Fifth Planet from the Sun

We were in Florida only one week, but it felt like we’d always been there. This second week would be spent in Jupiter visiting Bill’s younger son and his family. The campground we chose was a KOA a short drive from their home. The entrance to the place was a long, snaking road. The campground was adjacent to an African Wild Safari Park. It was definitely off the beaten path. That combined with the neighboring sounds of wildlife gave it an air of isolation. We loved it.

It was a large park and we got lost on our first attempt to leave. We ran into a fellow camper walking along and asked if he knew the way to the exit. Apologetically, he informed us in his best broken English that he spoke only French and was unable to help us. We then saw a woman riding her bike; we asked her the same thing. She also spoke only French and was unable to help us. We loved that, too. It was like that everywhere we went. We met people from all over the country and all over the world, and everyone we met was friendly and helpful. That’s the RV culture and we were thrilled to be a part of it.

This was a busy time for us. We spent our days visiting with the family. Bill’s grandson stayed with us one night. The next day we took him to the Wild Life Safari, which we all enjoyed. One day we barbecued at the RV for the whole family. It was a fun time. In the early mornings, over coffee and tea, we would sit on the porch and listened as the lions roared, the chimps chattered, and the African birds chirped and tweeted in the distance It was magical, otherworldly, and easy to forget we were in Florida only a short distance from a main highway.

This is when when first imagined the possibility doing this full-time. We had been through hell getting here, but now all that seemed so far away. This is what is was all about and we were hooked.

-Diane

Catch up on the complete story of our first trip:

1) Baptism by Ice: Digging Out
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/baptism-by-ice-digging-out.html

2) Baptism by Ice: Murphy’s Law
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/baptism-by-ice-murphys-law.html

3) Having Second Thaws
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/having-second-thaws.html

4) It Takes a Village
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/it-takes-village.html

 

It Takes A Village

Hell had frozen over. We knew because we had driven through it. We had one problem after the other and came close to regretting our decision to become RVers. Now we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We were on our way to our first stop in Florida in The Villages. As we drove south everything got greener and the snow completely disappeared. We delighted in watching the car’s thermometer as the exterior temperature rose making note as it got warmer and warmer When we crossed the Florida border we cheered and high-fived. Once again, the trip took longer than expected, but we didn’t care. It was warm, dry and sunny. We were happy as a couple of proverbial clams.

Naturally, just as we got within a block of the campground, the GPS got us lost. We were getting used to it by now. Once we found the place Bill got his first chance to back-up the rig. He aced it. Even the campground manager was impressed. I cannot express strongly enough how happy we were to finally be in the warm weather. The heater still wasn’t working, but we didn’t need it and had three more weeks to fix it. However, we were exhausted.

 We were in The Villages to visit some friends and had to call and tell them we needed a day or two to rest up. We slept, lounged by the pool and shopped. The first thing we bought was patio furniture for the porch. We lived out there the rest of the trip. The porch as was also a hit with our fellow Rvers. They would stop by to see and admire it. We met some really nice people and got a lot of great tips and advice.

Here was where we first learned that leaving room to open the porch meant that our connection hoses and cables might not reach said connections. We bought extensions. We treated ourselves by dropping the laundry off at a wash-and-fold. We got the truck washed removing the last reminders of the snow and ice and mud and road salt.

Of the five days we were there, we only we only able to see Tom and Kathy twice. We spent a lovely day visiting at their house and then had dinner out once right before we left. By the time we arrived to in Dunedin, we were fully recovered, totally relaxed, and for the first time, truly able to enjoy the experience.

-Diane


Catch up on the complete story of our first trip:

1) Baptism by Ice: Digging Out
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/baptism-by-ice-digging-out.html

2) Baptism by Ice: Murphy’s Law
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/baptism-by-ice-murphys-law.html

3) Having Second Thaws
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/having-second-thaws.html

Having Second Thaws

After a week of dealing with ice, snow, freezing temperatures, and a number of problems with the RV, we were eager to be headed to our next stop in warm and toasty South Carolina.

We got a late start because of the weather. We arrived in the dark. After we got off the highway, the GPS wanted to send us down a very long, very narrow, under-construction, unlit road. There was no campground entrance in sight and we were unsure if there was anyplace to turn around if necessary. We rolled forward very slowly – keeping an eye out for places to turn around. At one point I got out of the truck and walked ahead. After a terrifying ½ mile we finally saw the entrance!

We found our site and set up only to find that heater wasn’t working. Ugh! We were delighted to be out of the snow, but it was still cold at only 38º. We ran the fireplace heater all night, slept in our thermals and used both blankets. Right around now we were starting to wonder what the hell we had gotten ourselves into.

During the night the temperature apparently dropped below 32 degrees because the water froze. It was a quick fix and our spirits rose with the temperature which broke 60 degrees that afternoon. We opened the back porch for the first time. We had no furniture, so we used two of the dining room chairs and sat out there for most of the day barbequing and eating our dinner off the top of a cooler. We stocked up on groceries, ran a few other errands, and unsuccessfully tried to resolve the heater problem. 

We’re not sure if the heater issue was ever resolved. The igniter seemed to be working OK. You could smell gas coming from the unit when it was trying to start, and we’ve started it up successfully a couple of times since then. Hopefully, it won’t rear it’s head again when we need it most. By the way, after the trip was over, a Camping World mechanic told us that the propane doesn’t vaporize sufficiently in very cold weather. I understand that things vaporize better at higher temperatures but seriously? Not working in cold weather would be a major drawback for a heating fuel. Can anyone confirm that this is remotely possible?

Anyway, things were finally looking up and would only get better. Florida here we come...

-Diane

Catch up on the complete story of our first trip:

1) Baptism by Ice: Digging Out
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/baptism-by-ice-digging-out.html

2) Baptism by Ice: Murphy’s Law
http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2016/01/baptism-by-ice-murphys-law.html

 

Baptism By Ice: Murphy's Law

After a horrendous couple of days digging out the RV and taking it down to New Paltz (see previous post, “Baptism By Ice: Digging Out” http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2015/12/baptism-by-ice-digging-out.html), we drove back to my brother-in-law’s house in Lexington. We were leaving the next day. It had been a challenging few days, but we were finally starting to feel excited. We ran a few errands in the early afternoon gathering together some last minute supplies. Then we heard that we would be getting another six inches of snow.

We were an hour away from New Paltz and, come morning, we would need to close up and winterize the house and drive down the mountain. Closing up the house and driving to New Paltz would take at least a couple of hours; so, with the coming snow, we decided it would be best to close the house then and spend the night in New Paltz. I made a few phone calls and found a motel a block from where the RV was parked. I made a reservation. We packed up, closed the house and headed there. By the time we arrived it was dark and the snowfall was near blizzard conditions. We checked into the motel, ordered a pizza delivered to our room – what a cool thing – and settled in for the night. Neither of us got much sleep. We were excited, like kids on Christmas Eve kind of excited; but, we were also worried about the weather and what we would find in the morning. 

We were up at 6:00 AM. We had a quick breakfast and we drove one block to the RV. For the second time in as many days, but not the last, Bill cleaned the new fallen snow off the roof. We hitched up and headed to our first stopover; Millersville, MD. The trip down was uneventful and we made good time, except for the fact that the GPS got us momentarily lost just blocks from the campground entrance. We’d been to this campsite once before so we figured it out fairly quickly and safely arrived with some daylight to spare.

Aside form the couple managing the campground – Brian and Sue - and a family in one of the cabins, we were the only guests. It was our first time hooking up and we were doing it in the ice and snow. It took hours. The 50AMP electric connection wouldn’t fit on the RV connector; it took forever to figure it out even with the help of the manager, Brian, and our dealer, Chuck. Once we got that done we found that the TV and fireplace weren’t working and half the outlets were dead. Bill was on the phone with Chuck a dozen times during all of this and in the coming days - Chuck was really great. Brian and Chuck insisted that it was a GFI problem but Bill told them that the GFI outlets were working. They couldn’t find the problem. We finally gave up and went to bed.

The water pipes froze that night and the next night in spite of the fact we left the taps open and dripping. Determined to resolve the electrical issue, Bill decided he wanted to check the campground connection. Brian said he had never heard of a receptacle being partly dead. Bill worked for Con Edison for 36 years and, although he wasn’t in the electric department, said it was a fairly common occurrence. Reluctantly, the manager checked the campground receptacle and it turns out that one of the “hot” legs to their receptacle was dead. We ran an extension cord to the site next to us, and viola, everything worked. The manager and Chuck kept saying, as one thing after the other went wrong, “I’ve never heard of anything like that happening before.” It was a phrase we would hear often when retelling our story.

Our relief was short-lived. On our second day in Maryland the snow started falling around 1:00PM. By 8:00PM it had let up some, but was expected to continue until midnight. We now had eight inches of snow on the roof and the temperature was predicted to fall to -8º overnight. Bill was afraid that the snow would freeze and decided to clean off the roof that night instead of the next morning as we wanted to head out early. By now he was experienced at cleaning off the roof, but this time he also had to clean off the slides. And we didn’t have a ladder. As many of you know, you can’t safely reach the top of the slides from the roof, so a ladder was necessary. At 8:00PM in the dark and the snow, in a place he didn’t know, Bill headed out to the local Home Depot. As he later told me, he and the snow plows were the only things on the road. The GPS again got him lost (see Bill’s post, “GPS Blues” http://countingstarsrvlife.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-gps-blues.html). He made it back around 9:00PM and was finally finished cleaning off the RV around 10:30PM.

Anxious to get out of the cold and snow, our next stopover in South Carolina was calling to us. However, we woke to find that, due to the icy conditions, all lanes of I-95 South were closed because of a tracker trailer accident. We weren’t able to take off until 11:00AM. What was supposed to be a seven hour drive turned out to be 10 hours…

-Diane

P.S. Oddly enough, I took no pictures in Maryland. I think maybe, subconsciously, I didn’t want any reminders. I regret it now, but at the time we just had too much going on; little of it pleasant.

Baptism By Ice: Digging Out

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.

We were leaving on Wednesday, March 4^th and heading down to Florida for the month, but before we could do that we had to dig out the RV from her frozen slumber in the hills. Bill, I and my brother-in-law met at his upstate home the Sunday before we were scheduled to depart. The plan was to plow a path from the driveway to the RV, a distance of about half a football field. We‘d then move her to the front of the house for easy access. We expected it would take a few hours.

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

  

Gifts of Christmas Past

Last year our Christmas was all about the RV. All our gifts consisted of practical things we could use in our travels and funny cute RV themed items. I’m not usually into kitsch, but this year was the exception. I loved it all. The cutest thing I got was the RV Salt & Pepper shakers Bill got for me. 

But the best was the miniature replica of our rig that I got for Bill. He said he wanted it as a learning tool. He thought that it could help him better understand the dynamics of towing and driving the RV, specifically making turns and backing up. However, I think maybe, he just wanted it because it was super cool. Either way, I think he liked it.

Whatever your wishes this year, we hope they all come true.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

-Diane and Bill

The Best Laid Plans

Even before we bought the truck or picked upped the RV, we knew our first trip would be a month in Florida visiting our family and friends. Planning our route, coordinating visits, and booking the campsites fell to me. Little did I know this would be an adventure all its own.

I did not have the Big Book of RV Campsites. I knew nothing about truck stops. I had no knowledge of apps or other RV resources. I had no idea that you had to book the March before to go south the following February. Eleven months, that’s the magic number. Seasoned snow-birders know it. We didn’t.  We actually thought four or five months was plenty of time to plan our first RV excursion. We were so naive.

The first step was to plan where to stop on the way down. Bill didn’t want to drive more than six hours a day. That makes me laugh now. Did I say we were naive? Boy, oh, boy, we were so clueless. I used Triple A’s TripTik Travel Planner to find campsites and approximate how far each location would be from the other. Based on this, I chose a site in Maryland and a site in South Carolina as our stopovers. I booked one night at each stop. As you will learn in future posts, due to many factors, assuming that one night each would be enough time was like wishing on rainbows and fairy wings.

We were visiting four places in Florida: Cape Canaveral, Jupiter, Dunedin and The Villages. I contacted the people we would be visiting and set up a schedule. We would stop in Cape Canaveral first then in Jupiter. Next we would head to Dunedin and up to The Villages. Going home, we would retrace our steps and again stay in South Carolina and Maryland.

Sounds grand, yes? We thought so, too - until I tried to find campsites and make reservations that matched our timeline. You see, we knew we couldn’t escape the entire NY winter, but we had our hearts set on missing at least part of it. That is why we bought our rig. I’m chuckling to myself as I remember the ensuing insanity. At least, I can laugh about it now. It was the beginning of what would be a series of challenges we would face on this trip.

Anyhow, I soon realized February was a no go. So, we rescheduled everything for March. After what felt like a million hours online and a trillion phone calls, I managed to piecemeal together a trip that looked surprisingly similar to the original, but in reverse: The Villages, Dunedin, Jupiter, and Cape Canaveral.

We learned a lot from this experience. We booked our upcoming trip much earlier. Thanks to the RVers we met along the way, we know that truck stops are an option. We know that the drive time is never going to be what the online map says. We have better resources and are much better prepared. Most importantly, while nothing ever goes as planned, we now realize that’s part of the adventure and we welcome it.

-Diane