Here in NY this winter has been unusually mild. It was 65 degrees on Christmas Day and we’ve yet to have any snow fall. As we look forward to our second trip just two months away, I can’t help but compare this year to last. It was a brutal winter. We seemed to have a snow storm every few days or so, and the subzero temperatures assured that the snow would stick around well into the spring. The RV was stored at my in-law’s house in Lexington, NY in the Catskill Mountains. It was very generous of them to let us stow it there and at the time it seemed ideal - until it came time for us to hit the road.
However, it proved to be more challenging than any of us expected. The first issue was plowing the path. The snow was a foot deep and partially frozen, and it took half the day to reach the RV. Once we did, we quickly realized that during the warmer weather the RV tires had sunk 6 inches into the ground which was now frozen around the wheels. Bill and his brother chopped at the frozen ground with crowbars, hammers and shovels. They had to smash the chocks which were firmly frozen into the ground.
I had a clear view of all of this through the sliding glass doors in the living room. I provided them what support I could, running tools and hot coffee to and from the house, making phone calls to find a storage spot for the RV a little further south and rescheduling campgrounds reservations; because we now knew we’d need more time at our stopovers. The weather report was predicting more snow all along the east coast over the next week, and we decided we had better not take any chances. All the while I wore a path into the living room carpet as I paced and watched, paced and watched; and worried.
After much work to release the wheels, Bill hitched the truck to the trailer and gave it a tug. She didn’t budge. They went back to chopping and digging. Bill tried again with no luck. There was more chopping and digging. On the third try she rocked forward a bit but failed to come free. It had been dark for hours by now, it got colder by the minute, and it was snowing again. Finally, my brother-in-law hitched his truck to the front of our truck - which was hitched to the trailer - and on the count of three they both floored it. Eleven hours after we began the process, the RV lurched forward and was at last liberated.There was no celebratory cheering. We were too exhausted. There was, however, a great sense of relief. The thought that we would not get her out, that we would have to cancel our trip, crossed all our minds that day more times than I can count. Mind you, in the week prior my Dad was in the ER because of a severe blood sugar drop and my mother-in law had broken her hip. Mere days before, after a month long search, I had finally found an RN to help my parent’s manage their meds and my mother-in-law had successful hip surgery. So, we were already stressed and the possibility of canceling had already loomed.
The next day Bill cleaned the snow off the roof. Then, with a great
sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, we towed her down the mountain
to a gated, paved, regularly plowed, rented, Extra Space Storage RV
parking space in New Paltz, NY. That parking spot was the most beautiful
thing I’d ever seen.We thought we were out of the woods - pun intended - but turns out, not so much...
-Diane
