We got into New York State and headed to Bloomfield to stay with our friend Karin.  Since we approached from the Southern Tier, we got off I86 and drove over back roads which we took hundreds of times to our houses in Naples and Canadice as we headed for Bloomfield.  It was very weird; we knew the roads and always knew exactly what was coming, but we were also sort of lost and weren’t quite sure where we needed to turn.  I suddenly understood why dogs need to shake when they’re uncomfortable, because that’s exactly how I was feeling after not traveling on those roads in over 15 years.  We tried to drive by our old house in Canadice, but missed the turn because it was just so different…but also the same.  I guess you have to experience this feeling to understand it, because I don’t think I’m explaining it very well.

Anyway, we found our way to Karin’s, where we spent a few days catching up with old friends, I got to ride with Karin which always feels like coming home, we took some nice walks, and got some things done on the camper.  We also purchased a heater for the camper, since we got our first taste of weather in the 40s, with the accompanying dampness which is the norm for New York.  While we were there, we started looking into our next steps, and suddenly found that many of the services around Acadia National Park, our next major stop, would close over Columbus Day, or whatever we’re supposed to call it now.  So, we put all of the other visits we planned to make on hold, and headed northeast.  

We were heading up to Vermont to spend a couple of days with my brother, and our timing turned out to be excellent since he was off work for the two days we would be there.  And, we managed to meet another old friend for lunch in Syracuse, before doing an evening tour of the New York Capitol area in Albany.

We left Albany after dark and headed for Vermont.  Our original plan had been to drive to my brother Matt’s house and park for the night, but the roads were very dark, and the number of deer AND moose crossing signs made us more than a little paranoid.  So, we decided to stop for the night at the Walmart in Bennington and do the last couple hours of driving in the light in the morning.

We left Indianapolis and headed for our next capital, which was Columbus, Ohio.  We drove on secondary roads most of the way and the weather was good, which, combined with the new sway bar, made the drive fairly relaxing.  We pulled into Columbus in the late afternoon and again couldn’t find a parking place, so Tom pulled over in a spot where we weren’t sure what the deal was with the parking, and I sat in the truck while he ran back a few blocks to snap a couple of photos of the Capitol.

We drove out of Columbus and headed in the general direction of our first National Park, Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  It was too late in the afternoon to get there in one day, and that park doesn’t offer camping anyway, so we got on line and found a state park about midway between Columbus and the National Park.  Malabar Farm State Park is a nice little park that includes a working farm, maple syrup production, and an equestrian campground with lots of trails for hiking, biking, and horses.  When we got to the park we discovered that the only way to stay there is to make online reservations and pay on line with a credit card, but we figured out that if we stood on the top of the hill and faced the right direction, Verizon gave me enough bandwidth to accomplish that.  It was a Friday night, but the only campground users other than us were two parties staying in tents, and one party of horseback riders with their horses, so it was a very quiet night.  In the morning, we went for a long hike, and found that the reason the campground is so sparsely used was that a storm had gone through in June and knocked down a lot of trees, and most of the trails were only recently opened.  That was actually great for us because enough trails were open to let us take a long and interesting hike, but we only ran into one other human on the trail who told us that the park had been closed most of the summer and a lot of people didn’t realize it was open again.

We left Malabar Farm and headed for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which was less than two hours away.  We stopped and resupplied, and pulled into the park around 3PM.  We called the park office to ask if it was possible to boondock in a parking lot overnight, and were very clearly told that sleeping in your vehicle is absolutely not allowed.  We decided to overnight at a nearby Walmart, and with that decision made, we still had a couple of hours to hike around one of the prominent trails at the park, aptly called The Ledges.

Near sundown we headed for the Walmart, where we had a surprisingly quiet night.  We spent the night making a plan for where to hike the next day, and in the morning we headed out to do two trail loops near the Boston Mill Visitor Center.

When we finished hiking, we started thinking about finding a place to stay on our way to New York.  Tom found a blueberry and maple syrup called Messenger Century Farm on Harvest Hosts, and while we waited for them to respond we started heading in that direction, figuring that if we couldn’t stay there, we could find someplace along the way.  When we got there and pulled up in front of the driveway, the owners Bill and Dee, along with their son and daughter-in-law, met us and immediately made us feel welcome.  It was a great overnight stop and we will definitely stay there again if we go that way, and we will also get more of their excellent maple syrup and honey.

In the morning, we packed up and headed for New York.  We left a little on the late side because a cold front with lots of rain had blown through around 8:00, and we wanted to make sure we were behind it, but we had clear driving all the way, even if the roads were wet in spots.  

Yes, we know Chicago is not the capital of Illinois, but we had family to visit there before heading east with the goal of one more National Park and a few capitals, and getting out of the Northeast before the snow flies.

We left Madison on an absolutely dismal rainy morning, and were in rain all the way to Chicago.  Despite the bad weather, the drive went smoothly, and we pulled into Tom’s aunt’s community on the north side of Chicago in the early afternoon.  We got permission to “camp” in the parking lot for a few days, before heading to Tom’s cousins’ house, where we had the difficult decision of choosing which good restaurant’s take out would be the evening meal.  This was the first of a number of delicious meals with great company that we would have with family over the next few days.  We also discovered a park that runs along miles of the North Shore Channel, so we were able to take the dogs for a variety of very nice walks while we were there.

The highlight of the Chicago stop for Tom was finding a machine shop on our park walk which was willing to make the holes in the new sway bar bigger.  (Only kidding, that wasn’t really the highlight.  I don’t think it was, anyway.)

Tom called them immediately after our walk, and they had him drop the sway bar off with the promise to have it done the next day, which they did.  They also had a flor de izote and a banana tree in their waiting room, so Tom was able to give them obscure information about tropical plants.   The shop owner called early the following morning to say the job was done, so Tom picked it up and installed it.  The only problem was that we didn’t leave for another two days, so Tom had to wait to test it.

We had arrived Sunday afternoon, and left late Thursday morning, heading for Indianapolis.  The sway bar worked wonders, and they drive was much less stressful than previous drives, even though we were on the interstate with big trucks most of the way.  We got to Indianapolis just in time for rush hour, so the downtown streets were very busy and we ended up doing another drive by with a few photos to prove we were there.

We headed out of Indianapolis.  Because it was late afternoon, we found another Cabela’s near Indianapolis and stopped for the night.  We bought a few collapsible water jugs, and expected another quiet night like we’d had at the Madison Cabela’s, but no such luck.  A semi pulling party boats was parked next to us, and he ran his generator all night long.  The generator itself wouldn’t have been so bad if it had just kept running, but it would run for a while, then shut off, then start up again, and the start up always had a loud rev at the beginning.  We were up fairly early and took the dogs on one of our less spectacular walks through the acres and acres of shopping plazas before heading for Ohio.

We added a button to our Moonracer Farm OTRA so you can see all of our overnight stops on a Google map.  In theory, it will update as we update the map, so click the button and give it a try.

So the sway bar saga continues.  We waited at Kelderman’s until 5:45pm for the UPS man to come back, an hour and a quarter after the shop had closed.  Tom had the old sway bar out, and thought it would be quick and easy to install the new one, which is obviously much beefier than the old one.

I got everything stowed in the camper and got ready to move since Tom said it would just take a few minutes to install, when I heard an emphatic, “Oh shit.”  I jumped out and Tom showed me that the holes on the new sway bar were too small for the bolt.  The sway bar is hardened steel, and couldn’t be drilled with Tom’s drill, and the shop was closed until Monday, so we were out of luck.  Instead of heading out with the new sway bar, Tom put on the old one again, and we packed the new one in the back, where it can ride until Monday when we find an open machine shop to drill out the holes.  We got on the road about 6:30, heading northeast to see how far we could go.  We got to see a beautiful sunset, as well as a beautiful moonrise, and ended up spending the night in a Walmart parking lot just west of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

This morning, we hit the road early heading for Madison, the capital of Wisconsin.  We crossed the Mississippi at Dubuque before noon, so we really feel like we’re heading east.

We headed into Madison on the city streets, wanting to see more of the city than the expressway.  The first thing we noticed was a sea of people, all wearing red, and we realized that we were driving through a massive tailgate party for a football game.  We continued towards the capitol, and noticed that many of the streets were blocked off, and then we began to see runners.  It wasn’t until we were almost to the capitol that we saw the end of the course, and realized that we had driven into a triathlon in downtown Madison.  Between the triathlon and the football game, we couldn’t find anyplace remotely suitable or legal to park our rig, so we picked our way around the surrounding streets and snapped a few photos, and headed out of town.  Despite not getting a good look at the capitol and the surrounding grounds, we’re putting Madison in second place behind Des Moines on our capitol ranking, just because it was so great to see a city actually being enjoyed by the people.  

We’re now in a Cabela’s parking lot outside of Madison, getting ready to head into Chicago tomorrow to visit family.  We were going to stay in a park somewhere between here and there, but when I started looking at availability for tonight, which is Saturday, I found that all campgrounds under $50 are full, and we didn’t build this boondocking rig to pay $50 when we don’t need any services and only need a place to park.  Parking at Cabela’s is free - and they have lots of cool stuff that will help us in our nomadic life.