2012 Big Truck Across the Northeast, Day 1

Welcome back, this is the 2012 installment of what is becoming an annual family truckster trip across the US (this year, with bonus Canadian footage!).  Last year we made it to the Pacific and the US/Mexico border, so this year we decided to wander up across the Northeastern US with an ultimate destination of Acadia National Park in mind.

Just like last year, the principals are unchanged - save for one more year of wisdom, good looks, and Disney princess movies.  You may recognize a couple of returning characters, Walter and Giraffe.  They also made the trip, and you can see the excitement written on Jordan's face.

One other addition to this year's trip - our secondary mode of transportation.  Instead of having a different destination every night for 2 weeks, this year we've decided to have 5-6 home bases for multiple days, and day trip from there with the Jeep.  Since this is the first time we've flat towed anything, it has been an interesting experience.  With so much riding on dragging our daily driver across the US after putting 4 months' worth of work into the Jeep, I turned to the one person you could trust the most - a random stranger with a Craigslist posting.  We purchased the towbar and braking system used, and then pieced together the rest of the setup with some good old fashioned internet forum advice.  Here's the full setup just prior to leaving Tuesday morning.

Today's trip was intended to be fairly uneventful.  Get across Michigan, through Canada (plenty of Canadian jokes coming, it lived up to everything I had remembered and then some), get a quick taste of Niagara Falls (total cluster, more on that later), then hunker down for the night somewhere in upstate NY.

Part 1 - we made it to Canada pretty much unscathed, just a few unnerving clunks here and there over big bumps, but all in all the tow rig setup is flawless.  We have the rear camera display in the mirror wired with a full time view of the towbar in case things get out of hand, but no issues.  Watching 5,000lbs worth of Jeep back there brings with it a bit of pucker factor, especially when some wayward Canadians' thoughts start drifting toward a 50% off sale on stonewashed denim at the local Canadian Tire.

Here is pretty much what we saw for 3 hours in Canada.

Since most of the roads in Ontario are 2 lanes with a speed limit of 20 dodecahedrons, all of the traffic is forced onto the 401, or the 402, or the 403.  The only thing to distract you from the truck traffic is the fascinating local radio scene.  If you are not famaliar, the Canadian government has taken a particular interest in promoting and preserving its own pop culture, hence the Canadian Content Requirement.

If you don't want to read through it, the gist of it is this - the music is so bad, without the government mandating stations to play at least 35% of Canadian material, most of it would not see the light of day.  Although there is a certain talent in making new releases sound as though they were recorded in 1987 with a backup singer on lead vocals. While looking like this...



The DJ was also imploring us to 'throw an ear' at upcoming Canadian band Snotch, which he assured the listeners would rock the house.  The audience inside our motorhome differed with his assertion.

We also passed a sign advertising the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame, which I have to assume is just the house Tim Raines lived in when he played for the Expos.



After driving through Hamilton (beautiful view of Lake Ontario) and St. Catharines, we worked our way to the Canadian side of Niagara.  Hijinks ensued.  We got an incredible view of Horseshoe Falls, the rapids, and about 1 billion foreign tourists while we were looking for a place to park.  About 2 miles past the falls, we finally found a place advertising public parking.  After pulling in, we were informed by a very polite 10 year old kid that "You can't park that thing here."  He then told us about a place "2 driveways down" that specialized in RV parking with a free shuttle to the falls.  We should have know something was up when they made us give a name & license plate # for the privilege of turning around in their lot.  I hope they were pleased with the visit of Admiral Akbar.

2 driveways down turned into 2 miles away, and the gates looked like Walleyworld.  No one there, all lanes closed.  No parking, no shuttle.  45 minutes into the Niagara experience, we decided to get back to America.  Crossing the bridge took 25 minutes, but it goes fast when you're looking at this.

We wandered for a bit, but the whole American side was under construction, with a pedestrian re-route that looked like an intern came up with it after a full night out at the bar.  We stayed just long enough for Jordan and Kimberly to get their first up close look at the falls, and for this picture.  Pay no attention to the amorous viewfinder trying to get in on the action.



All told it was a pretty good first day. We ended up outside of Batavia, NY at an RV campground called Southwoods.  Jordan took us on a moonlight recon mission to the playground for a preview of tomorrow morning's activity, and she was tough to drag out of there.  From there it's off to the Boston area for a couple of days, so looking forward to a big day 2.