After almost a month on the road I am settling into a rhythm. The motorhome is starting to feel like home. This is a new life.
I’m starting to understand how to travel in this huge coach now. There is always some amount of stress while traveling and the first month was somewhat stressful. You are out of your comfort zone, away from your home, and no longer seeing familiar faces and places. Learning how the RV works was interesting. More important was learning to drive the RV. Learning the correct operation and controls for the engine, transmission, and brakes was critical to prevent overheating.
One cannot just go slinging this bus over any road you want. Interstate driving is fairly easy. The harder part is finding campgrounds that are easy to get into and out of. There have been several huge screw-ups. The first one required towing the rig out of land saturated by weeks of heavy rain. I learned the hard way how quickly 40,000 pounds can sink in soft terrain. A series of mistakes lead me to ending up being stuck in mud. This was not my finest hour. The second disaster was a few days later when I destroyed a stop sign while trying not to get stuck in the mud again leaving a rain soaked campground. During that calamity, the stop sign scraped paint off the right side of the rig. I don’t really feel like going into these incidents now, the memory is still too traumatic in my mind. Maybe I will write about them later. Some people have told me that someday I will look back and laugh about the incidents. Well today, it’s still not funny. The tow truck driver said at least no one got hurt, I am sure he has seen much worst. His observation was correct.
RV dealers are selling a dream. The first thing you see when walking into the dealer where I got my RV are big murals of National Parks out west. The impression one gets from the images is that all you have to do is turn the key and drive off into the sunset. Of course, this is not true at all. RVs are a lot of work. Flying to a destination and saying, “Room key please” is much easier than traveling by RV. These contraptions require connections to hookups for water, sewer, and electric. There is also refueling, restocking food, finding places to stay, and navigating along the way. If you want to travel for an extended period with your pets, the RV is the only option I know. This is why I am traveling in a motorhome.
I made a lot of mistakes leading up to my fiascos several weeks ago. Having a second person to help navigate as well as having a second set of eyes, and a second mind to help think things through probably would have prevented the disasters. I was so discouraged two weeks ago I thought about selling the coach already. I read a quote that helped a lot, “What happened, happened.” The quote is simple and true. I’m feeling much better now.
A good part of the driving is behind me now, at least until I start making my way home. Next I’m heading to upstate New York into the Adirondacks, and then over into Vermont. I am hoping to find cooler weather. From Vermont I will probably head into Maine. The driving distances are not that far now. This trip is much different from last year. Last year I drove all the way out west, the entire trip was over 8000 miles. Last year I got restless staying in one place more than a day or two.
This year the trip is more about finding a nice place to stay for up to a week, and less about driving most of the days. This is not a National Park tour. Since I am traveling during the summer this year, the popular places are much more crowded. I am traveling without a plan and the well known places fill up with people who made reservations months ago. There are many places that are still nice and don’t have the crowds. The place I am staying now is a good example. The campground is quiet, peaceful, and beautiful. My main criteria for a campground is that the place is quiet and has a good 50 amp electrical connection.
I’ve finally reached the point where the trip is about the places you stay and see. At first the trip was all about the RV. I see this pattern all the time with people who are new to RVing. Eventually you reach a point where the trip becomes focused around the places and the experiences. The RV then becomes just a tool you use to have these experiences. I went through this progression with the last RV too. Now this one is becoming familiar enough that the coach is not the focus, it’s just a tool to live and explore.
My favorite part each day continues going to bed at dusk, and waking up at dawn. I always seem to get a good night’s sleep in the coach.
The Rhythm Is Going To Get You