We picked this park strictly because it is the only one in the area of Racine, WI, where we have family.

The park has decent facilities, and a really nice water slide for the kids. But it is clear the typical customer is the weekender with the pop-up or tent.

The WiFi was disappointing. It cut in and out the whole time we were there.

And the visitors fees are rather draconian – $10 per person per day. At that price, we really couldn’t ask anyone to come visit us. We had to go to the relatives’ houses instead.

Two-and-a-half out of five marshmallows.

Jellystone Park Camp Resort
8425 Hwy 38
Caledonia, Wisconsin 53108
http://www.campjellystone.com/parks/131.html
262-835-2565

We give this park points for appearance and location. It’s well-kept and right off the main road through town.

But the WiFi isn’t park-wide. We couldn’t get a clear signal. It is a typical KOA installation – one antenna on the main building. If you want to use the WiFi here from your RV, be sure to get a spot close to the main building.

To end on a positive note, there is a great restaurant in Granger called Yesterday’s. Expensive, but worth it.

Three out of five marshmallows.

South Bend East KOA
50707 Princess Way
Granger, IN 46530
http://www.koa.com/where/in/14153/index.htm
574-277-1335

We were at the Aces High RV Park in East Lyme, CT. I tried to login into the WiFi system there and my browser hung up as it tried to log me into my account.

I finally figured out it was a problem with the version of SSL my browser was using.

SSL stands for Secure Socket Layer, and it is the process by which a web browser creates a secure connection between itself and a web site.

The current version of SSL is 3.0, but some sites still use SSL version 2.0. The problem is in the latest versions of FireFox (2.0) and Internet Explorer (7.0), SSL 2.0 is shut off by default.

So to get these browsers to work correctly, you have to turn SSL 2.0 on. Here is how:

Turning on SSL 2.0 in Firefox 2.0

Turning on SSL 2.0 in Internet Explorer 7.0

We woke up late (aaaahhh!) and Richard straightened up the RV (toys, toys everywhere!) while I worked. I had a ton of email to answer from our three-day weekend (I’m still working on it, in fact) and was trying to make a small dent in that stressful mess. I watched the boys while Richard went to the grocery store.

Doug and Raul arrived around 3:00 and we ate hor d’euvres (okay, chips and dip, veggies and crackers) and chatted, and then had yummy burgers and fruit salad for dinner. We then walked to the campground office and rented two boats for an hour. Max and I got the paddle boat (they call them pedal boats up here) while Doug and Raul got the row boat.

Richard stayed on shore with Mason, who smiled when we waved and called to him.

We raced and splashed and laughed and even saw a snake!

When we got out, my legs felt rubbery from all that pedaling. We stopped at the park, discussed if anyone has every really been able to make a swing on a swing set go all the way around, and went back to the RV. I had to change because my pants were wet from the boat. We sat inside and talked some more while Max and Mason played. When dusk arrived, Richard and Raul got the fire going and we moved outside to roast marshmallows and tell ghost stories.

We told one story round-robin style. Of course, playing this game with international best-selling horror author Doug Clegg means everyone else’s contributions are woefully inadequate…which made it even more funny. While the rest of us had Max rolling his eyes, Doug’s contributions had him literally quaking in his sneakers. Max was just fine and begged for more ghost stories later.

When Max actually asked if he could go to bed (parents don’t often hear that!), we all figured it was getting late. We bid a sad farewell to Doug and Raul and Max fell asleep almost instantly. Mason had already been asleep for over an hour. He was tuckered out after such a big day of fun!

Richard and I knew we could no longer put off the inevitable. We would have to get up early the next day and head back to Maine. Our month-long, Summer 2007 vacation was coming to an end. But, we miss the older kids terribly and can’t wait to see them! And, I bet they can’t wait to see what we bought for them!

The strawberry butter they came with them was delicious! I had a crab and asparagus omelette. I was enjoying the conversation too much to pay attention to what everyone else ate. The restaurant was pretty crowded and loud and Mason started to get fussy, so we finished up quickly.

We stopped at the hotel and Harry, Gerry, Mason, Max and I sat in the lobby while Richard and Scott took our luggage to Scott’s condo. We would return later to pick it up.

We then all walked to the American Museum of Natural History. Max was enthralled by the dinosaur bones and accompanying exhibits!

Even Mason, who was once again being cuddled by Scott, was pointing and babbling about all the cool things he was seeing for the first time.

If I had to admit one complaint about that museum, I’d have to mention that there isn’t enough written information with the exhibits. For example, I was looking at an Indian display and there was this really long thing that looked like identical bones attached with something (I don’t know what) and was about 4 feet long. I really wanted to know what it was and what it was used for. I read the plaque underneath the display and none of the items in the display were named or described. What’s the point of putting these objects on display if you’re not going to educate visitors about them? Anyway, that was my beef. And, it wasn’t just that display. The problem was noticeable throughout the museum. That place needs to hire some writers!

After a short stop at the bathroom for a diaper change (for Mason, not for the rest of us), it was time to make our way to Toys R Us in Times Square. Gerry had to leave so we gave her hugs before jumping in the cab…once again hailed by Scott, much to Max’s delight.

The toy store was incredible! It has a ferris wheel, is about four stories high…

…and has a huge, animatronic T-Rex…which terrified Max. We couldn’t leave the floor that housed the dinosaur fast enough! For Max’s mental health, we all quickly made our way downstairs, where the car and truck section was. We were looking for a city bus for Mason as he had become quite fond of them during our stay, pointing and trying to say “bus.” (He did say car for the first time this weekend!) Max had already picked out a Star Wars toy and we then let him also have a small car track. They didn’t have any city buses (Imagine that!) but Mason got very excited when he saw some VW Bug cars. He chose a maroon one and we then had to leave as the afternoon was slipping away from us and we had a train to catch.

We bid Harry a farewell outside of the toy store. We had to go to Scott’s apartment, where we had stored our luggage for the day. I finally got to see where Scott sits each day when he’s writing those English and foreign-language articles for those glossy, glamorous magazines that are published all over the world. I thumbed through a couple of the beautiful magazines that contained his clips and I was impressed! Max and Mason were instantly relaxed in Scott’s condo and were running around, laughing and playing. Mason, who always manages to find the “no no” in every room, got into trouble when he ran his new VW Bug over Scott’s keyboard. (He broke my laptop keyboard doing the same thing not long ago!)

We had a few minutes to rest so Scott showed us the rest of his building, which has marble floors, a weight room, and indoor pool, a children’s play room (when we left that room, Mason bawled), and an incredible top-floor view! It was very, very nice. We realized we had time to grab a quick bite, which was good because we didn’t want the boys to get hungry on the train later. While we walked to the cafe, we passed the shop where the bookstore in the movie “You’ve Got Mail” was located. That was pretty neat! It’s actually an antique store.

The cafe had the biggest menu I’ve ever seen! It even had an index!! Admittedly, we didn’t have time to read the whole thing and I ordered a guacamole burger. Scott had lasagna. We’d told Max the night before, while eating Dim Sum, that rice makes you grow “big and strong.” So, Max ordered…a large bowl of rice. I told him he needed the fruit salad, too, and he also scavenged my french fries later. Richard ordered a gyro. Mason made a huge mess with his crackers, which I later apologized to the restaurant owner for. He was very kind and said no problem.

We went back to Scott’s, gathered our suitcases, and started getting melancholy because we knew we were about to depart and that we wouldn’t see Scott again for another few months. We went downstairs and the doorman snapped our picture while the other doorman hailed our cab. We all hugged Scott, waved a misty-eyed goodbye as the cab pulled away from the curb, and then hung on for our lives for the ride to Penn Station.

We only had to wait for 45 minutes before our train was ready for boarding. We didn’t hear an announcement, but noticed people running toward one of the platforms. We figured that was it, and that it was going to be a full train! We squeezed in with the crowd and were actually one of the first people on the train.

So, we got to sit together. The conductor got on the speaker and said every seat would be full so we were lucky. A nice old lady (who I later found out was 70) sat in front of me and a teenager was sitting next to her. He was talking loudly on his phone and was using profanity. I was a bit offended but I couldn’t imagine how uptight that poor lady must have felt. After a few minutes, she leaned over to the teenager and loudly said, “Tell your friend there’s an old lady sitting next to you.”

The teen instantly realized what he’d been doing and, to his credit, instead of being a jerk, he apologized profusely, over and over again. He patted his arm and said it was okay. Later, when she switched seats to be closer to her daughter, he apologized once again. People do make mistakes and apologies work so much better than being defensive and rude. I hope Max learned something from eavesdropping on that exchange.

The train ride lasted a little over two hours. Mason slept most of the way and we were off the train, in the car, and then back at the campground before 11:00 p.m. We’d planned to head back to Maine the following morning, but Doug had hinted that we should stay one extra day so we could see them again. The nice thing about working for yourself and traveling by RV is that you do have that flexibility!

I wanted Dim sum, having had it many years before in NYC’s Chinatown. Scott set us up with the modern equivalent – Chinatown Brasserie.

We had two rounds of Dim sum and sampled a large portion of their menu. Great food.

Max had his own version of Dim sum, pieces of cut up steak.

Afterwards we took a stroll through SoHo. Fortuitously, Max had to go to the bathroom – forcing us to find a restaurant for dessert.

I’d been to Manhattan three times pre-9/11, and Angie had been here once before. But neither Max nor Mason had been. And none of us had ever done much sight-seeing.

On Saturday we took the Amtrak from New London, Connecticut down to Penn Station in Manhattan. We figured Max would be enthralled for the whole 2-1/2 hour train ride down, as he loves trains.

But after about 30 minutes into the trip he started the process, which seems to be genetically hardwired into all kids, of asking every 5 minutes when we were going to be there.

We arrived fine and hopped a cab up to our hotel – The Excelsior – which is right across from the American Museum of Natural History and our itinerary for Sunday.

But that was Sunday. Saturday afternoon was dedicated to penguins.

It is our understanding that while penguins live at the South Pole, the sophisticated penguins live in Central Park… Zoo, that is.

The walk from our hotel to the Central Park Zoo is probably considered short by Manhattan standards, but took a bit of a toll on us as we had the added burden of it being 90 degrees, humid, and carrying a 25 lb. baby, which we started passing around amongst the 3 adults. We had to make a couple of pit stops to cool off.

Turns out Mason loves not only pointing at NYC buses, but snow cones from street vendors as well. (He when through three – snow cones, that is. Not buses.)

Back to the penguins…both Max and Mason thought they were the coolest (pun intended).

We also saw a polar bear…

Monkeys…

And flying rats…

On the way back through Central Park, we caught a glimpse of the rare balloon-animal-making clown.

We chatted the day away and then walked down to the beach. Raul braved the waters with Max while the sane folks stayed dry.

Mason ate his share of sand and got just a wee bit wet when he learned what a “wave” is. Don’t worry. It just splashed him up to his waist. He really seemed to enjoy feeling the sand under his feet and was very happy there, just toddling around, pointing, and chattering to himself.

We went back to the house, showered the salt and sand off the boys and ordered pizza. We left late and exhausted, but very happy to have seen our dear friends again.

Speaking of Percy, I asked Ali about him this morning. He’s just fine and hasn’t had any more back pain. However, Ali says she spent the night at her friend’s house and, upon returning home the next morning, was almost bowled over by Percy, who was jumping on her and licking her in his excitement to see her. She’s lucky he didn’t pee on her. He does that sometimes when we get home after a trip. He gets so excited he loses control of himself a bit. Happens to the best of us sometimes…

Ali also reported that they are under a frost advisory tonight! Yes, you read that right. It’s not even September yet and it’s going to freeze in Bangor, Maine. Well, usually about this time of the year my pumpkins are just now getting going with flowering and fruiting. It should be a few more weeks yet before we have a freeze. I’m wondering if maybe this is a sign of how our winter is going to be this year? Well, that’s okay. After all this traveling, I think we’ll be ready to hunker down for a few months, escaping to our land in Western Maine a few times before the snows set in.

We just crossed the state line into Pennsylvania. It’s not raining right now, but the sky is very dark and ominous. We should be at the campground within an hour or so. Once we get there, we’ll take the car to the local market and stock up on some essentials. We’re almost out of paper plates and bottled water (we really don’t trust the water quality at some campgrounds). We’ll also scope out the town for a good restaurant for dinner. Probably around that time, the rain will have caught up with us once again. I typed too soon. While I was editing what I wrote above, Richard had to turn on the windshield wipers.

The town was small and we hadn’t seen anything that would tempt us to leave the RV for dinner out so Richard cooked chili dogs while I worked. He got plenty of work done, too. We cranked up the antenna at 4:00 p.m. so we could wait for the news. After a rousing episode of Little House on the Prairie (snicker), the news came on. The headline was the rain – flood watches and warnings everywhere. The worst flooding was in Wisconsin so we’re glad that state is behind us. The weatherman reported the rain would finally be letting up later that night. What a relief! Right after he said that, we heard more big raindrops on the roof. And, each time I woke up in the middle of the night, it was still raining.