Baseball: Akron RubberDucks vs Somerset Patriots

We attended a double-A baseball game between the Akron RubberDucks (Cleveland Guardians affiliate) vs Somerset Patriots (New York Yankees affiliate) at Canal Park in Akron, Ohio.

An interactive map of the ballpark:

Entrance of Canal Park:

Entrance of Canal Park

Team store:

Team store

The Dog Pound:

The Dog Pound

Food:

Food

The ballpark:

Ballpark

Our seats, right behind home plate: section 12, row A, seats 9 & 10. It had been raining, so an usher kindly wiped our seats for us:

Wiping our seats for us

Selfie:

Selfie

Our front-row view:

Our view

Play ball:

Baseball

Baseball

Baseball

Baseball

Home run:

Baseball

Mascots:

Mascot

Mascot

Our seats

Exploring the ballpark:

Concourse

Ballpark

Ballpark

Ballpark

Mascot

Ballpark

Popcorn and hot chocolate:

Popcorn and hot chocolate

Jenn admired this pitcher’s long hair:

Baseball

A baseball on the field:

Baseball

Dancing grounds crew:

Baseball

Baseball

AC replacements

Our front and mid AC units were having issues for some time — mostly not getting cold, and sometimes refusing to come on at all. We got a few techs to look at them, without any conclusive results or solutions.

While staying at Thousand Trails Orlando, we got Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC to take a look, and he determined that the compressors on both were shot, and we needed to replace them. An unpleasantly large expense, but he handled it very professionally.

Here he is lugging the very heavy AC unit up to the roof (and I appreciate the padding on the ladder to protect our paint):

Carrying new AC up to roof

The offending part:

Failed part

Inside the old AC unit, partially disassembled:

Inside AC unit

It is nice to have reliably working AC units now.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

We visited the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The roots of rock and roll:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

1984 exhibit; an excellent year:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

More exhibits:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The garage, where they have lots of musical instruments that you can play:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Create your own band sticker:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

The Hall of Fame:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Pink Floyd’s The Wall:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Bon Jovi exhibit on the top floor:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Exit through the gift store:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

Waterfront Cleveland sign and the back of the Hall of Fame:

Rock & Roll Hall of Fame

West Branch State Park

We stayed at West Branch State Park in Ravenna, Ohio. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A nice state park, though many of the sites are unlevel.

Dates:

  • Check in: 2025-05-03
  • Check out: 2025-05-11
  • 8 nights

Weather:

  • Some rain and some mostly cloudy
  • High temps 60-70°F, lows 44-52°F
  • Some wind, gusts to 21 MPH

Noise:

  • No road noise
  • Distant train horn noise
  • Little neighbor noise

Site:

  • #100, back-in, asphalt
  • Needed to disconnect toad, parked in front of coach
  • Very unlevel site; high in front and driver side; used hydraulic leveling (which couldn’t get entirely level; air leveling couldn’t cope either)
  • Asphalt driveway about 45 feet long by 10 feet wide
  • About 90 feet to neighbor on passenger side
  • No neighbor on driver side
  • Just grass between sites
  • Picnic table
  • Fire pit
  • Tall trees
  • Clean site
  • Elevation 990 feet, front facing NE

Utilities:

  • 50 amp power, conveniently located
  • 55 PSI very hard water, conveniently located
  • Unthreaded sewer connection, very conveniently located (2 2-foot pipes needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

  • Starlink: 12-160 Mbps down, 5-22 Mbps up, 30-90 ms ping
  • T-Mobile: 5 Mbps down, 5 Mbps up, 42 ms ping
  • AT&T: 17 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 80-120 ms ping
  • Verizon: 5 Mbps down, 9 Mbps up, 60-150 ms ping (our SIM has 5 Mbps max)
  • Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

  • Garbage dumpsters

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Nice campground, unlevel sites

This was a nice state park on the lake. Our site was very wide with lots of space between the neighbors, but a bit on the short side (just long enough for our 40′ motorhome, and we parked our truck crosswise at the front with about a foot to spare). The only real downside was how massively unlevel the site was front-to-back. We tried multiple positions and both air and hydraulic leveling, but could never get flat. Examining other sites in our loop, it didn’t appear that any of them were particularly level. Many rigs had their wheels off the ground, which is just unsafe. Our utilities were all in working order, but with very hard water, which required us to refresh the water softener twice in a week. We camped at West Branch State Park in a Motorhome.

Campground map:

Map

An interactive map:

Our site:

Our site

Our site

Our site

You can see how much the site slopes… and our coach wasn’t even level:

Our site

Our site

A track to the lake from our site:

Track to lake

Lake

Back to coach

We added the Ohio sticker to our map:

Added Ohio sticker

Added Ohio sticker

And added the Cuyahoga Valley National Park sticker:

Added Cuyahoga Valley National Park sticker

Added Cuyahoga Valley National Park sticker

Dumpster and bathrooms:

Dumpster and bathrooms

Bathrooms

Other sites:

Other sites

Other sites

Other sites

We’d be happy to stay here again, but not in the same site.

Travel from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio

We drove our coach 323 miles, about six hours of driving, from Lebanon, Pennsylvania to Ravenna, Ohio.

Here’s a map showing our route, heading west:

Map

An interactive map:

Preparing to toad up:

Preparing to toad up

Geese and goslings on the road:

Geese and goslings on the road

Entering the Pennsylvania Turnpike:

Entering Pennsylvania turnpike

The first of several rather narrow toll plazas:

Toll plaza

I-76 West, aka the turnpike:

I-76 West

Another toll plaza to exit the turnpike for fuel:

Another toll plaza

Fuel stop:

Fuel stop

Back onto the turnpike:

Another toll plaza

Fun with zoom:

Fun with zoom

The first of several tunnels:

Tunnel

This U-Haul driver wasn’t very good at lane placement:

Tunnel

Tunnel

Out of the first tunnel and straight into the second one:

Tunnels

The third tunnel:

Tunnel

Service plaza:

Service plaza

Paladin on the dash at the service plaza:

Paladin on dash at service plaza

The fourth-and-last tunnel:

Tunnel

Tunnel

Another service plaza:

Service plaza

Bridge construction:

Bridge construction

Welcome to Ohio; a frame from the dash cam, as the photo was too obscured by rain (not that this is great):

Welcome to Ohio

Huge welcome center parking:

Service plaza

The last toll plaza:

Another toll plaza

Yay for E-ZPass:

Another toll plaza

A steep arching bridge over a rail line:

Steep arching bridge over rail line

West Branch State Park:

West Branch State Park

Check-in office:

Check-in office

Our very sloped site:

Our site

Mirror head replacement

Back in 2022 a truck clipped the driver-side mirror on our motorhome, smashing the mirror glass. I replaced the mirror glass, which made the mirror usable again, but unfortunately the motor that allows adjusting the position would only work three of the four directions, so I’d have to manually push the mirror if it drifted out of position (which seemed to happen regularly).

We were going to get it replaced when doing the annual service, but the pandemic supply chain issues made the part unavailable at the time.

It wasn’t a super urgent issue, so we put it on the back burner, but it continued to annoy us. Eventually after much research I determined that one could buy a replacement head for the mirror, which (in theory) could be easily plug-and-play replaced. The part is manufactured by Valvac, and the part number is 719853, “Euromax-XL Replacement Head w/Camera, Lighted, Left Side, Chrome”.

I purchased this part:

Mirror box

The new mirror head:

New mirror head

New mirror head

It looked like an easy job, but we were about to be in Red Bay, so I got a mobile tech to look at replacing it for me. Good thing I didn’t try it myself, as it was too hard for that tech; he couldn’t fish the wires out of the mirror arm.

So later while at Thousand Trails Orlando I got a local RV tech, Charles Sutton of CS Mobile RV Repair LLC, to have a go at it. He also had lots of difficulty with it, but eventually managed it (and was very generous in not charging extra for it, too; I’d highly recommend him for any RV services!).

Here’s the old head removed:

Old head removed

He had to remove a bunch of excess insulation in the generator compartment to access the wires to get enough slack to reach the plugs:

Removed insulation to access bolts

Finally able to reach the plugs:

Wires

The replaced mirror head:

Replaced mirror head

So nice to have that working again. And if we ever need to replace it again, it should be a much easier job next time.