So maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have shown Emily all
those tornado documentaries last year, but who was I to know it would come back
to bite me in the end? Tonight, I got
the map out to show the kids the route for our cross country camping trip. Emily completely freaked out when she saw we
were going through Tornado Alley, “No. not Kansas! We’ll die if a tornado hits
us in our sleep!” I reassured her that
most tornados were in the Spring and early Summer, not Autumn when we are
going, but I’m not convinced that message really stuck. I think we will just have to get West of
Topeka as quickly as possible before any of us will get any sleep… At least we won’t
have to worry about sharknados that far inland, so we have that going for us.
We had our inaugural RV trip earlier this month, driving to
the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, which actually was able to live up to its naming
aspirations. It’s a beautiful forested gorge,
home to bald eagles, with a 50 mile rail to trail bike path running along the
canyon floor. We didn’t bike the whole thing, just until Michael’s legs got
tired then we went into the very quaint town of Wellsboro which has many
restaurants and shops, not far from our campsite at Canyon Country Campground, http://www.campinpa.com/
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| Getting ready to blow some glass |
We spent 3 nights there, hiking and biking, and also
incorporated a side trip to the Corning Museum of Glass in New York http://www.cmog.org/ It is a fantastic museum for kids, lots of
glass making demonstrations and interactive displays. You can even make your own glass sculpture or
jewelry, which the kids and I loved.
RV wise, the trip was fortunately uneventful, apart from us
having to do a very loud ‘drive of shame’ through the campground, the sway bars
and hitch screeching with every bump and turn, as other campers stared and I
slunk down in the passenger seat. We
were assured that once the paint wears off the sway bars, we won’t be quite so
loud but we did go ahead and slap some grease on the trailer hitch ball, which
took the noise down a few decibels.
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| Emily hooking up the electric |
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| Michael loved to jack up the RV |
The thing we were most worried about - the dumping - was fortunately
a non-event, unlike the scene with Robin Williams in the movie "RV" that had filled us with
dread. We’d gotten some tips on dumping
from a lovely little old lady at the RV store that had been RVing for 68 years, the best tip being dump the black water
first, then the gray. This eliminated
any need for Jeff to wear a biohazard kit, and for me to have to help with any
cleaning.
We have one more short RV camping trip coming up, then we
hit the open road – destination Utah (all the parks) and the Southwest, heading
West on and around I70 and back East on the Southern route, hitting the Great Smoky
Mountains, every national park and largest ball of twine on the way.
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| Utah or bust! |
