Let me start by saying that I am in awe of my husband’s driving ability. He stays calm no matter what happens and is a very steady driver. Yesterday, I don’t know what I would have done had I been faced with what he had to endure.
(Slight digression in italics. Feel free to skip it if you’d prefer.)
It is taking me longer to write you because each day is so jam packed full of events, some of which are routine day-to-day activities that are part of our new life living in an RV. Just yesterday I was explaining to a friend that simply leaving a site takes forever. It’s a bit like the difference between when you’re single and when you have a baby. If you’re a parent you may have experienced the extreme delays (multiplied by the number of children involved) with leaving for any outing.
“Can you please put on your shoes?”
“Do I need socks?”
“Yes, you always need socks with sneakers.”
“Why?”
“We had a fifteen-minute discussion about this yesterday when I was trying to get us out the door. Remember?”
“No. I don’t want to wear socks.”
And if you have a baby, they will most likely pick that opportunity to soil their diaper, twice. Then when you get in the car, drive down the street, you’re bound to realize you forgot the diaper bag. Now, your friends who don’t have children will inevitably scoff and suggest you just leave ten minutes earlier so that you’re not always late. In the end, I just opt to smile and say, “Sure, that would be logical,” and buy them a latte to make up for my tardiness.
If these delays ring a bell, multiple them by ten and you’ll have an idea of the delays involved with launching an RV. There’s a checklist we must follow and I’ll just say it takes us longer to complete than you’d expect, every day. One day I hope to report to you that we all work as a team and complete the tasks within two minutes, but to date that hasn’t happened (the lengthy discussion about socks and shoes and hairbrushes, etc. probably don’t help).
So, now that I’ve put off telling you about our hellish driving experience, let me dive in head first. One thing I didn’t quite understand until yesterday is that some parts of the country aren’t designed for large vehicles. There are bridges that are too low, roads that are too narrow, and others that can’t take the weight.
There are special GPSs that will help guide RVs, and we’d selected software for one on trial. I assumed that they would all steer you clear of places not designed for large vehicles.
In addition, I always have my trusted Google Maps on my cell, as it gave me options and different abilities. I’m a very backup plan oriented person, so two mapping programs makes me feel better. Programming in our destination, the two systems gave me very different routes. We wanted to avoid interstates through major cities as that is quite difficult in a slow-moving vehicle, especially in a part of the country where the horn is an active component of very aggressive driving.
We wanted to avoid tolls because they can cost a lot (I’ve heard $30 – $50 when you have as many axles as we do), so we programmed the RV GPS to guide us away from those. Also we didn’t fancy driving through NY city.
I did assume that the RV GPS would keep us on safe roads. It’s nice to take the side roads and really see the country, so we decided to opt for that choice. Plus we had a good five hours to go only one hundred and twenty miles, so I figured we had time.
In the beginning it was fine, but then the roads got less and less RV friendly. Still we saw trucks in front and knew we’d be okay. Crossing the Hudson River was gorgeous, but my nerves were frayed by the small lanes that followed, up the winding mountain. The next dozen miles or so kept us at low speed up and down large hills, something we didn’t plan for.
The scenery was incredible, with the trees in full color. Reds, brilliant oranges and yellows, like paint on a canvas, sped by us. I snapped a few pictures for Facebook. Here’s one:
However, shortly after I snapped this shot, I stopped enjoying the leaves. We’d hit our first sign warning us that no trucks were allowed beyond that point.
Looking down at our trusted GPS, it blithely told us to ignore these warnings and plow on. We were completely stuck. We had nowhere else to go and were way behind schedule. It was now 5:00pm, which meant we had less than two hours left of daylight.
As we progressed, I couldn’t continue to hold my breath and remain conscious, so as an alternative, I began to tremble to compensate. The roads proceeded to get worse and worse, narrower and narrower, until we were on tiny, very hilly, residential streets that no truck should ever venture onto. Signs kept appearing saying no trucks allowed, but again we had no choice. The worst was one gigantic hill with horrid grades that reminded me of Mount Killington moguls. I never did brave those black diamond slopes as a teen, but I made up for that yesterday. I’m officially crossing that off my bucket list.
We heard the tow dolly scrape on the road, despite our snail speed and finally we hit a road that actually had a yellow divider. We all cheered! That road brought us to another with a real live truck on it. Whew!
As the sun kissed the horizon we made it back on an interstate and were only an hour and a half away from our destination, the only campsite I could find that could take us. Most were closed because of the lateness of the year. We needed a campsite to get a good shower and dump our tanks, so Walmarts and Cracker Barrels were out.
Yes, if you’re keeping track, we didn’t follow our Rule 57: Arrive to our destination before dark. However, the trade-off was that we were still alive and hadn’t crashed into a tree. I’m okay with that.
So, here we are, alive and rested. It’s the next day and we slept in. Our furnace kept us warm last night and protected our water lines from freezing. Tonight will get down into the twenties, but the folks at Coachmen assure me we’ll be okay as long as the heat is on. We plan to drain the tanks and put anti-freeze in the four gray/black tanks just to be sure. Keep your fingers crossed for us as we brave the New England autumn weather.
I know those nail-biting road trips! Not that I’ve ever driven across the country in an RV, but in all the road miles Ed and I have logged, there have been some hairy moments. Glad you all made it through OK!
I’d love to hear more about your adventures. I’m sure I could learn a lot from you!