Day 17 - 21

These last few days went flying by so fast! After we left Portland, we headed up the coast to Rockland and ended up staying there for a few days. In that time, we drove up to Bar Harbor. On the way, you have to cross the Penobscot Narrows Bridge, which was constructed recently. It has the tallest bridge observatory in the world, and is the only one in the western hemisphere.

Just a walk from the bridge is Fort Knox, which was named after the first Secretary of War, as was the famous Fort Knox in Kentucky. It is located along the Penobscot River, across from Bucksport.

After the visit, we made our way to Bar Harbor and stopped at a local Lobster shack.

Day 15 - 17

Day 15, 16, and 17 were all long travel days. We really did not do much... I mean seriously, on days like these, we just sit in the RV, listening to music, mapping out our course, finding rest stops, eating, remapping the course, playing games, watching movies, finding more rest stops, etc.

On Day 15, we made it from Milwaukee, through Chicago, and over to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where we spent the night in the WalMart parking lot.

On Day 16, we drove through, believe it or not, 9 states: we started in Indiana, drove through Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, and ended in New Hampshire. During one of the pit-stops, a trucker randomly befriended us and gave us some watermelons!

On Day 17, we drove up to Portland, Maine while I was asleep. We are now just hanging out here for the day. I got to really see the Atlantic Ocean for the first time today!

Here are some photos I took in Portland

The Atlantic Ocean

A view from our RV

Day 10 - 15

Hello everyone! I would just like to say that I am sorry that I stopped posting on here for about a week... We got up to the Jablonski's place on the night of Day 10 (Wednesday, July 28th) and stayed there until the morning of Day 15 (Monday, August 2nd), and during that time I was really tired, excited, and just plain lazy!

The following is an account of what we did in the past few days...

Amendment to Day 10:
I forgot to mention that we went to the Texas Roadhouse with Dave, Jake, and Jessica. It was a fair meal in a pleasant atmosphere and a great night of conversation and fun.
And just to make it clear, Dave and Alisa are the parents, and Jake (18), Nick (16), and Jessica (14) are their kids.
My parent's also checked into the Comfort Inn in Milwaukee. This information will be necessary for what happened in Day 11.

Day 11:
For the most part, in the mornings we would just get up, eat, play video games, and talk a lot. In this evening, Jake, Nick, Alex, and I went swimming at the hotel at which my parents were staying while our parents went hottubbing. We left for the cinemas and saw The Sorcerer's Apprentice (it was pretty good, but somewhat predictable and non-climactic - 6/10). On the way back to the hotel, Alisa called Jake and Nick and requested that they bring Gatorade for Dave when they returned home, so we detoured over to Walgreen's. On the way over, we had one of the funnest times during the entire stay. We cranked up the stereo and the car was filled with Techno and Rap music, and we were all "dancing" to the music, as much as one might while sitting strapped to a seat (honest it was more like arm-waving and wiggling). The climax of the night was when a song aired on the radio and Nick hopped out of the car (in Walgreen's parking lot) and proceeded to act out some crazy awesome moves. Epic.

When Alex and I got back, we found out that our parents had a problem with the hotel. While we were gone, a little league team from EauClaire, Wisconsin created a disturbance in the pool area. The chaperons were drinking alcohol (problem 1) in glass bottles (problem 2) and responded negatively (problem 3) to the request of the other patrons in the pool area. They then proceeded to address isolated individuals who had requested them to stop drinking (i.e. my dad) with taunts and verbal jabs (problem 4), which continued even into the next morning (problem 5). The manager was finally available for contact, and when address of the situation, completely lost his spine as if it were made of jello. He became a wimpy little person who would not enforce hotel policy (problem 6). We immediately contacted the Comfort Inn corporate office and the Better Business Bureau to let them know of the preceding events. The state liquor board, local newspaper, and little league team will also be contacted. After this event, we changed hotels, and my parents stayed in the Hampton Inn for the remainder of the visit.

Day 12:

I am pretty sure this was the day that Alex, Jake, and I went to The Quarry, a retired mining quarry that filled in with water, and one can now swim in it. It was fun. We got some sun and swimming, which totally made my day.

Day 13:
Saturday, Alisa took us on a drive-through tour of the city of Milwaukee.

Day 14:
It was today that we went to the Wisconsin Dells, a couple hours north of the Jablonski's abode. Sadly, Jake's work conflicted with these plans, so he was unable to enjoy it was us. At the Dells, there are a bunch of theme parks, one of which, Mount Olympus, we went to. It was sooo fun! There were four wooden roller coasters, one of which, Hades, had a tunnel that goes completely beneath and across the parking lot, then comes out the other side for a short while, and back under the parking lot! There were also many go-kart tracks (not bumper cars... lets just say I learned that the hard way) which were pretty fun. But the Water Park is where you find me. There are two wave pools: a normal, continuous undulation pool, and the Poseidon; every couple minutes, this pool creates a 9-foot wave. It is absolutely sick! Nick and I were in this pool probably half of our stay just body surfing. We could transverse approximately half (probably a little more) of the accessible pool on a single wave! When we were all finally too tired to do anything more, we headed out. All of us fell asleep in their Excursion on the way home. The hot tub at the new hotel was a very relaxing end to the day.

Day 15:
Monday morning, we left :(
We had an amazing time with the Jablonski's. It was really amazing that even after 12 years of not seeing or contacting each other, our friendships from 6 years old proved valid :D I cannot wait to see you guys again, and thanks for hosting us!

Day 10

Woohoo!!! We made it!!! We actually got to the Jablonski's place!!! After getting the RV all fixed up and a great night's rest at the Best Western Canterbury Inn in Coralville, Iowa, we hopped back on the highway. After a missed exit, we arrived here and are very much so enjoying the first night of our visit. We haven't seen the Jablonski family in about 12 years, since we were living in Camelot up in north Spokane. I cannot really think of anything else that happened today because I am too excited and sleepy :P so I will post other information and photos tomorrow!

Day 9

Yesterday I posted that we were going to try to be in Milwaukee tomorrow night, but today we were making great timing and were on track to get there sometime this evening... that is, until our cab air conditioner completely shut off and the bearings in the alternator started to go bad. Mind you, this is a fix-or-repair-daily that we're driving... Anyway, right now we are stuck in Coralville, Iowa, which is near Iowa City. We did though find a silver lining to this, because there is a really awesome hotel here: the Best Western is medieval themed and has an amazing restaurant called the House of Lords in the basement. The whole feel of this place is really nice, and I highly recommend it to anyone who needs to stop in this area.

As for the schedule, we are probably 4-5 hours away from Milwaukee, and then another distance and time to the Jablonski's place.

Today wasn't completely un-fun. Alex got to play with my camera a bit...

Day 8

Today is the eighth day of our road trip, and we are staying at my great aunt Mary's house here in Wichita, Kansas. We had a lot of fun just hanging out today, got to talk a lot. But we also had to take Scott to the airport because today was his trip home. It was a lot of fun having him with us and we are going to miss him a lot.

This is a photo of the four of us with my dad's aunt Mary and cousin Carla.

Sharon, Charles, Carla, Mary, Alex, Nick (me)

I also got to try out Gelato for the first time at Mead's Corner, a local coffee shop. The Italian spin on ice cream was absolutely delicious!!

Mead's Corner [map] [website]

We also found out recently that we will not be going to Tennessee tomorrow to visit Uncle Carl and his family due to a scheduling error... Our road trip was pushed ahead by 2 weeks, and in the chaos and confusion of packing between the vacation and road trip, we forgot to let them know, so naturally conflicting plans ensued. Now we will be going on to the next part of the trip. Tomorrow morning we will be headed directly up to Wisconsin to visit the Jablonski family. We should be there Wednesday evening. Tomorrow will be a "travel day" so it will probably be boring and uneventful. But at least we will be out of the Kansan humidity!

Day 7

First off, I was not able to post Day 7 last night because I could not find WiFi, and I was a little sick after I ate. Other than that, yesterday was totally awesome! The Nagely Family Reunion went well and I did get photos of everyone.

After the reunion, we headed south to Wichita to visit my Great Aunt Marry and cousin Carla on my dad's side of the family. I will post those photos on today's post later tonight.

Day 6

So here we are in Salina, Kansas. It is humid, hot, windy, has tons of bugs, and this place is flat. I mean flat. I really didn't understand what flat meant until I got here. The sad part is that I don't even have any photos to post from today! I really don't enjoy this place all that much, but it is totally worth visiting when I have an entire family showing up for a reunion that goes back to my great great great grandfather... or something like that. All I know is I am hanging out with my 3rd and 4th cousins right now. Tomorrow at the reunion I will take lots of photos to post on here, and hopefully I will get everyone's names to caption the photos.

I just want to post some type of graphic, so here is a map of Kansas with Salina marked out.

p.s. there is something nice about Kansas... the clouds and lightning here are really cool looking :)

Day 5

The fifth day, like many others, started off with me waking up to the movements of the RV as dad pulled it out of the camp before any of us were up. We ended up arriving at the campgrounds after the office was closed, and left before they were open. When we finally stopped to have breakfast, we were in a small town in Wyoming called Rawlins. The breakfast was decent enough.

While there, we visited the Wyoming Frontier Prison Museum, an old state penitentiary.

From Rawlins, I was forced to drive to Laramie, WY. Then dad took over and we went south into Colorado.

We just kept pushing on past Denver and found ourselves in stop-and-go traffic in Fort Collins, so we took a break. Alex got her Starbucks while Dad and Scott checked out a Culver's.
 

Apparently this place is like a Dairy Queen on steroids. The "butterbergers" threw me off, so I didn't go in, thinking that it would be serving a "burger" of southern style, deep-fried, and battered butter, but with buns and cheese. 

Now we are in another KOA in Strasburg, Colorado. I think we really like these KOA's. They all have nice amenities, like electricity, water, WiFi, pools, etc.