The leaves are starting to turn, the nights are becoming cool, and schools are back in session. Summer is swiftly coming to a close and it's that time when when we start to get the travel itch again. This 34 day jaunt will cross a few things off our 2025 "Want To Do" list. One of those is the Hershey RV Show in Hershey, PA. Billed as the largest RV show in America, we visited here once before years ago, and were overwhelmed. This time, since we have "Been There, Done That" we are better prepared for what to expect and see. We have tickets for Wednesday the 11th and Thursday the 12th. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
It's Monday 9/8 and we made a one night stop at Country Hills Campground in Marathon, NY, a new campground for us. It's a quiet park located in, yep you guessed it, the country and the hills. The park is surrounded by beautiful rolling hills and farmland in the Southern Tier of NY. Almost all the sites at the park are seasonal with well decorated decks and patios. Many surround a large pond on the property. The few transient sites are long pull throughs. Country Hills turned out to be a very pleasant stop right off I-81. We will certainly use it again.
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| Site 24 |
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| Transient sites |
Tuesday, September 9: It was a frisky 42 degrees this morning, and fog was rising over the pond. By 10:00 we were packed and on the road. We arrived at Harrisburg East Campground just about 1:30 to sunshine and 77. This will be our home for the next 3 nights while we attend the Hershey RV Show, only a short 20 minute drive away.
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| Site 402 |
Harrisburg East turned out to be a very convenient and nice campground. Most of the sites were long and wide pull throughs, and reasonably level. And there was a lot of green space to walk the pups. There was road noise, but it didn't bother us. We would definitely stay here again.
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| Typical sites. |
So, back to the reason we camped here?? It's to attend America’s Largest RV Show in Hershey PA. They had everything you ever wanted AND everything you never wanted. 
And I mean HUGE with 1,500 RVs available to walk through and over 180 vendors with booths, 52 manufacturers and 65 dealers represented. We went for 2 half days and came out exhausted and information overloaded. Each morning we made the 20 to 30 minute drive to the show and stayed for about 4 hours. Opening day on Wednesday was the most pleasant because the crowds were small. Thursday was much more crowded as the admission fee was discounted for senior citizens like us. We avoided the huge crowd days on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Total attendance for the 5 days show was over 45,000.
Now, the big question everyone asked was, "Did you buy anything". And the answer, drum roll please, is YES!!! Judy had discovered a Brinkley G3250 from her various online surfing over the summer. She showed it to me, and it had almost everything we wanted for our "retirement home". I was hooked. It's what is called in the industry a Toy Hauler. A small "garage" at the rear of the camper serves as a place to store our e-bikes, as well converts into a back porch for the pups and us. The Brinkley website has a short grand tour video HERE.
Brinkley is the new kid on the block in the industry, and was founded and developed by a group of veteran professionals who previously founded and developed Grand Design. When Winnebago bought Grand Design several years ago, the group moved on to found Brinkley. HERE is a short YouTube video of the founders discussing the Brinkley project.
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| The Brinkley founders and owners. |
David McGee from General RV spent a considerable amount of time with us arranging the deal. We can't thank him enough for all his help. We put a down payment on the actual unit that was at the show. Since this we have another 3 weeks on our month long trip, we will plan come back to Pennsylvania pick it up in mid October or so.
Here are a few photos of the our new camper at the show:
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| David McGee, one of the most knowledgable sales people I have ever met. |
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| View of the "garage" from the porch. |
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| Living Room. |
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| Kitchen and pass thru window to garage and porch. |
Friday 12: We are camped in the driveway of Matt and Jaime Sipher this weekend catching up with family. The drive was an adventure, to say the least. What was supposed to be a 4 hour trip turned out to be 6 hours. That's because of chemical spill caused by a tractor trailer accident creating a diversion. At it's worst point, it took us 2 hours to drive 3 miles near Bruceton Mills, WV.
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| Rear camera view |
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| Line ahead barley moving 1 MPH |
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| Our camper in the driveway and morning fog over WV hills. |
With 2 teenage kids, Matt and Jaime are constantly on the go. It brings back fond memories of when my 3 sons were that age and there was always something going on. The weekend went by in a whirl, but I cherish these brief and fond family times.
Next up, Kentucky to catch up with some RV friends.
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