Off to Waterloo NY

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With our new solar system installed and working, we need to move on again. The original plan was to leave Nappanee and head east to visit family in the Canton Ohio area before making our way to our seasonal site in western NY. This is about a 550 mile route so we would break it into several driving days and spend a few days visiting. Unfortunately I hadn’t checked with my sister in advance to know that they were not going to be around when we hoped to be there. Another option was to visit two other of my sisters that live in the Cincinnati area. It’s not like Cincy is even close to our original route but we can be adaptable. This detour will make the total distance jump up to almost 900 miles but should be worth it.

Our plan is to head to the Newport Kentucky Elks Lodge which is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati and very close to my relatives. We had stayed here once before back in the fall of 2021 so we knew what the facility was like. It’s about a 300 mile drive from Nappanee to Newport so we will need an intermediate stop. The Elks Lodge in Greenfield Indiana is close to the halfway point so we head there first. We had seen pictures of this lodge and part of the draw to this stop was to check it out. The building isn’t completely subterranean but it is surrounded by dirt so only the roof is visible from above. We arrived to find the parking lot rather crowded but after walking to the rear of the lot to check things out, it was clear there would be plenty of room for us. They do have a couple of normal household outlets on a pole in the back but we don’t need to plug in with our new system.

The door into the building looks like you’re walking into the hill. A stone retaining wall lines either side of the entrance but the one side has collapsed and is in need of repair. We head in to let them know we are going to spend the night. We sit down at the bar, have a beer and get to talking with the bartender and several of the members. Tonight is poker night and we are warned the crowds would only get larger. We saw someone with food and decided we might as well grab dinner and another beer. Once the card game started, they had half a dozen tables going with 6 to 8 people at each. We headed back to the rig after dinner and found the rear parking lot had filled up. Good thing we are spending the night since I don’t think we could have gotten out.

Entrance to Greenfield Indiana Elks Lodge

Underground Elks Lodge

The next morning, the lot was empty and we would have no issues leaving. We did need to find a dump station because it has been about a week and we know there isn’t a dump at the Newport Lodge.  We find a campground a few miles away and call to make sure we can come and use their dump station. The roads from the lodge to this campground were some of the narrowest ones I have driven. I made it there but it wasn’t fun. We didn’t have issues dumping the black and gray tanks but we had to ask around to find a source of potable water for our fresh water tank. We got back on the expressway and had a decent drive into the Cincinnati area and headed into Newport.

The lodge was open when we got there so we headed in to inform them we wanted to stay 5 nights. It was fish fry night and while that sounded good, we had already made plans to head over to one of my sisters for dinner. For the next few days, we spent a lot of time with family. I helped out with some jobs around my sister's house and we had lots of time to catch up. We did manage to fit in a few visits to one of our favorite places to eat in the area - Skyline Chili. It is a unique take on chili but worth a try if you have the chance. We also made it over to our second favorite place but this time for desert one evening. Graeters Ice Cream is “to die for”. We don’t get there all that frequently so when we get the chance, we always get the turtle sundae. Mmm mmm good!

One morning we did head over to the University of Cincinnati campus. I did my undergraduate studies in electrical engineering there back in the early 80’s. It was a rather dreary day but wasn’t really raining so we could walk around some of the campus. To say things have changed would be an understatement. As we came out of the parking garage, I looked around to get my bearings straight and nothing looked familiar. We needed to look at a map on our phones just to head the right direction. Every now and then, there would be some building that I recognized but it was often surrounded by others I had never seen before. We did make it over to the dormitory that I stayed in my first two years. I even texted my old roommate a picture and he responded with the room number! It sounded right but I never would have remembered it on my own.

My Old College Dormitory

Baseball Stadium

The old football stadium is still in the same place although it has been expanded and refurbished to be quite nice. I suppose the fact that the football team’s record when I was a student was 20 wins and 34 losses, compared to the team making it into the college football playoffs a couple of years ago might have something to do with the improvements to the stadium.

Nippert Stadium

We eventually made it over to the engineering buildings. Baldwin Hall was built in 1911 but it still looks quite nice. I remember many classes held in that building. We walked around to see if I could find my graduating class photo. Many of the departments have all the photos hanging on the walls in their section of the building. For some reason the electrical engineering department had none up. We did find a touch screen kiosk that allowed us to look back at past classes. But alas, my department only went back to 1990. Oh well.

Baldwin Hall - Engineering Building

We headed over to the student union building to check out the gift shop. I was in need of new shirts having worn out some of my other ones. We picked out a few items and feel like I contributed back to the university in a small way by spending too much money there. We continued to walk around campus some more before heading to the Skyline Chili that was nearest to campus. I remember standing in line outside on Friday nights waiting to get a table after attending a party on campus. Oh the good old days.

Old McMicken Hall

Campus Recreation Center - New Since I Went There

On the way back to the rig, we stopped in downtown Newport to find a few geocaches. I don’t recall ever exploring the town when I was attending college. I guess I didn’t have time for that type of activity. There are some interesting sights to see.

HUGE Bell in Newport

Newport Courthouse

We were glad we had made our detour to visit family in Cincinnati but we really needed to head on to western New York. The campground where our seasonal site will be this summer doesn’t assign a specific site, so we want to make sure we get there early enough in May to find a site we like. Our journey north takes us through Cincinnati and then Columbus Ohio. Our plan is to stop in Mansfield at the Elks Lodge. We didn’t have any information about campers staying there, but we had found something online stating the lodge did have electric and water.

We arrived before the lodge was open that afternoon so we headed into downtown to check out some sights. By the time we got back, they had just opened so we went in to let them know we were here and asked where we should park. One of the members told us we were fine where we were already parked. The electric hookup is available, but its location on the side of the building might make hooking up to it a challenge. We are still exploring the capabilities of our new solar and lithium battery system so we actually don’t want to hook up to power. We have been finding that on travel days, the alternator on the motorhome does a good job of charging the house batteries and it looks like we will likely always be at a full charge when we arrive at our next destination. There was a Skyline Chili just a few miles away and we realized that this would likely be the last chance we get to eat at one in person, so we go for one last dinner.

The next day as we were getting ready to pack up and move on, we noticed a construction crew was working on the road just at the exit from the parking lot. I went out to investigate if we were going to get stuck at the lodge, but fortunately they had provided room for vehicles to get out of the side road. We never would have been able to make a right hand turn onto the main road but luckily we needed to turn left to make our way over to US-30 to continue our journey. Our next destination was to be through the Akron and Cleveland area and on I-90 into Pennsylvania. From there we had two options, continue on I-90 heading towards Waterloo or take the split onto the Southern Tier Expressway. Either way could work but we weren’t finding one last good overnight stop along I-90 but on the southern route, we knew there was the Chautauqua Lake Rest Area. We had never stopped there but had read reviews of people spending the night. Plus they had built a beautiful visitor center there. The drive along the Southern Tier was quite nice. There was very little traffic and the surrounding area is rolling hills. The trees were just starting to leaf out and since the young leaves of many trees are colors other than green, the whole area looked more like an autumn day.

It was a 215 mile drive from Mansfield so we figured that stop would work out well. We pulled into the parking area and there was plenty of room for trucks and RVs. We picked out a spot with the intention of spending the night there. The visitor center building is amazing. Generally these things are simply utilitarian structures but this one was quite more than that. We went in to peruse the brochures for the various regions of New York. Even though we had lived in the area for over 30 years, we still picked up lots of literature to help us remember things we used to see and do as well as find new things. As we walked around the grounds overlooking the lake, we were struck by the beauty of the setting. Not many rest areas are this idyllic.

Beautiful Rest Area Building

Overlooking Chautauqua Lake

We did notice the fine print on the signs stating that overnight parking was not permitted! We went in to ask the attendant and were told that while that is the rule, we would probably be okay. I don’t like the word probably especially when it potentially leads to us getting a knock on our door at 2 AM telling us we need to leave! We weighed our options - stay and take the risk or continue on the expressway into Salamanca to the Seneca Allegany Resort and Casino. We knew for certain the casino allowed overnight RV parking. It was another 40 miles which would make the drive today be 255 miles but the brief rest we got here allowed us to make it to the casino.

In the far reaches of the huge parking lot at the casino is the oversized vehicle parking area. We were the only ones out this far. We picked a spot that was fairly close to level and got ready for the evening. As we were unhooking the Jeep, the shuttle bus came over to see if we needed a ride over to the casino. We told him we were fine and would prefer to walk to stretch our legs after the long day of driving. We aren’t casino people but we figured they expected us to head in so after dinner, we walked over, did one pass thru the casino and then walked back to the rig. It looked like a less fancy version of some of the casinos we saw in Vegas earlier this year. It was a rather quiet location since the expressway isn’t full of truck traffic.

Casino View from Rig

Nice Farm Across Expressway

The next morning we wake to have another nice day weather wise. By making yesterday a slightly longer drive, we have a manageable drive of about 160 miles to Waterloo New York. There are some shorter routes between here and there, but aren’t necessarily great for driving the motorhome. It was definitely nice to get back to an area that we were quite familiar with. Driving north on I-390 brought back a flood of memories. So many places we are familiar with and some changes too.

We had picked out a fuel stop for the rig just a few miles before our campground. We have been using our TSD fleet card for getting discount diesel for the past 3 years so we are very familiar with how it works and what savings we can typically expect. The stop in Geneva showed a discount that almost seemed like it was in error. The pump price was $4.959 per gallon but the discounted price was $3.298. That is $1.66 per gallon cheaper! Early on when I first got the card, I had one station where the discount was $1.02 per gallon, but over the past year or so, the average discount was closer to 40 cents. We pulled into the station, pumped over 84 gallons and a few minutes later, the app showed my transaction and the discount price was indeed correct. We saved over $125 on this one fill up!

TSD App Shows Price (left) & Transaction Details (right)

Seneca River RV Park is right along US-20 midway between Geneva and Waterloo. It is a very new campground - so new that the satellite view in Google shows it as a large field with no hint of construction. We arrive to a nearly empty place. There are fifty some sites but there were maybe only half dozen rigs there so there were plenty of spots to choose from. We picked one we thought would work and got setup for the season. More on our stay in Waterloo in upcoming posts.