South Carolina to North Carolina Tuesday, May 27, 2003
Our 10:00 am start time quickly became 11:30 – it always takes longer than we think to unload the house refrigerator and freezer and figure out a way to make it all fit into the RV refrigerator and freezer. We drove up through Route 15 that runs parallel to and in between Route 95 and Route 81 to New Jersey to visit Cathy’s family. We drove through cornfields with corn about 4-5’ high and a few small towns. Some towns were all but abandoned with dilapidated, closed stores, while others were quaint with beautifully restored historical main streets. Most of the road we traveled 45 or 55 mph – some 4-lane.
Cathy drove for the first time in a couple of years. The navigator was asleep when we missed the turn – driver says navigator fault and sleeping navigator says its driver fault, hmmmmmm. We got the last RV site in what is basically a trailer park – but a nice one in the North Carolina hill country with lots of trees and space between sites. Full hookups, too!
North Carolina to Virginia Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Got on the road at 9:30 and drove about 300 miles to Reston, Virginia – a slight detour to spend an evening with Alicia and Sean to celebrate Alicia’s upcoming 30th birthday. We also made a slight detour (aka temporarily lost) past the Appomattox Courthouse which is a national park. No time to stop, but decided to stop on our return in the fall. Cornfields here were only a few inches high and the streams and rivers were overflowing their banks – nothing but rain for weeks in the area, we’re told. We even came across a section of road that was just opened after clearing the mudslide. Also mashed a snake on the road (Jack made me include that). We stayed at a county park in Reston, - decent, although muddy campground, reasonably priced and one of the closest to Washington, D.C. No water or sewer at the site, but available nearby and the site did have electricity and only a few minutes from Alicia’s home. Had a great dinner with Alicia and Sean and drove by their to-be new home, still under construction. Right near the nice town center with movie theaters and lots of restaurants. Great location.
North Carolina to New Jersey Thursday - Monday, May 30 – June 1, 2003
On the road at 9:30 and drove to 4:00, the last 300 miles to Charlie’s house where he has set up an electric line for our RV and we can park right in the yard. Averaging almost 10 mpg which is much better than our last trip where we were lucky to see 8.5! Dad looks great after the heart attack and stroke and Grace is slowly recovering from leg pain, probably from sciatica. Lots of running around taking them to doctor appointments and visiting with Karen, Frank and Johnathan (he’s soooooo cute) and Charlie, Rayne, Brian and Keith. Johnathan is working hard at learning to walk (1 yr old in August) and is interested in everything…wonder what he’s thinking when looking at everyone and playing with toys – so much to learn! Brian had his senior prom and we took pictures of him in his tux and it was Keith’s birthday yesterday. Today and tomorrow more doctor appointments, and then on the road on Wednesday.
New Jersey to Pennsylvania Wednesday, June 4, 2003
Left New Jersey this morning at 10:30 after visiting with Cathy’s family the past few days. Drove 260 miles today and arrived in Bedford, Pennsylvania about 5pm. We drove Interstate 78 west out of central New Jersey to Allentown, then route 222 southeast to U. S. route 30. We drove through lots of farm country with corn a few inches high and grazing fields with lots of calve. Drove through rain and mist and even some fog in some higher elevations. The RV, with the Honda in tow, (and the driver) performed excellently on the relatively steep grades we encountered. We have a book explaining the grades – things like 7% for 3 miles – which meant nothing to us. Now we know. We handled 9% incline over 3 miles with no engine overheating and the brakes handled multiple 3 mile 7% grades. Drove through the Civil War towns of Gettysburg (on our list to return someday) and Chambersburg. Many of these small southern Pennsylvania towns have pretty town centers with a circle with a fountain in the center with flowers – very attractive, but not the greatest to negotiate with a large RV plus towed car. While driving through York, Pennsylvania, Jack was narrating yet another golf trip story about the New York golf crowd playing “The Bridges” golf course near York. Of course, Jack hasn’t a clue where the course actually is, but about 5 miles past York, what do we see? “The Bridges”. Jack wanted to stop and have an old fashioned, just for old times, but he decided it wouldn’t be the same without the golf gang. This led to many, many, many more golf trip stories…..
Pennsylvania to Ohio Thursday, June 5, 2003
This was certainly a schizophrenic day. We started out early (for us) at 9 am, after disconnecting the power, water, and sewer lines and hooking up the Honda to the towbar in the rain and the mud – yuk, what a mess! We continued on our way on route 30 in the mountains (bumps to you Rocky Mountain folks) with a few steep grades, and then we see multiple signs warning truckers to depart the road and take a detour. We decided to play it safe and do the same – quite a bit out of the way, though. The next portion of the road was lots of towns, but not the quaint small towns we’d seen to this point, but just strip malls and shopping centers with lots of car dealerships thrown in. Slow going with lots of lights and traffic. Getting through Pittsburgh on the interstate was a disaster – all detours and construction with narrow lanes and lots of trucks. Definitely a white knuckler because the RV is exceptionally wide - even wider than a tractor trailer.
Once we got past Pittsburgh, then the road opened up and we again saw farms and fields and interesting small towns. We did encounter a line painting crew that held us up doing about 10 miles an hour for about 15 minutes before they would let us pass. As we entered eastern Ohio, we noticed five very old barns with newly painted “Mail Pouch Tobacco” signs, but one was very faded and looked original. Sure wish I could have gotten the camera out quick enough.
Stopped for lunch by the side of the road and Jack was just walking around and checking the rig as he often does, and found that we had pulled the back corner molding and bumper away from the RV on the back driver’s side. We must have barely brushed something that pulled the corner molding and bumper away. We lost the blinker and stop light on the drivers side rear light, but the lights on the towed car work perfectly, so we aren’t a safety hazard. One more thing for the insurance company – if we still have an insurance company after all the claims we have had to put in on this RV!
Drove only 330 miles, but didn’t stop until 6pm (about 8 hours on the road, not counting lunch and gas stops) – terrible! Nice campsite in the middle of farm country in Lima in western Ohio. Immediately after dinner, Jack put Ohio on our country map of visited states. He’ll get two more tomorrow – Indiana and Illinois. It is 9:10 pm and still light (Jack says light enough to play golf, but that’s a bit of an exaggeration) – guess it’s because we’re at the western edge of the eastern timezone – also because it finally cleared up and we saw the sun.
Ohio to Illinois Friday, June 6, 2003
Left about 9am on our now good route 30 when we unexpectedly changed to route 24 (aka missed a turn). This was a very good thing! Route 24 was a great road, very, very, very straight, with hundreds of red-winged blackbirds flitting across the road going from field to field and corn fields that go forever. Saw a barn where the roof had a John Deere tractor and the year, 1950, designed right into the shingles. Too slow with the camera – again! Then we had the privilege of following a two-story pig truck – wonderful aromas for about an hour…. Changed to central time zone as we moved from Indiana to Illinois.
Indiana and Eastern Illinois are unbearably flat – we noticed that many of the farmhouses had rows and rows of assorted pine trees planted on the north and west corners of the house – a windbreak and/or to reduce snow drifting, I guess. Western Illinois was a bit more hilly and a scant more scenic. As we headed toward dark overcast skies, it began raining steadily. We decided to jump on the interstate to make up some time and drove till 4pm (with an extra hour for the time zone change).
Stayed at a nice campground in Genoseo, Illinois, 10 miles from the Iowa border. There was a nice canal for boating next to the campground, but the rain prevented us from trying out our new inflatable kayak. Decided to go to town to dinner at a family-type restaurant. We then had an altercation between the fire pit and the Honda and the Honda lost. Plastic bumper ripped and will have to be replaced. Also broke the plastic windshield fluid jug – will have to get that fixed with the dust and road gunk that accumulates every day on the Honda’s windshield while being towed. Yet another call to the insurance company. Anyone have any recommendations for insurance companies that like to lose money? After figuring out the Honda was working ok, we set out for dinner. We should have taken the fire pit as an omen and stayed in the RV, but nooooooo, we decided to continue our bad luck streak. Short version of long story – we ended up eating at two restaurants that night and still came back to the RV hungry! We just keep telling ourselves that this is an adventure, right?
Illinois to Iowa Saturday, June 7, 2003
New day and we get on the road by 9am through a little backcountry before getting back on the interstate. We noticed some different lawn architecture here – instead of pink flamingoes, geese or shiny gazing balls, we see very artistic concrete pigs – surrounded with flower beds. Arrived at our campsite in early afternoon. Interesting place – Adventureland (a mini six-flags type park) on one side of the campground and a racetrack and casino on the other side. Very busy park – something for everyone. We stayed here because it is closest to Jack’s brother’s family in Des Moines. We spent the rest of the day visiting with brother Bill and wife Linda and their daughter, Carla). A really good dinner at an Italian steak house – fabulous prime rib.
Iowa Monday, June 9, 2003
We spent Sunday with Jack’s family (Bill and Linda, Carla and Steve, Billy and Amanda and their children, Christopher and Spencer). Great turkey dinner and lots of stories. The day started out raining (what else is new?), but cleared up and was a beautiful warm afternoon. We said goodbye but not without getting some promises to come visit us in South Carolina.
Today, we left for Forest City Iowa – about 130 miles north of Des Moines – to tour the Winnebago manufacturing plant with acres and acres under roof. Passed a windmill farm 13 miles long – these massive arms turning slowly in the wind as far as we could see. The Winnebago factory was massive – they talk about It was fascinating to see how they put the coaches together – almost everything except the chassis and appliances are made by Winnebago itself – including cabinets and upholstery. They make about 200 coaches per week. We also asked their service department if they could take a look at a few things we’re having problems with that are still under warranty as well as the rear corner damage caused by the unknown assailant and a brand new great big nick in the windshield – and these are BIG windshields. We stayed overnight at their own campground – just a giant open field with electric hookups. Then it started thundering and lightening – didn’t like being in the middle of the field one little bit – we took down the antenna and watched the TV for news about possible severe thunderstorms and worried about where we’d take cover.
Iowa to South Dakota Tuesday, June 10, 2003
Made it through the night just fine – didn’t even get stuck in the field after all that rain. They looked at the coach early Tuesday, but we found it would take at least a day for the minor stuff to be fixed – so we decided to wait until our return. We may have to get the windshield replaced in Alaska if it starts to spider out or if we get many more rock hits and we’ll deal with that when we have to!
Drove a few miles to Iowa route 9 west – a straight road parallel to Interstate Route 90 20 miles north in Minnesota. Clear in the morning, turning cloudier as the day progressed. We hopped up to the Interstate in Minnesota about 50 miles east of Sioux Falls. Corn, corn and more corn – but now the plants are only a few inches high, so we can see forever and the sky goes on and on with patch worked fluffy clouds – now we know why they call the part of the country “Big Sky”. Pretty, but boring after about an hour or two – and we’ve been in this flat country for days. We became excited when we saw a little hill – and we mean little, even by South Carolina standards.
Stopped for the night in a small campground after 300 miles and spent a quiet night in Chamberlain, South Dakota. Tomorrow, we should finally get to see some interesting country – the Badlands.
