There’s Got to be Something Better, Right?
September 29, 2023 – Day 1
Sorry about the click bait title. We’ll explain later, but it’s a title so it has to be at the top. Yes we’re doing it all over again and driving back to Phoenix for the second time this year! It’s not to escape fall which we’re going to miss, but for the annular eclipse and a bonus visit with Anastasia (Paul’s daughter) and John (our future son-in-law) who live in Phoenix.
We sold the trailer from the last trip. We like road tripping, we loved the trailer, but that was just too small for these epic journeys.
So we bought this RV and it easily tows our Jeep. That picture is not from today, and we’re not carrying the kayaks either. That was for a trip to the Adirondacks where there are lots of kayaking destinations. Not the desert. We do have the Jeep with us. It’s an “adventure” driving it but we’re getting used to the size. In the beginning it was terrifying and we limited ourselves to 90 minutes stints. Sometimes it was less when it was less than ideal traffic or weather conditions. Recently we’ve been extending that and it seems that even though 4 hours is possible, why bother? It looks like we’ve settled on 3 hour shifts.
You might ask if we needed a special license or formal instruction to drive something that totals about 30,000 pounds and is 55′ long. The answer is “Nope.” Does that scare you? It should. It means it’s possible that a 16 year old on a learner’s permit could be behind the wheel.
The 29th of September: We got off to an early start. Sort of. But not really. Thursday night we declared it “Done!” because we had packed everything. We went to bed secure in the knowledge that everything was in the RV, that we’d rise early, and be on our way maybe by 9 or so. As we slept boxes and even furniture magically appeared by the door demanding to be put into the RV. We concluded that bad elves, dark elves, very mean-spirited elves had conspired under cover of darkness to delay our departure. Now we were behind and we hadn’t made the stop at the wastewater treatment plant in Keene to dump the poo! It’s always about the poo, right? (Or wind.) And you know what’s more fun than dumping poo? Dumping poo in the rain!
It was Paul’s turn to pull the levers so Susan got to stay in the coach and document it.
Why go to the other end of town, in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go? Keene wastewater treatment plant has a free RV dump station (free is good), bonus points as it’s near the airport where there is a darned fine diner where we could grab breakfast. When all was said and done, and we were full of yummy breakfast omelettes we hit the road about 11:15am. Not what we’d hoped but good enough. RV travel is often about modulating and adjusting expectations as it’s all part of the adventure. Sometimes you get a good story out of it.
Route 9 though Vermont was as hilly as expected and the RV performed fine even if it was a little slow. Paul had that driving shift and usually had to slow for the curves more than the hills!
There were frequent truck climbing lanes so we never had too much of a “fan club.” We call all the poor souls stuck behind us our “fan club.” Someday the joke will become tired but it’s still funny to us so we’ll use it until we don’t. The other joke is that “They should have left earlier.” We might be slow but we’re still ahead of them. The third joke is we call our RV “Clifford the Big Red Dog” and yes that’s a child’s cartoon dog but the name fits. It’s big. It’s red. And on hills it can be a dog.
Soon we were in Hoosick Falls, NY which has a small urban center that we couldn’t avoid. We did see this cool shop.
We stopped by a CAT scale to get our RV with the “toad” weighed. The Jeep, that’s what they call things that are towed. (Get it? Towed? Toad? Laughing yet? Yeah, someone should get slapped for that pun.) It is important to be under weight, both from a safety standpoint and a legal standpoint. We had measured once before and it looked like we were close. Paul was a bit worried since we were fully loaded now. It turns out Paul had read the weight tag incorrectly and we have hundreds of pounds before we start worrying. (susan here: good to know. challenge accepted.)
We traveled along parts of the Erie Canal and/or Mohawk River. Here’s a shot and you can just barely make out Lock 15 behind the trees on the left hand side of the photo.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, it looked like we would be hitting the Cracker Barrell in Rochester right around 5:30, which we both thought was too early. Those parking lots can be jammed and maneuvering a coach this large can be difficult. NY State allows overnight stays at their rest areas. We pressed on to Clarence NY which was another hour’s travel.
The setting sun was brutal for the last hour.
Now to the title of the blog. Paul wanted to call it something like “Civil Unrest” because after about half an hour we knew it would be a noisy night. Many of the trucks idle their engines and you would think that would lull you to sleep. It doesn’t. Susan said, “There’s got to be something better, right?” and we both agreed that that was a fine assessment of the nighttime parking situation and therefore a fine title for the blog.
We had a quick dinner and settled in for some streaming TV. Our latest binge watch is Foundation. It’s really good. If you’re looking for a new series give it a go. And notice we’re streaming on the laptop. With the coach’s slides in we can’t see the TV!
In the morning we both thought that the truck stop wasn’t as bad as we had thought it would be. Paul still really hated the noise and doesn’t want to try earplugs. Susan slept like the proverbial log with ear buds and some soothing white noise. Just like we did for the last trip out to Arizona we spent some time looking for accommodations for the next couple of stops. We booked a Harvest Host stop at Holdfast Farms where they raise alpacas. (susan here: Alpacas? Bet they’ll have yarn for sale!!) Paul suspects this was planned.
Daily: 368
Total: 368
Miles/Day: 368
mpg: 6.55 (Pathetic, but VT is hilly!)