2022: Shakedown Trip Begins

Sunday, May 1, 2022

  So here I am, with my 2021 travels still incomplete, staring a new journey for 2022. As this trip is only 2 weeks or even less, I will try to keep up this time!

We decided to take the RV someplace again during the spring months for a "shakedown trip", to see how it is running after a 6 month winter hiatus, and to see what managed to break despite nothing being used for all this time. As usual, Joe found plenty to repair or replace before we even left-- most notably, a last minute discovery of a leaking over the cab due to the sealing tape coming off. He was resealing it this morning before we could leave. About a week ago, he had to figure out why the refrigerator was no longer cooling--something was wrong with the propane connection. So he handled that, as well as dewinterizing the vehicle. I should have been scrubbing and cleaning inside, but of course I didn't do that. So when we packed up to go, I was kind of unhappy with the surfaces. I am going to work on that during our trip. 

 We had plenty to do before we could leave today, including errands in town which were made more difficult by Highland Park's 5K race which blocked both ends of our street. Joe had to park a block away and walk around the corner so he could get home after a quick errand around 9:30 a.m. I, meanwhile, had last minute packing to do, as well as choir practice all morning. Surprisingly, we managed to leave on schedule-- 4:00p.m.

 Oh! So where are we going? We are heading through Pennsylvania to Ohio. Our schedule includes a visit to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater House in southwestern PA, a quick drive via Jeep into Pittsburgh to the Carnegie Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, a stop in Zanesville Ohio to see the collection of art pottery (Roseville!) at the Zanesville Art Museum, a couple of nights at a state park in Springfield, where I plan to visit the Heart of Ohio Antique Mall as well as several other antique malls while Joey and Cassie relax at the park. Then we will head northeast, stopping for a couple of nights in Delaware, OH to visit with some old friends, then on to the Cleveland vicinity to stay with our in-laws and go into Cleveland to spend a day at the ROck & Roll Hall of Fame. And after that... we will play it by ear. 

Tonight's plan was to stop at the home of an online friend, someone who I met through my Talmud class. The congregation hosting the class is in Lancasater, PA, and I shamelessly trolled for some "home hospitality" at our last class. Stacy very generously offered to let us park in the parking lot adjacent to her barn. I figured that stopping in Lancaster would leave us only about a 4-hour drive the next day to get to our next stop. 

Our drive was uneventful, but we got off the highway after about an hour to pick up some water. We have a list of food items (mostly) that we didn't have at home but want during the trip, and water was the primary necessity--we had absolutely none on board. We stopped at a Wegman's big parking lot, and I ran in to pick up the water. I also talked Joe into letting me buy some kind of pre-made food for dinner, because I knew that fixing the roof and then packing up to leave had exhausted him, and I didn't want him to have to cook tonight. I picked up some soup and some cornbread--I realized that I, too, was a little out of it, and too tired to really think more about what to buy. 

I got back to the RV and we took off toward Lancaster. What I'd forgotten was that this is Amish Country! We were charmed by the countryside, but not so much when we got stuck behind a horse-drawn buggy trotting ahead of us. I hated to pass in a 29' RV towing a jeep, but managed it anyway. We were only 10 miniutes from Stacy's house, though, when our tire pressure monitor began screaming at us-- and Joe grabbed it, took a look, and said, "Pull over!" Well, there were no shoulders on these roads at all, they were narrow and windy, and there WAS no place to pull over. Luckily just then, a business sign appeared with a large parking lot, and I turned into that. 

A quick look at the tire monitor and the actual tire showed that indeed, the tire was quickly losing air. In fact, we could hear it. To make matters a bit worse, it was one of the inside rear tires. And it looked as if it might rain any moment. AND, it was 7:00pm, and was getting toward dusk. And Joe and I were exhausted. So of course, he insisted we could change the tire ourselves. This is not the first time we've had to change a tire; but the last time I was involved was several years ago. We did it, though-- we had to unhook the Jeep, jack up the RV, remove the outer tire, then the inner tire, lower the spare from its storage place and get that on, tighten everything up, toss the leaking tire into the back of the Jeep, hoist the spare tire cable back up into the RV (the spare is stored underneath), and finally, with all the tools put away again, we were ready to go. The owner of the property showed up just as we finished--apparently he'd been away from home (which was behind the business's garage; I'd wondered why no one had come out to see what was going on.) It was, of course, pitch black before we finished working, so I moved the Jeep over and we used its headlights along with a couple of flashlights to see what we were doing.

I was very proud of myself--after having my 70th birthday just a couple of days before, I proved that I'm not old yet! I lowered the spare alone, tightened the lug nuts on the tires when they were all back in place, and helped GET the tires back also (Joey tends to work "hard", whereas I was trying to work "smart" and figure out some helping strategies to make our job easier.) I was proud of us, but MAN, were we EXHAUSTED by then. 

I do have to add that, adding insult to injury, there must have been several dozen horse-drawn buggies that trotted past us on the road while we were working. I was convinced that the horses were sniggering and the drivers, who eschew modern transportation, were smugly telling their wives and kids when they got home about how these people had to change a tire while their old-fashioned vehicles just kept on trotting along. 

Anyway, at about 10pm, we straggled into Stacy's parking lot. Joe passed out almost immediately; I was hungry, and heated up the Wegman's soup before walking Cassie and going to bed. Later that night, Joe got up and had some cornbread. And thus ended our first day. It's hard to know who got "shaken down" more-- the RV, or us!