Summer Vacation Day 1: 9 Hours of Driving

Hey, guys.  I’m trying to get back into the habit of writing every day.  Blogging is absolutely like a muscle.  If you don’t use it regularly, it will atrophy over time.  Where I used to write twice a day now I look at the keyboard sometimes and can’t even figure out where to start.  Some of that is due to medical issues I’ve been dealing with the past few months.  I discussed them at the end of this episode if you want to know more.

Mostly, it’s just not being able to get that first sentence, first paragraph down.  So, I’m going to try to give you guys short snippets of our summer vacation in an effort to get back on track.  The 10,000 foot view of our plans are to roll out in the RV for a couple of weeks and camp in Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine.  I’ll share more about our plans as we go.  But, since we have a busy day, I’ll just quickly share that yesterday was both interesting and boring at the same time.  That’s par for the course when you’re pulling an RV.

I put some research into our first day on the road.  On previous trips I tried to map out our course but we always ended up sideways due to lunch or dinner stops, traffic or other circumstances.  I plotted out all of our stops and made sure they were all within the capacity of the smallest bladder in our family (my wife).  It went better than previous trips but still not as planned.

Our first stop was 100% fine.  But the second stop was a royal pain for someone who still isn’t used to driving a pickup truck and pulling a 35 foot long RV behind it.  Certain gas station brands are built for truckers and generally have plenty of space.  Love’s is one of those.  Unfortunately, even though I looked at satellite footage beforehand, the gas station was packed and extremely difficult to navigate.

Things didn’t improve with the next stop.  Billed as a “rest stop” on Google Maps and Google, it turned out to be a strip of concrete that was littered with trash, what was hopefully dog waste and reeked of stale urine.  It was, by far, the worst rest stop we’ve visited since buying an RV.  Ah, New Jersey!

Traffic waylaid our plans to get to our campsite by dinner time.  That meant an unscheduled stop in NY at a rest stop.  Burger King failed to meet exceedingly low expectations.

We managed to make it to our campsite just before dark and get setup fairly quickly.  We’re at the Lake Compounce Campground in Bristol, CT.  It’s literally across the street from ESPN’s headquarters.  Today will be fulfilling one of our daughter’s dreams, exploring the towns where Gilmore Girls (her favorite TV show) was filmed.

The Final Two Pennies

We added three rest stops to our list of “never stop here with the RV again”.  It’s becoming a pretty big list.  All in all, it was an uneventful nine hours.  We had just enough time for a small campfire, some Jiffy Pop and some bedtime stories before everyone passed out.

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of camping, something you’re probably well aware of if you’ve listened to Richard and I podcast about camping.  But, my kids love it as does Michelle.  And, since we went ahead and bought a pickup truck and an RV, I guess we need to use them!  So, the next two weeks will be on the road with periodic updates on our trip.

If you have a favorite donut shop or restaurant in New Hampshire or Maine, send them our way!  We’ll be near Mt. Washington, Freeport and then up the coast of Maine near Boothbay Harbor.

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