Back on the Road and Looking Behind Us at 2012

Saturday, May 11, 2013

Thursday at Greg's brother's house found us visiting with more family; Cindy, Greg's sister and her dog and cat as they traveled from Florida to Nantucket, and a visit with our nephew's wife and three terrific little ones. Friday the sun came out and started a beautiful travel day. Time to get on the road again! We thought that we would find warmer temperatures if we went north instead of northwest to Upstate New York. We traveled up through the western side of Connecticut and into Massachusetts. After a lot of backroading to stay off the interstates, we wound up in the Berkshires. Very scenic with lots of old historic villages. We arrived at D.A.R. State Forest. The website said that camping began on May 3^rd. A notice posted on the entry said there was no camping until the third weekend of May. Great... now what? No one on duty to talk to and no chance of overnighting there. We checked Allstays, which is a great app for camping, and found a private campground 16 miles away on winding roads, so we moved on.

Greg and Storch the cat

Grandma Time

Grampa Time

Great Uncle Time

Covered Bridge in Northern CT

Country Aire turned out to be a very nice campground who charged us $25 a night instead of the $30 listed on their website. We signed up for one night thinking that we would move up to Vermont today since we are so close. Well, we signed up for three more nights this morning. It is pouring rain and we found out that they will accept packages from UPS. We are waiting for documents to be overnighted on Monday, so we are all set to just relax for a while. The rain should move out tomorrow, and we have some organizing of the rig to do before we push north. We are also a week away from public parks opening farther north, plus a cold front is coming in, so we'll sit tight a little longer.

I am looking out the window at a lovely, wet view of the rest of the campground and across to a ridge with fog rolling on and off of it. Everything is remarkably green, and when the rain stops we can hear the sound of the creek behind us. Not a bad place to catch up on the story of our first weeks in the rig last Fall!

Rainy View from the camper

Part 1- Heading South- After an Unplanned Delay!

Previously, I wrote about our decision to fulltime and how we did it. I left you dear readers, as we drove away from our hometown in Maryland on November 12, 2012. We didn't get very far! We had a starting issue when the RV was sitting for several months in the driveway. We solved it when it occurred, by wiggling the battery disconnect cable in the cab. Since that was working for now, we decided to deal with it at a more convenient time. After closing, we drove a half hour to my parent's retirement community to say goodbye to them. As we left them an “idiot light” came on in the dashboard. Greg decided to make a call to Chantilly Mercedes Benz, (since our chassis is a Mercedes), and made an appointment for the next day. We were heading to our good friends Sue and Ken's house in Northern Virginia to stay overnight, so that would be convenient. On the 60 mile drive there, the light went out, so we canceled the appointment. (Bad idea...)

The short version of this story is that we wound up living with them for a week. The next day, after our first stop the RV wouldn't start. We couldn't get an appointment at Chantilly MB again for a few days. Some parts had to be ordered, and we finally had the fuel injection/turbo system replaced under warranty, and the battery disconnect replaced. We enjoyed our visit with Sue and Ken, but after months of preparation, we were really ready to get on the road!

Our Hostess, Sue

Our Host, Ken

Finally heading out

The first night we drove down I 95 to South of the Border, South Carolina. How many times have we driven past it on the way to Florida and never stopped? Their campground was old, but clean and the sun was going down, so our first night ever in our RV was spent in an iconic American venue. We had dinner, walked around and checked out the kitschy gift shops, used “Pedro's WiFi”, and slept really well in our new smaller ¾ sized bed. I tend towards claustrophobia, so I was relieved to find that I was comfortable in the short cabover bed with the low ceilings. Good thing. Otherwise I would be sleeping alone on the back bunk now!

Nothing Tacky Here!

The next day was the day before Thanksgiving and we wanted to be off the interstate to avoid the traffic. The day before we noticed a whining sound in the engine. No lights came on, but it was worrisome. Charleston, SC has a Mercedes Benz dealer so we headed across country roads to get there. We found a site in the Lake Aire Campground just outside of town. We were able to make an appointment for the Friday after Thanksgiving. We celebrated Thanksgiving in the rig eating salmon. Well, the pilgrims ate fish! Friday we went into the dealership early, and found out that Chantilly had torqued the bolts in the turbo too much and snapped one. After much negotiation between the dealerships, Chantilly accepted the blame, we had to pay the Charleston dealer to let us have it back after the work was done, and we were told we would receive a check from Chantilly to reimburse us. After MANY unreturned phone calls and a visit to the dealership when we returned to Northern Virginia in March, they finally sent us a check. We were finally able to put that in the bank a week ago! It only took five months of persevering...

Bridge to Charleston, SC

 With that work finished, we had to plan our time between then and Christmas. We were going to Naples, Florida to celebrate the holiday with Greg's Dad before starting to head west. We drove down to the Georgia/Florida state line and stayed several nights at Crooked River State Park in St. Mary's Georgia next to a submarine base. It was warm and semi-tropical so we decided to spend time there learning the rig. Greg sorted out the basement and trunk, (the outside and underneath storage bins) and learned how to put up the awning. I did my first loads of laundry. The building was across the campground and I had to hike back and forth through the scenic pine and palmetto filled woods. Didn't seem like such a chore in the beautiful weather and warmth.

Crooked River

Relaxing at the camp site

Path to Laundry Building

Greg took a few bike rides into town, one time to buy a cable TV cord when we discovered we had cable at our site, and I got back on the bike for the first time in 15 years! (No snide comments about my lack of fitness!) We celebrated Greg's birthday on November 25^th with a Swedish meatball dinner. My last visit to IKEA to find storage containers for our clothes in the RV, I snagged a bag of frozen meatballs for the RV freezer! At that point I was still finding my way around our tiny kitchen, so I was glad for something easy.

At this point we began to think about how we would spend the next month before Christmas. As we accessed the Florida State Parks website we discovered that there were no sites available on any beach in the state, especially not the Keys. The “snowbirds” had taken all the sites in the coastal parks. We also realized that we would have to make reservations anywhere we could find a park with empty sites. So much for our spontaneity! We knew we weren't getting onto the Keys, so how about Everglades National Park? That would take care of one of my bucket list items. So we made our Naples reservations, and planned on the Everglades just before then. Then we had to start filling in the rest of the month.

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We visited parks in parts of the state that we wouldn't have gone to otherwise and had some great experiences! Tune in for Part 2 and I'll regale you with tales of manatees, crested cara-caras, alligators, crocodiles, thunderstorms, no see-ums and lots more!