Geneva to Findley

Friday at Cayuga State Park we opted to try bike riding instead of getting the canoe out. The primitive area of the campground is flat and very quiet so it was a great place to start bike riding after a very long time. On my 40th birthday I decided I wanted a bike,well not much ever happened with it until today, I probably rode it more on it today than in the past decade. Dave has a bike that was our son's before he got his first car, it seems a better way for him to exercise, doesn't put stress on his heel\bone spur. Three bike rides later the bikes are loaded back on the truck and ready for our next park.

While this was a pretty park I doubt we'd be back, with the proximity to the road and the electric problems we'd probably look at other options in the area. Since we've been here our EMS (electrical management system) has shut us down at least half of a dozen times. The road noise never ceases, I can only imagine what it's like in the summer, though in a pinch it would be okay for an overnight stay.

Saturday we head down the road about 250 miles to Geneva State Park on Lake Erie in Ohio, earlier this week it seemed the park was filling up, not a surprise with the great weather. I went ahead and made reservations since we would be coming in on a Saturday, I just took a look and it seems there are no sites to be had so glad I went ahead and made those reservations. 

Our goal Saturday was to get on the road between 8 & 9, at 8am we were leaving the dump station and on our way. A few stops along the way and we were entering Geneva OH around 12:30, in the midst of what we were later to find out was the Grape Festival. Downtown Geneva was closed and we along with many others were rerouted through town, small streets with lots of people paying no attention to anything and crossing the road where ever was convenient.  Eventually we made it through the madhouse and out to Geneva Lake State Park, I imagine the festival also contributed to the full campground.

After unhitching and finding gas for the truck we took a bike ride, we were still sore from our previous rides so new seats were in order. After two trips to Wal-Mart we both had new bike seats and enjoyed a final evening ride along the lake. What a beautiful campground this is, with lots of large sites, some larger than our seasonal site in VT, a few TV stations over the antenna which is nice but our Verizon service is very limited on the computer nothing but my smartphone has a bit of a signal that I can check emails and the weather but everything else takes way too long

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Sunday morning we watched the once completely full campground empty out, in our loop there were only half a dozen sites still occupied.

site 11, we did get asked how the Honda did pulling the trailer

 Our day was spent taking bike rides and sitting outside talking with people, on one of our rides by the lake we encountered the queen of Ohio with her court. They had been in town for the Grape Festival and were getting some photos at one of the beaches along Lake Erie Dave the photographer didn’t get any pictures. While sitting enjoying our afternoon liquid refreshments our entertainment was provided by a caravan of three vans, one being a Salvation Army van. After circling our loop three times they finally settled on two sites across from us, about a dozen men got out with two clearly being the leaders. Soon they were getting a lesson in putting up the two room cabin tent with a few more tents waiting nearby to be raised. By the time they started on the fourth tent most of them had gotten the hang of it and Dave was commenting it was a four beer job but I do believe Dave had a two beer head start.  While dinner was cooking one of the leaders stopped by and invited us to dinner with them, since our dinner was already cooking we declined but did visit with him for a few minutes. Seems they have brought a few men out to experience something they have never experienced before, camping. They do this a few times a year and come during the week so as not to bother too many people. They come for two nights and have campfires, do movies in the evening on the side of the one of the tents and during the day some “hiking” on the park trails. We stopped by to say hi after our dinner, one of the leaders is the owner of a catering company and when he started telling Dave what had been for dinner you could see Dave get intrigued. Marvin offered us some leftovers, they were supposed to have been eighteen more so they had lots of leftover food and didn’t want to waste it, well I went home and got some plates which were promptly loaded, a ham and rice entrée and a turkey stir-fry entrée with white rice.  Lunch for when we get to Mondays destination of Findley State Park.

our afternoon entertainment-watching all of this go up

bad picture-Great lunch

We took one last walk around the loop and met a nice couple, Barb and Dale, who came in on Monday and had seen us riding and walking by earlier. From discussions of Lebanese cooking, places we’d been over the years and our lifestyle choice we spent an en enjoyable half hour talking. Barb will retire in 18 months and was surprised to find we were fulltimers at our age, of course that led to the discussion of waiting till it’s too late and never enjoying retirement for one reason or another.  We gave her our card, if she checks us out and some of our blog friends she’ll see there are a lots of us young ones out there, for one reason or another we’ve all decided that it’s never too early to start living this lifestyle.

We are now at Findley State Park near Hungtington OH, it was an easy 115 miles around Cleveland and we were here and having lunch by 1pm. Just the kind of travel day we've come to like, not looking forward to the few long days we'll have-but they'll be worth it. Nice campground, not too many people here now but they are expecting a busy weekend, their fall festival is going on and most electric sites are reserved. There is 50amp service all are back in sites and looks like they have plans to add sewer to the sites as a waste facility is in the process of being built. We've already scavenged wood, enough for both nights and taken a ride around the campground, our internet works great and we have some TV all is right with the world.

Now it's time to catch up with the world :)

Until next time...