Our trip this year is an 8 day opus consisting of Shenandoah National Park, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and somewhere near Cuyahoga Valley (even though it is in Ohio - more on that later). Should be close to 2000 miles, 7-8 states, and a few national parks, as well as the longest consecutive stay in any one place in our history (4 days).
Lets start with Day 1, basically a full travel day to get to Shenandoah. We had planned to be on the road by 8am-ish, but both of us have been working some pretty crazy hours and hadn't exactly had much time to do the normal planning/packing/prepping for this trip. By around 8:30, we were off, but needed to make an immediate stop for gas & a few last minute items. Once on the highway, we fell back into the routine pretty quickly. Luckily we had a decent day for driving, especially considering the tornado that had passed through the day before.
Also, I am writing this edition of the blog on a new laptop rig, one that I am not used to. It is extremely fortunate for you that this session is not mic'd up, because I sound like this every time I try to do something that was simple on my old rig and is now impossible due to e-nanny technology that is supposed to make this simpler.
It has gotten to the point that I am now typing this portrait-style on an iPad. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are cackling somewhere together, having finally played enough defense against simply typing out a story that this blog may now have to resort to a series of emoticons.
Anywho, now that I'm calm about this technology situation, let's talk about tolls. Here's the periodic table we received upon entering Ohio, which also happens to be the source of everything vile and
unacceptable in our society today (or it's just the home of THE Ohio State University, but those are pretty much interchangeable phrases).
More on the tolls in a moment. Both Ohio and Pennsylvania DOT should be on trial for extortion, but I need to have a brief interlude of 2 magical highway moments that occurred before cash was vacuumed out of my wallet by Toll Booth Willie.
I wasn't fast enough with the phone to capture the first Charger, so I just managed to get a quick snap of the second.
You'll have to trust me when I tell you that the first one may have actually been Dom Toretto's. If it wasn't the actual car (seen here)
it was a very well done replica. Just as I was calming down from this sighting, Kim saw a big RV flying up next to us and said "yeah, I bet he wouldn't be going that fast if he was towing something like we are..." only to be completely one-upped when this glorious sight flashed in front of us.
Yes, that is a motorhome towing a trailer with a mud-encrusted side-by-side UTV, a hillbilly monster mud truck, and a quad just for good measure. It may go without saying that this photo was only achieved by us flooring it and breaking all land speed records previously held by the Big Truck (I think there may have been an 8 on the speedo somewhere) to catch up. I was thoroughly impressed at this display of redneckery, with the added kicker of reckless speeding. Well played, Cletus.
Back to the tolls. After dropping $31 for the privilege of crossing Ohio, we were met with a $19 charge 1 mile into Pennsylvania, just to get this.
At this point I am fairly satisfied that my outlay of $50 for a couple hundred miles is sufficient bribery to not get pulled over. Instead, after spending an hour or so on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, we handed over the $19 ticket we bought to find out that we now owed an additional $31. I was just about to astound the toll booth worker with some ninja math skills and extrapolate that this sort of loan shark approach to tolls should have all of us travelling in Battlestar Galactica Vipers when I instead decided to ask what the original $19/mile toll was for. I was met with a "Oh, that's new. That so that the charge here isn't quite as much." It was a response so lacking in logic or reason that I felt check-mated. 2 states in, $81 in tolls. Seems legit.
As sweet revenge, my plan to travel well under the speed limit for as long as I could stand it ended up paying huge dividends, and by that I mean a trivial amount of money saved in gas but a record-shattering performance in gas mileage. Setting the cruise at 59mph in a 70mph zone for close to 4 hours yielded 9.1mpg, destroying the previous mark of 8.4 and making it completely worthwhile that I have somehow aged 30 years in the span of 6 years of motorhome ownership.
Also, on an unrelated note, this establishment was spotted just before we entered Maryland. Nope. Not going there ever.
Finally, after just over 12 hrs and 700 miles of driving with only 1 20 minute stop for gas, we pulled into Harrisonburg, VA for a final fillup before heading into Shenandoah NP. As I stumbled out of the Big Truck, both legs were pretty much asleep and I almost fell on my face. An unassuming gentleman pulled up to the pump next to me and started asking me for directions to something that I have to assume was important to him. I cut him off with an "I was in Michigan this morning. I don't know where I am right now, I'm not the best one to ask." A second glance at me convinced him that this was an accurate statement.
A half hour and 300 turns later, we made it to our campground. This was the scene as we tried to find site A025 with our remaining limited mental capacity.
Moments later, cut to the scene inside the Big Truck with zero items unpacked, the Jeep still connected and us planning to shut it down.
A small amount of planning transpired, but mostly a reward for nearly 14 hours of confinement and 5 states worth of travel. Day 2 is planned to be mostly exploration of Shenandoah and a few good hikes. Good to be back, can't wait for the fun part to begin.
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