1. He was concerned that he would get charged international roaming charges on his cell phone and hot spot because we were so close to Canada, but he wasn't 100% sure this was the case.
2. He had to work at 9:15 the next morning and he needed phone and Internet.
Our conclusion: Move away from Canada early in the morning!
As we went to bed Monday night, we thought and thought about how to make this work. As we looked at his work schedule and a map, we figured something out!
We woke the kids up bright and early and had the camper all packed up and hooked up by 8:30 (remember my kids had a late night). We pulled out and headed to the office to pay our bill. We were at a campground that was ON Lake Ontario and there was a huge playground right by our campsite- we didn't get to enjoy ANY of it. We paid our $30 bill! ($26.50 base fee + $4.00 for Labor Day fee! We pay $18 at a state park back home!)
We headed into a local town called Lockport to hang out for the day. This town was 20 miles east of Niagara Falls, so we were far enough away from Canada to have any roaming charges. We needed to find a parking lot somewhere and get Matt's "office" set up before 9:15. We were looking for a park with a big parking lot, but soon found Wal.mart- perfect!! I needed groceries anyway! (Why didn't we just stay here the night before??)
Matt set the camper up and I went into the store to get him a chair and a few groceries. I had a problem though- this Walmart was not a Superwalmart, it had no groceries! I was kind of frustrated!
We headed back to the camper with a case of water and a chair and Matt worked until about 10:45.
At 11, we had decided that we would take a tour of the Lockport Cave and Lake Erie. This is one of the reasons we chose to come to Lockport.
We learned about the old Erie Canal that was built in the 1800's and then the newer one that is built right beside it. This is a picture of the old section of the Erie Canal in Lockport, the new one is built on the left side of the stairs in this picture.
We also went on a cave tour, this wasn't really a cave, but a big opening where water ran in from the Erie Canal and it helped to power the factories that were located beside the canal.
This tour last 90 minutes and when we were done there, we noticed that there was a boat coming through a lock in the canal, so we stopped to watch. Do you see the locks closed behind the ship? The water is being raised to make it equal with the water in the next section. When this was filled with water, they would open the locks in front of the ship and let the boat out. It was very fascinating to watch!
We arrived back at the camper around 1:30, had lunch, and Matt was back to work by 2.
While Matt worked, we had some quiet time until about 4 and then I headed over to a grocery store that was close to get groceries. This store was called TOPS and I am very thankful that walmart is not as expensive as this place, I literally paid double what I usually pay for everything! I only got minimal items and thankfully the cashier gave me the "member" discount when I checked out! I have never paid so much for groceries in my life!
When we got back to the camper, we made hot dogs for supper because we had decided to drive a couple hours that evening. We ate and by 6:30 we were on the road heading east!
Now I had a few state parks picked out along our route, but Matt had decided that it would be ok to just stop at Walmart for the night, so he found one along our route, he set his gps, and off we went! It was a 3 hour drive, so the kids watched a movie and things were going great!
Until Matt changed plans on me! He decided that we needed electricity for the night to keep powering everything, we had run the generator all afternoon while we were at walmart and now he couldn't get the generator to start. We needed power for the fridge and his laptop only had 2/3 battery power left. It was cool enough out that we didn't need the air conditioning, but everything else was a concern. He also wanted Internet. Again, he was worried that he would use his amount up on his hotspot, so he thought if we could find a campsite with Internet, he could use that the next day and save the Internet on his hotspot for later.
He said, "Why don't you find a private campground, like a KOA, where we can stay tonight?" We are already about an hour into the drive and he wanted me to get online in the camper to find a campground at 7:30 PM at night. It took me awhile to find one and map it out, but I did.
I found one that was coming up and only about a mile off the Interstate, it was about 9 pm when we pulled off the Interstate into this first campground. It looked very nice and kid friendly on their website, so we decided to give this one a try.
Plan A- Pull into this campground and stay the night. Most campgrounds have "late comers" instructions at the front gate. You read the instructions, you find a site, and pay in the morning.
Except this one did not have any instructions at the gate! Plus remember it is already dark out and this campground was dark! We drove around a little bit, looking for a spot, but eventually gave up because we had no idea what to do or where to park! There was a restaurant on site which we thought about going into, but we really didn't feel like we belonged there. A lot of the campers looked like they were there permanently- there were decks on them and flowers outside, it didn't look like a very welcoming place to drop in for the night.
Plan B- Get back on the Interstate and try again. About 30 mile down the road, there was a lake called Lake Oneida and there were quite a few private campgrounds in this area. This is where the state parks were that we were going to stay at in the first place. :)
We found a private campground called Treasure Isle and again it looked very kid-friendly and looked like it would work for us.. This one was 12 miles off the Interstate by this lake, so about 9 pm, we pulled off the interstate for a second time and headed to this campground.
Once we got there, we had the same problem. No instructions at the gate and no lights! The entrance was by a mobile home and you couldn't see the campers from the road. We followed the dirt path down to the campers and the same thing, it was so dark that you couldn't tell where the sites were and all the campers looked like they were there permanently. We did find a big open area where there were tables, fire pits and electrical hookups and thought it would work. Again, we would just pay in the morning. Matt pulled onto this area, which was a little muddy, and tried to think how we were supposed to park. Matt and I got out, used our flashlight to look around, and shook our heads. We had no idea how we were supposed to park plus it was muddy and we didn't want the camper to sink into the mud overnight.
Plan B failed.
Plan C- Go to Verona Beach State Park. This was about 5 miles away and was one of the original campgrounds I looked at the night before. This park would have electricity, but no Internet, and we know that state parks are cheaper and they are usually pretty easy to figure out, unlike these private ones!
We drove back to where we came from and about 10:15 pulled into this state park! The kids are still doing great through all this, remember, we had been on the road since about 6:30. We drove into the park and drove through a HUGE parking lot and then into the campground. We found some sites that would work and decided we would pull into one. This campground had many, many trees there, so we found one that didn't have so many because we were backing the camper up in the dark. Ok, I had a flashlight. As I got out of the truck to direct Matt, he said, "Can you find the electrical box?" ( I swear this campground had electric hookups!) and I took the flashlight and looked around and couldn't find it. We could hardly believe it!
I got back in the truck and we drove around the campground AGAIN looked for electrical hookups. We even stopped and asked another camper if they had hookups and he said they did. Everywhere we looked, we couldn't find electrical boxes! Unbelievable!
Plan C failed.
Do we have a Plan D??
We could 1. Park in the great big parking lot for a night and not use any electricity in our camper.
2. Go to Walmart.
By now it was 11 pm at night! We chose to park in the great big parking lot for the night! We didn't care anymore about electricity or internet, we needed to stop and be done with this great adventure!!!
At 11:07, Matt found a flat place in the parking lot and parked the truck! Finally! Maybe we should've just stopped at Walmart!!
Matt kept the truck hooked up, put the jacks down, and we got the kids in bed. They were asleep by 11:30.
We didn't know if you could even park in this parking lot, so the last thing Matt said to me before we went to bed was, "I really hope somebody doesn't knock on our door at 7 am telling us to move!"
And that was that!
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