In Washington DC we had a nice campground close to downtown and university, so we went there by bus and underground on the second day. The night before we had been on a commercial bus-tour to all the sights, actually rather boring. At least we knew now what we wanted to see again at daylight!
National Mall, White House, Capitol, all that stuff is kind of interesting, but it actually feels a bit like a patriotic Disney World to me, maybe because Washington is not an old town that has grown over time but was planned as the capital city around 1790 or so.
You can spend an afternoon there but that's more than enough. The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History maybe famous from the movies but stands no chance to Te Papa in Wellington, NZ.
In the end, we got back early to the camp ground and went for a bike ride around the university area. Washington claims to be the tree capital of the world or so and they may be right here.
From Washington we went on to Gettysburg, the region steeped in history of the American Civil War, battlefields all over the place, patriotism again seeping out of everything you see. The town itself is still smallish, of course touristy but we start to encounter a new problem: more and more the camp grounds are still closed for season, the weather is also deteriorating, getting cold sometimes, rain also, hmmmmm.
Anyway, we bypass New York as we have been in Manhattan for 3 nights last year and are not really keen to see more of it. Last year's visit was great but so far our second visit to places we had visited before never were able to compete with the first visit. The next stations of our trip are in West Connecticut and Massachusetts, in New England. Roads through the countryside, woods and beautiful houses and villages mark our way for the next couple of days, one day we saw an Amish horse cart parked at Wal-Mart, funny world. We like that a lot, only problem is to find a place for the night. We would love to stay somewhere for a week or so, but cold and sometimes rainy weather make it difficult. We are driving far more than planned at the moment and are about 3 weeks ahead of the lose schedule we had made up before our trip.
Soooo, well, the beach is always an option, there are more campgrounds also, back East to Cape Cod! Again our expectations are completely and utterly wrong. Cape Cod - being close to Martha's Vineyard , the island for the famous and rich - we expected to be covered in holiday resorts, high-risers, you name it.
We found a beautiful - although touristy - small town , however, named Provincetown at the end of a rather thinly settled peninsula. Nice campground there because rather empty - off-season !- and a couple of relaxing days. Claudia had an amazing encounter with a dragon-tail turtle during a bike ride around the dunes!
More of those after passing through Boston on a cold and windy day. We didn't see too much inviting when driving our RV through downtown, there are no RV parks close to the city, so we went on to Salisbury Beach where we are at the moment. Huge state reserve here, but luckily only a few campers.
We definitely need to slow down if we do not want to reach Canada in the snow :-). Last night the forecast for Montreal ( probably a week of travelling from here) was for round 4 degrees Celsius and snow with rain.
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