Today is our first day of local adventuring. We have 2 no-travel days scheduled along our route to Colorado. There’s so much to see along our way, but we really do want to get to Boulder!
In the morning we ventured down the road to go kayaking in an old limestone mine. The cool thing about this trip is that the kayaks are clear plastic and have lights on the bottom. There are also lights in places under the water. It’s very cool – and very cool – 50o in the mine with 38o water. We had a small group of about 6 kayaks and 2 guides. The limestone was mined for almost 100 years, until they hit an aquifer and the mine flooded. There was no way to pump the water out, so the mine was abandoned. Now there is a thriving business of Kayak and stand-up paddle board tours – we were told that tours will almost always sell out.
We had another leisurely morning before setting off from North Bend State Park to Natural Bridge State Park in Kentucky. We didn’t have any set stops along the way, but found a nice spot for lunch at the Grayson Walking Trail in Grayson, KY.
As we got closer to our destination, we stumbled upon Broke Leg Falls in Wellington, KY. It’s a little hidden spot, and I’m sure most people drive by without knowing it’s there. It’s a nice little gorge with a waterfall that you can walk under, and there is a trail going down along the gorge. Broke Leg Falls was in the path of a tornado that went through the area in 2012. The walkway structures have been rebuilt, but the damage to trees is still very evident.
We have fairly short drives most days on this trip, so no need to leave super early. Today we were on the road at 8:35am.
Yesterday and today we could see that spring is well under way as we drive through the countryside. The trees have the soft glow of greens and reds as the buds are beginning to emerge. And I have never seen so many redbud trees! As we drove along the Ohio River, the bright pink was popping out everywhere. I think it may be the tail end of the redbuds since there’s almost as much pink on the ground as on the trees. Our redbud at home was just beginning to pop when we left for our trip.
6:40am Driving off with the camper – we have 7 days of driving, 8 nights in campgrounds and 2,385 miles ahead of us!
A foggy morning start!
Our first stop was for breakfast in Binghamton, NY. Since we bring our kitchen along with us, we just need to find a pleasant spot to take a break. I use Atlas Obscura whenever possible to find unique places for our breaks. We have visited the largest ball of twine, the largest ketchup bottle, and the Grand Kugel on previous trips. Today it was the carousel that inspired Rod Serling to write the Twilight Zone episode “Walking Distance”. There is also a plaque in the gazebo that is dedicated to him. It turns out that this was very fitting, as some towns we will later drive through are definitely in the Twilight Zone.
We settled into our camping spot, which had the perfect view for the next day’s eclipse viewing. We met some fellow campers and invited them to join us for the big event.
View from our camping spot.All set up.
After finishing off our BLT’s, we brought out the cribbage board – a now routine evening activity when we travel. Tonight’s game was as close as you can get – we finished a hand with each of us one point away from a win, and Rachel got that point.
Isn’t it fun the way mother nature and good old New England weather can dash all of your plans? Well, that happened to us, but with a just fine outcome. My plan was to head to my dad’s in NH (where the Scamp has spent the winter) on Friday and spend the nice April weekend cleaning it out, flushing the antifreeze out of the lines and getting her all set for lots of upcoming camping. Nice April weekend, you say? Not the case. A big storm was heading straight to dad’s – 19” of snow forecast for Wednesday-Friday. OK, we’ll head up Wed. morning and pull the camper out to a spot that will be easy to clear and to make an easy get-away on Sunday.
We warmed up the Scamp with our little electric heater and went to bed with just a dusting of snow on the ground Wednesday night. We woke up to a very cold camper and the heater wouldn’t turn on – no power. At least 8” of heavy, wet snow had fallen overnight and trees and powerlines were down all over. I grew up with power outages from storms – we’ll be fine in a few hours. A few hours later, the house is now getting cold, and we’re all a lot older and less tolerant of these things. We were rescued by a friend who brought us a generator, so we had heat in the house. No lights or water (other than bottled water we brought for camping), but heat and a gas stove to cook on. Three wool blankets, a quilt, and down comforter kept us warm in the camper overnight.
We are eagerly planning for our trip to CO in April. There’s a pile of supplies slowly accumulating as Amazon deliveries come in, and lists are being made for packing, meals, activities along the way, and camper readiness projects.
I will admit to being a bit of a pyromaniac, so I’m really looking forward to some good campfires on our trip. I have a box packed with newspaper and cardboard ready to go. Generally, you are not allowed to bring firewood along for the ride. Due to invasive pests, you are only allowed to burn local wood, and we usually scour the campground for downed branches for our fires. Sometimes it’s hard to find good, dry wood, and those fires are hard to start and keep going.
My experiment for this trip is to see if homemade fire starters will help promote awesome campfires. John has been busy building kitchen cabinets, so we have a supply of sawdust in the “cabinet shop” (aka the downstairs bathroom awaiting renovation). Armed with some soy candle wax and our next empty egg carton, I got to work – more fun than work.
The wax came in flake form, and I used an empty jam jar to melt it in a pan of hot water. There’s a lot of air in those flakes, so a full jar melts down to about half full.
I cut the top off my cardboard egg carton and filled each cavity with sawdust and wood shavings. Then I poured the melted wax in to fill the carton. This took several meltings of wax, and I used the full one-pound bag for a dozen fire starters. In between pourings, I mashed the shavings down with a wooden skewer and added more to fill the cavities. Once hardened, the carton was easy to slice into 12 pucks.
Hopefully, these will burn long enough and hot enough to get my campfire blazing. I’ll post photos from our trip!
We have enjoyed a few nights in our scamp this winter when we visit my dad in NH. Even though we are welcome to stay in his house, it’s fun to sleep in the camper. One morning it was 11o outside, but we can keep the camper toasty warm with a little cube heater and a pile of blankets. A big upgrade this winter was an electric blanket. We turn it on after dinner and it warms the foam mattress topper so we can slip into a toasty bed.
We have 2 trips planned for April. The first one will be a short jaunt up to northern VT to view the total eclipse. This will be our “work out the kinks” trip before heading west to CO for 3 weeks. We will keep our fingers crossed that our winterizing was successful – flushing out the antifreeze from all of the lines and hoping for no leaks. We’ll do a thorough cleaning and airing out to freshen it up, and restock the kitchen.
When we purchased the camper, the only color choice we had was for the cushions – we chose blue. Everything else is white or beige with brown cabinet doors. This summer is my chance to brighten it up a bit and make it more cozy and homey.
First off – new curtains! I picked out some nice fabric and made them with a light fabric lining. The double layer should help with light filtering for sleep, and the light color (I hope) will help keeping cool in the summer sun (we opted out of adding an A/C unit, so everything we can do helps). I could have just sewn a tube along the top of each curtain, but I decided to add tabs instead to reduce bulk and make them slide easier. After sewing on 75 tabs, the curtains are ready to hang!
Another upgrade that was necessary for future trips is to change out our mattress. The bed consists of the dinette table dropped down and bench cushions spread out. Even with a foam topper, the factory cushions are too hard and sleeping more than 2 nights results in a very achy body. John reminded me that we would be on the road for 3 weeks, so we had to do something. We ordered a king sized foam mattress, bought an electric knife on marketplace, and went to work. It was much easier than I had expected – and fun. We removed the old cushion, traced around them on the new foam, and cut away. We leave the bed set up full time in our camper, and still have a small dinette that seats 2. We replaced those cushions, too, to make that a more comfortable spot to sit. The electric knife worked so well! The camper is still hours away in NH, so our eclipse trip will be the first test.
Another big upgrade in the works is new cabinet doors. John will make a prototype to try out, and since we only have a few days between trips, the rest will be a late spring/summer project. Until then, we wish for no snow on the ground to hook up the camper and clear skies for eclipse day. We’ll post photos!
It was a short stay in Basel, but we saw a lot! The Rhine River flows through the city and was a short walk from our hotel in Basel’s Old Town. On our first night we walked to the river to find dinner. It was a very busy place, with most of the restaurants doing a brisk business. We continued to wander until we found a small restaurant in a quiet spot, with tables overlooking the river. The food was delicious, and it was fun to watch the activity along the river. There were even a bunch of swimmers in the river!
Our hotel in Basel
The Old Town is very walkable, with plenty of places to shop, eat and explore. We took full advantage of the pastry shops for tea and sweet treats. I think my favorite was the schoggiweggli – a soft milk bun with chunks of chocolate, and a specialty of Basel. Now that I’m writing about them, I have to see if I can recreate them at home! And with the chilly weather setting in, outdoor chairs have sheepskins to keep you warm!
The town hall is the seat of seat of Basel government and parliament. It dominates the central square of the Old Town.
We picked two sites to visit on our last day. There were many to choose from, and one was a given for us – climbing the tower of the cathedral! First we stopped at the Basel Historical Museum. Located in a building that was originally a monastery in the 1200’s, it houses an impressive collection of artifacts from the area’s cultural and religious history.
Then on to the highlight of the day (yes, pun intended😁) – the Basel Minster. Construction of the original cathedral was begun in 1019. The building has changed over the centuries, most notably after the destruction from the Basel earthquake in 1356. Even being rebuilt after that, it’s still wicked old by our standards! The church is one of the most prominent structures in the city and you can’t miss seeing the towers. As soon as I found out that you can climb them, we were off!
This was the best tower tour, mainly because it wasn’t a tour. We bought our tickets and were shown the door to the stairs leading up. We got there just as it opened, so there were just a few others climbing with us. We would go up a bit, find a door to a balcony, walk along that to another door leading to more stairs, another balcony, another door with more stairs, another balcony – you get the idea. Eventually we were at the tippy top, just under the spire. Wow!! The view was amazing and the feeling of being so high was incredible. And there was so much to see in the architecture all around you. Someone told us there was a hidden cat and mouse at the top – we found them! Only after we came down did we realize that we could have made another turn and gone up the other tower as well. 242 steps was enough for one day, maybe we’ll go back someday and finish the tower tour.
Below the church, the crypts were on display. There was a great video presentation about the history of the church that was projected onto the foundation and remains of the crypt. It was very well done, and it was in English.
For many years we have known that the Rolls came from the small town of Kiffis, France. John’s parents made the trek to Kiffis close to 30 years ago, and by shear chance, met up with a bunch of the local Rolls during lunch at the local restaurant. They no longer lived in the town, but were there for a day of apple picking. That was the beginning of an international family connection, including several more visits by his parents to France.
Knowing that we would be in Basel, a mere half hour from Kiffis, John’s mother reached out to our french cousins and we made plans to meet for lunch. What a fun day! First, we had to get to Kiffis, so we rented a car and hit the road.
During the day, we lost count of the border crossings between Switzerland and France. There were at least 6, if not 8, as we wound through country roads. Only one road had an obvious (but unmanned) crossing — the others were just announced by the GPS with a “Welcome to France” or “Welcome to Switzerland”.
We had lots of time before lunch, so we stopped at the ruins of the Chateau du Landskron. We love visiting these ruins, and this one did not disappoint. Other than some groundskeepers, we were the only ones there.
Luckily, we had left our trusted steed at home…
And now to Kiffis. It’s a tiny town in a beautifully picturesque setting. We stopped at the war memorial and the church to find family names.
Around town
We were meeting for lunch at the Restaurant au Cheval Blanc. This is where John’s parents first met the Rolls. We were the first to arrive, as they were just opening for lunch, but it didn’t take long for almost all of the tables to fill up. Once the food arrived, it was easy to see why folks will travel here to dine. The food was delicious and the atmosphere is lovely. From the overflowing flower boxes and kitchen garden outside, to the beautifully appointed interior, and the delicious food, this place is a gem!
Lunch with Marie-Agnes and her brother, Jean, was so much fun! Between their English and John’s French, we had fun conversations. We also talked to the owner of the restaurant and found out that she was there on that first visit years ago. She is also related to the Roll family and pointed us to the house once owned by the family. Another Roll had visited the restaurant earlier this year – someone not known to us, but likely related. We’ll follow up and see if we can connect with that family. Almost 3 hours later we bade our newly found cousins good-bye. We are already talking about our next trip to Kiffis!
Rachel, Marie-Agnes, Agnes Walther (restaurant owner), John, and Jean
