Well, at least they didn’t tow the van

Date October 6, 2022

This has about a a bunch of pictures and way more words than I should be allowed, just keep on scrolling until you find The End.

By the way Massachusetts has Many roads that are embarrassingly rough!!!!

After spending the night in a cough cough “resort” campground, we headed off for the first stop of the DAY.

Of course getting out of the campground was a job in its self, the road had these large pot holes and the potholes had potholes. At one time it could have been called a resort, but now I wouldn’t even call it a decent campground. We were at the bottom of a hill and need to navigate our way to the top where the office and laundry are. We had planned to wash clothes before we left, but couldn’t find the laundry area, and with the way everything was ran down that was probably a good thing.

Not only was the basic price more than we expected Massachusetts tacks on some hefty extra charges.

So the first stop was in a downtown area with paid street parking but we noticed a very small lot that said for busses and Rv’s only, all others will be towed.

The lot was empty except for 1 car that had a sign on the roof that said school bus. That must be a thing up here as we spotted several like that.

Anyway, after touring the buildings, and walking around the van was still there when we got back. Because a couple of other National Park Parking lots nearby were blocked off. I have since convinced myself they are blocked off because they are built over an old canal and it’s giving away.

What we toured was in Mary’s Passport book of course ( Lowell National Historic Park) , the main thing there was an impressively large building housing a functional museum where they made cloth material. They still have a bunch of machines set up and running. Talk about loud, even with earplugs in it was loud with all the machines running. And in it’s day all 6 floors of the building were packed full with machines running. I can’t imagine the noise.

Back when it was build all the machines were powered by a central shaft in the ceiling with leather drive belts.

I’m pretty sure that leather to make drive belts is the reason for buffalo hunters killing buffalo for their hides, they were thicker than cow hide and lasted longer. That and it starved out the natives forcing them onto the reservation.

The next stop was for the Minute Men and the ( battle of 1775) This was several stops along what was once known as The Great Road. Besides several famous people living along the road, there was also a major battle between the British and the colonist fought along the road and surrounding area.

Then the REAL fun began. Hint it wasn’t fun at all. We typically have been avoiding the expressways up here, but I thought that closer to metropolitan areas and stop lights that tend to be in abundance that the expressway would be faster and easier. 4-6 lanes each way and our side was stop and go. It’s been a long time since I have driven in any kind of traffic like we were stuck in, of course the adoptive cruise control was a monumental help. It automatically speeds up and slows down all I need to do was keep it in the lane and touch the gas peddle, it stopped for more than a second or so.

We stayed another night at a Harvest Host, this one was a small farm (Grass Feed Beef). I was kind of tired from the drive with all the traffic. We arrived more than an hour later than we expected to and was more than a little surprised when we went to turn into the driveway, it was lined with vehicles, and there was an off duty police officer standing in the drive.  At first I thought something bad was going on, but he says they are parking cars behind the building………. DUH whats going on, anyway, this nice young man rounds up the host and she had saved us a nice level parking spot. Turns out she was hosting a grade school halloween party, we found out later that over 1000 people showed up. We had a good time walking around watching the kids.

The End