Short Trip Home

November 17, 2023 – Day 49

We both love the banjo player Bela Fleck. We’ve seen him live twice and would gladly see him again if he plays anywhere in a drivable distance from us. Now banjo, you may thinking of Deliverance…

But Bela plays differently than that. He teamed up with Edgar Myers and made the wonderful modern bluegrass album Short Trip Home.

Stop the presses.

Bela Fleck had nothing to do with that album! Both Susan and Paul would have fought you on this but we were wrong. (To be fair, Meyers and Fleck have a long history of collaboration. But it wasn’t this album or that song. It’s still a great song however.)

But, go to YouTube and listen to Short Trip Home. We’ll wait. (We’re not linking it because someone is a big poopy-pants and won’t allow a deep link to that song.)

Welcome back, did you like it? Today we are going home and Paul has made a playlist of songs that have home somewhere in the title. And Short Trip Home is on that list.

It should be about 110 miles. We decided to take the twisty and hilly Route 9 through VT as opposed to the all highway just to avoid going through Springfield, MA. Before we had some experience these hills would have scared us but not anymore. We just go slow up the hills and don’t ride the brakes down. Vermont helps by having lots of climbing lanes so we never get too big a fan club.

Garmin wanted us go back down to Catskill heights and back up to Albany to cross the Hudson. Which is only slightly north of where we were starting out from. Basically it was crossing the Hudson twice with no actual gain except for time and mileage. (Did you know the Hudson River is tidal?)

We thought that that was really dumb and took the shorter, but slower route through rural NY State. It was nice seeing something other than highway, like the little town of Castleton on Hudson.

Some of the roads were pretty nail biters. Some were steep. Susan was able to hit 20mph on this long winding hill.

And some were curvy.

Some had creative ways to make passive income.

And some were blocked by UPS drivers who had zero sense of safety. We sat there, fuming, for about 10 minutes. Some people behind us turned around, a couple made the unsafe pass. We saw two near head on collisions by those who were less patient than us. (susan here: there were lots of horns blaring both times)

It was only 110 miles, but a lot of that was slow miles. Once we were in the hills of Vermont it was clear we still had about an hour or more to go so we found a wide spot in the road which turned out to be a hiking trailhead. Quickly we changed drivers.

Near the highest peaks we saw some snow on the ground!

Soon we made it to New Hampshire.

Much like the sign in Texas, which may or may not have made the cut into this blog, the sign was covered with stickers. That must be a thing we guess.

Did we pull into the driveway, call it “DONE.” and grab an adult beverage in celebration for a good job done? No! First, we went and filled up the propane. We had some cold weather forecast and needed to keep the heated wet bay heated until we could winterize it. (susan here: the plan had been to winterize when we were in French Creek but we were over it and needed downtime.) Then were were off to the dump to empty our tanks and give them a good flushing. Sadly, the dump’s water was off so we couldn’t give a good flushing. We came home filled things with water and cleaner. A few days later we drove around a bit for a good “scrubbing” and headed back to the wastewater treatment plant. It’s a pretty wide and open area by the wastewater treatment plant and lots of birds hang out over there. We saw people on the side of the road. One person had a BIG camera and lens so we asked what was up. They said it was a Merlin. We did what we set out to do and stopped on the way back. We got a life bird just doing RV maintenance. It was a Merlin! Which was a nice grab because they’re only transient in this area.

We grabbed a tank of gas on the way home. Clifford has been winterized and “put to bed” for the winter. Next trip comes in late March when we head to TX for the total eclipse.

Daily: 110

Return Total: 3,090

Return Overall Miles/Day: 309

Return Driving Miles/Day: 182

Overall Total: 6,226

Total Driving Miles/Day: 328

mpg: 6.1

Overal mpg: 6.7

Gallons: 896.5

Yikes: $2,996.90