Driving Again

 

Muskingum River, Blue Rock, OH

Wednesday, May 4, 2022

For a while today, our day was fairly frustrating again, and tiring. It began with us unable to find our spare Jeep key, and we spent 30 minutes searching just as we had finished dumping our tanks and were ready to hit the road. The delay made me nuts, plus we left without finding it. It's important, because the key is needed to operate the auxiliary brake system. We did have Joe's key, but that would mean that if the Jeep decided to lock its doors, we'd be sunk without a way to get in. We finally used his key and left the window cracked enough for him to get his arm through to release the aux brake if it did indeed lock.

Then we hit the road, and the GPS led me a way I had not expected. It wanted me to go back up the hideously steep road we had just come DOWN-- so i went a different way, and i think that added time to our trip because i was facing the wrong way to begin with. I was livid and ranted for the first 10 minutes after that. Then it turned out that the highway we were on, US 40, is so steep going over the mountains that there are signs FORCING trucks over 10,000 pounds to STOP at the top before heading down--the road is so steep and winding! I had the RV in first gear the entire way down, and still had to keep pumping the brakes. It was harrowing-- thank God it was a dry day, albeit not what you'd call "clear"-- the sky was gray all day, and it had rained while we were dumping the tanks (a miserable job in any case.)

But we did get down the mountain safely, and when we reached Washington, PA, we stopped at a Walmart for lunch, and then for a shopping trip. Oh, and Joe found the keys at that point, too (on the floor in the bedroom--they probably fell out of his pocket two nights ago when we arrived at the campground.) It was a long stop, and i was really tired the entire time (I am still really congested--at least i could get meds for that at Walmart.) So Joe drove the last 2 hours of our trip.

I have to say, though, that our site tonight did put me back into a much happier frame of mind. It is a Boondockers Welcome site. BW is a group where people can offer a parking place at their home or property for other RVers to spend the night for free. (We stayed at our first BW site last fall in Chattanooga.) The owner isn't here, but we communicated this morning and he said his plans had changed, but the site was all ready for us. So we followed the GPS and then his detailed instructions, and found this lovely location along the Muskingum River. We are on a dead-end road about a mile or so long, and many of the homes here have boats, as does our host (we can see inside the shed.) His "guest quarters" has a fire pit, a wooden swing, and chairs to relax outside. And it's quiet. It was just so much nicer than we'd anticipated! 

Our site for the next 2 nights--fire pit, swing, and all!

 So we had some dinner, and I've been catching up on my blog now. I picked up some brochures at a rest stop, and now have some other things we can go see in Zanesville tomorrow besides the art museum. I am hoping the weather is nicer than today-- it was occasionally warm, but mostly gray and a bit chilly.