From NJ to PA (9/8/2015)

I decided to get the laundry done first thing this morning, so I left Joe in bed and drove over to the laundry.  I finally got some photos of our $65/night camping facility -- the overflow or "dry" area -- this boatyard behind the campground.  Not too many amenities, and since today is a work day, I was awakened at 6:30 by the pounding of hammers on this construction site immediately behind us.

The laundry, which was ok, was right beside the tent area, where each tent has about an 8x10 rectangle on astroturf, with a brick sidewalk marking its territory.  No Taj Mahal tents in here!

This campground is the Liberty Harbor Marina and RV Park.  It is right on the harbor, and you can see the Statue of Liberty from the parking lot.  I also took a photo of our PATH train station as we were leaving this morning.

Round building is train station

By the time I got back with the laundry, and we decamped, then Joe dumped the tanks and filled up the water tank, it was 10:00.  I got directions from the campground on how to get to the freeway (which we could see from the campground, but it was still several turns away).  We made that ok, and across another bridge.  We drove past the New Jersey harbor -- very busy harbor, lots of bridge cranes to load/unload the ships, and a couple of huge ships that we think transport automobiles.  We also saw huge parking lots of brand new cars, waiting to either load onto ships or load onto trucks.

I had to take these pictures through the window, into the sun, so they are pretty hazy.

Once we cleared the city traffic and got a few miles under us, we decided to take a break, have an early lunch, maybe find a Verizon store and also a Walmart to pick up some groceries.  I picked a Walmart on the GPS that ended up being about 10 miles down a different highway, but all that worked.  We parked at Walmart,  unhooked the car and headed over to a Verizon store, which happened to be right next door to Chili's.  So we had a nice lunch, there was a Michael's there too so I shopped it real quick, then talked phones to Verizon, but didn't make a decision.  We fueled the car for $1.989 (should have topped off the RV too, we discovered once we hit Pennsylvania), worked our way back to Walmart, got our shopping done there, hooked the car back up, and were ready to go the 10 miles back to the I-78.  All that took 3 hours!!! 

We crossed the Pennsylvania line about 3:38.  I had picked out a state park south of Harrisburg that I thought might be our target for today, but it was getting late in the day, with at least 100 miles to go.  But Joe just kept plugging along, out here on the interstate with all the traffic.  I used to complain about the truck traffic on the interstate, that's one reason we try to stay off of them in the RV.  But now, after our NY episode, I like seeing the trucks.  If they can go under the overpasses, so can we!!!

We were on toll roads a couple of different times today, $8.25 the first time and $7.50 the second.  We usually set the GPS to avoid toll roads, but we did that in Maine and it took us on and off the interstate a few times just to get around the toll section, so we decided to bite the bullet in this part of the country and just pay the tolls (Joe still complains, though).

Anyhow, we got to the Harrisburg area just about rush-hour, of course.  We got off the freeway, cross the very pretty Susquehanna River, and found the state park office about 6:00 p.m.

But that wasn't where the campground was.  Fortunately, a park ranger stopped by and gave us directions -- drive another 2 miles down the road, turn, then another couple of miles, and there's the campground.  Brenda called from the "Phone Rock" at Big Lake just as I was trying to get all this figured out with the Park Ranger, so it all got a little confusing, but we eventually got to the campground, got set up, and were settled for the night.   That all took an hour, but we had picked up a rotisserie chicken and potato salad at Walmart, so we had dinner figured out in advance.  We drove 206 miles today, South and West, so we are making progress.  And we are going to take tomorrow off!!!