Living on the Edge!

I’m becoming a horrible blogger. Instead of writing I’ve been thinking “how do people keep up with these things?” Especially people who blog about every recipe with step by step pictures of how they are making things? Yawn! Anyway, on to the good stuff:

For the past week and a half, we have literally been skirting the edges of the US. First we spent several days coming around the Great Lakes, and they were amazing. I honestly wondered why we haven’t been living in Michigan, I love it there! But then again it is not winter. If I haven’t mentioned it before, we sort of take the trip as it comes. We have ideas of where we want to go, we start driving in that general direction, and then we figure out what to see and where to stay on the fly. So it was just happenstance that we ended up staying on four of the five Great Lakes four nights in a row. I’m pretty sure the kids got in every one of them! 

We even took them over to Mackinac Island. Mackinac used to be a National Park so that was exciting, and fudge is a huge thing there so we of course ate that (which was the highlight of Elizabeth’s week). It is probably the quaintest place I have ever seen. I think the fact that there are no cars, only bikes and horse drawn carriages, adds to the appeal. I tried really hard to convince Britt that we needed to buy a tandem bike that they were selling there… I just needed it, then he discussed how it would be haphazardly strapped to the roof of the RV and I had to deal with it if it fell off. I didn’t get the bike 🙁

Another big stop was Niagara Falls. We’ve seen the Superman 2 movie recently where Clark Kent does his magic to rescue the naughty kid who doesn’t obey the rules..,, therefore we had to see the site with our own eyes! It did not disappoint. Niagara gets a bit of a bad rap for being commercialized and not under the National Park umbrella, but we were super impressed! Picture Central Park but with giant waterfalls and you kind of get the gist of it. We did the Maid of the Mist boat tour and it was AMAZING! You boat right up to the base of the falls. They give you ponchos, but you get pretty soaked and we loved it! After we left we spent the next hour of our drive reading about all the dare devils of Niagara who have tried going over the falls (who would do that) and it was super entertaining. You should google it! 

After this we headed to the east coast. Next stop: Maine! Yes, we drove a house on wheels all the way to Maine! Acadia national park sits on Mount Desert Island on the far east side of Maine. The park has a unique history and lovely landscape. We ate lobster, biked carriage roads, watched the first sunrise of the day in the continental US, did a climb which was steep enough to require iron rungs and ladders, and had afternoon tea with popovers. Plus Elizabeth became a Jr. Ranger again so it was a giant success. 

Where to now? Well, now we start heading south down the coast and hit a few historical cities. Today we did Boston…. let me just say that RVs and big cities are not the best match, they are sort of a round hole square peg situation. However, we managed to do the Freedom Trail which was the goal and I think we are all going to bed more patriotic! 

Tomorrow we head to D.C. I think I feel slightly more prepared?? I was thinking we should do Philadelphia on the way, but Britt executed his driver veto powers and said that two cities is already too many. I know when to say when so the liberty bell just has to wait for some other time. Meanwhile, I’m sure someone is riding a horse through DC shouting “the Eastlands are coming”. (Get it, revolutionary war humor, I know, it’s pretty corny) 

And to wrap up this episode of life on the edge, we are just outside of Manhattan tonight sleeping at a truck stop where our RV is surrounded by about 100 semi trucks. If that’s not on the edge of crazy, I’m not sure what is.