The GW Bridge in a motor home

Our travels this spring took us from Jekyll Island, Georgia to Friendship, Maine, a distance of about 1500 miles. We stopped for fuel twice, once in South Carolina and again in southern New Jersey, and spent about $625 for diesel. We had about 1/3 tank to start, and ended up with about the same.

The only serious difficulty we had was entering the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey on Interstate 95. The signage was a bit confusing to me, and I'll explain.

Care must be taken when traveling around NY city in a large motorhome. There are a number of old "parkways" which are restricted for cars only. One reason for this is that they have many bridges which have low clearances that would impede our travel. Another is that they want to restrict commercial traffic to roads designed for heavy trucks.

The obvious route for us to take out of NY City would have been the Henry Hudson Parkway, but we could not travel on that. To avoid going way out of our way, we needed to connect to Interstate 87 immediately after crossing the George Washington Bridge. All of the signs in New Jersey stated that traffic bound for I87 needed to cross on the lower level. Other signs indicated that all trucks MUST cross on the upper level. There was no indication that trucks could access I87 via the upper level. Nor was there any indication that RVs must follow the truck routes, and in most cases, private vehicles like us are permitted where trucks are denied. With the information I had, my choice was to make sure I got on I87, so I chose the lower level.

When we pulled up the the toll booth, the very nice lady there told us that we were on the wrong level. She carefully explained that we would have to pull aside just beyond the toll booth and wait for an officer to escort us to the upper level. Oh, and pay your $32 toll here, and show them the receipt at the other toll booth.

We pulled aside and waited about 20 minutes for an officer to arrive. He told us to follow him, and we would go up a ramp that was marked "DO NOT ENTER". Which we did. That took us back onto the streets around the bridge, and we arrive at the upper level tool booths in a few minutes. A mildly confused warily eyed our receipt, and passed us through.

Getting on I87 after the bridge was no big deal, as long as we stayed in the right lane. Traffic was heavy but moving, and we got off without incident. An hour later we were parked iin a campsite north of the city, and the grand-kids arrive an hour after that.

A little knowledge is wonderful.In this case, the restriction that forced us to the lower level was because we were carrying propane, a hazardous material not permitted on the lower level. Signs that reflected that would have helped immeasurably.  

Jump into spring

Sunset on St. George Island
Oh, my, dear readers. I've been away for a long time. Sorry about that. We started this blog to document our travels, and we have not been traveling. Incentive dissolved.
In twenty five words or less, we left Maine in October, visited family and friends, did a little touring, went to Louisiana for RV repairs, schlepped over to Jekyll for the winter. OK, twenty six words.
The RV repairs had to do with our main slide, which wasn't working. We went to Dick Albritton's fine Alfa repair shop in LA for an upgrade to the motor, one better designed for the weight of the huge slide. So far, all that is working fine.

Foggy Jekyll Campground

We stopped in Roanoke, VA and Asheville, NC on the way down. We did a little touring in both places, going to the Blue Ridge trail and Biltmore Estate, and a nice downtown market in Roanoke.
We stopped at Summerdale, AL and St. George State Park in the Florida Panhandle on our way back east. Checked out the Gulf coast (post oil spill) in AL and wondeful deserted beaches in FL.
We arrived on Jekyll on Nov 28, just after Thanksgiving.
One of our goals was to share our knowledge here with those who were willing. Consuelo developed a beginner's and intermediate knitting classes. I put together a photography workshop and held 2 full 4 week sessions in January and February. We discovered that there was little structure to such activities, so we worked to develop some infrastructure. Part of that included creating a new blog for the winter group (jekyllwinter.blogspot.com), an online calendar, and developing policies that worked. There is now a working group designed to empower activities duing the winter season.

Alligator warming on the golf course

The photography was good this winter. Given that I'm just as inclined to put my feet up and watch TV as the next guy, instead of going out to find creative scenes to capture with my camera, but I got out enough. I continued to expand my skills both with the camera and with the software, in part by taking a class at the Jekyll Art Center. 90% of the class was reinforcement, 10% an expansion of my skills. I was disappointed that the class did not include creative feedback as promised. The culmination of all this was the Jekyll Arts Festival, a juried competition. This meant buying frames and mounting photos, always a challenge for me. Given their guidelines, I entered as an intermediate, and won two seconds, a third and an honorable mention. I've been informed that my time as an intermediate is over, I'll be in the advanced group next year. Harder, perhaps, but better.
To sell photos, I created 13" X 19" posters and sold a bunch, note cards, and I was requested to do portrait photo shoots. I also found a little work as a "Photoshop Expert" for a local photographer during the Christmas season.
We renewed old friendships and made new ones here during the winter. By February, I got out the golf clubs and did weekly rounds with the guys. Consuelo went to lunch with a bunch of other ladies a few times, and we had our share of dinners out.

Sunset over the fishing pier

Jekyll is partly under construction, as the old convention center has been demolished, and a new on under contruction. Huge tents have been placed in the historic district as a temporary convention facility. During November and December, 20th Century Fox tied up parts of the island making a movie. A huge chink of beach is still fenced in as restoration work continues where the movie set was located.
Now it's April, nearly all of our winter friends have gone home, replaced by snowbirds stopping on their way north and locals getting out of the Georgia winter for the first camp out of the season. We'll be here until 4/18, when we'll wing our way north.