Summer’s End

Copiliot and navigator Paso Robles needs to sleep less during the drive so we don’t miss so many turns. Robles and Mountain Lioness have done great on this tour.

I started hoofing my way home from northern Virginia while trying to figure out if making my way home in three days was possible. Once you start thinking about coming home, the trip is over. You are not home yet, but the trip is now done. The rest of the trip is now just slogging your way home, an endless blur of highways, fuels stations, and convenient campgrounds along highways. All my trips have ended this way.

I-81 and I-64 in Virginia are some of the nicest highways I have been on in America. The drive from Staunton to Richmond on I-64 is one of my favorite roads in America. On I-64 we also rode past Charlottesville, the birthplace of Robles. Charlottesville is also where Sunwapta, Spirit, and Cheetah were from. I’ve been there several times to pick up cats and fly home with them. Kittens are great in airport bars and airplanes, they are chick magnets.

Using the air horn in the rig for the first time today scared me. The horn was very loud, a very deep blaring growl. The sound startled me. Traffic was merging on I-95 from the on ramp on my right. I slowed a bit to allow a car to accelerate and pass me to merge. The motorist kept slowing down also. I could see the driver was not paying attention and was eating something, so I went past the car. On the side of road just ahead of the merge lane a stopped car suddenly started moving. I thought the car was going to cut directly in front of me. Instinctively I laid on the horn for at least 3 seconds. If the sound of the horn scared me, I know I freaked out the driver of the car. The driver of that car probably had to go home and change their clothes.

Two years ago I did make it home in three days along the same route, but that was in the smaller RV. I changed my mind about getting home so quickly after arriving in a RV park right near the NC/VA border off I-95. I stayed in this park twice before, including on the way up here this year. There is something about this park I find comforting. While the park is basically just a field with well laid out sites, tall trees surround the park and the place is quiet. Perhaps I felt nostalgic since I stayed here on my first long distance RV trip two years ago and the place felt familiar. The park felt like a safe port in a storm, peaceful, quiet, and just a short distance from the highway. I thought I would stay a few days, but then another severe weather system started rolling in, so I decided to leave.

Deciding when to come home on this tour is something I’ve struggled with many days. Some days I just want to come home, other days I never want to come home. I think now is the time to go home. This first trip was more like an orientation, getting over the learning curve, practice, and a trial run. While some of the trip was similar to the last few years trips, I’ve learned a lot on this trip. I had to plan more, figuring out routes, campgrounds, and refueling stops.

Getting fuel was particularly challenging since most gas stations the rig won’t fit into which means using mostly truck stops. Further complicating refueling is that many truck stops sell bio-diesel, similar to ethanol gas, and that fuel is not good for RVs. Several times while refueling in truck stops, other truckers asked me how much a RV like this costs. I always told them, I don’t know, the vehicle is stolen.

I’m already starting to plan next years trip. The purpose of this year’s trip was to escape the Florida summer heat, and that did not work out well at all. There were heatwaves across the northeast, often accompanied by severe thunderstorms, torrential downpours resulting in flooding. Now I remember two years ago looking for a cooler place to go in August and figured out that meant going up high in elevation to get away from the sweltering heat.

So next summer I am thinking about heading out to Jackson Wyoming and the Tetons. I was there last year, and because of the high elevation, the weather was very comfortable. I like the campgrounds I stayed at in both Jackson and Teton National Park. I am thinking about maybe working in the campground in Jackson, checking people into the park in exchange for a free RV site. Working in the national park gift shop would be easy, I would look pretty spiffy in a national park uniform.

We Will Go Home (Song of Exile) – King Arthur