An Erie experience

We are underway westbound in Lake Erie, bound for the harbor at Conneaut, Ohio. We motored out of Presque Isle Bay in Erie, Pennsylvania at mid-day. Seas are close to two feet on maybe four seconds, but they are behind us and we are having a good ride.

We made the Presque Isle entrance shortly after I posted here yesterday, and motored up the channel and past the downtown harbor area. We turned south past the convention center pier and dropped the hook just west of the new Marriott Courtyard hotel and a bit north of the water treatment plant (map).


Vector in Presque Isle Bay in front of the Erie waterfront.

That made for a short tender ride to the harbor, where we tied up at the free courtesy dock (limit two hours) to walk into town. A live band was playing at The Cove, a tiki bar attached to the spiffy Sheraton Hotel on the main city pier now known as Dobbins Landing. There was a huge turnout and they were playing our kind of music, but we had other plans for the evening.


This "pirate ship" tour, seen here from the pedestrian bridge, was coming around the corner just like this when we arrived in the tender, and we had to dodge him. It's the spitting image of the one in Baltimore that serenaded us nightly.

That involved walking a few blocks uphill into downtown, and eating at a sidewalk table at the well-rated Mexican joint on State Street, El Amigo. It was very good, and we enjoyed being right downtown, where a handful of other restaurants would make a stay of several days here enjoyable. We strolled the downtown a bit after dinner.

This morning I returned to Dobbins Landing stag to do some more walking. I stayed in the port area, strolling through the Sheraton, over the ~70' high enclosed pedestrian bridge to the convention center, and through the brand new Courtyard with its pleasant waterfront bar and restaurant before circling back around to the main port area. Several docks in the east basin were underwater, but the tiki bar at the east end appears open for business. I was hoping to spot the brig Niagara at the maritime museum but she was not there.


This is a Lake Erie "fish tug," a type of commercial fishing vessel unique to the lakes.

The pedestrian bridge afforded sweeping views over Presque Isle Bay and into downtown, so I did not feel the need to get another four stories or so taller by dropping five bucks at the Bicentennial Tower. Presumably I would have seen over Presque Isle and out into the lake from there, but I see plenty of the lake from right here in my pilothouse.


Easy to overlook, here in the height of summer, that winter here is harsh. This sculpture will be set out on the ice on Presque Isle Bay, and for a $5 ticket you can guess the date and time in Sping that it will break through the ice and sink to the bottom. Winner takes half the pot.

Long-time readers may remember that we stopped in Erie when we came through in Odyssey, staying at the Elks Lodge a bit further from town. That was a full decade ago, and back then there seemed little reason to venture downtown or to the waterfront. Since then there has been considerable urban renewal here. The waterfront in particular has undergone a significant transformation just in the last few years, and it's a pleasant space now for cocktails, dining, and entertainment.


Another fish tug. I think both of these are now tourist vessels.

Nothing particularly called us to stay in Erie beyond today, although I deliberately set a short target today so I could have the morning ashore. That said, it would have been a more interesting place to be pinned down for a few days than either Dunkirk or Barcelona, but that's just the luck of the draw with Lake Erie weather.


Sunset over the bay from our flybridge. Lots of folks gathered at the Courtyard for the same view.

Tonight's stop will be a simple overnight, and if the weather holds we will make an early start tomorrow. This will be another small-craft harbor, but there is at least an anchorage with adequate depth, and maybe even a bulkhead ashore we can tie to, if it's above water.

Cradle of Liberty

We had a nice two-day visit to Philadelphia, where we docked right at Penn's Landing Sunday mid-day.  We had such a good push up the river on the flood that we arrived well before our planned slack-tide arrival, so I overshot the marina to approach from down-current.  Once in the basin there was very little current and we had no trouble tying up.


PPL Park.

It was an interesting cruise upriver, with a few sights to see.  We passed PPL Park (the soccer venue) as well as Lincoln Financial Stadium, where the Eagles were playing as we went by, as evidenced by numerous banner-flying airplanes and the Met Life blimp circling overhead.  We also passed Harrah's Casino, attached to a horse track, where we once stayed in the bus.


Eagles Stadium.


Harrah's racetrack casino, in Chester.

We then passed the retired aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, the last non-nuclear US carrier built, now at the reserve base awaiting a worthy organization to make a museum of it.  Next up was the graceful but tired-looking SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever built.  It, too, awaits refurbishment.  Finally, on the Camden, NJ side, we have the battleship USS New Jersey, now a museum.


John F. Kennedy, looking a bit worn.


The majestic SS United States.


Battleship New Jersey.

We were in a museum of sorts ourselves, with Commodore Dewey's flagship from the Spanish-American War, the protected cruiser USS Olympia, immediately astern of us.  Behind it is the WWII-era submarine USS Becuna. Immediately ahead of us across the pier was the century-old tug boat Jupiter. Finally, the barque Moshulu, now a restaurant, adjacent to the Olympia across the basin from us.


The Olympia behind us.  Top of the Customs House is to the right.

Upon hearing we were en route to Philly, Louise's cousin and her husband made arrangements to come out from the Manayunk neighborhood for a visit.  They met us at Penn's Landing Sunday afternoon, and took us on a nice tour of the city and its neighborhoods before heading off to a nice dinner at an Italian place near their house.  It was a wonderful evening and it was great catching up.

Monday, Louise caught up on the laundry -- six loads' worth -- given that this is our first marina stay in over a month.  We have our own washer/dryer, but running it without access to a city water supply is problematic, as it will quickly empty our 500-gallon tank.  We did get a load done just before filling the tank in Greenport, and, in hindsight, we probably should have stayed and done some in Yonkers while we had access to a hose at the free dock there.  We'd have to run the genny, but that's cheap compared to marina power.

Meanwhile, I headed off to visit the aforementioned historic ships, the Olympia and Becuna, both very interesting and a bargain at just $10 with AAA discount. That included admission to the Independence Seaport Museum, but the museum itself was shop-worn and uninteresting.  I often do these sorts of walking museum tours stag, because they are very hard on Louise's feet, and she prefers to save her limited walking time for things more interesting to her.


View of Vector from the Olympia.  Tug Jupiter across the pier, and the battleship across the river.

Monday evening we walked to the City Tavern, where we enjoyed colonial-style draft beer and some colonial-era menu items served by wait staff in period attire. The food was quite good, thanks to an award-winning chef, and the National Park Service did an excellent job with the building, basically a ground-up re-creation of the original.

After dinner we hoofed it to the nearest grocery store to re-stock the now-empty larder.  Between two backpacks and our folding hand-truck we managed to get everything we needed back to the boat, though it was a long hike.

Yesterday we had a half day in town, as we did not want to shove off before high tide, around 2:30.  We walked around the historic district briefly, until Louise's poor feet could take no more, and returned to the boat in time to see Jupiter depart upriver for its winter berth.  Labor Day is really the last hurrah for Penn's Landing; while we were there they also took the pedal swan rental boats out of the water.

It was a very busy stop and I never found time to post to the blog -- these posts take me one to two hours, closer to the latter when there are photos involved. Neither did I have time yesterday after we left, as we ended up going further than planned.

The forecast for the upper Delaware yesterday was foreboding, with 25-knot wind gusts and 2-3 foot waves.  We figured to plough downriver a few miles and take shelter behind Tilicum Island or one of the very few coves.  Two feet turned out to be less than a half foot, though, and with a good current behind us, we decided to press on all the way to dinner time.  Ironically, that put us at the exact same spot where we had anchored on the way north (map), but at least we knew the holding was good and we had a 4G signal. I fired up the electric BBQ while we were still underway, taking advantage of an excess of alternator power, and grilled lamb chops for dinner after we dropped the hook.


Delaware Memorial Bridges at night.

At this writing, we are anchored on a "lunch hook" just outside the eastern entrance to the Chesapeake & Delaware (C&D) Canal (map).  We weighed anchor this morning before we even finished our first coffee, to take advantage of the last of the morning ebb.  I ended up pushing against the flood for the last 20 minutes of the run, but we had a good push for the first hour and a half.  The current in the C&D can be wicked, so we are waiting here until it starts in the westbound direction, which is considered the ebb on the canal.

There is one other boat here with us in the anchorage, a sailing catamaran.   I am hoping it will be just the two of us at the head of the line when the ebb starts, because we'd like to get a spot at the free dock in Chesapeake City.  The dock is only 200' long, room for just three or four boats.  Otherwise, we will likely be anchored in that same basin.

By this time tomorrow, we will be in the upper Chesapeake.  Our friends Martin and Steph aboard Blossom are working their way north and we hope to meet up before the week is over.  We'll cruise the Chesapeake for a few days, and then join them in Baltimore for the start of Trawler Fest.

Keystone stopover

We are at the Elks lodge in Erie, Pennsylvania, off US-20 just south of Presque Isle (map).

After our nice lunch yesterday in the poolside grill room at the Shoreby Club, we headed east on Ohio 2, which is a divided freeway that runs some 20 miles east of Cleveland, where it ends at US-20. This latter road brought us all the way here, and this afternoon will take us all the way to Buffalo.

The lodge here has four 20-amp circuits, and being the only rig last night, we used one for our main feed, to run the battery charger, water heater, etc,, and the other to run the air compressor, which otherwise tends to knock the inverter out of sync every time it starts. That let us finally put a full soak on the batteries after a couple weeks of boondocking; without the need for air conditioning, 20 amps is more than enough for us to run the whole coach indefinitely. We also needed water, which involved driving around to the back of the lodge on the lawn.

When we pulled in last night, the parking lot was filling fast -- someone had booked the lodge for a political fundraiser. While we were filling the water tank, I had to run over and set cones out on the grass next to the power outlets -- the paved lot had filled up and cars were starting to fill the lawn. By the time we finally got parked, we were surrounded, and could not have left if we wanted to. This morning, the place is empty and we will have no trouble backing out onto the pavement again.

Today we will head east along the lake on state route 5 until it rejoins US-20, which will take us all the way to Buffalo, where we will have to decide whether to continue east on 20, or head north towards the lake. We need to be in Webster, east of Rochester, by mid-day Friday.

Hey, we're a bus...

We are at the Harrah's Chester Casino and Racetrack, in Chester, Pennsylvania (map).

As is typical for this time of year in the northeast, overnight stopping options are limited. Most of the state park campgrounds are already closed for the season, as well as many private parks. What few private parks are open are generally full of long-term (read: permanent) tenants, which even further detracts, for us, from their already low desirability as overnight stops. And Wal-Marts and other businesses in this part of the country are often crammed in to crowded areas and/or forbid overnight parking.

With such limited options, we rely fairly heavily on Elks lodges, with the occasional Wal-Mart or other parking lot as available. I was surprised to find a casino here when I consulted my on-line Casino Camper directory (the casino is too new to appear in our printed Casino Camping book). The listing said that the casino allowed overnight parking and had an area available for it. It was at just the right distance from Glen Burnie for our end-of-day stop, and so we dialed it in to the GPS, and headed out.

We escaped Baltimore on I-95, which meant a $4 trip through the harbor tunnel. The clearance is 13'6", and we're 13' even, but our CB antenna is, apparently, just taller than that, so it dragged the ceiling through the entire tunnel. Whoops. Just past the beltway we ditched onto scenic US-1, which took us over the Conowingo Dam impounding the Susquehanna. The lanes on the dam are quite narrow, and we had to proceed slowly. US-322 brought us back into the I-95 corridor just southwest of Philly.

Now, the casino web site, as well as a billboard on I-95, suggested access to the casino was via exit 8, then down Stewart to US-291 and back the two miles to the property. Our GPS decided it knew a better way, and tried to bring us in from exit 6, which would have been much shorter and more direct. Unfortunately, the Amtrak electrified main line runs between I-95 and the waterfront, and all the connecting roads run under 12'-something bridges. We ended up having to backtrack back onto the freeway and follow the suggested route, which was fine. We did stumble across a Wal-Mart in the process, which became our backup option, but it looked quite crowded in the lot.

When we arrived here at the casino, there was no obvious place to park, so I called them. After describing our vehicle, they directed us to the tour bus parking area just south of the parking garage. It was a little strange, passing the "buses only" sign and pulling in to one of only four spaces here, designed for disgorging 50+ casino patrons. At least we sort of look like a bus, maybe for a high roller. This is also the area where numerous SEPTA transit buses stop, and the bus stop was busy all night, we presume mostly with casino employees. Nevertheless, it was quiet enough for a comfortable night's sleep. We did leave the diesel boiler running all night, uncharacteristic for us, as it dipped down into the low 20s.

We did have a nice dinner at the "Cove" steakhouse in the casino. We had a view of the river to watch the ships coming and going, and being loaded at a nearby pier. Our parking spot is also adjacent to the paddock area, and this morning the paddock is very busy, with a couple dozen horse trailers in the lot. I don't know if there is racing today, or just practice; we've seen nothing on the track, which is visible out our windows.

Today we'll blast through Philly on I-95 and cross the river before heading off to less traveled roads.

Slow day at the office...

Things are really winding down on the relief operation here. We've closed all the remote sites, and are now just waiting for things to wrap up here at HQ. I've sent my whole staff home, except for Louise (of course) and two others, pretty much the minimum number we will need to break down, pack up, and ship everything when the operation closes. Even so, we've gone through our entire backlog of report-writing, inventory reconciliation, and other side work, and we've shipped out every piece of equipment not in use (except for one spare VSAT -- can't afford to be without a backup for that). Things are slow enough now at HQ that the director gave everyone this morning off, and we started our day here at noon.

So here we are, the four of us, with precious little to do. Whenever a trouble ticket comes in, all four of us jump for it -- maybe one per hour. I've got the two most junior folks working on cross-training exercises, and I've already read today's news and checked the weather -- twice. Since I can't get personal email in here (the Red Cross firewall blocks all external email sites, such as gmail), I thought I'd use some of the slack time to blog.

In theory, tomorrow should be our day off. However, with only four of us here in total, we can't afford to have two out at a time. Depending on how much longer things will go on here, I will probably start rotating everyone on half-day schedules, leaving three of us on shift at any given moment.

After conversing with my Dad on his birthday, and looking at what tasks are on our plate in our life after the operation closes, we've decided to take Odyssey to U.S. Coach Repair in Berlin, NJ when we are done here. We need an oil change, and probably a coolant change, and the tranny topped off, and the air dryer serviced. We'll also have them look at the tire shimmy issue that I have previously written about here. Owner Luke Bonagura is a respected presence in the bus conversion community, and the shop has a pit -- essential for the air dryer work on our 47,000-pound coach. Berlin is only 150 miles from here, about a three hour drive.

Once we're there, my folks will come out to meet us, and we will spend a few days together. After that, things get much more fuzzy. One fly in the ointment is that we discovered, a day or two ago, that we now have a crack in the upstairs windshield. Actually, a pair of cracks, each perhaps 10-15cm in length, forming a sort of "W" at the upper right corner of the glass. Since each crack starts and ends at the edge of the glass, there is no real concern of them spreading, and the are small enough and out of the way enough to be almost unnoticeable. That being said, it may get worse, and, furthermore, the windshield is still leaking -- one fix for which would be to remove it and replace it correctly. (I suspect, by the way, that the cause of the cracking is stress on the glass, due to the same improper installation that I blame for the leaks.) Being as close as we are to Honey Brook, we are thinking about swinging by for a replacement, if they even have one.

In any case, we still intend to mosey down to NC for the FMCA rally next month, unless a hurricane interrupts us. We'll probably make a stop in DC along the way, to do all the usual tourist things (Smithsonian, tram tour, etc.) and perhaps visit Red Cross headquarters.

The Wilkes-Barre RTT crew. Clockwise from far left: Daniel, Gale, Sean, Ed, Rick, Louise, Vern, Dan, Sally.

A much-needed day off

We are still in Wilkes-Barre, PA, now parked in a large lot across the street from the hotel that serves as relief headquarters (map).

Tomorrow morning marks two full weeks since we left St. Louis, and we haven't had a break until today.  We also haven't emptied our tanks since then, so part of our day off will be spent driving to the nearby Petro truck stop to use their dump station.  Today is also laundry day -- something we haven't done since right before GA.

We are past the hump for this relief operation.  After a full day at the local chapter office, my team and I spent the entire next day -- all 17+ hours of it -- wiring up the new headquarters in a hotel ballroom, and getting the satellite terminal on-line on the roof.  The next few days involved the usual problems with logins, printers, and the like, as well as installing a handful of computers and radio base stations at remote sites.  Independence day came and went unnoticed, except for the acrid smoke of fireworks in the evening.  Now, things are stable and beginning to wind down; we're starting already to retrieve some of the remote equipment and slowly downsize headquarters.  I would expect to be here only another week or so.

Actually, my dad's birthday is the 14th, and my folks are only 170 miles, about 3.5 hours, from here.  If we can wrap up before then (very unlikely, but there is always a chance) it would be great to be there for it.  Unless there is another disaster, I expect we will head there in any case, or maybe meet them somewhere in the middle, when we are done here.

The public affairs department interviewed us aboard Odyssey for a newsletter article, and Louise got interviewed in front of the coach by a TV news crew back when we were still parked at the chapter.  So far, we haven't seen either piece.

No concrete plans for what's next, other than the visit to NJ.  We'll probably head towards NC for an FMCA rally there next month.  I will probably not get another chance to post here until the operation shuts down, unless we're here long enough for another day off (which would, theoretically, be next Monday).

Early morning view from our campsite in the parking lot near headquarters. The sun was blood red from a building fire across town, but this photo didn't capture the colors.

Our "office." Yes, it is a ballroom. Yes, we have CAT5 cable strung around the chandeliers. Yes, it smells like people have smoked in this room for 50 years. But the hotel owner has been very gracious and accomodating, providing coffee every morning and putting up with hundreds of volunteers wandering around the hotel.

Getting the run-around...

We are in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, parked at the local Red Cross chapter office (map), known as the Wyoming Valley Chapter.  I expect, however, that we will move sometime tomorrow to a new and, as yet, undetermined location nearby, which will be headquarters for the relief operation here.

Moving has become routine.  As you know, we were in Akron, Ohio just two days ago, on a different relief operation there.  We were there only two nights before we were re-deployed here to Pennsylvania.  We arrived yesterday afternoon in Harrisburg, where it looked like we would be setting up a relief headquarters there at the Harrisburg Mall.  We are the advance team here;  all our equipment was being held at FedEx in nearby Middletown.  We surveyed the space that was being looked at, and even had mall management take us up on the roof to scope out a location for our satellite dish.  It was the end of the day, and national headquarters (NHQ) had us hold off on retrieving the equipment because a second shipment was already en-route to the same FedEx holding facility.

We got to spend the night at the mall, with permission (they even let us tank up on water from one of their spigots).  We parked at the Bass Pro Shop end of the place (map), where we were able to find a quiet an relatively flat spot, and, since we knocked off early yesterday, we even had time after dinner to do a little mall browsing.  Bass Pro Shop is always an entertaining place to go;  the fish tank alone is worth the visit.

As it turns out, NHQ was also not certain that Harrisburg was the right place to locate the regional disaster operation headquarters -- Wilkes-Barre was also being looked at seriously.  This morning, as we were arranging for a truck to go retrieve our equipment, I got word that we would be setting up a headquarters in Scranton instead.  I dispatched the ECRV, which had been sent to Wilkes-Barre the previous day, to the Scranton location.  That location turned out to be both too small and also too expensive, and the plan changed back to Wilkes-Barre before we even left Harrisburg.  We finally arrived in Wilkes-Barre around 5pm today, with Louise driving the Budget truck full of equipment, and myself driving Odyssey.

Unfortunately, after widgeting around downtown Wilkes-Barre for several miles, dodging streets with low trees, we discovered that the chapter had moved, and we were at an old address.  A couple of quick phone calls led us to the right place, where we met up with our ECRV crew.

We spent most of the evening getting the ECRV on-line through our satellite network and setting up a wireless network here at the chapter.  This will let the other volunteers who are already here get working with some wireless IP phones and laptops while we help scope out larger accommodations outside the chapter offices, get the lease signed, and start setting up our network at that location using a fly-away satellite kit.  Once everything is good to go at the new location, we'll help move operations from the chapter office here.

In the meantime, another group of volunteers has been working on setting up some kind of service delivery site down in Harrisburg, at the location we scoped out yesterday.  I have to send someone down there tomorrow with some laptops to help them out -- too bad we did not get word of this earlier today, when both we and the equipment were still in the Harrisburg area.

One of the downsides of working disaster relief is that we end up whizzing through interesting areas without time to stop and enjoy them.  We had to pick our rental truck up today on Chocolate Blvd. in Hershey, PA -- where the factory is.  We passed it;  the whole town smells of chocolate.  Some day, perhaps we can return and take the tour.

It has been a long day, and we're wiped out.  Tomorrow is shaping up to be likewise -- I'm not sure when I will next get a chance to post.