we were bringing across the border- one pack of breakfast steak, a pack of carrots and an apple. We did have a border officer walk into the motor home; he looked around, asked a few questions and walked out. Once across the border we enjoyed the drive into Lockport through the country and seeing all farms stands with pumpkins and vegetables. We arrived at Niagara County Camping Resort and ate lunch and then called our friends, the Kalers, who were also in Niagara Falls.

While we were waiting for the Kaler family to have dinner, we decided to wonder around the falls area; Niagara Falls is divided into several different areas where you can get different views of the falls. We crossed a bridge onto Goat Island and Luna Island to view the American Falls and Bridal Falls, Horseshoe Falls and later after dark we viewed of the falls with colored lights shining onto the water. Since we have been traveling we have been awed by God’s creations and Niagara Falls was one the most magnificent of creations. Words cannot express the beauty of seeing the falls in person and hearing the water as it rushed over the rocks into the gorge below. Wednesday, we crossed the Rainbow Bridge into Canada to view Rainbow Falls, where we saw the largest rainbow that any of us had ever seen; it stretched across from US to Canada side. The overall view of the falls from the Canadian side gave a more superior view of the front of the falls instead of side view from the US. The spray from the falls was so heavy when the wind was blowing it appeared to be raining. The kids enjoyed jumping back and forth from the Canadian to the US side of the bridge at one section that was marked by a plaque at the division of the two countries.

On Thursday we visited the Lockport Locks in Lockport, NY but had to leave early when Carson was running down a path to the locks and fell and scraped his arms, knee and added a nice knot with a cut above his right eye. Zachary was able to see the locks with the Kaler family while we cleaned Carson’s cuts and scrapes. The injuries were not serious enough for stitches just a half of box of Band Aides and a tube of Neosporin along with two Junior Tylenol. The final cure for the afternoon accident was a pack of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and ice cream to help Carson forget about his “boo-boos”.

On Saturday, we planned a visit to Buffalo to the Buffalo Science Museum to visit the Body World’s & the Study of the Heart, traveling exhibit. On the way to Buffalo, we stopped at the Lockport Locks on the Erie Canal, since the day before we had to leave early on Thursday, due to Carson’s accident. The history of the locks date back to 1822 and they were the idea of Nathan Roberts, who wanted to devise a way to allow boats to pass through the canal even though there was a sixty foot drop existed in Lockport on the way to Buffalo. Nathan Robert had the idea for twin locks with five locks each and in 1823 the construction of the locks began and was completed in 1825. The original cost of the Erie Canal was $7 million dollars which would be equivalent to $4 billion today. The locks and canal were improved many times over the years and were used commercially until the 1950s. The locks are now used for tour boats and individual boats but they are no longer used for commercial vessels. We enjoyed watching a tour boat pass through the locks and watching how the locks actually work, allowing the boat to pass down the canal.

After a brief stop in Lockport to view the locks on the Erie Canal we arrived in Buffalo at the Buffalo Science Museum. This exhibit uses bodies that have been donated and preserved through a process called plastination. The exhibit was very informative and the definitely convinced our children that smoking is very unhealthy after they were able to view a “black lung” from cigarette tar and nicotine. One most amazing displays were the embryos ranging from 5 days to 32 weeks. You could see the tiny fingers and toes of the 10 week old embryo, this display should be seen by mothers thinking of ending a pregnancy. There were displays with full bodies showing with ligaments, tendons, and muscles and others showing internal organs and bones. Zachary and Carson were amazed at the exhibits and did not seem to be bothered by the bodies; Carson was most interested in the two camels (a baby and its mother) that were plasticized. After we toured the Body World exhibit, we visited two other floors in the museum. A large portion of the museum was being used for the Body Worlds exhibit but there still were several areas to explore, a dinosaur area, stones and minerals area, and a kid’s play area. Carson’s favorite thing in the museum was the big floppy eared bunny that he got to touch and fed a carrot. The play area was a “big hit” too with puppets, a water table and building blocks.

On Sunday, morning we met the Kaler family at McDonalds for breakfast before leaving Niagara Falls for our trip to Michigan. We enjoyed the breakfast and fellowship with our friends and we hope to plan another visit with the Kalers while our families are traveling. The kids enjoyed sitting at the kids table with their friends and having McDonald’s hotcakes for breakfast. We left the campground in Lockport, NY heading back into Canada (just passing through) since this route will decrease our destination drive by over two hours. Again we are preparing to pass through the border and accounting for all the produce, meat, and being questioned by border patrol on our reason for going into Canada. Next, stop will be somewhere in Michigan, our destination in Michigan will be Mackinaw City, MI.

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On Sunday morning we started preparing to leave for our five to six hour drive to Toronto. Our first plan was revisit Montreal on Sunday and then take advantage of late check out (8:00pm) and spend the night in a Walmart parking lot that was half way to Toronto but we decided to leave by lunch and then drive straight to Toronto so we could visit downtown Toronto on Monday. There were not many campgrounds near Toronto so we decided on a city park called Glen Rouge Campground at Rouge Park situated on the Rouge River.  This drive seemed longer than others since we did not leave until after lunch due a wiring issue with our auxiliary braking system in the car (our brake buddy). We have a plug that looks like an extra lighter plug added that is wired to the car battery and this plug has electrical issues because when we plugged in the brake buddy, we saw sparks coming from the plug- oh no another issue! We then had to plug the brake buddy directly into the cigarette lighter which meant that we had to stop every two hours in order to charge the battery on the car which made our drive even longer (or at least it seemed hours longer).

We arrived at the campground around 7:00pm on Sunday night, one of the latest check ins we have had since we started traveling, so we used the travel brochures to finish planning our visit into downtown Toronto. We decided to leave the campground by 8:30, so we could try to miss rush hour at the train station but still find a parking spot. The first lot was full and we almost got discouraged when the second one seemed to have no empty lots either but just before we started to leave the parking lot we found a spot in the back of the lot. Now we had to go to the station to purchase tickets for the GO train into Toronto. The lady at the station counter was really nice and gave us a group discount ticket for $20 which could have normally cost $30 which entitled us to ride into Toronto and back to our car. We decided not to purchase subway tickets which would have cost $36 and walk around Toronto. We meet a very two very nice ladies on the train one of which told us that she owned a house in Myrtle Beach, SC and she even gave us her cell phone number so we could call her at work if we got lost or needed anything during our visit to Toronto. Both ladies gave us suggestions for things to do during our day visit to Toronto which helped us decide on what to do that day.  The train station which was called Union Station and it was also the subway, bus stations too. One of the ladies from the train showed which exit to take to head in the correct direction for our walking day.

Our first stop was the Eton Center which was a five story mall with too many stores to list but everyone in the family found at least one store to visit.  After the mall we started our walk on the crowded streets with all the people on the way to work shuffling across busy intersections like herds of cattle. The boys were fascinated by all the tall buildings as we walked through the financial district of Toronto noticing some of the same companies that we would see in the US. After the financial district we made our way into Chinatown and discovered that since we did not know Chinese we could hardly even pay for three Chinese donuts in a bakery. They had tongs and a tray and you picked your pastry and put it on the tray without any tissue paper, napkin or anything. Since we had seen H1N1 signs in every restroom (called washrooms in Canada) this made the parents slightly uncomfortable so we gave each child some hand sanitizer and handed them the donut in their hand without the try which caused us to get some dirty looks from the girl at the counter who did not speak English. There were many interesting things to see along the streets of Chinatown including cheap toys, herbs with the names in Chinese and whole ducks or chickens hanging in the meat market windows. Our next stop was Little Italy and of course Carson was looking for pizza, he has been able to recognize that word for over two years.  The first pizza place we saw in Little Italy, he decided that was where we needed to eat.

I do not think that anyone in the family could have walked much farther so the decision was unanimous we would stop, order pizza and rest.  The restaurant was called John’s Classic Italian Pizza  with wood fired pizza so we ordered a large cheese and sat down to wait for it and the other treat of the day which was four cans of coke, sorry no iced sweet tea in Canada.  The pizza arrived at the table and we could hardly wait to eat, our lunch was very good and the rest was wonderful too. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Toronto. We enjoyed two scoops of Gelato, one mint and one double chocolate and Zachary and Carson enjoyed a hot fudge sundae from McDonald’s at the Eton Center which was our last stop of the day.  We looked around a couple more stores in the mall and then rushed for the GO stop to try to catch a train before rush hour at 5:00.  We arrived at Union Station 8 minutes before the train left and were even able to get a seat on the top of the train.

Dinner that night was at a restaurant called Whimpy’s where were got a burger, onion rings and poutine as an appetizer. Poutine for anyone that has not traveled to Canada is French fries with cheese and gravy, depending on the restaurant this dish can be served with Cheese Wiz or shredded cheese and brown gravy; we had to try it once since we had heard so much about it. Once we finished dinner it was back to the motor home to get ready for our trip back into the United States. We took one last walk around the campground and discovered a large tee-pee at the back of the campground and of course Zachary and Carson had to go inside to take a look around. The tee-pee was manufactured by a company in Toronto; I guess there is a demand for tee-pees in Canada.

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On Thursday, September 10th we arrived in Montreal, QC for our second stop in Quebec.

Montreal did not have any signs in English, so we had to try to decide collectively what they said, luckily we had been noticing the directional signs since entering Canada and we could at least determine that we were traveling in the correct direction. For our stay in the outskirts of Montreal we stayed at the Camping La Cle des Champs in Saint Philippe, QB. When we checked in the price changed from earlier in the day so the coupon good for one night at 50% off did not make our stay as inexpensive as we first planned but the campground was the closet to Montreal with decent reviews. In this campground most everyone was from Quebec and everyone was speaking French, so we were easily noticed when we “opened our mouths”. Some people would smile then said “hello” but most just looked at us with a blank stare. The campground offered WIFI at the motor home but it cost us $5 per day so we decided to “give in and pay the fee” so we could plan our travels into Montreal.

Our trip into the city was delayed on Friday morning due to Bella being sick and no one wanted to leave her.  She woke up early by jumping off the bed so she could “throw up” on the floor –thank goodness she jumped off the bed. Her sickness lasted until around lunch time and we thought it may be the Tim Horton’s donut holes that she had eaten earlier in the week- chocolate cake ones. Zachary got so upset because he thought she was going to die but after praying for Bella she started running around like she felt better; I guess dogs can have a stomach bug too. We took a short drive into the surrounding area late Friday afternoon to see the area before our day in Montreal on Saturday. Since it was close to dinner we decided to have dinner before going to the grocery store, so we ended up eating at Saint Hubert’s since we could not find the local Mike’s Restaurant like the one we ate at in Quebec City. The first chicken we had eaten since the US, so it was either rotisserie chicken or chicken strips for everyone except Carson who ate French fries. The next stop was desert at Krispy Kreme except we bought two dozen since there was a special where you save $2 if you bought two dozen. Since we had eaten so much at Saint Hubert’s we had over a dozen and a half donuts left but they are good reheated too. We picked up a few groceries at the local IGA where everything was in French and the staff in the store could speak very little English but we managed to get the basics- milk, bread, soup, and cereal. Carson will be very glad to get back into the US so he can get some other type of cereal other than the store brand honey nut cheerios (which do not taste like honey or nuts!).

On Saturday morning, September 12th, we got up early and drove to the closest Metro station parking lot to catch the Metro to visit Montreal for the day. We had planned to visit again on Sunday if we did not see everything since checkout at the campground was not until 8:00pm. We purchased an unlimited metro pass so we could get on and off as much as needed in one day for $36, so we could limit our walking in the city. Our first stop was Old Montreal and the Quays of the Old Port where we saw a large cruise ship which would depart later in the day. We walked along the city streets observing all the sites and sounds of Montreal. The biggest highlight of the day was visiting the Biosphere, which was an environment museum to teach visitors about major environmental issues relating to climate change, water and sustainability and responsible consumption. The museum had its own environmentally safe water treatment system and offered presentations to teach people about sensible water consumption and the effect of everyone’s carbon footprint on our environment. The kids were free and we got a 25% discount since we came to the museum on the Metro instead of driving our car. The kids really enjoyed the water room where you could sail a ship (powered by a rubber band) across a “river” without it sinking and a bathtub that had to be filled with water from a jug teaching everyone how fortunate we are in the US to have water in our home flowing freely from a faucet. We could have spent several more hours in the Biosphere but as the last visitors they locked the doors as we left. We had a very fun filled day in Montreal and we very proud of our ability to understand some of the French that we heard through out the day.

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