Travels With Our Prius (part 2), AND our iPhones

Upon arriving at my friend Carol's house in West Lafayette, Indiana, Doug went out to the car to bring in a few things. I stopped my conversation with Carol to call out, "Remember to be careful! Don't forget the hummingbird!" Carol had a puzzled expression on her face. I told her that our aging Prius had a new problem. When you pull up on the back hatch, part if it wants to come off in your hand, only being held on by the wires. I have put a sticker of a hummingbird to remind us to press the button and lift gently when we see the hummingbird, and then lift the hatch from the bottom. The sticker was to remind us to not do any more harm to our poor car.
When we left on our trip after retiring from our "jobs" on April 22nd, 2013, it was to be a two week trip. We packed for 2 or 3 weeks: for our pills, (since we're over 60), and for warm weather since we were just heading south, in California.
In order to take this trip, the first thing to do was to get a new air conditioner. It stopped working last winter, and it was an expensive job. We put it off till now, when it was really needed. It had come down to: take this trip by flying to a destination and then renting a car, or buying a NEW Prius, or fixing the air conditioner. In the interest of being frugal with our limited retirement income, the latter was chosen. Our Prius had transported us through several trips, some camping and some not. We voted to extend its life. It turns out that the air conditioner hadn't died of natural causes, but with an injury (probably from a rock), and it had a huge hole..... so it wasn't it's fault.
We had our sleeping bags cleaned at a drycleaner, and bought a new 39" wide futon that fit perfectly as our bed, tossed out expired camp supplies and refurbished them.
From the beginning, my husband Doug loved the new car because it had the potential of being a camper. The year before, the '03, which I had promoted to him, didn't have that feature. But, what do you know! The 2004 had a larger capacity, to have a 6' 5" sleeping area. Since Doug is 6'3", it works out. One  just has to get over the enclosed coffin-like feeling. (Only kidding.)
My joke about us, is that in the morning, our fellow campers, seeing us stick our legs out the side and slither out of our Prius "RV", think that the Prius is giving birth!

The first leg of our journey was to Morro Bay and the big Morro Rock, a place that Doug has been attracted to for the last few years. It seemed like a good start to our retirement trip. We camped near the shore of Morro Bay, and were entertained by a lovely great blue heron that posed for us in our campsite. Excited about a new journey, we planned our two week vacation to Palm Springs, Vegas and maybe the Grand Canyon. We took a tour of Hoover Dam, but couldn't go to the Grand Canyon via the north rim since it was closed, so we continued on to Zion National Park, where we camped for only $11.00 a night on the senior pass, for four nights. We saw the sights, but were invaded by sneaky caterpillars in our campsite. They showed up in the strangest places!
Then we went on to Monument and Arches Park

This time, instead of using paper maps as in the past, we relied on our iPhones for directions. We brought an atlas that we got for free from AAA for the bigger picture, but we've found that if we want to find the directions to our next destination, we just go to the map icon on our phone. All we have to do is, put in the desired destination.... say we'd like to know the route from our current address, and we see the little blue ball that is our car on one of three possible routes that we can choose from. We usually choose number one, and then press "start" and it gives us directions in green signs like you see on the freeway.

Another thing we check on the iPhone is the weather. We found an app on the iPhone called "My Radar", that makes Doug, our "navigator extraordinaire", a meteorologist..... even MORE extraordinary! He plans our trip according to altitude, length, and climate. Thus, instead of visiting the northern rim of the Grand Canyon, which we found was closed, he had the idea to extend our trip to visit his old friend from high school, Phil, who lives in Colorado. We found that Phil and Karen were home, so we did.

That's why our two week trip was extended. We had to navigate the altitude though. Doug started to feel altitude sickness part way up the mountains, and told me we should turn around because he thought he was "blacking out". Startled, I backtracked, while he looked some things up on Google, about altitude sickness. It was said that a person suffering from altitude sickness should drink plenty of water, not alcohol, and that for a man, Viagra would help with symptoms. Doug called his friend, a medical doctor to confirm this, who said that he had prescribed that pill to many people who were climbing in the Himalayas! It was true.
Doug had one pill left, and measured out each mountain peak's altitude at it's pass via iPhone. We cautiously went forward, avoiding any high pass, with much joking going on....  Finally arriving at our friend's home in Boulder, all intact, we both had a good sleep.
We stayed with our friends, visiting, cooking and eating together, and taking the time to do laundry. I got a pedicure, Doug got to golf with his friend, and we pampered the Prius by getting it new tires.
It seems it was time to leave, but it didn't seem like it was time to go home. Doug said "I wonder if your friend Carol from high school is home in Indiana?"  She was. .....and furthermore she and her husband were happy to have us stay with them even though we had been there only six months before.

Soon after we left Colorado, the back hatch of the Prius started having it's problems. The other remedy was a piece of blue duct tape, to hold the piece on to the car. This also reminded me of my husband's daughter speaking derogatorily about his remedy of the new wooden bumper he had put on a family car....  The crowning touch, is that Doug had an idea at our campground in New Jersey and ended up drilling a hole through the car part, screwing the part on, and deleting the use of tape. It actually works pretty well, and we don't have to buy a new, expensive part. It's not quite as bad as a wooden bumper.

So far the car has gotten us over 6000 miles. We've meandered around, from Indiana, to Flint, Michigan to see Doug's family home once more, camping in Canada, and then to Niagara Falls, ..... to New Hampshire, to eat lobsters with Doug's brother-in-law, Steve, to Brooklyn to visit my kids, Jennie and Lucas, (the car got it's first ticket in Brooklyn for parking)....  to Boston to see an old friend, to Maryland to stay with other relatives....  All along, we were led by the maps on our phone, and also the Yelp app, that told us where to find a restaurant, a pedicure, or an oil change.... the Hotels.com app that found us an hotel for when it was either too hot or raining,  Reservations America app that found us a campsite, while we paid all our bills on Bank of America's online site, We even found a Catholic church to go to every Sunday on Masstimes.org!

Each time we need to find an hotel, we find a reasonably priced one on the Hotels.com mobile site. We read all the reviews of the less expensive ones, and if they say "Horrible!" or " smelly" or "noisy and dirty", we go on to the next one. Not too picky generally, (I'm usually pleased if the maid has folded the washcloths into a fan, and made the end of the toilet paper into a point). We do have some standards. It turns out that if you make your reservations from the phone app, there are many discounts. Tonight we're staying in Middletown, R.I., near Newport for $69., including breakfast and internet! We will have to camp soon, though, to keep on budget!

 All the way while driving, we've used a little contraption that my daughter gave us that plugs into the "cigarette lighter". and plays iTunes or Pandora Radio from our phones on the car's speakers. Between Indiana and New Hampshire, we listened to Beatles and Creedence Clearwater, and between New York and Connecticut we figured out there was a comedy channel on Pandora. Amazing what you can get for free!

What a different world it is...  even since we first got our Prius in 2004!  We still sleep in it. That's the good thing! We still camp in our car.... and people are still surprised....but we love it, and it's still cozy. Today it got an oil change in Connecticut. Much deserved.

The thing is, we get around in it by satellite gps now. .... not so much by the maps. They always know where we are. We could be out in the boonies, and want to know where the nearest gas station is, and we can see on the map on our phone.... our little blue dot will travel on the route and guide us to that station! The only thing is.....our GPS system doesn't have an English woman's accent. Doug is our GPS, along with the phone. Every so often, though, he has to say "recalculating".

Smithville, New Jersey Revisited, more Travels With Our Prius

I can't believe it's been 37 years since I worked in an "olde" village called Smithville in New Jersey, just West of Atlantic City.
We're on the big retirement trip.... kind of a grand tour of the U.S. My husband Doug has visited old haunts, and we stayed with a high school friend of mine in Indiana. After we left New York, I suggested that we check out Smithville, where I have fond memories.
Excited to see that the place still existed on Google, I grew eager to see the place that I have told so many people about.
It was on a different "big trip" during the Bi-centennial year, 1976, with my former husband, Walt. He had secured a fancy waiter job at the Seaview Country Club, and I had been making patchwork denim vests and halters from old jeans and old flowery draperies. I went to Smithville, and was told I could set up my wares at a table on the entry road.
I had no sooner set up my display, and it rained! I grabbed everything, and ran into an old building that had been abandoned. I remember thinking that I wasn't doing very well at contributing a portion of our income. I prayed that something would come along. Suddenly I had the feeling that I shouldn't worry, and also I shouldn't speak. (Being alone, I didn't think that would be a challenge.)
At that moment, a man ran in from the downpour. He was surprised to see me there. I just said "Hi" and we commented about the storm briefly. Usually I'll talk to strangers more, but I felt I shouldn't speak. The man told me he was the manager of the old village down the road. It had houses that had been moved from different areas of South Jersey and there were craftspeople in each house.
Suddenly I found myself saying, "Do you have a quilter?"  Hearing myself say that, I almost jumped.
He looked at me, and said, "No, we don't... And you're a quilter, right? If you're interested, I think there's an old quilting frame in the attic at the potter's house. If you can find it, you can have a job, if you like."
So that was it. I was given a long cotton blue and white dress, and an Amish-style white hat, and informed about the house I would be in. It had been owned by Noah Newcomb, a basket weaver for the oyster trade. He made them out of cedar and oak hardwood. The quilting frame was up in the attic, like he thought, and already had a quilt on it, partially done. That was handy, since I had never quilted on a frame before, only doing something called "quilt as you go", square by square! I ran to the nearest library and got a book about it. Thank you God! I had a job!

So now, here I am in 2013, age 63, with grown children, and grandchildren coming to revisit a place I had loved in another lifetime.
When I looked at the Historic Village of Smithville's website once more, I was shocked to see that my old Smithville had been turned into 60 specialty shops, that there was a little train ride, a merry-go-round, several restaurants, a B&B, and even condos! I was appalled at the thought of this, but we decided to visit it anyway, to see if I could recognize anything.
First though, to make my trip down memory lane complete, we looked up Blueberry Hill Campground in Port Republic, NJ. That was where Walt and I had stayed with our van, a small trailer and our dog, Lillian (on the Romer big trip).
I guess the old saying that "you can't go back" is true. the woodsy forest of deciduous and pine trees is still there, but 1/2 filled with huge RV's and mobiles that have surely been here for awhile. There seems to be a competition as to who has the most decorations around their campsite. Flags, lights, gnomes, carved signs, lit up lighthouses and assorted colorful chairs and gazebos with Tiki bars abound. All the campsites look foreign to me, and I couldn't imagine which one I had stayed in so long ago for three whole months. Doug and I finally agreed on one near the restrooms with showers.
We sat for awhile in our camp chairs and then decided to find Smithville, so I could stop wondering about it.
Times have changed so much that we used our iPhone map to guide us, rather than a paper one. My memory wasn't recognizing any of the surroundings, since everything had changed.
Then we rounded a bend and I could see the familiar small lake just past an unfamiliar parking lot and shops. We parked and ventured over to where the water wheel had been. Only a rusty hub remained and the mill house was roped off with yellow security tape. Then I spotted the bridge that had led in to the village I knew. Before, black swans had glided majestically under that bridge, but they were gone and plumes of algae were forming instead. Still, I was full of anticipation as we walked toward some shops that had been installed in some of the old houses. I tried to recall the shape of Noah Newcomb's house, but then realized that all the houses had been moved into a different configuration. There used to be a huge village green, about as big as two football fields, but it was made much smaller and all the houses were squished closer together, in order to have the little train ride circle around the edge.
In the pottery shop, there was a woman, who was actually trimming a bowl on an electric wheel. (Back in the day it would have been a kick wheel). She was interested in my story of how things had been, but she hadn't been there long, and didn't know about the house she was in. I told her it would have been nice if a potter was in "my" house, since I do some pottery myself.
As we went out of her door, I noticed there was a little sign on her house that identified whose house it had been--just like in the past. There was hope!
When I looked at the sign on the very next house, I was pleased to see that it said "Noah Newcomb, 1820". I stood out in front to try to recognize it, but it had been stuck right in between two other houses, so that they all shared walls. Walking in, I told the sales person, that I was kind of a special case...that I used to work in this house, and I just wanted to get my bearings. My eyes went directly to a small door on the right. I said, if this is the right house, inside this closet is the underside of some stairs. I bumped my head on the stairs one time when I bent to get a broom. I opened it, and there they were, the stairs that had sent me to the emergency room 37 years ago to make sure I hadn't fractured my skull!!

Back in the day, I was hired as the village quilter, since that's what I told the manager I could do. Now that is a ridiculous idea, since most of the women would have been quilters, but he told me about that quilting frame in the potter's attic.

He led me over to meet the "village potter", a nice young woman with her brown hair pulled back with a ribbon. She wiped her hands on a towel and we ventured up a ladder to look for the frame. There it was, complete with a navy blue and white quilt half done, sewn on to it.
The next day, (after cramming about quilting at the library), I used the information I had gleaned to figure out how to set up the quilting frame in Noah Newcomb's house. We had to look authentic, as if it was the 1700's, so when I walked around the grounds with my little Amish-style white hat on, I carried a basket as a purse. I already had a leather thimble, but the pincushion that I had on my wrist was frowned upon since the plastic band on it hadn't been invented yet! I bought a leather bracelet and replaced the plastic. I learned to make nice, neat stitches, and noticed that experienced quilters walked in my door and bent right down to examine my stitches on the back of the quilt! The house was next door to a barn and corral, so if I left the windows open on a hot day, horse flies would fly in and pester me, landing on the quilt and leaving "fly specks".
The funny thing is, many folks who visited assumed that all of us "actors" in the houses actually lived in them, and here we were working a 9 to 5 job just like them! I'd try to act the part, some days more than others. I'd talk about my "brother" Noah, who was the basket maker (there were actually stacks of baskets outside my front door presumably for sale), and how "I don't know where he could have gone off to". Noah was known for going on drunken binges. It was fun pretending and to have people appreciate my little act.

But now, everything in the two rooms was foreign, and it was even being used as a jewelry shop. I recounted to the shopkeeper how a man who impersonated Mark Twain used to come in to visit me on a slow day. We would heat water for tea or Lipton Cup-A-Soup with a little plug in element that I had, and sit at a table and visit. Whenever a family came in, he'd revert to his Mark Twain persona. Also, I told her about the Towne Crier, who rode horseback on a dappled grey horse, would come to visit by letting his horse poke his head in the door and whinny.
Revolutionary war re-enactments were performed a few times out on the Village Green, and every time some entertainment was about to happen, the Town Crier, in his three cornered hat would call out, "Hear ye, Hear ye! Come to the Village Green at one o'clock, to see the troupe of actors perform a show!", or some such thing.
The girl in the house next door to mine, Marianne, made apple head dolls, and she came over to visit sometime and showed me how to peel and carve a head out of an apple and then watch it shrink, wrinkle and age over time and in the heat. She made beautiful, detailed clothes for her dolls and sold them for quite a lot. 
There was a guy dressed as a pirate, and he hung out down by the lake with a huge red plumed parrot, which he let me walk around with one time. Canadian geese were on the lake with the black swans, (whose honks sounded like bicycle horns). One day, the geese all left at once and never came back....time to go south.
I went to other houses, which had also been disappointingly made into stores, and we rode the little train, but no one remembered how it used to be. It was, I think, worth being remembered, so that's why I'm recording my memories of it.
Time goes on. They say that the Smithville of old, wasn't making money and was sold to a developer that has brought lots of jobs and money to the community. That's fine and good. I still wish I could go back in time.

Back at the campground, however..... We've decided we like it here. It's been refurbished, has a nice pool and spa, a new playground for the kids, and brand new washers and dryers in the laundry room that are super efficient. The café. now called Clark's Landing Café, is being given a new start with Joe, the excellent cook and owner. We're having dinner here tonight, and I even have my eye on a string of flamingo lights for our campsite.  I think we should "join 'em".