America really is a BIG place!

We said at the beginning what a big place this is but until you start travelling it you really can have no idea.  It's not just the number of places or the mileage in between, it's everything that's there. As much as you see you are aware of what you are not seeing. Spend a day somewhere and you know that you should spend a week (or longer!) to do it justice. You tell people where you've been and they start telling you of all the other places you should go visit. We wondered if we'd be able to fill 4 1/2 months, now we are wondering if it's going to be enough!!

Take a little place like Ithaca in up state New York. A one night stop on the road to Niagara we thought and found a lovely little campsite just outside town. But then we picked up some tourist info and read about the Finger Lakes and the many waterfalls nearby with walking trails, lake beaches for swimming and boats to hire.



Talk to some regular visitors and you hear about the local historical sites, the thriving arts scene and the weekly farmers market. We could easily have stayed a week but just stayed an extra night knowing all the good things we were missing. You can't do that every place you visit or you'll get nowhere and that's kind of sad.


Then there are the people you meet.  The thing with people who go camping is that they look out for each other and there are many daily kindnesses from a loaned lamp, a cup of tea or even an invitation to dinner. , Passing pleasantries on an evening stroll can lead to an instant friendship that's hard to let go.  In Ithaca we met a wonderful couple from Philladelphia, Chris and Vince, who were on their way back from the Mariposa music festival in Canada. They were fascinated by our trip and wanted to know all about it. Vince was a bit of a wanderer in his younger days and had even driven from Germany to India including the legendary Khyber Pass. Now a photographer and martial arts enthusiast, Vince loved our Bruce Lee themed van and by the end of our visit Chrissy, a great cook by the way, was going to put a map on their dining room wall to start planning an adventure of their own. They told us about some of their favourite places and even gave us contact details for a restaurant in Savannah run by a friend of theirs.  You just know we're going to stop by when we pass through there in a couple of weeks.

 One day we hope to meet our new friends again and it will be like we've never been apart, we'll just have a lot more to talks about over that cup of tea.  Would we go pack to Ithaca, you betcha.  We haven't been to the farmers market yet and it would be great to see the falls in flood.

So sometimes it's the place that's hard to leave behind, sometimes it's the people. When it's both...well, you just have to remember that life is a journey not a destination.

Thanks Chrissy and Vince, we miss you guys.