We left the clutches of New Jersey yesterday around 8:00 AM with the temperature right around 34 degrees. We drove south on I-295, crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge into Delaware,
and continued south on I-95 to Maryland before bypassing Baltimore to the north and heading over to I-81. We had a pretty quiet day weather-wise and the temperatures kept rising all day. We were excited to see 40 degrees, really happy to see 50 degrees, couldn't believe our eyes when we saw 60 degrees, and started stripping off layers when the temperature reached 70 degrees.
I think we maxed out at around 74 degrees as we continued driving south on I-81.
Since I knew that a line of thunderstorms was forecast to be heading through the southeast on Wednesday, I decided to make as many miles as we could on Tuesday so we kept on driving south until we ran out of daylight. We made it all the way to Wytheville, VA - about 460 or so miles.
My hope was that we could leave here early this morning and make it to our next intermediate destination near Knoxville before the really bad weather arrived ... but that hope was pretty much dashed this morning when I checked and saw that the storms would be arriving about the same time as we would. So we have decided to hunker down here in Wytheville to ride out the storm as it moves east. The winds have already picked up here and should steadily get worse through the morning as the storm front is scheduled to be here in the afternoon hours. At least I'm not trying to drive this box through those winds!
So ... as long as the tornadoes stay away and we don't otherwise blow away to OZ through the day - we will finish our trek to the Knoxville area tomorrow morning.
We may not be making many miles - but we're making plenty of memories!
Since we won't much else to do today perhaps I'll finish preparing my tax returns. Doesn't that sound like fun!
As predicted, the weather here in southern New Jersey turned a bit nasty this morning with some snow turning to freezing rain and sleet before turning to rain later. Sooo ... rather than drive through the mess and take our chances with these mid-Atlantic drivers on a potentially slippery day we have decided to sit still here in Clarksboro for one more day. Actually - we won't be sitting real still as we are going to take this opportunity to catch up on the laundry, do some grocery shopping, and take care of a few other chores here at the rig.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a much nicer day for travel so we'll try and get an early start and take advantage of the day. I see our next weather challenge may be some heavy thunderstorms on Wednesday. Who knows - we may have to take another "weather day!"
Oh well - we knew travel in January was a risky proposition. We'll get to warmer and calmer weather eventually.
Won't we?
Peggy and I remain in New Jersey - having spent the last couple of days visiting with the New Jersey Evringhams. Friday we spent most of the day visiting over at their house and yesterday we all took a drive over to Valley Forge, PA to check out the National Historical Park. What better way to spend a cold winter day than to tour the spot where General George Washington and his Continental Army chose to spend their third winter together. As the folks at the park are quick to point out - although Valley Forge is a very important part of our American History - it's a wonder why. After all - no important battles were fought here and the winter spent here was not any worse than normal ... weather-wise. A lot of men did die - around 1700 of them - mostly from disease. The most significant story of the winter at Valley Forge was that this was the time when the Continental Army became an organized force under the leadership of George Washington and the training of General Von Stueben. Nothing like some Prussian discipline and training to whip a rag tag bunch of citizen soldiers into shape to take on the worlds mightiest army (at the time).
We spent some time at the Valley Forge Visitors Center checking out the displays and watched the movie that pretty much summed up the Valley Forge experience
- and then we returned to our vehicle to continue our driving tour of the park. We checked out several monuments and displays, General Washington's House,
and this neat Cathedral built in the early 1900s and dedicated to our revolutionary war soldiers.
After completing our driving and walking tour of Valley Forge we decided to check out the other big attraction in King of Prussia, PA. Yup - the giant King of Prussia Shopping Mall. I'll sum up the experience for you ... we had lunch ... we walked ... we shopped very little ... we walked some more ... we left. I suppose the exercise was worth the experience ... and it is always a fun day hanging out with the NJ Gang since we don't get to visit with them often enough.
Today we have a few chores to take care of around the rig and perhaps some shopping to accomplish in preparation for continuing our trip south. And then we plan on joining the NJ Evringhams for more visit time later this afternoon.
Winter RVing in the northeast is definitely an experience. We have been gone now for 3 days and the temperature hasn't made it above the freezing point yet. It may later today -- but it's right around 22 degrees at the moment. Our 1500 Watt electric space heater has been running constantly since we parked the rig and the propane heater has been constantly cycling on and off maintaining the inside temperature right around 68 degrees. We are starting to get a bit low on propane and I need to decide whether to break camp and drive over to the office to fill up today ... or find someplace to get some tomorrow. I sure would hate to run out. Brrrr.
Our heated water supply hose has been working very well and I haven't had any further issues with the supply breaker. Considering how cold it has been -- and for so long -- I'm pretty impressed with how well it is working. The small heater I placed in our wet bay is also doing its job quite well. It has been on almost constantly maintaining the temp around 47 degrees in there. I do need to take a look at the "Thermo Cube" temperature control outlet gadget that I am using. It is supposed to turn the heater/fan on at around 35 degrees and off at 45 degrees but it doesn't seem to be working correctly.
But here is the really good news ... the temp is supposed to get all the way to about 36 degrees today and should be above freezing all day tomorrow here in Jersey. We are hoping to leave here tomorrow and continue our trip south --- but I am also keeping my eye on some icy weather making its way north along I-81. Tuesday is looking like a pretty warm day with temps in the 50s so we might hang here for another day.
I really want to get south --- but I really don't want to drive Winne in the ice and snow. Stay tuned!!!
And ... we're off!
After a full day on Wednesday of prep and loading, and after a pretty short night's sleep, Peggy and I finished loading Winne, hooked up the Vue, and were rolling south on I-95 at around 6:45 AM and -3 degrees Fahrenheit. (you will probably need to click on this picture to read the -3 degrees!)
It actually got colder as we drove south through southern Maine. I saw -6 degrees for several miles near the coast around Portland. The good news? .... it was a bright and sunny day for our 500 mile trek through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York and into New Jersey. We stopped once in Maine for our traditional Starbucks coffee (me) and a muffin (both of us), once in New Hampshire at the State Liquor Store (where they were CLOSED - do you believe that! - a liquor store that doesn't open until 9 AM! - they were open last year at this time of the morning! - oh well no discount liquor on this leg of the trip),
and once in New York at Cracker Barrel for lunch. Thanks for that gift card Eric and Jen.
We finally pulled in here at the Timberlane Campground around 6 PM and settled in for a cold night with temps forecast to be in the teens pretty much all night. We kept our 1500 Watt electric space heater running all night and Winne's propane heater still needed to cycle on and off to keep the inside warm. I hooked up our heated water hose to the campground heated water supply bib and powered up the 200 Watt heater in the "wet bay" to see how they would fare through the night. The wet bay heater is working great - keeping that compartment right around 45 degrees. Sometime during the night the 20 Amp breaker feeding the receptacle powering the heated water hose and the heated water bib tripped open and our water flowrate this morning was pretty reduced. Not completely frozen -- but getting that way. I reset the breaker and hopefully things will fully thaw soon. I'll may need to find a different power source for the hose if that breaker keeps tripping.
All in all - a pretty successful day one. Winne ran great, all systems are working as designed, and Peggy and Mike are safe and sound.
Today we are looking forward to a New Jersey Grandkid fix and then see how we survive an evening of "light" snow. Last I looked we are only supposed to get about an inch. But the weather guessers haven't really been that accurate lately ... so will simply have to wait and see what we get.
Thanks for checking in on these Maineiacs (once again) In Motion.
This time I am glad the weather-guessers were wrong. We not only did not receive 3 to 5 inches of snow - we also did not receive even a 1/4 inch of snow! That's the good news. The not-so-good news ... it has turned bitter cold. Too cold to snow it turns out.
The high today was probably right around 20 degrees. The high for tomorrow is expected to make it up to about 9 degrees. That's right folks ... single digits for the high!
Peggy and I finished most of our loading chores today and Winne is mostly ready to go. We still have a few things to load but we want to wait on those until we intend to keep Winne above freezing. In spite of the bitter cold temps we plan on using a couple of electric space heaters to get Winne up to a livable temp tomorrow and keep her that way overnight tomorrow. It may cost a bundle in electricity but at least we will be able to drive down the road without our breath freezing on the windshield!
One more day and a wake up and we will be rolling south and hopefully warming up. It looks like we may see a bit of snow (again) in New Jersey ... but at least the highs are forecast to be above freezing! It looks like that heated water supply hose I made up a few years back may come in real handy - as will the 200 Watt heater I recently purchased to keep the "wet bay" compartment (location for the external water supply connection and the sewer drain connection) from freezing.
On a warmer note .... Our son Eric and daughter-in-law Jen informed us today that our newest grandchild (to debut in June) will be a girl! How about that - another grand daughter to spoil!
Think Warm!
OK - I tried and failed. I did my best to wish away any more snow before we drove south - but apparently it didn't work. I suppose that's what happens when you try to fool with mother nature! It looks like we are in for 3-5 inches of the nasty white stuff tonight and through most of the day tomorrow.
Plan B ... finish loading Winne today with everything we can that will be OK in the cold weather. Watch it snow tomorrow while we get everything done inside the house that needs doing. Shovel/blow snow on Wednesday. Leave at oh-dark-thirty on Thursday.
In my heart I knew that was Plan A all along!
When I last posted I was (not) looking forward to shoveling out the driveway and Winne in preparation for getting her out of storage and over to the house. That task went pretty well (I didn't fall off of the roof while shoveling) and Winne made the 1 mile trip over to the house without incident. Winne is now plugged in to her home 30 AMP connection - getting her batteries charged and able to be warmed up a bit when we are busy loading stuff inside. I have already taken care of most of the outdoor work like getting the tire pressures adjusted and the tire pressure sensors installed and have replaced the solenoid switch that wasn't working correctly. As I suspected - the switch had developed a high resistance connection inside and the repaired spare I installed is working just fine. I'll try and repair the one I removed before we leave so that I can have a spare on-board again. It certainly is better than spending $60 every time those things go bad!
We made a pretty good start on the loading process yesterday and we should be easily ready to go except for the last minute stuff by Monday. We are now planning on heading south to New Jersey on Thursday (one day earlier than originally planned) in order to stay clear of some snow presently forecast on Friday.
As I predicted over a month ago - we are now scheduled to be leaving on the coldest day of the winter so far - with a low of minus 6 and a high of 11 degrees forecast for Thursday. I sure hope Winne can move in those temps - I know I wouldn't want to!
You folks in New Jersey, Tennessee, and Alabama need to work on getting some warm weather down there - ya hear!
I suppose hoping for 10 days of no accumulated snow in Maine in January was too much to ask. It must have been - because we received about 5-6 inches of the stuff yesterday. So today looks like a busy day. First I need to clear the driveway (again) so Winne has a place to park, then I need to go shovel off Winne's roof (not fun at all), and then perhaps I can get Winne out of storage and into our driveway for loading and travel prep. I see the temps are forecast to make it into the negative numbers for tonight and be pretty frigid tomorrow so I better get busy today!
As of today we are a week and a wake-up from our planned leave date. I took a look at the long range forecast this morning and I see the SNOW word appearing in the weather guess for our leave date of Friday - next week. We may be only 6 and a wake-up away from leaving!
We have been slowly getting the house ready for layup and taking care of other pre-trip "stuff" these past few weeks. Prescriptions are filled (except for one that I'll have to take care of in Alabama), doctor visits are done, and mail forwarding has been arranged. I even managed to set-up a temporary satellite TV dish in the back yard so we can have some TV service our last few days here after I cancel the cable TV service next week.
Now the serious work of getting Winne ready to travel begins!
Wow - Portland, Maine set a record yesterday when the temperature reached 59 degrees. But it appears our January thaw is over. The high for today is forecast to be right around 37 degrees and we are looking at highs in the high teens to low 20s next week. The really good news is that Winne's roof is snow and ice free! the long range forecast has a few snow showers between now and our planned leave date on the 25th - but hopefully we'll avoid any significant accumulations between now and then.
We have been pretty busy this past week. We had a basketball day on Saturday - watching two high school games in the afternoon and then traveling to Portland with the Johansen family (minus Taylor who got some Grandma time) and son Eric to watch the Maine Red Claws play. The Red Claws are Maine's NBA Development League Team owned by the Boston Celtics. We had a fun evening watching some pretty darn good professional players in an up-close and personal setting.
Taylor spent the night at our house Saturday night and awoke pretty congested and not feeling so good on Sunday morning. Yesterday she stayed home from school (day care) as her symptoms got even worse. Nothing more pitiful than a 16 month old with a cold/flu!
Since the weather was so darn nice yesterday I went to visit Winne and see if she was feeling up to traveling now that she is snow/ice free. She looked pretty much ready to roll so I started up the engine and exercised a few items like the slides and the leveling jacks to see if those moving parts still moved. All those systems appeared ready to go. While checking things out I did notice that the "Coach" batteries were not being charged from the alternator when the engine was running. This is a relatively minor problem since those batteries get charged when we are hooked up to "shore power" -- but I'd certainly like things to work they way they are supposed to work -- so I'll need to get that fixed before we leave. I haven't done any troubleshooting yet but I'm 99% sure that the problem is a failed solenoid switch. This is a relatively common failure on many motorhomes as these solenoids get energized every time the engine starts and every time they energize a small arc occurs at the contact surface inside the switch. After several hundred arcs the switch no longer passes current due to the high resistance connection. I had to replace this particular solenoid switch back in 2010 in Oklahoma City. I later repaired the original switch and have carried it as a spare, waiting for this to happen again - and apparently it has - so I'll swap out the switches sometime in the next few days to see if that fixes the problem.
Now that we are only 9 and a wake-up away from leaving, and since the weather is generally cooperating, I'm planning on bringing Winne home tomorrow or Thursday to work on final preparations and start the loading process.
We did get some not-so-good news last week and found out that Nan had fallen again and this time she broke her left arm. What a bummer! She was just starting to make some steady progress recovering from her broken hip last summer and then this setback happened. To add insult to "injury" .. Nan's head caregiver, my sister Marcie, is recovering from the flu and her husband Don sounds like he is dealing with it now. Hang in there you guys!!! Please know that there are plenty of prayers and wishes for rapid recovery coming your way from here in Maine.
That's pretty much the story from here in the frozen north on this 15th day of January - Twenty Thirteen. Fixin' to get these Maineiacs in Motion once again while thinking good thoughts for the improved health of family here and way out there in the Silver State.
Get well soon!
A week has passed since my last blog post and we are a week closer to heading south for our Winter 2013 Escape From the Frozen North. Now I know that my Maine kids read this blog periodically and I don't want them to think that we enjoy abandoning them for months at a time in the winter - because we miss them and their families - but we do enjoy warming our "old" bones during the worse part of winter in New England!
Now that we are only 14 days and a wake-up from our planned escape date we are actively starting to get things ready. I visited Winne a day or so ago to install the mounting pad for our new GPS and to see how much snow was still on the roof. As of then - the roof still had a couple of inches of ice/snow on top -- but the next few days are supposed to be unseasonably warm around here so I'm hoping mother nature takes care of clearing the roof rather than me have to climb up there!
I completed the periodic rebuild of our Blue Ox towbar last week so it is ready to go. Once every so often I disassemble the towbar, inspect and clean all the pieces, repaint the painted parts, replace all the teflon wear washers and lock nuts, and put it all back together again. I've read differing reports on how long one of these devices is supposed to last. I purchased ours used, in almost new condition, in 2004 so it has been in service for about 10 years and 100,000 miles of towing. It appears to me to be in pretty good shape so we'll keep on using it for now - and keep on inspecting it.
I have also continued to "play with" and learn more about our new Rand McNally GPS (still un-named). I have gone through the process to update the maps to the "latest-and greatest", and loaded some of our favorite Point of Interest (POI) files. Although the new gadget comes with a lot of RV specific POIs already installed - like National and State Parks, Corps of Engineer Parks, Commercial Campgrounds as rated by Woodalls, Flying Js, highway rest areas, and stuff like that ... I have added a few more like all the Passport America Discount RV Parks and all the Cracker Barrel locations. We have continued to experiment with the new gadget's audio. The female voice (Samantha) sounds distorted when coming out of the installed speaker although the male voice (ted) sounded much better. We tried using the external audio jack on the new gadget and running it through the car radio's input jack (most newer cars have such a feature for using ipods and mp3 players) and the audio was MUCH better. Unfortunately, Winne's dash radio doesn't have that feature ... but fortunately Winne's radio is old enough to be cassette tape capable so we plan on using one of those cassette adapters that allow an external audio source to be input and see how that works out. More experimenting to come!
With 14 or so days to go we still have plenty of time for visiting with the Maine Gang, watching Taylor grow up, watching Jen's baby bump get bumpier, hopefully attending a few high school basketball games to watch Bailey and Kyla -- you know -- grandparent stuff!
Then we'll be off to New Jersey to do more grandparent stuff with the Jersey Gang. I hear a visit to Valley Forge may be in the plans! I suppose if George Washington and his Continental Army could be there in the winter so could we!
Yessiree - looking forward to an interesting Winter 2013!
OK - I am officially cold now. No - not "old" ... "COLD!"
I awoke this AM to temperatures right around 0 degrees F (that's -18 degrees C for my Canadian friends). Fortunately, when it gets this cold it doesn't normally snow. Unfortunately, what snow we have isn't going away anytime soon!
Now that I am officially cold it's time to get serious about heading somewhere warm(er). As I check the calendar this morning we have only 21 more days (and a wake-up) to go before we plan on heading south. So that leaves only 21 days to get ready to roll. I'm pretty sure I could be "ready" in 24 hours - but since I hope to take Peggy with me - I'll stretch out my preparations over the next 21 days. We have no special preparations to accomplish. Mostly just the normal activities like loading all the stuff we took out after we returned from our last trip, forwarding the mail, cancelling the cable TV service, and activating the satellite TV service. We do have some additional things to consider when preparing to leave in the middle of winter. Like making sure we have plenty of heating oil on hand here at the house (done) and keeping Winne's roof free from snow and ice (this will be a constant battle over the next 21 days). We are very fortunate to have a great Property Management Team to take care of things here at the Maineiacs In Motion Summer Cottage, Vehicle Repair Center, and Rest Home.
As is typical for us - our travel itinerary is sorta known for the first half and remains "fluid" for the return trip. We still plan on leaving here on Friday the 25th (plus or minus a day or so depending on the weather) and driving all the way to New Jersey that 1st day. There are plenty of good reasons to live in Maine but using this location as a starting point for RV trips in January, is not one of them. Over the years we have found that we need to drive that first 500 miles to New Jersey on Travel Day One to get out of the Really Frigid and down into the just "Ordinary Cold" country. At least when we get to Jersey we can usually de-winterize Winne's fresh water system! After spending the weekend in Jersey checking up on the NJ Evringham Gang we plan on heading southeast into Virginia, probably heading down I-81 (depending on the weather), and arriving in the Knoxville, TN area after traveling for a couple of days. We plan on staying at the Raccoon Valley RV Park in Heiskell, TN for a few days - visiting with RVing friends Gene and Judy Curp - and otherwise goofing off before taking a few more days traveling through Chattanooga TN, Birmingham AL, Montgomery AL, and then arriving at the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV Park around the 2nd of February.
We plan on hanging around the "Plantation" for several weeks, hopefully warming up, enjoying the Mardi Gras celebration, helping Darrell Patterson with some electrical work on he and Judy's newly acquired deeded lot at the Plantation, and getting my fill of Lower Alabama seafood.
After that? Who knows! We may travel back to the east coast to visit some places we've been before but want to spend some more time enjoying. We may even take in a few sights we've not seen before. We plan on being back in Maine in mid-April - but how we get here is yet to be decided.
Well - I see the outside temperature is up to 10 degrees now so I suppose I need to get busy. After all - I only have 21 days and wake-up to get ready to roll!
