Driving to Maine

School finally ended, the Fourth of July passed and it was time to head north!  And not a moment too soon since the Mid-Atlantic was experiencing record shattering heat, it was definitely time to head for the hills!

I’d planned to leave after the 4th of July because campgrounds get full and it’s hard to get a reservation.  I’m part of a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) and have my share pick up on Friday afternoons at 5:30 so I decided I’d leave after that.  I spent Friday loading, packing and shuffling stuff in the RV.  It was 105 degrees outside, probably at least 110 in the RV.  I’m glad I had all day so I could go inside and get  air conditioned every few trips. 

As I was pulling up the leveling blocks to depart I happened to glance back at my house and noticed the front gutter was hanging at an odd angle.  My 1st thought was to not look again and just drive off, not wanting to see that there was something major I needed to deal with.  But, I went back and looked and sure enough about 1/2 the front gutter had fallen down.  I debated what to do and decided to call my landscape company since I know they cleaned the gutters once, the gal I talked to seem to think they could fix it up even with me not there so off I went! 

It was a 4 hour drive to Allentown, PA where I was meeting Mom and Dad  I started a 6pm!  It was a nice drive, through the horse country in VA and up through Gettysburg.  It was the only “scenic” portion of the entire drive! 

I arrived at the Wal-Mart in Allentown a little after 10 and pulled in behind Mom and Dad.  It was hot.  Not quite as hot a DC, but hot.  They had their generator going (Dad ran his generator for 55 hours continuously to combat the heat!) so it was cool in their RV, but mine, not so much.  I tried to sleep with just the windows open and the fan – it wasn’t so bad, but the noise of the parking lot and cars coming and going was keeping me up.  At 1:30am I fired up my generator – 1st of all it drowns out the noise, 2nd of all the AC was blowing directly on me! The only problem is that the generator is loud and it’s right under my bed so it vibrates the bed – neither of these things is all bad.  The bad part about the generator is that it runs at different speeds depending on the load so it’s not consistent white noise.  I did manage to sleep with the generator on for few hours.  It was a pretty bad night between the noise and the heat, but finally it was morning and time to make a LARGE cup of coffee and drive off!

We stuck to the interstate the whole way and while that was nice for fuel mileage (I got 18.5 MPG!) and speed, it was boring!  We went through 5 states - Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire – and they all look exactly the same from the highway. 

We did drive across the Tappan Zee Bridge which was exciting simply because we used to live just on the other side in Tarrytown, NY.  We stopped for lunch with some friends who live across the street from where we lived.  

The 2nd night we were near Worcester, MA.  I’d found a Wegmans there and a Wal-Mart right next door!  We couldn’t sleep at the Wal-Mart though because of the construction.  Luckily the Target let us sleep there!  It was better than Wal-Mart though because the store closed at 10 and they turned the parking lots off! 

With only 150 more miles to go we spent a leisurely Sunday morning at Wegmans.  It was a very nice store, looked brand new, even still had that “new Wegmans” smell!

Yesterday afternoon around 4 we arrived in Freeport! We are staying at a lovely campground I found when I was here in 2009.  It’s quiet, dark, spacious sites! The weather is perfect!  I woke up at 2am and I was freezing!  AHHHHHH!!!!!!