Today was hard. For many reasons. There were still a lot of sad emotions all around about continuing the trip without Michael's parents. There were many, many, many miles to drive today to get us to where our reserved camping spot was in PA (and all had to be done by Michael because I am still too chicken to try to drive this RV!). Three-fourths of the family is suffering with some degree of cough/cold, although we are downing Airborne tablets and gummies like they are going out.of.style.
Michael and I woke up early (5:30) and decided to go ahead and get the show on the road. We had not pulled out the slides last night so we were able to let the girls keep sleeping where they were lying. After a quick stop for the last cheap SC gas, we were on our way. The girls slept for several more hours (that is some talent right there-- an RV is more spacious than a car but the ride is not nearly as smooth over bumpy roads-- of which there are PLENTY across the United States!!).
We stopped in the upper part of NC at a Cracker Barrel for breakfast-- it was us and about 15 senior citizens. But it was yummy and hot and I didn't have to cook it!! Then we were back on the road. Our next stop was the Welcome Center in Virginia where we found this cool "LOVE" sign and were able to pose for some pictures (thank you to my sweet neighbor, Kate, who we stole the idea from!) We are actually pondering stopping again on the way home for some more shots (#christmascardspoileralert).
The next several hours were spent driving (Michael), journaling/scrapbooking/napping (girls), and internet surfing/navigating (me). Michael kept commenting how beautiful the scenery was and wondering aloud why the girls were not more interested in it. I had to remind him that this was the EXACT same scenery we had all seen less than a week ago on our way TO Washington! Another funny thing happened when we stopped for lunch at a rest area. While we were finishing eating, I saw a worker that looked so familiar to me and reasoned that I must have seen her at the VA rest area we had stopped at on the first trip (thinking to myself they must rotate locations or something). Yeah. We were at the EXACT SAME rest area we had stopped at last Wednesday!
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| Duplicate scenery. Still pretty, though!! |
We finally passed the point of repeating our views and made our way into West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. We had ditched the idea of going to Philadelphia when we found out about the government shut-down...no Liberty Bell (boo!), but decided we still wanted to try to make it through some of the Pennsylvania Dutch/Amish country near Lancaster. I had found a recommendation for a roadside stand/country store that supposedly made excellent baked goods and soft pretzels and was really looking forward to a stop here. We detoured off the main highway in an attempt to avoid evening traffic in Harrisburg... and wound up going through Gettysburg. This is a 'tentative' planned stop for our trip home-- but at this point, I'm not holding out much hope that we will actually get to see it in full.
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| A drive-by view of Gettysburg |
The detour through Gettysburg was the first in a long line of poor navigational choices for the rest of the day. In addition, our trusty GPS led us astray multiple times, confirming that computers are NOT always smarter than people! This road was scenic but not very fast moving, so we got back on some main highways as the number of remaining daylight hours was beginning to dwindle.
We finally made it up to the Lancaster area and saw some beautiful scenery. Lots of picturesque Amish farms and several horse & buggies. We arrived at the roadside stand in eager anticipation of some yummy soft pretzels and baked goods... only to find that the Internet lied (imagine!!!) and they were not actually open until 8:00 pm. Bummer.
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| Free range chickens... hundreds of them!! |
After the drive through Amish country, we were eager to get to the campground as the sun was setting and we still had over 70 miles to drive. After some delays due to road construction, we were on an expressway and moving quickly. Although it would be dark when we arrived, it would still be early enough to make dinner and relax before bed. (Side note: you can see already where this is heading, don't you??!) Well. Turns out the expressways in PA go from 65 mph expressways to 2 land dinky roads through a town in a moments notice. We were getting nowhere fast. Additionally, the GPS kept flashing a message that the route it had planned for us had roads that were out and did we want it to recalculate another path-- but it kept switching off that screen before I could unbuckle and reach it (an RV has a long dash!). I (mistakenly) assumed there was no way it would continue to lead us toward roads that were out. I pulled out my phone map (which had mislead us earlier about the quickness of the Gettysburg route) and it indicated a route different than the GPS. Who to trust? Was the phone map showing the route route with the closed roads or was the GPS?? We opted to trust the GPS. Big mistake. Huge.
It took us off the main expressway (an actual one-- I-something or other) onto the darkest, narrow, winding roads (which, really, except for the lack of hills, put Squirrel Spur Road to SHAME!) To add insult to injury, at the end of the first long, creepy (it is now completely dark outside) road was a "Road Closed/Detour" sign. Awesome. We inched along waiting for GPS to recalculate a new route. Which it did. Which added like 15 miles to our journey. So... we went creeping along some more narrow, dark winding, tree/bramble/bush lined (I mean literally RIGHT up to the street and over it) roads... to come up to "Road Closed/Detour" sign number 2. This is a joke, right??! At that point, it was kind of funny... but not. Michael had been driving for over 14 hours and was exhausted. Dinner in the RV was a long ago idea (we stopped for fast food). We just wanted to get to the campground already and go to sleep.
So I pulled out my phone map and we decided to follow it instead. And to the phone map's credit, it did get us to the campground... via another of Squirrel Spur Road's relatives. But at least there were no more road closures. And our number of miles left to drive continued to go down instead of up. When we pulled into the campground, the nice owner was waiting for us (I believe they may live above the office). We told him we had just taken the (VERY) scenic route (which I'm sure probably WAS scenic in the daylight!). He said, "You didn't just come in from the right, did you?" Ummm... yes... that would be the way we came in. He said, "I guess you didn't read the directions on the website? There is a MUCH easier road to get here." Well, of course there was. And why would one read directions ahead of time when you have a trusty GPS and phone map???!! Wendy= planning fail. Lesson learned. Print out campground website directions AND write down the best route from one place to another ahead of the trip (which, in my defense, had occurred to me to do but it seemed like overkill in planning when one had a GPS and phone map!!)
We are thankful that we arrived (about 2 1/2 hours later than expected) safely. I have a feeling we should all sleep very well tonight.
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