Thompson Lake COE, Grosvernordale, CT; July 5-14

Our drive here was foggy and rainy but by the time we arrived, the weather had cleared and the campground was beautiful. Rich and I both were under the weather for a couple of days – a summer cold, perhaps.

As we drove through Hartford, I was impressed with the state capitol building and although we never got back to visit, I found out the design had been chosen after a competition between two men: Upton and Batterson. Upton's design won, but Batterson was named contractor. During construction Batterson kept revising the design which slowly began to resemble his own design more and more closely. Because of his extensive elaboration of the plan, the cost of the building more than doubled to $2,500,000. Originally, there was a 17 foot tall bronze statue atop the dome but after being damaged in the “great hurricane” of 1938, it was removed. There was a drive in 2002 to have a statue recast, and in 2009 it was completed. The new statue is still waiting for an additional $200,000 to have it mounted on top of the dome.

We made a quick trip to Hartford to visit the Penzeys' store to resupply our spices and have lunch and had a couple of breakfasts at Bill's Bread and Breakfast (their in house baked English muffins and bagels were great and they did a good job on eggs but I tried a waffle and a pancake and sent both back. Needless to say, I ordered eggs the next time we stopped.

Our next stop is Rich's sister's house in Massachusetts.     

Chenango Valley State Park, Chenango Forks, NY; June 13 to 27, 2016

On the interstate up to New York, a fellow in a car indicated that we had a problem with something on our rig. We slowed down and found a safe place to pull over, and found that the pin from one of the sway bars had broken and the bar had been dragging on the pavement. After some thought and worry, we decided to remove the one bar, reduce speed, and continue on. Happily, we were only about an hour away from our destination and had no further problems although we both were on edge the rest of the way.

We had surprise visits from Rich's son and his wife, Jessica, nephew Jason, and brother Bob and sister-in-law Greer shorty after our arrival. Rich and Jason figured out a temporary fix for the hitch problem, and while inspecting the rest of the unit, noticed that a tire on the front axle, passenger side of the trailer was badly worn. (The tire and wheel had been replaced two years earlier when we had a blowout on our way back to the factory for major warranty work. The axles were checked out at the factory because of the tire problem and pronounced within specs.) Since all the other tires looked like new (we had replaced them all shortly after picking up the unit from the factory) we were concerned so once again replaced the tire. In spite of having multiple tire folks inspect the wear, none came up with the same diagnosis so we're watching the wear and will have it checked out when we get back to Gainesville. Fingers crossed!

We kept busy our entire two weeks here – we hosted the family reunion, got to see four of our six northern grandchildren, all five great grandchildren, our daughter-in-law, visited friends, ate at our favorite spiedie spot, went to a minor league baseball game (our team won), I had my first taste of cream-on-top yogurt from a local dairy (yum), and more. We did get in a nice hike on the bog trail at the state park with a cousin and her husband. It's a beautiful walk and we'd never have known about it except for our hiking partners. The day before we left, we had more than a dozen over for nachos and farewells.

It was a great visit and we expect to get back before we leave the northeast, but now, back to Pennsylvania for the 4^th of July.

Thompkins Campground, Cowanesque Lake, USACE, Lawrenceville, PA; June 6-13, 2016

We'd been to Thompkins a couple of years before and were looking forward to returning. We had wanted to visit Corning Glass Museum before, so that was the main thing on our agenda. We found a nice little diner , Dana's, where we enjoyed a couple of good breakfast, but the weather was rainy and cool so didn't get much as far as outdoor things done.

The Corning museum was definitely worth the wait. The admission is $15 for seniors, but we were both wowed by the exhibits. There were thousands of pieces of glass on display – modern and historic pieces, live demonstrations, an opportunity to make your own glass in a 40 minute class, take a one day or a 10 week-long course I've included lots of photos, none of which show the true beauty or magnitude of the museum, which covers 3,500 years of history and glass from all over the world. They offer free shuttle service from the parking lot to the museum to a nice shopping district with lots of restaurants, so parking and lunch are no problem. Do be sure to go if you are ever nearby.

Now, we're off to Chenango Valley State Park in New York for a couple of weeks.