Going to See America 2017 Has Begun

     On Tuesday, October 25, 2016, Debbie and I closed up the camp at Chateaugay Lake, which is now our new full-time residence, and headed southbound fleeing an Arctic blast coming stgraight at us.

 But first we need to fill in some of the gaps since my last writings.  Debbie and I were successful in our efforts to sell the Thompson Rd residence, where we had raised our family since 1987.  To say the least, this past summer has been nothing more than a blur, as we dealt with fickle buyers, unscrupulous real estate agents, and camp renovations.

   






      On September 7th, our great friends from Texas, Randy and Retha, arrived.  We had been trying unsuccessfully for a couple of years to get them to stop by, and after much cajoling, we got them to stop.

     As promised, we gathered them up, and headed them down to NYC via Amtrak, for a 2 day whirlwind tour to include the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a Broadway show, the 9/11 Memorial Museum, dinner in Little Italy, and a meeting with Donald Trump at Trump Towers.  Did I mention that the average daily temperature was 98!!!  I thought we were all going to die.  No taxi rides....walking and the subway.  Retha got her first glance of what hell must be like.
     The 9/11 Memorial Museum was quite impressive, and needs to be visited again.

We probably enjoyed that the most because it was one of the few air conditioned activities we had!  Did I mention it was hot!!!Randy and Retha seemed to enjoy Beautiful, The Carol King Story, also.  Coming out of the theater, we met with a Law Enforcement Bagpipe Band, forming up to march into Times Square as a prelude to the 9/11 Remembrance the following morning.  Times Square was packed with onlookers, who went wild as the NYPD cleared traffic allowing the marching formations to pass through.  It was a very moving experience.
     

















     Over the course of the next few weeks, Debbie and I completed the sale of the house, packed up a 2400 sq ft house, and moved it into a 700 sq ft camp.  We didn't realize just how exhausted we were until we realized that our weather window was closing rapidly around us, and we needed to get south in very short notice.  On Sunday, Oct 23rd, we were enjoying weather in the mid 60's.  On Monday it was going to drop into the 30's.  But Tuesday night we were going to be looking at 18 degrees, much too cold for Big Red.

On Sunday we made a decision to close up the camp, get Big Red packed, and get south to avoid the cold weather coming at us.  Tuesday morning, right on schedule, we closed and locked all the doors and officially started our journey for 2017.
      After pushing down the road a little over 450 miles, we settled into the Jonestown-Hershey KOA. We have stayed here previously, and it's extremely convenient when traveling N/S on I-81 through PA.  As we settled in for the evening, Debbie finished up dinner which had been cooking all day in a crock pot.  Suddenly everything went black in the RV.  Figuring we must have popped a breaker, I grabbed a flashlight and headed outside to turn things back on.  But everything was working find at the pedestal. That's not good.  I'll just flip on the generator, and we'll be back in business.  Still no power inside Big Red.  We spent the next few hours working everything we could think of, but we went to bed that night working only off of battery power,  Not a good way to start on our journey.  We made contact with a local RV repair guy, who went right to work trying to diagnose the problem.  Half of out breaker panel was dead, and we didn't know why.  Then I remembered how great Tiffin help had been in the past.  Maybe it's time to give them a call.  The technician in AL was fantastic and aggressively worked the problem with my repair guy.  Within 20 minutes they had the problem fixed, and we were back in business.  Gotta love Tiffin.
     Thursday we arrived at the Shenandoah Valley Campground LLC, near Mt Jackson, VA, a short distance from the Shenandoah National Park.  We've been enjoying some nice weather, and traveled down through the National Park on the Skyline Drive.  That just about catches me up with the story, although there are probably multiple interesting stories I've forgotten. I'll try and do a better job of keeping this story fresh.  But sometimes it's difficult when you're having as much fun as we are.  Perhaps I can get Debbie to sit down and help with this???