Andee and Liz's RV Trip

In which I figure out how the RV shower works – and other unwanted water stories.

On Wednesday, we awoke to lovely bird song in “North West NYC” and Liz took a walk around the campground in search of Wifi. I used the bathroom and – as is my habit – turned on the water in the sink to wash my hands afterwards. Liz had told me that she hadn’t figured out how the shower in the bathroom works, so it wasn’t on my mind. But in this new RV, the shower definitely works – and all I had to do to trigger it was to turn on the sink. Let’s just say that when Liz got back from her walk, she was greeted by a somewhat-soggy companion. On her side, she reported lots of bird song – thrushes, veerys, finches, and catbirds.

Since we couldn’t find anyone at the campground to give us the Wifi password, we were happy to see a sign at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center for free Wifi so I could post one blog segment. Our assumption that we’d have Wifi at campgrounds seems to have been over-optimistic.

We spent most of the day driving across Pennsylvania. The landscape of rolling hills alternating with tilled fields and small towns is easy on the eyes. In the late afternoon, we stopped in Pittsburgh at my sister Lynn’s house, where she was joined by our step-mother, and my nephew and his wife, all of whom live within a mile of one another. Lynn had set out snacks, hand sanitizer, and appropriately distanced chairs on her back deck. We put Izzie in her carrier and brought her with us, where she was the center of attention, even though she remained confined. My sister’s Bernese Mountain Dog, Fiona, joined us and she and Izzie looked at one another through the carrier screen. Izzie is remarkably fearless and friendly – she even stuck her paw out of the carrier in greeting. Fiona, on the other hand, seemed apprehensive about this little creature and backed off. Score 1 for Izzie.

My step-mother Paula, my sister Lynn, Izzie in her carrier in Liz’s lap

We drove another 80 miles to our stop for the night at the Chestnut Ridge campground near Youngstown, OH. It’s much better-maintained than the previous site, but also much more populated, with many people seemingly camped here for weeks or even months. We had a wonderful dinner, as my step-mother had brought us some frozen stuffed cabbage (one of her specialties) and my sister gave me a birthday present of excellent wine and two beautiful wine glasses, all of which are featured in this photograph of our dinner table. We are not suffering, food-wise!

We settled down for the night – Liz in the upper bedroom, me in the lower one and Izzie alternating between us. We noticed the RV rocking more than usual and then realized it was because of an intense thunderstorm. One of the (lovely) parts of the RV is a skylight over the upper bunk, so we were able to watch the lightning flashes through it – but then it began to leak. We used a towel and our small wastebasket to try to minimize the amount of water that ended up soaking the upstairs bed. Fifteen minutes later we had a sopping wet towel and over an inch of water in the wastebasket –and the storm subsided, leaving us with a soggy mattress, but still enough dry space for one person to sleep.

So after a day bookended by unwelcome encounters with water, we head toward Chicago in the morning.

Liz (white lump) and wastebasket catching drips from skylight

“New York City Northwest” KOA

(Written on Tuesday night)

We are camped in Cuddebackville, New York, in a KOA (Kampground of America). This place claims to be “New York City Northwest,” which I consider quite a stretch, since it’s over 80 miles away. Not a place I’d stay to take in a Broadway play (even if they were happening). But to back up: we did manage to get on the road only 15 minutes late, headed to visit my brother and his family who have escaped to Stockbridge from Manhattan during the COVID crisis. We started out with Izzie in her carrier, which was clearly not to her liking. When we let her out to roam around the RV (after blocking off any little holes that might have let her get behind the dashboard), she was freaked out for a while, but in not too long managed to find a few spots where she was comfortable and figured out how to jump from one to the other even when the vehicle was bouncing. Her first spot was behind Liz’s head.

Later in the day she parked herself on the upper-level bed and watched us from above.

She also enjoyed exploring the cabinets and meeting the stuffed hedgehog who is accompanying us.

We are well-equipped with food. Here is our refrigerator!

We got to Stockbridge by mid-afternoon and spent a lovely time with my brother, sister-in-law and niece, pictured here in their yard, by the Stockbridge Bowl.

My niece, brother and sister-in-law in Stockbridge

They look happy enough – but they were just getting over a bear incident. They had stored their non-perishable groceries in their shed to quarantine them for a few days – and a bear broke in and strew them all over their yard. That would be awful any time – but these days, when getting groceries is a major challenge, it’s even more devastating.

We drove through the Catskills, wondering about the strange mix of Dutch heritage and Jewish resorts. Around 6:30, we pulled into this KOA, where we are one of a very few guests. It boasts all kinds of entertainment, including a mining and exploration center and a climbing wall.

Liz made a great dinner in our little kitchen, I went for a walk and here’s what our RV “home” looked like when I got back. Notice the light on in the upper bedroom, where Liz was reading in bed. One advantage of a campground over someone’s driveway is that you can plug in and turn on the air conditioner without worrying about tripping circuit breakers. That’s good because it’s quite hot: it was over 90 during the day and at 10PM is still 75. Tomorrow we’ll head to Pittsburgh to visit my sister and other family members.

There’s a bat in my bidet!

Seriously, I couldn’t make this stuff up. While I was on a business call today, a friend of mine texted me asking for help. “There’s a bat in my bidet, she said – what should I do?” My first thought was that she should close the lid – but bidets don’t have lids, she informed me. Cleverly, she shut her cat (who was very interested in the bat) into one room and the bat in another. Then, on the advice of a wiser friend, she opened all of the windows in the house wide, kept the cat sequestered – and the bat left of its own accord. Still to be determined: how the bat got in to begin with.

In more momentous news – we now have a new RV, complete with intact side mirror and working dump pipe. This wasn’t a foregone conclusion, as when Liz called the Lakeville office this morning to check when she could pick up the RV, she was told that they didn’t have one for her. Clearly, they hadn’t gotten the word from “on high” yet. So another round of phone calls and texts with Cruise America, who apparently ordered the Lakeville office to give us a new RV – effectively transferring our problem to them, as they now have to fix our damaged vehicle in time to rent it to the next customer.

We emptied everything out of the old RV, keeping it organized so it would be easy to load into the new one, and Liz took off for Lakeville.

A small portion of the stuff we took out of the old RV…

She came back and we transferred everything into the new RV. It has more miles on it, but is in better shape over all – better suspension, less rickety. It also had a set of dishes and two folding chairs left over from the previous renters. Finders keepers – although I don’t need the dishes, so I left them on the porch and hope someone will find them useful. If you need some dishes, feel free to go by my house and take them.

I spent the evening finishing laundry and packing everything I will need for the next several months. In an RV (at least this one), you can’t pack in a suitcase. It’s more like moving into a new house than traveling in a plane. So I piled things in laundry baskets and Liz (who is an excellent packer, likening it to 3D Tetris), managed to fit everything into the drawers and cabinets.

We plan to get on the road by 10:30 in the morning, after a few last-minute errands.

The strangest birthday ever

It was strange enough to be celebrating my birthday in my driveway with four “waves” of guests: friends from work, chorus, church and “other.” But my party was competing with two other local events: a car caravan celebrating graduation from Arlington’s elementary, middle and high schools and a funeral procession for George Floyd in solidarity with a march organized by Black clergy in Boston.

The car caravan was an issue at the beginning of the party. My street dead-ends into one of the main streets of Arlington, so during the first hour of the party, there was loud honking half a block away. Also, several guests were delayed trying to get across the caravan route, leading to some panicked texts saying “I’m two blocks away, but will be there in half an hour.”

The funeral procession didn’t delay many people, but it cut into my guest list, as several people who would have come to the party went to the funeral procession (as I would have myself had I not been hosting…)

But it was still an absolutely lovely affair! Two different “waves” sang Happy Birthday to me (and the members of my chorus sounded heavenly!) and several people disobeyed my “NO GIFTS” rule to bring flowers or special treats for the RV, like music for the drive or jigsaw puzzles to keep me occupied while Liz drives. We all stayed appropriately socially distant – and I provided sanitizer for people who wanted to check out the RV. (Is BYOS – Bring Your Own Sanitizer – going to become a thing?). And no one had to use my bathroom (although I had discussed this possibility with several people). I was touched by the number of people for whom this was their first social event since early March and I know that for some it took a modicum of courage to come.

An addition to the birthday display on the street

Tomorrow at 8AM, the Cruise America branch where we’re supposed to get our replacement opens. At 7:59, Liz will be dialing their number – and perhaps we’ll find out if we’ll actually be able to get on the road on Tuesday morning. Stay tuned.

Waking up to birthday greetings

Today is my birthday party – even though my 70th birthday isn’t until June 22. Everyone on my street knows about it, as the party will be outside in the driveway and all my neighbors are invited. (Also, having an RV in the driveway is hard to ignore, so the whole neighborhood knows something unusual is going on.) I woke up this morning and wandered in the room I’ve been using as an office for the past 3 months (usually Liz’s office…), glanced out the window and saw this:

Just couldn’t wait until tonight to share this!

Liz gets a job offer from Cruise America

Those of you who know Liz know that she’s very resourceful. This is a quality that has been critical today, as we’ve tried to figure out how to make the RV travel-worthy, i.e. to fix its water system. “Water system” is a euphemism for “the drains that allow the driver to dump gray water and black water from their respective tanks.” (I won’t elaborate any more on the difference between gray and black water.) It turns out that the accident in Ohio sheared off the outside valve of the drain hose connection and, as of this morning, Cruise America hadn’t been very helpful in finding us either a repair shop or a replacement RV. The best we could get was, “We called two repair places near you and left messages, but they haven’t called back.” So, Liz took matters into her own hands and went to the closer of the two repair places. It was a small corner gas station whose employees had never repaired an RV. Foiled again.

Enough of relying on Cruise America. Liz went shopping – first a bike shop, then a motorcycle shop, then the hardware store – and came back with a clever solution to extend the sheared-off drain pipe. With a few screwdrivers and a saw, she rigged up a way to empty the gray water tank (leaving the black water one for later). See below. Yes, that’s a motorcycle tire tube extending out of the RV.

Liz’s fix – $35 worth of parts and a lot of ingenuity

This worked well enough – but we were both still pretty nervous about relying on this vehicle to get back to Colorado. What if it starting leaking in the middle of Indiana – and there we are, stranded – with a cat! So, Liz tried calling Cruise America one more time – and finally got back to Jonathan, the original agent she spoke to on Wednesday after the accident. He’s been the most helpful of all the people she’s spoken with and we suspect he’s head of their help center team. He was in the process of calling around to find us a replacement vehicle – but he was happy to stop to appreciate Liz’s engineering skills. Here is the text exchange they had:

So, now that we’re all impressed with Liz’s skill, here is the current situation: There is an RV available for us to exchange in Chicago and one in Lakeville, Mass, about an hour south of Boston. Clearly, we prefer to get this exchange settled before we set off – we don’t imagine we’d enjoy moving everything (including the cat) from one RV to the other in a parking lot near Chicago. So the current plan is to exchange the RV on Monday morning, then hopefully set off west on Monday afternoon. But we aren’t counting on anything until it happens.

In other news, the weather has also been uncooperative. My 70th birthday outdoor “iso-gathering,” which I postponed from Saturday to Sunday because of predicted Saturday thunderstorms, may still get rained on, as Sunday’s forecast is now for rain, during the exact hours of the party.

Liz arrives! (Not without complications, though)

Before anyone worries, Liz is here safely and she’s fine. It’s the RV that is still suffering, as I’ll describe below. But first, here is the RV in my driveway, nose-to-nose with my car, Persephone. (The RV will have to acquire a name sometime soon.) I love the evening light at this time of year in Arlington

Liz made good time coming up the Eastern seaboard from Maryland after a brief visit this morning with Aunt Lorna. The pavement in NYC (GW Bridge and Cross-Bronx Expressway), however, was so rough that it registered steps on her phone and dislodged some paneling in the RV. And then she actually ran into TRAFFIC on 95 in Stamford, CT. But the bigger problem was that she discovered this morning that the little accident had not only taken off the mirror, but done some damage to the water systems. This makes the RV impossible to use as intended, so we have to get it fixed before we take off west.

The CruiseAmerica folks she spoke to told her there was a franchise in Waltham, so she made a bee-line there, managing to arrive by 4:10 in the hopes of getting things fixed today. But there was nothing resembling a CruiseAmerica office at 215 Lexington St. in Waltham. Apparently it had closed quite recently and the closest one is now in Worcester, 50 miles away. Luckily, the RV people are taking full responsibility for giving her the wrong information and will find a place for us to get things fixed – hopefully tomorrow. Meanwhile, we are enjoying our reunion, having dinner on the deck, beginning with gin and tonic…!

For those of you in the Boston area, I hope you’ve heard that our “iso-gathering” has been postponed from Saturday to Sunday because it’s likely to rain on Saturday. Looking forward to seeing some of you in our driveway soon.

Duck Tape to the Rescue

Is it duck tape or duct tape? No matter – it worked! Below there are three pictures. The first is of the RV without its side mirror. The next two show how cleverly Liz used both the tape and MY sandal from Bangkok (which she brought for me to wear in the RV) to attach the new mirror. I assured her it was a worthy sacrifice of the sandal. This gerry-rigged attachment seems to be plenty sturdy, as there were no issues with it through a long day of driving.

Liz reports, by the way, that most people she’s encountered in rural Ohio do not wear masks outside (but she has had hers on all the time). In the auto body parts stores she visited, on the other hand, everyone was wearing a mask. Later in the day, a friend of mine told me Ohio had actually done a really good job around COVID, as they have a smart, female head of the state health department who issued stay-at-home orders early on. So I’m not unduly worried that Liz caught anything.

Liz’s destination today was Easton, Maryland, where her Aunt Lorna, her mother’s sister, lives. Lorna is 96 and walks multiple miles a day with a friend from the assisted living setting in which she lives. Liz has been reading her poetry over the phone for the last several months and it was a thrill for both of them to get a chance to visit in person.

Meanwhile, I’ve been making preparations here in Boston. Today was the day to take Izzie, my cat, to the vet to get some meds for the trip. Of course, procedures for taking pets to the vet have changed; this is how the cat transfer is achieved in the pandemic era:

Then you go back to your car and talk to the vet tech and the vet on the phone during the exam.

Tomorrow, Liz will arrive in Boston, probably around dinner time!

Hitting some bumps

A quick update. Liz is at Wolfie’s Campground in Zanesville, Ohio, a bit east of Columbus. She started out early from Kansas City and stopped for a very civilized breakfast a few hours later in St. Louis – complete with a vase of peonies and the New York Times.

This evening, however, she had a little accident – a pick-up truck swerved into her lane on a side road near her destination, managed to dislodge her driver’s side mirror, almost hit a vehicle behind her, then sped off. Apparently, his lights weren’t on, he was driving erratically, and there were witnesses, so there’s no question of fault. Liz was fine – but understandably rattled. She got the police officer who responded to the 911 call (who, she said, looked about 13) to lead her the rest of the way to the campground, where she finally had dinner is now trying to figure out how to proceed. Go to an auto parts store and get a new mirror? Go to the nearest CruiseAmerica rental franchise and trade in our RV for a new one? Tune in tomorrow for the next chapter in this suspenseful saga.

First night shake-down

Liz got to Kansas City, where her first cousin Donna (and first cousins variously removed) live. She reports that after the first couple of miles, when she had to stop a few times and secure objects that had “shifted in flight,” the ride was relatively smooth – but long and noisy. The RV does, indeed, drink gas at a prodigious rate (10 miles/gallon) and traveling at 65 MPH puts a lot of wear-and-tear on the driver’s ears and body. Also, Liz’s noise-canceling headphones ran out of battery power and she didn’t have a replacement.

The main tourist attraction along the way in Kansas were signs for the Sternberg Museum of Natural History (http://sternberg.fhsu.edu/), which is actually re-opening today (June 3). Too bad Liz missed it by a day.

From the Fort Hays State University’s Sternberg Museum website

Liz’s cousins greeted her with delicious barbecue, served at an appropriate social distance. She says that it was the best BBQ ever – possibly because she was starving and exhausted after a day of not eating enough and driving for too long. Also she didn’t have to cook it herself and could eat as much as she wanted. Here’s the family:

Liz’s cousins in Kansas City (I don’t see the BBQ spread, though.)

Last night didn’t start well – plugging the RV into the outlet outside Liz’s cousin’s house and turning on the AC blew their circuit breaker (how not to be a considerate guest!). So Liz tried turning the AC on lower, but it’s noisy. Eventually, she used a small fan she brought from home and turned off the AC.

Another problem: the over-cab bed was advertised as a double, so Liz brought that size sheets. She described trying to put them on the bed with two feet of headroom and struggling mightily until she realized that the bed is a queen, not a double. She’ll make do for the next few nights, then we’ll grab larger sheets here in Boston for the trip back.