Day Forty-Four...

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...was my brother’s birthday so I sent him a text wishing him a happy one from the east coast. I sent it early this morning which meant it was even earlier for him. I’m sure I was the first to wish him a happy birthday.

I was wide awake early this morning. The first thing I did was look out the window at the head of the bed to see if Kathy had left for work. She hadn’t. Whew! I want to make sure I hear her beep. About 30 minutes later I heard her car door shut. I popped my head up and watched as she pulled out of her parking spot and slowly drove past the front of our trailer.

Beep.

I waved good-bye even though she had no idea I was even awake.

Mike and I took our time getting up and ready for the day. As we were packing everything away, Lenny and Mary Jane stopped by to see us one last time, to bring us (me because Mike won’t eat it) fresh-baked zucchini bread and to check up on me. Last hugs and they left us to pack. We took one last trip to the grocery store, topped off the truck’s tank, hooked up the trailer, I found our first leg on the GPS and tapped GO.

A couple hours into our drive for the day Carol texted me. She wanted to know if we’d given the GPS a name yet. No, but it sounded like a good idea. We thought about it, but since we were on a long stretch of road and didn’t need any further direction, the GPS wasn’t saying much to help make the naming process any easier. Finally the female voice pipes up with the next step in our drive. Shortly after, I turned to Mike and announced I had a name for it. He looked at me and said, “Rosie.” “YES! That’s exactly what I was thinking!” She sounds just like Rosie from The Jetsons…minus the east coast accent. Carol loved it.

First stop is the old Kearney farm. The Kearneys are distant cousins on Mike’s dad’s side. The farm is in the Catskill Mountains of New York. He remembers as a kid on their trips back east stopping at the Kearney’s. It sat at the top of a hill and as kids, he and his cousins would ride a motorized go-kart down and up the hill, again and again. The barn was across the street from the house and they’d put a basketball hoop inside. Mike thinks the farm used to be a small dairy farm back in the day. We did not one, but two drive-bys. The first to make sure Mike had the right place and the second to stop and take pictures.

That done, Rosie pointed us in the direction of our campground. We were headed to Oneonta--pronounced Oh-nee-ON-tuh according to the people on the radio. It was a pretty drive through the Catskills. Lush green farmland, rolling hills, not what comes to mind when you envision “New York.”

We really put our trust in Rosie; she took us to the campground via a bunch of country roads. It rained off and on…when it was on, it was on full blast! The campground is another small one. The woman who runs it has a very distinctive voice that reminds me of someone…an actor…teenage boy, I think…not current…I can’t quite place him. It’ll come to me.

She was really good getting us parked. She had us in a back-in spot and, although we’re getting better at backing into camp sites, we’re still not very good with the 90-degree angles…especially if there’s not a lot of room for turning. The road was one lane and there was a pickup truck parked right up to the edge just where the nose of our truck needed to go in order to get the trailer backed into place. The owner saw we were having difficulty maneuvering so she took over directing Mike. Wow. She was amazing. At one point she had Mike and the truck perpendicular to the trailer and the nose of our truck mere inches from the bumper of the other truck. With a lot of back and forth, back and forth, turn this way, now turn that way she got us parked. She was gooood.

Again, the wifi was nonexistent. The owner explained to Mike while we were checking in that she had the wifi system for the park taken out because the company couldn’t guarantee the coverage. I understand that. So now, if you want to use the available wifi you have to go to the office. One more thing to add to the verification list when we make future reservations. In the meantime I guess I’ll continue to binge blog in Word.

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