Home

April 12, 2023 – Day 56

Home, we’re finally home! Let’s back up to the last night though.

After a wonderful visit with my brother we tried to find a Harvest Host for the next night. We were fussy though, we wanted one that served food. We couldn’t find one so we had only two options, stay at a Cracker Barrel or make the big push to home.

Checkout times are usually 10 or 11AM but this campground had a 3pm checkout! The Fishkill NY Cracker Barrel was only 175 miles from the campground and 185 miles from home. We could have an easy morning then make the quick run up to Fishkill. In particular, you don’t want to arrive at a CB too early and just hang out in the parking lot all day long. If we stayed in Fishkill we’d have 2 super easy travel days.

The Cracker Barrel outside of Albany was 254 miles away from our campsite in PA. Albany to home is an additional 2 hours or so and therefore within striking distance. But if we pushed on to home the trip would be close to 400 miles making for a long, tough day. Staying in Albany would give a “regular” day and really short ride home the next day. But we sort of knew that if I we were in Albany we’d just push on to home.

We went to bed not knowing what we would do the next day. That was odd.

I woke up around 6:30 and read until Susan woke up around 7:45AM. She said, “I thought you were going to wake me up at 6?” That had sort of been the plan but I really didn’t want to wake her that morning. We chatted about the plan and she said, “Lets just go all the way home today.”

So we jumped up and started moving fast, neither of us likes moving fast in the morning. We had the trailer ready to travel in just under 40 minutes, which is really a record for us.

We headed over to the diner we ate at yesterday and got 3 egg omelets, Susan had a western and I had the farmers. High protein meals are the secret to both not falling asleep in the car and not getting hungry too soon.

There’s not much to say about the driving except that was perhaps the windiest day since West Texas, which was annoying. Given the distance we were going to cover we wanted easy driving conditions today but it wasn’t going to happen.

One gas station was really tight but Susan made it to the pump. This was in NJ so the gas station attendant was impressed. He initially thought the rig was too long for Susan to make the turn but she did it with ease. (susan here: His expression went from “Crazy lady! Not Possible.” to “WOW that was incredible”. He complimented me on my driving skills.)

We had a quick sandwich at one of the closed rest areas in NY, the buildings are closed for renovations but you can still park there.

Eventually we made it home!

Daily: 385 miles

Return Total: 4,141

Overall Total: 7,668

Return Miles/Day: 158

New Life Birds: 0