Focht Family Blog

On Saturday we made reservations to come back to Apple Island Resort on Tuesday and then left to drive to Virginia to pick up mom’s trailer. Nathan decide that as long as we were driving we should add a couple more stickers. We started out the journey going north into Quebec and then driving into Ontario again entering back into the USA in New York.

Now we can say that Tinkerbell and Dory are international travelers! :) They were so excited!!…

I tried getting some pictures of the road signs in Quebec since everything is in French without translations. While getting one of my pictures I accidentally got a picture of the one building with a translation (for strippers.) So I stuck with putting the picture up of the sign pointing to Montreal…

Here is a picture of the St. Lawrence River looking into Montreal…

This is a picture of the bridge crossing back into New York…

I was driving and Nathan said he could see through the bridge into the St. Lawrence River. He tried to take a picture. It didn’t end up showing the river through the bridge but it ended up being an interesting picture…

This was the only time that we have gone into Canada and back into the US without anyone searching the RV or even coming into the RV. Going into Canada they asked each of the passengers to come to the driver’s window so they could compare them to the passport photos but that was it. Saturday night was spent in New York and we were in Winchester, VA by Sunday afternoon.

Nathan and Blake were doing business until Thursday. Thursday we headed up to Burlington and found a really nice campground on the Lake Champlain islands called Apple Island Resort. It is a beautiful campground that has a nice pool and jacuzzi, paved roads, lots of activities (although we haven’t done any of them). Blake got a park model for the night in the campground and we rented a minivan so we could go out and enjoy the day on Friday before Blake left. Since we couldn’t check-in until later we stopped at Lake Champlain Chocolates to take a tour. Unfortunately we found out the tour was sitting in one room and decided the kids would not enjoy it so my mom and I did some shopping and then we went to lunch. While there I bought some dark chocolate salted caramels and wished I had bought more.

On Friday morning we started out at Cold Hollow Cider Mill for cider donuts. The kids decided to pose in a sign…

After the cider mill we went shopping for cheese and chocolate at a shopping center down the road that had a Cabot Creamery store and a Lake Champlain Chocolate store. At the chocolate store I bought all of the dark chocolate salted caramels they had! :) Mom was thrilled that they had a Cabot store because she loved the Vintage Choice and Wicked Sharp cheeses that she bought at the Cabot tour and she hasn’t been able to find them in any of the stores.

The next stop was Ben & Jerry’s to take the tour again. Nathan loved the sample that day because it was his favorite flavor… Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Next we went to lunch and headed back to the campground to use the pool.

Our first stop in Vermont was a campground called Kampersville that was supposed to be nice. We got in on Sunday. When I hooked up the box was full of spiders. Strike one. We couldn’t get satellite but they had cable… however it was only a few channels. Strike two. We walked across a busy street to get dinner at their cafe and the food was extremely greasy and the place was hot. Strike three. I thought we would stick it out because it was only a few days. However… Monday morning I took the kids to the playground which was right behind the sewage dumping area. Strike four. Then I decided to take them to the pool after lunch. The one pool had what looked like vomit next to it and no one seemed concerned at all. Five strikes was all I could take! Plus the staff was extremely rude every time I had to deal with them.

Thankfully my wonderful husband drove around after his business was done for the day and found us another campground that was right across from Lake Champlain about 20 miles away named 10 Acres Campground. It was a small campground that only had 30 amp but the owners were extremely nice, the pool was clean, we had satellite, and most important a view with a breeze! :)

The first picture I took was of the kids sitting in front of the RV enjoying the breeze looking at the fishing pond…

Here is a view of the lake from the front of the RV…

And here is a picture of the fishing pond in front of the RV…

Saturday we decided to spend the night at Cabela’s. We had to pick up Nathan’s business partner in New Jersey on Sunday so we had time and Nathan wanted to do a little shopping. I actually ended up buying a pair of Hatley pajamas (I love the brand) because they had some on clearance for half price. :) Here are some of the pictures I took of the animals on display…

This was the Cabela’s in Hamburg, PA. One of the places we stopped to get a new water pump for the RV said it was the largest in the nation.

After Hershey we decided to drive over to the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA for Saturday’s fun. As Nathan put it… it should be called a fun place or something because it is not a factory. The one portion that shows how they make things is an extremely quick and small demonstration that shows how they make crayons and markers. It was not true to what it said. Basically it is full of crayola products for you to use. We were given a sand art turtle to paint with watercolors. I actually enjoyed getting to paint.

Next up was an area that was set up like a street where the kids could draw and write on the ground with sidewalk chalk…

There was also a glass tunnel where the kids could write on the walls with markers…

Here are the kids trying to color on black paper with rainbow pens but all of the paper that was there had already been used…

There were also section where they cut out a seahorse and decorated it, finger painted, made a fish impression painting. You also got coins with your admission that you could use for a sample of clay, a 4 pack of crayons, or a marker. Here are the kids posing with the large crayon at the end of the day…

It was an interesting day but I think what I enjoyed the most was the little farmer’s market that was set up in the main square where we bought fresh bakery goods before heading out for the day. :)