In 2022, we drove 12,071 miles through 25 U.S. states and one Canadian province. (For comparison, in 2021 we drove 11,341 miles through 29 U.S. states and one Canadian province, and in 2020 we drove 8,069 miles through 22 U.S. states.) In all, we have slept in the rig in 34 different U.S. states and one Canadian province since February 2020.
Here is a story of eight of those states.
New York City (and Jersey City)
In September, we were amazed to find that you can camp just 20 minutes from lower Manhattan, New York City, thanks to New Jersey and the many public transit options in the area. Liberty Harbor RV Park is basically a big parking lot with water and electric hookups and a dump station, plus bathroom and laundry facilities. But what a location! Liberty Harbor Marina hosts beautiful sailing and motoring yachts, as well as local boats and kayaks for touring. There's a grassy walkway next to the marina where we could walk Hershey. And we were only a couple of blocks from a stop on the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail line. We could ride the light rail or walk a few blocks to the Hudson River, where the Waterfront Walkway afforded spectacular views of Manhattan, as well as a moving memorial to the events of 9/11. From there, we could ride the NY Waterway ferries or the PATH (Port Authority Trans-Hudson) train to Manhattan.
We had made plans for three events in New York City: dinner with our younger daughter Isabel and her boyfriend, tickets to the about-to-close Broadway show "Come From Away", and visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.
The dinner was lovely. Isabel lives in Harlem, near the fabled Apollo Theater, and it was a nice evening for walking to a local bistro.
The Broadway matinee of "Come From Away" was wonderful and moving. It tells the story of over 6,500 passengers on thirty-eight jetliners that were diverted to Gander International Airport in Newfoundland, Canada when U.S. airspace was closed on 9/11/2001. (Once a refueling stop for WWII bombers and then commercial trans-Atlantic flights, the airport still had a sturdy runway long enough for large passenger planes.) The local population of around 10,000 in Gander and several hundred more in surrounding towns welcomed the passengers who didn't know what had happened, some of whom didn't speak English, and who needed lodging, food, and care for children and medical conditions. The show's music and choreography were marvelous, the staging clever and evocative, and the acting amazing. The production produced tears and uplift. See it on tour if you can (Come From Away | Home | Official Site) and read about the history here: “Lend a Hand, Do What You Can”: Remembering the Generosity of Gander | National September 11 Memorial & Museum (911memorial.org) and here: 20 Years Later: The Little Town in Newfoundland That Welcomed Nearly 7,000 Strangers on 9/11 (travelandleisure.com).
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum also produced tears and uplift. The stories of the bravery exhibited and the loss experienced by first responders and civilians during the first World Trade Center bombing (2/26/1993) and the 9/11/2001 airplane attacks targeting the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol (this last thwarted by passengers causing the plane to crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania) are told in narrative, in architecture, and in artifacts.
The narratives are shared in writing, photographs, audio, and video. The Museum's minute-by-minute timeline helps to make sense of the chaos of the day, whether you were in New York City, the D.C. area (as we were), or watching horrified from anywhere in the world. The architecture encompasses both the preserved slurry wall foundation of the destroyed buildings, and the beautiful glade and falling water structures solemnly memorializing the site. The artifacts are numerous and heartrending, from a fire department badge to a section of twisted girder.
Doug also spent time bicycling through four of the five boroughs of New York City (all but Staten Island), taking his e-bike over on the ferry. We also had some pleasant and tasty meals in Jersey City, which is definitely where we would look to live if we worked in New York City. All in all, a memorable time, and we will definitely return!
Newport and Providence, Rhode Island
We spent a week at a campground in Middletown, Rhode Island, so Doug could e-bike around Newport, Rhode Island, where his family lived for a year while he was in high school. He took the guided tour of Fort Adams and delighted the guide with his stories of his own self-guided "tours" in his youth. Doug also e-biked back from Providence, Rhode Island, after taking a train there from Boston, Massachusetts, where he had been visiting our older daughter, Madeline. Alison also got to see Madeline, who drove down from Boston with a friend to take us to Providence to have dinner with two more of her friends. It was a lively evening, hearing about the happenings of these twenty-somethings! Madeline and friends also took Doug to see Fort Wetherill in Jamestown, Rhode Island. Like Fort Adams, Fort Weatherill was a Revolutionary War coastal defense camp, but has not yet been renovated for tours. Instead, it is the site of extensive (and often artistic) graffiti.
Northern Virginia
We spent three-and-a-half weeks in Northern Virginia. We handled the usual: dental and medical appointments for all three of us, new eyeglasses for Alison, a hair appointment for Alison and a grooming appointment for Hershey, maintenance on both of our e-bikes, meals with friends, Sunday worship services, and three occasions of live music at friends' band gigs. (All three were outdoors - the weather was mostly beautiful while we were there!) We also spent some time at our storage unit, splitting our one 10'x10' space into two 5'x10' spaces, with our daughters' belongings in one and ours in the other. Alison spent time in her office, and discovered the pleasures of commuting via the peaceful VRE train. We capped it off with our church's annual retreat to a lovely getaway in Harrisonburg, Virginia, made even better by both daughters joining us there.
Theme Campgrounds (Tennessee and Alabama)
Wending our way back to Texas, we made a stop in the tourist mecca of Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, purely to stay at the Camp Margaritaville RV Resort. Both of us being fans of Jimmy Buffett (our first date was a Buffett concert!), we enjoyed the 24/7 Parrot Head music and decor, including a small Airstream RV that Jimmy Buffett once used as a traveling recording studio. Doug also caught up with a friend from high school who drove down from Knoxville to visit us.
We traveled on to Huntsville, Alabama to visit with our college friend Nancy, so of course we had to stay at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center RV Park. As we took Hershey on walks through the surrounding fields and woods, we occasionally came across small rockets that past students at Space Camp had launched and never retrieved. Doug and Nancy visited the Rocket Center Museum, which is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution and with NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, and which holds an immense collection of rockets and space memorabilia.
Extreme Weather (Alabama and Mississippi)
We had scheduled a one-night stop between Huntsville and Texas at a military base campground in Gulfport, Mississippi. We hadn't researched the weather, however, and when we found ourselves driving through a tornado watch area (per the weather alert on Doug's iPhone), it took us by surprise. So Alison pulled up the NOAA National Weather Service site and Google Maps on her laptop, and we started plotting how to drive around the dangerous stormfront. However, as with our attempted Covid-avoidance route back in Summer 2020, as soon as we entered an area, it turned red. Finally we parked snugly next to the exterior wall of a dollar store in a small town, and made our plans to dash into the store with Hershey if any of the sighted tornadoes came down the street. Fortunately, they did not, and we got back on the road. We did learn that a tornado was sighted near a portion of highway right after we passed that section. We finally exited the tornado watch/warning areas, only for Doug to have to white-knuckle drive through a pounding rainstorm. We were immensely happy to finally park in our campground spot later that night!
Back to Texas
We had once again made plans to spend the holidays in Texas. On our way to Corpus Christi, we stopped in Houston to make dinner for a couple of students (family friends) from our alma mater, Rice University. The weather was clear and mild, and the campground had a pleasant grassy courtyard with picnic tables, where Alison served chicken and pasta and vegetables, with a selection of jars of sauces. (We have probably entertained more visitors from our RV than we ever did in our sticks-and-bricks!)
Once arrived at Alison's mother's house, we settled our rig into its usual driveway space and connected to house electricity. Doug moved his clothing into the guest bedroom drawers; Alison refuses to move her clothes out of her "closet in the driveway".
Thanksgiving was lovely, with Isabel and her boyfriend visiting us. Alison cooked the traditional feast, with a new addition of homemade macaroni and cheese for Isabel's boyfriend, and all promptly dubbed it a must-have for any future feasts. We were fortunate that Alison's mother has exceptionally nice neighbors: the one next door took Isabel and her boyfriend out fishing, which turned out enjoyably for all three of them.
Our older daughter Madeline arrived in December. The weather turned unusually cold for the Gulf Coast, so Madeline and Alison and her mom covered bushes while Doug improvised an RV skirt to protect the water pipes that run under the rig. (We also blew out the freshwater lines with our portable air compressor for added protection.)
An even less pleasant part of our stay was two flat tires. We had already suffered one while in Northern Virginia; fortunately there had been a tire shop very near our campground that could help us immediately.
The next flat tire was on the road to Livingston, Texas, where we were headed for a weekend RVers Boot Camp course. We were again fortunate to be helped fairly quickly, this time by a tire repair service that delivered and installed a new tire on the edge of the highway as part of an RV roadside assistance plan (similar to AAA).
We discovered the third flat tire while parked in Alison's mother's driveway. Once again, a mobile tire service (actually, the same company) brought us a new tire and changed it out. The three failures could have been due to road wear, combined with the middling quality of original tires placed on RVs; or there could have been some road hazard we didn't notice; or the total amount of times sitting in place since February 2020 could have stressed the tires. In any case, we had planned to replace/upgrade all the tires in the next couple of years, so now our decision will be whether to upgrade all six tires at once, even though three of them will be fairly new.
The RVers Boot Camp course, hosted by Escapees RV Club (to which we belong and whose mail forwarding service we utilize), was a fun weekend. We enjoyed hanging out with fellow RVers in a more social setting, and while much of what was discussed wasn't new to us, there were some very handy tips and some nuances we hadn't considered before.
In January 2023, we departed Corpus Christi, heading for Arizona. We divided the 1,000+ mile drive into three driving days, stopping over in Junction, Texas, and El Paso, Texas.
Next up: Alison enjoys the grapefruit trees on the grounds of the RV campground nearest Doug's parents in Tucson, Arizona, which is the same campground where we stayed two years ago. (We had previously made the mistake of not calling for a reservation far enough ahead for last year's stay, and so had to camp farther away from Doug's parents; we reserved a year ahead this time.)
Looking ahead to the spring and summer of 2023, after Arizona we plan to head east to Texas and Louisiana (Easter in New Orleans!), then up the East Coast to Maine (Acadia National Park!) and back down to Florida (Key West!) Still so much to see!
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