Last night I learned that there’s a certain science in selecting an overnight parking spot at Walmart.  For example, don’t park next to the dumpster, because it gets emptied at 4AM.  Grr.

We got on the road at a reasonable hour.  The plan had us driving 386 miles from Clarion, PA to South Bend, Indiana.  We would be spending Shabbos there.

Since we stopped in Stroudsburg, we would have to drive 626 miles.  It was doable, but we would have to skip our planned stop at the RV Hall of Fame.  I wasn’t that disappointed, as it was expensive, but I thought it would be fun to see the museum with its antique RVs.  Oh well, next time.

Everything was going well until exit 91 on I-80, a bit Southwest of Toledo, Ohio.  I felt the trailer lurch, and Trish could see chunks of tire flying off the passenger side of the RV.  We pulled over to see what was up.  I didn’t take a picture of our blown out tire, but it looked something like this one I found online:

We called AAA, but they only cover our SUV.  We would need to have AAA-with-RV (or whatever) to cover the trailer as well.  I guess we need to re-evaluate our choice roadside insurance provider.

Using the SUV’s bottle jack, I was able to install the spare.  I’m glad I checked and inflated the spare before we left.

We assumed that the blowout was due to overloading, so we drove to the next rest area and moved as much heavy stuff as we could from the RV to the SUV.

It was about at this time that we noticed that the SUV’s air conditioning wasn’t working.  The RV’s thermostat showed an ambient temperature of 100 degrees, and we were definitely uncomfortable to say the least.

The next priority was buying a new spare, in case we would have another blowout.  A couple of calls later, we found a Tractor Supply in nearby Freemont, OH.  They didn’t have any 215/75 R14s, but they did sell mounted 205/75 R14s, so we bought one and installed it in the RV’s spare carrier.  We left the mangled rim in the dumpster.

At this point, we knew we weren’t going to make it to South Bend.  We looked at spending Shabbos in Toledo, but even that was a stretch.  We found a nearby campground, Paradise Acres, and made our way there.  We got set up just in time for a huge thunderstorm.

In the end, we drove about 500 miles.  Here’s our route:

“B” is the blowout location, and “C” is tractor supply:

I started planning the trip in June.  Here’s what I came up with:

As planned, the trip was 18 days and would cover 5,291 miles, with 76 stops along the way.  I was intrigued by the idea of doing a 3 week trip mostly without staying in a formal campground.  Our camping would either be in Walmart parking lots that allow overnight parking, or dispersed camping (primarily in the Western US, camping on federal Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands, in which camping pretty much anywhere is allowed).  This would be dry camping, that is, camping without hookups.  We would carry our own water and electricity (on-board water tanks and batteries with solar panels), as well as propane for refrigeration, heating, and cooking.  Basically, 3 weeks of truly off-grid living.  The trip was not only a family sight-seeing trip, it was also a sanity-check for the idea of spending a good amount of time RVing when we retire.

We were supposed to leave today at 7pm.  This turned out to be wishful thinking, as we weren’t packed yet.  We left around 11:30pm.  We hadn’t even started and we were already 4 1/2 hours behind schedule!

As we entered New Jersey, I noticed that the truck steering was quite jittery.  We pulled over, and visually I confirmed what I was feeling at the wheel – the additional load in the RV and SUV was causing the front axle of the SUV to have less weight on it.  I adjusted the weight distribution hitch so that the SUV had equal weight on both axles, and the problem went away.

We were supposed to sleep at the Walmart of Clarion, PA, but instead stopped at the Walmart of Stroudsburg, PA at about 1am.  We had only travelled 81 miles.  Our first Walmart camping experience!  By 1:45am, we were asleep.

We went up to Mongaup Pond for Memorial day weekend.  All the new systems in the RV worked well, except for a propane leak in the connection for the new catalytic heater.  Once I tightened it up, it was fine.

Trish relaxing in camp:

On Sunday we went kayaking on the pond:

Followed by a ride around the campground:

After lunch, I went for a mountain bike ride.  The climb out of the Mongaup basin was tough, with grades exceeding 20% in spots:

Hodge Pond:

Old wagon wheels:

At one point the trail suddenly enters a thick, canopied forest:

Frick Pond:

This grave marker is a bit off the trail near Frick pond:

Here’s the newspaper article from 1933:

M and B at the beach on Mongaup pond:

On Monday we went fishing on the Willowemoc, but we didn’t catch anything:

We decided to test thenew SUV on the same “road” we rode last summer:

At one point we saw a fawn struggling to get across the road.  Trish moved it to the shoulder and we cut open a water bottle for it.  It was pretty weak, so it probably didn’t survive:

Here we are breaking camp:

What a great weekend!

This summer, we took the RV to a couple of state campgrounds.  It was crowded and not so much fun.  Off-season RVing in Oregon was great – the weather was mild and the campgrounds were empty.  In the northeast, the campgrounds are only open from April to September, and they are very crowded.

The good news is that, in National Forests and on BLM land, there’s something called dispersed camping.  Basically, you can camp anywhere so long as you’re a certain distance from the nearest paved road, etc.  Unfortunately, the northeast has no BLM land and very few national forests.

The nearest national forest for us is Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont.  In September, we drove up to find the perfect campsite.

In all, we logged close to 80 potential sites.  Along the way, we found this great bridge:

One of the areas that we found had enough space to park the RV and opened up onto a secluded pond:

More marsh land beyond:

The kids ran around:

Zoological discoveries:

The road to get to this site was really bad, so I don’t know if we could make it towing the RV.  Come spring, I think we will give Green Mountain a try.

This Chol Hamoed we took the RV down to Assateague Island. It took a bit of time to get everything ready to go, so we didn’t leave until 2am on Monday morning (Motzei Sukkos). We drove straight through, arriving at 7am Monday morning. I was a bit sleepy at 3:45am, but after buying a soda at a rest stop I was fine for the rest of the drive. About 30 miles out, I realized that I forgot to pack B’s bicycle! Thankfully, $48.50 at Walmart solved that problem:

No sales tax in Delaware, hooray! We did have to wait in the parking lot for 10 minutes or so until they opened.

We got the RV set up and the kids explored a bit:

The horses were right next to our campsite:

We played on the beach for the whole day. Towards the end of the day, M and B built a little castle for themselves and sat inside:

Birds at play:

More digging:

Sunset over Assateague:

On Tuesday, we hit the beach again:

In the afternoon, we went to Ocean City. M and I left a bit early and started biking towards Ocean City. Trish caught up with us at the Frontier Town theme park. It was closed for the season, but the shark and boat were accessible:

In Ocean City, we rented one of those two-by-two family bikes and rode it up and down the boardwalk. We played Skee Ball, etc. That night, I took the kids down to the beach and we saw tons of crabs running around:

On wednesday, we had another day
of fun on the beach. M got in over his head, literally:

Later we went into town and went to Baja amusement park to ride the roller coaster and go karts.

Sunset over the campground. Our site is on the far left:

RV + sukkah:

We went out on the beach after dinner. Our RV is on the far left:

Trish and the kids are the glowing streak on the beach, lower left, and Jupiter is the bright “star” on the center left edge:

Annotated version:

And a bonus – Uranus!

Neat, eh?

On Thursday, we, that’s right, hit the beach again. This whole vacation involved a good bit of laying about on the beach, which was fine with me.

We found lots of Horseshoe Crab shells, but this was the biggest one. Note the shells living on it’s back:

I took B for a ride:

Later, Trish built a castle. Behold the smooth walls:

Kite flying:

On the water:

M set up “armies” of horseshoe crab shells:

Towards sunset, we rode down to the bay:

The bridge to the island:

Sunset over the bay:

Wading in the bay:

An island in the bay:

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A bit after sunset, we had a couple Sika deer in the campground:

We left at 10pm and got home at around 3am. Until next time, Assateague!