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From Florida to Canada the North American Spring season welcomes the awakening world with scent and color.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
After a disappointing COVID Crazy Year 4, we were very anxious to embark on an epic Year 5, RV Life journey exploring the northeastern U.S.A. It started with a short 4-hour drive northward through Central Florida from Bowling Green to St. Augustine. We parked at the Stagecoach RV Park.
Touted as the nation’s oldest city, St. Augustine was founded in 1565.
Cheri and I had the pleasure of visiting this historical town before, so we were familiar with many of its Old World charms.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
Castillo de San Marcos: The oldest stone masonry fort in the continental United States. Built to protect and defend Spanish claims in the New World, it is now a National Monument over 300 years old.
Ponce de Leon Fountain of Youth Park: A 15-acre historical attraction educating visitors about the first Spanish settlers who arrived in the 1600s and the native people who greeted them. Known as the Timucuans, their story is a tragic tale of a lost indigenous society.
A Downtown Stroll: On the National Register of Historic Places, St. Augustine’s downtown district is in the oldest part of the city. With many buildings dating back to the 1700s there are more than 20 notable sites to explore.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
We moved the RV west from St. Augustine to our Florida favorite, Freeport, parking once again at the Live Oak Landing. An easy 6-hour journey to the west across northern Florida on Interstate 10, we passed through Jacksonville and Tallahassee.
The beaches around the Freeport area are some of the best you can find on the Gulf side of Florida. Places like Destin, Fort Walton, Miramar, Pensacola, and Panama City attract millions of visitors every year.
Our next move was north towards our Tennessee home base. Along the way is one of Cheri’s must-stop locations, Fort Payne, Alabama. Home to the country music super group, Alabama, this is always a pleasant stop. Besides parking at the cozy Wills Creek RV Park, it was a joy to visit our favorite spots once again …
It was mid-April when we arrived at our Tennessee home base to handle the usual semi-annual chores with doctor visits, storage unit drops, DMV, etc. Good times with our Tennessee friends at Camp Doney was always a highlight of the Spring season.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
We pulled out of Nashville at the end of April and headed three hours east to our favorite spot in the Smoky Mountains, Anchor Down RV Resort. We enjoyed our usual favorites again, stocking up on some tasty treats from the Old Smoky Distillery.
See RV Life – Our Second Year – Smoky Mountain Fall
We hit the road again and turned to the north, traveling along I-81 into Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Our destination was about 8 hours away, so we stopped for a night at a familiar half-way point, the Natural Bridge KOA. We remembered this spot from our very first year of the RV Life, when my employer sent us to rural Pennsylvania on a job assignment. See RV Life – Year One – Summertime Part 2.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
We finished the journey the next day, passing through West Virginia and the beautiful New River Gorge. After a quick jaunt through western Maryland, we arrived at Bedford, PA, making camp at the Friendship Village Campground & RV Park.
We chose this spot in southern Pennsylvania for a very specific reason. We had a special bucket list location in mind. The Flight 93 Memorial.
Less than an hour’s drive west from Bedford on the Lincoln Highway is a sacred spot where the terrible events of September 11, 2001 culminated with United Airlines Flight 93 crashing into a rural Pennsylvania field near Shanksville.
All 40 people aboard perished.
Our visit to the memorial produced a powerful mix of emotions that can hardly be described in writing. Those of us who lived through the events of that day will understand better. The things we were feeling on 9/11, and the days that followed, came rushing back as we wandered through the exhibit hall viewing displays, reading wall plaques, and watching witness accounts. Nothing hit us harder than listening to the voice messages of people recording their final goodbyes moments before the crash.
From the Visitor Center a trail winds down the hillside to the Impact Site and Memorial Wall. I stopped to read each victim’s name etched into the wall, some out loud, turning a cold shoulder to the names of the terrorists.
RV Life – Year 5 – Spring
I shuffled along the Memorial Plaza Walkway where elevated platforms offer a good view of the Impact Site. Marked by a large boulder, this is the final resting place for the 40 souls. We paid our respects from a distance, because only family members of those who died are permitted to walk to the actual crash site.
Our final stop inside the memorial grounds was an incredibly moving tribute called the Tower of Voices. This is a beautifully unique monument unlike any other in the world. Forty different wind chimes are suspended within a tower, each with a sound of their own. When the wind blows through the structure 40 individual tones provide a living and audible memorial, representing the ongoing voices of those who were lost.
Pennsylvania was just as pleasant as we remembered from Year One, offering mountain vistas, scenic backroads, and historical locations at every turn. We took several drives through the countryside exploring various sites along the Lincoln Highway, Route 220, and Interstate 76.
We left Bedford on a northeast heading, bearing towards Upstate New York. This area was another fond memory from Year One when we moved the rig from Tunkhannock, PA to Wheatfield, NY. We knew then that we wanted to return one day and explore more of the Empire State.
Our target location was Lake George, NY and the surrounding Adirondacks. The drive from Bedford to Lake George was a long one, about 450 miles. We parked the rig at the Whippoorwill Motel and Campground along the back row of the property.
Steps away from our spot was an amazing historical trail winding through the forest. Along this path stands informative signage about various events that occurred along this stretch of trail during the colonial period. This was once a military road traveled by thousands, connecting Fort Edward on the Hudson River to the very remote Fort William Henry.
Native Americans, French, and British Troops clashed many times along this trail. I walked it dozens of times during our stay, soaking in the wilderness setting and imagining what it must have been like for young native scouts and soldiers traveling through the dangerous woodlands of that time.
We explored all over the Lake George area, visiting the historical downtown area, the lakefront around Shepard Park, Fort William Henry, and the Battlefield State Park. Experiencing these places and the history surrounding them really set the mood for me as I watched one of my all-time favorite movies about this very time and place … The Last of the Mohicans
We continued our explorations further north, visiting Lake Placid and the High Peaks Wilderness. Home to the 1980 Winter Olympics, Lake Placid still bears the marks left behind by the international event from over 40 years ago. Cheri and I enjoyed the trip down memory lane as we toured the many venues that hosted the games.
We were both 12-year-old kids in 1980 and have vivid memories of some amazing athletes and events, such as the USA Hockey “Miracle on Ice”, Eric Heiden and his epic speed skating performance, and Linda Fratianne taking home the silver medal in Women’s Figure Skating.
We took multiple road trips around the region, enjoying the scenic Adirondack countryside. One of our favorites was a long day trip around Lake Champlain. We followed I-87 to the Canadian border, crossed over into Vermont at Rouses Point, then headed back south on US Highway 2 until connecting with I-89. At Burlington, Vermont we followed US-7 back into New York.
Memorial Day arrived and summer was coming fast. We packed-up for the next leg of our Year 5 RV Life adventure, closing the books on another Spring season on the road. From Florida to Canada, the experience was fantastic!
My beloved spoke, and said to me, “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!
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