Driving a motorhome requires you to be aware of highway situations you never thought of in a car; low overpasses being chief among them. I use an online mapping service through the RV club Good Sam that is similar to AAA, as well as a GPS designed for RVs. I can program my vehicle’s specs and they will warn me of “unfriendly” routes. This came in particularly handy when I was planning my drive from Connecticut to Long Island.

GoodSamClub.com map with caution symbols shows me roads I cannot take in my motorhome.

I discovered there were very few routes available for a rig my size. Many roads on Long Island were built in the first half of the twentieth century when vehicles were smaller and, therefore, the overpasses are low and some bridges don’t allow trucks, which also rules me out. I was able to take the Throgs Neck Bridge across the East River from the Bronx to the Long Island Expressway and headed east to my campground.

Battle Row Campground is a Nassau County-run facility in Old Bethpage. It’s well laid out for motorhomes with concrete pads, water, electric but no on-site sewer. Finding this place was more of a challenge than necessary, though.

Battle Row Campground in Old Bethpage, Long Island.

The address they have listed on their Web site does not bring you to them. I followed my GPS, which wanted me to turn onto a dead-end street. Luckily, I realized the problem before I completely committed to the turn and was able to make a sweeping turn back onto the road I had been on.

Now I had no idea how to find the campground and was looking for a place to pull over so I could call them when a police officer pulled up along side me and asked if I was looking for the campground (I guess this happens all the time) and proceeded to give me a police escort to the front gate. I felt pretty special!

My Nassau County Police escort to the campground.

Meeting up with friends around the country is one of my favorite things about traveling and Long Island was no exception. I have a friend who lives in the area and stopped by to see me at the campground and I also paid a surprise visit to my former company’s Long Island dealer, Hendrickson Fire Rescue Equipment, during their annual open house. I surprised their staff as well as those from my company who were attending.

I surprised my former boss, Deb Thomson, and her husband Barry.

Hendrickson’s marketing guy, David Walker, and I formed a great bond while I was Marketing Manager for PL Custom Emergency Vehicles. I wish I had a photo of his surprised reaction to seeing me…it was priceless!

Some of the fire equipment on display at the open house.

One of my photos hanging on the side of the building is probably 10 or 12 feet wide. I shot this photo a couple years ago for PL Custom’s calendar.

Naturally, I found time to visit Fire Island Lighthouse on the south shore. The last time I was here, it was covered with scaffolding for repairs and a fresh coat of paint so I was glad to get some calendar-worthy photos this time.

Fire Island Lighthouse.

At the end of the weekend, I was traveling to my old home turf in New Jersey, which required a return trip over the Throgs Neck and then the George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River. The access roads for the southern route that would take me over the Verrazano Bridge to Staten Island and then New Jersey are also inaccessible to RVs. The George Washington Bridge is a notorious traffic nightmare—even when politicians don’t close it for vindictive reasons—and is something I’ve managed to avoid my entire life; I always take alternate routes when driving a car.

Traffic on the George Washington Bridge (photo from NY Daily News).

I had a week-long visit with family and friends in New Jersey and I quickly discovered that’s not enough time. I did, however, get the hole in my motorhome fixed from my run-in with the water spigot. My friend and country line dance partner, Perry, patched the fiberglass and I would get it painted on another visit. I stayed at Turkey Swamp Park Campground again as I did in July, and he came there and did the repairs over the course of a few days.

My friend Perry doing fiberglass repair work at the campground.

On a later visit to New Jersey, I had the damaged area painted by my friend Rich. I replaced the broken marker light myself.

While in Canada during the summer, a support bracket for my dinette table broke so I had another friend, Rob, weld it back together for me. It’s wonderful having friends with a variety of skills who are able to help me out when needed. All these guys are former co-workers. In my ten years at PL Custom, I made a lot of great friends!

 
Before and after photos of my broken dinette bracket.

From here, I headed to upstate New York; the Finger Lakes Region, to be specific. I made a stop in the town of Vestal for a rescue truck photo shoot and spent the night at their Walmart.

Vestal, New York calendar photo shoot on my way to the Finger Lakes.

Then it was on to Middlesex, New York, near Canandaigua Lake for a month of relaxation, lighthouses, and wine! Not, necessarily, in that order.

My route from Connecticut to Long Island to New Jersey to Upstate New York.

Upcoming post:

A month in the Finger Lakes.

My name is Lindsay Reed and I’m a photographer and retired graphic artist with a passion for both lighthouses and road trips. I am living as a full-time solo RVer in my 31 foot Coachmen motorhome and plan to spend the next few years traveling the U.S. and Canada photographing not only lighthouses, but everything else there is to see in this wonderful land. I hope you enjoy my blog and will follow my adventures in the months and years ahead.