Walking Tourism

Well Ralph did not make it back as planned.  I guess after being stuck here without relief for two months, some time away is a good thing!  For Lori and I it is not a big deal since the tasks are pretty easy and don’t eat up much time.   Because Ralph was supposed to be back I planned on a run/walk instead of the bike ride.  It was 75 degrees with 95% humidity in the morning so the run was brutal.  But the NOAA app on my phone was advertising a heat warning for the area- and they were right!  So after the morning exercise, some breakfast and a shower it was chore time.  Apparently the toilet paper shortage is over as Pete showed up with some much needed supplies!  Cleaning was fairly easy since I brought my own squeegee to do the mirrors and dry the shower walls.  Place is looking good!!!

Lori was off to the beach (again?). So I joined her for a bit.  While there was a nice breeze at the waterfront the constant bombardment of rays from the sun left me a little off so I decided to take in one of the local – and free – sights.  The campground has walk-in access to East Beach Rd.  As soon as you get to East Beach Rd. is the Westport Fishermen’s Association (WFA).  The WFA is a grassroots environmental organization that was founded in 1983.  The WFA advocates Westport River and local streams.  It also manages the historic Horseneck Point Lifesaving Station (HPLSS).  The station dates back to 1888 when it was the last of 69 coastal rescue stations built by the Humane Society of Massachusetts.  Of these 69 stations only four remain intact and open to the public.  The entire purpose of this station was to house a surf boat and rescue equipment necessary for volunteers to venture out (mostly in the worst weather) and rescue a ships passengers and crew.  In the age of sail ship groundings in this area – and I’m guessing many others – was common since charts were limited and navigation aides of the day were unreliable.  The HPLSS is small about the size of a one car garage but it is packed with interesting information about the station and those who manned it, along with details of some of the more notorious ship wrecks and groundings to occur in the area.  The WFA building is adjacent to the HPLSS and contains information about their organization.  It is manned by a docent and has souvenirs and such at reasonable prices.  They accept donations.  Since this is a camping blog – their summer hours are Wed., Sat., and Sun. 12 to 4 pm.  It is worth the short walk from the campground!  

Always Time for the Beach!

The host camper experience is working out well.  If I can survive Labor Day weekend here we may be on to something.  Today I again took the bike out to Gooseberry Island.  There are two World War  II watch towers that are intact on the island.  The towers are covered in graffiti but in reasonably good condition, surprising since there is no real care-taker for them.  The east tower has the access secured but I noticed stones and an iron structure set up as a breech to allow access through the window opening.  The west tower has access to the ground level and I found a homeless encampment.The park staff was aware of the mattress and supplies in the west tower so it was a pretty easy morning.

The cleaning task went easily today so we were again able to enjoy some time on the waterfront. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take anymore sun but I stayed covered and kept my boonie hat wet, plus there was a nice breeze today that gave a significant cooling effect.  After a little relaxation on the water it was another tour of the campground.  Today waste collection came emptied the three dumpsters in the campground.  However, as is usually the case at a campground, the dumpsters were full and there was additional trash on the sides of them.  Do you think the dumpster guy would take that?  Nope, apparently his job does not require him to leave his truck.  So off I went putting all the trash that was alongside the dumpsters into the them so they have a good head start towards full – stupid trash guy!!!

The plan is for Ralph to be back tomorrow so Lori and I will be off.  We look to be kayaking Westport Harbor.  I would also like to visit the Horseneck Point Life Saving Station but as we are slowly figuring out – there is so much to see and do and not enough time to do it all correctly.

Time for Community Service

My first day of work – technically it is community service – went well.  I started with a bicycle tour of the campground, shopping-sized trash bag on the handle bars. In addition to the campground I rode the path to the beach and also out to Gooseberry Island.   After the ride it was breakfast and a shower.

The place was actually in pretty good shape and I had less than half a plastic grocery bag of trash to dispose of.

Melinda stopped by to show Lori the ropes in the women’s side of the restrooms and then I got busy on the men’s side.  The work is pretty simple and everything gets done in under an hour.  That gave us plenty of time to head to the shoreline of the campground – this is too rocky to really be called a beach.  For some reason we need to bring all kinds of ‘stuff’ with us when we head to the beach.  Chairs, a backpack, Lori brings a large drink container of water.  Lori also brought her Fitbit fitness tracker to the beach and when she got to the water remembered she had it on and handed it to me.  I fastened it to the shoulder strap of her backpack.  In the ensuing logistical nightmare of returning to the camper her Fitbit was lost!

What a nightmare it is to replace a Fitbit. Lori’s was a Charge 2 and she liked it very much.  Well Fitbit is moving to the Charge 3 and taking pre-orders.  This means it will not ship for four to six weeks. Well I’ll cover a lot of geography in that time period and the Fitbit would be sitting at the Good Sams mail forwarding service until our schedule settled out.  Since it takes about ten days for the service to forward mail a little planning is required. As we get more experience on the road I’m sure getting mail will become easiers.  Since we are local to the children for the next few weeks I would prefer to use one of their addresses as the local shipping address. 

Well none of this really mattered because Fitbit has gone insane.  Originally you could buy Fitbits in Small, Large, and XL (Why isn’t it small/medium/large?).  Now they only sell the trackers with small or large bands.  If you need an XL band (wrists greater than 8” circumference) you have to order that also and then swap out the bands when you get them.  What a deal – buy a tracker and two bands so you can throw one band away!  So a quick Google search (Sorry Bing lovers) finds the cheapest at “HeartRateMonitors.com”. The link to their site gets me to a ‘sold out’ page – great!!!!  So its back button to the Google search results and the link to Overstock.com finds me the exact Fitbit we lost just slightly more expensive than the HeartRateMonitor.com site was asking! .

So now its time supper and a fire and maybe tomorrow will be better!

Transitioning to Massachusetts!

Well we successfully left Charlestown Breechway and made it Horseneck Beach campground to start our adventure as host campers.  We have stayed Horseneck Beach several times so the layout is familiar to us.  For those unfamiliar with host camping, you get a free site in exchange for some amount of labor – or community service if it is a state or federal facility.  Here at Horseneck the prime mission is restroom cleanliness with general maintenance secondary.

Once at Horseneck we were greeted by Pete, the park manager.  The state property consists of both the campground and a large state run beach.  Pete gave us our vehicle pass and a copy of the rules and told us Andrew, the campground manager would be out after we setup to show us ‘the lay of the land’.  There are three sites reserved for campground host at Horseneck. There are currently two other hosts here, Ralph and Melinda – each in one of the other host sites.  They have been busy since there is no one to clean when they are not here.  Ralph has been handling the mens side with Melinda handling the chores on the other side.  Ralph was happy to see us arrive since it would allow him to have a ‘day off’.

I was completely setup when Andrew came by the site – immediately noting that some of the wood I had brought in was not local – whole logs are always a dead giveaway. Andrew gave the tour of the facility pointing out things to look for and we setup with Ralph to go through the mechanics of getting things done.  I was shown where the ‘tools of the trade’ are stored and Ralph went over the routine with me.

Now that we got through the initial ‘indoctrination‘ it was time to get a few chores done.  When leaving Charlestown I noticed my propane regulator showing the on-service tank was empty.  So it was off to Westport Ace Hardware for a 30 pound propane refill.  Every time we get to Horseneck we have to stop at Oriental Pearl so I can get my fix of Fall River style chow mein.  This is what most of the country calls chop suey but it is served over a thin, short egg noodle that is deep fried.  A quick stop for gas and it was back to the campground.

Some not so subtle differences between Charlestown and Horseneck are that you are more spaced out at Horseneck.  Charlestown is literal a parking lot and you are stacked slideout-to-awning!  Charlestown has no utilities, not even a water spigot so once your fresh water tank is dry you have to have Jerry cans or jugs to tide you over.  To dump tanks at Charlestown you have to go about 12 miles to Burlingame State park, so even totes are not a solution.  Horseneck has water stations throughout the park and a dump station.

Well Ralph just dropped off the keys and let us now he is taking tomorrow and Tuesday off so it looks like I’m back to work!!!

First - a tribute to 2 WWII Aviators.

Since we towed to Rhode Island it was time to get gas.  My AAA app on the cell phone directed me to a Shell station on Rte 1 in Charlestown (the app said it was the cheapest).  Since I’m not smart enough to get the AAA app to give turn-by-turn directions it was another hand off to “Hey, Siri!” At $3.189 for mid grade it will be good to get out of New England!

Any self-respecting veteran from SECT (Southeast Connecticut) who ends up in SoCoRI (South County Rhode Island) need to stop by Ninegret Park.  This is the old Charlestown Navy Auxiliary Air Field (aka Charlietown).  It was used extensively during World war Two and during the jet age became the emergency airfield for Quonset Point Naval Air Station.  The reason for the visit is to pay homage to Navy Ensigns George Krauss and Merle Longnecker. 

Two young aviators who were training on the latest night fighting technology – Radio Detection and Ranging – or what is now commonly referred to as Radar.  I a mock Battle the two collided over what was once the Norwich State Hospital property.  Neither survived the crash and the debris fields from both planes remain a Connecticut Archeological Prreserve – ensuring the final resting places for these two young warriors remains undisturbed.

Next it was off to The Fantastic Umbrella Factory.  What an eclectic place.  Most of the facility seems stuck in the 1960’s. But it is a beautiful place to tour.  It has gardens and animals (Emus, goats, and a variety of chickens) and a number of small shops catered to impulse buying.  It is a nice place to browse or shop and definitely somewhere where you can kill a couple of hours doing the tourist thing! Just be sure to check out the bamboo forest 

and be careful of the Emu’s! One of the little buggers pecked my arm as I was leaning on its fence – no damage though – to either one of us.

Since my Navy flag was more than faded we made a stop at Charlestown Flag Company For a small shop it is well laid out with everything in a logical order.  I replaced my Navy flag and found a First Navy Jack to go with it.  Lori grabbed a wind sovk for the trailer and a kite…probably to entertain the grandkids with.

A quick stop at the Charlestown Post Office to mail some condolence and birthday cards and it was off to Stop & Shop for the weekly grocery shop. It was a little farther of a drive but the familiar layout of Stop and Shop more than makes up the time.

As I mentioned yesterday, my 5-pound propane bottle went empty so we stopped at Breachway Bait and Tackle.  Asked  to refill a 5 pound bottle and got the quizzical stare followed by “I don’t think I have an adapter to fill those with.”  Once I told him the connection was exactly as it is on a 20 pound bottle we were off and running – along with all the jokes about my 5 pounder being the awkward, weaker  cousin of the 20 pound bottle!  This is the place to do business with – the staff is lose and friendly and adaptive to the situation – since apparently 5 pound propane bottles are the rarity here.  By the way my bottle only took a little more than ½ gallon so I think the next place that fills it will have to give it a good venting!!

After all the errands it was time to…you guessed it…hit the beach again.  At least this time I made a new friend!

I’m hoping tomorrow is a quieter day because this retired life is wearing me out!!!!