Weather Report

Day 1: Sunday Aug. 28, 2011.

It’s Sunday morning in eastern Ohio, and the weather is bright, sunny, breezy, seasonably cool, and absolutely perfect. In short, an ideal day to travel. At home in HP, I understand that the power is out at my sister’s house (no report from my house yet, but probably the same story there), but still on at Mom’s and Joe’s office. Water in the basements, too, and no one is sure if the hurricane has gone through completely or if they are in the eye of the storm (it’s 9:10 am as I type this.)

We had an uneventful day yesterday, when we finally got out of town--that was not until 1pm. Joe had leftover paperwork to do, which turned out to be more than he expected. I meanwhile finished packing, loaded the food in to the RV refrigerator, took down stuff to hurricane-proof the yard, and all the other odds and ends. We stopped for gas before we left town, making it 1pm on the nose.

Otherwise, it was a typical first day, although none of our typical mechanical problems other than a discovery late in the day that our refrigerator wasn’t working. The culprit, as with last year’s first day, seemed to be the alignment between the on switch and the propane feed. Joe has tweaked it a few times, and we will keep an eye on it. Meanwhile, we stopped for a sandwich lunch in Tannersville PA at 3pm, and at Pizza Hut around exit 62 in PA at 8pm. Pennsylvania is a beautiful state, but there is just too MUCH of it!

After dinner we drove the rest of the PA segment and made it to Ohio. I would have liked to be further west tonight, but oh well. We stopped at the first Ohio Turnpike rest stop we came to, and it turned out to be one of the 3 with RV hook-up sites. So because we weren’t 100% sure about our refrigerator, we chose to pay for electricity rather than park for free next to the big trucks. And now we are back on the road. If we’re lucky, the next time we buy gas we will also be able to upload this--I seem to remember from last year that some of the OH TP rest stops have free wifi. The one we were at last night had wifi, but not free… I hope this is not a new trend!

Added at 1pm Sunday: We are now in Indiana, at a rest stop with free wifi. @Steve: Get me some cheap wifi-to-go and I am on it! This is really crazy how hard it is to find Internet service for free on the interstate.) Hope everyone on the east coast are not too wet and looking forward to some sun soon! We have stopped for lunch. Unfortunately there was a chocolate shop inside. But they had sugar-free chocolates so Joey is now rich in chocolate. I was just gifted with some garden-fresh mini-tomatoes and cucumbers from a mother-daughter pair having lunch at the table where I am borrowing laptop space. Roxy, meanwhile, stole half Joe's salami sandwich, so she is in disgrace. I am not too hungry, just want to keep driving. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll have something more interesting to write about!