Not So Smooth Sailing

And you thought the S*** was over…So did we!  

Thanks for joining us for  another week of thrills and excitement. 

We left West Virginia four days early as I just could not take the trains any longer. I know, whiner that I am!  But honestly, the campground was just too small and the noise from the highway and the trains really were getting to me.  

I called the next campground to see if they could take us early and the earliest they could was on Saturday.  We were supposed to leave on Tuesday the 14th.  I was thrilled!  We were heading to Shenandoah Valley, VA on our way to Maine.  

I have to say, we were thrilled to have had the opportunity to visit this area for more than an overnight stay.  The campground was beyond clean and quite beautiful.  Not to complain, but we were right next to a VERY busy highway, AGAIN.  This highway is all about TRUCKERS  24/7.  But hey, no trains!!

They handed us a packet upon check in with all the places to see and eat in the area. That was a first! We took complete advantage of that list!

We went to the Shenandoah Caverns, the America on Parade Museum, where floats from parades and inaugurations from all over the country are on display, and Cooter’s Museum, for all you Duke of Hazzard fans out there. We also visited a Confederate cemetery of 400 soldiers, went on a hike on Storybook Trail and saw the most amazing view of the valley.  We drove around and enjoyed all the beautiful small towns in the area.  We even ate lunch at Southern Restaurant where Jerry ate the best fried chicken (of course I had to try a bite or two).  

This is one of the best parts of RV Living is finding these incredible, fun places that we would never have known about.  We enjoyed ourselves so much checking off all the sites to see from the list!  

Now, we were ready to get going to Maine.  Let me backup a few days.  When we pulled into this campground, Jerry noticed one of the tires on the RV looked like it was leaning out.  At the time, we decided it probably was from the way we were parked.  But, of course, that was not the case.

As we left the campground, Jerry pulled into a truck stop to check the tire.  Yep, it was still leaning and looking very scary.  We immediately called MoRryde the company that installed our Independent Suspension on March 23rd in Elkhart, Indiana.  It took us an hour to get the Service Manager on the phone after sending numerous pictures and making numerous calls.  This was a very serious issue and guess what?  We had to drop everything and drive to Elkhart, Indiana.  Over 11 hours of driving and completely backwards of where we were heading. 

I was beyond blown away!  I couldn’t believe what Jerry was telling me.  We had numerous reservations this week on our way to Maine.  And, trust me, there are no refunds on last minute cancellations.  I couldn’t speak!  I started crying and yelling and just being, as Jerry says, very passionate about the situation.  He started to say his favorite saying, “It’s all part of the adventure”.  Let me tell you, that’s when I completely lost my mind.  I told him if he ever said that to me again, I would smack him until tomorrow!!!  This was NOT PART OF THE ADVENTURE!  THIS WAS COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!  My poor husband.

We looked at each other and said, let’s go.  As Jerry was driving, I was making calls to all the RV Parks.  One wouldn’t give a refund, two did.  And off we went.  It took us 11.5 hours and $450 in fuel to get to Elkhart.  We arrived at 11:45 pm.  We started in Virginia, went through West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and entered Indiana.  WE WERE BEAT UP.  Especially Jerry, who was such a trooper.  He was bound and determined to get there so they would start work on the RV right at 6:00 am.  When we went to bed, he was so funny and said, “I thought I was too old to drive like that”  NOPE, my husband is THE MAN.  That was the longest we have driven at one time and hope to never do that again!  

One of our major rules is to not drive at night!  Needless to say, we broke that rule.  The cool thing is that the sun doesn’t go down in Indiana until 9:20.  We only drove about 2 hours in the dark.  Still, pretty scary! 

The other good news is that MORryde had sites to be able to hook up electricity!  Thank God as it was 85 degrees at midnight and we were able to use our AC.  We slept for about 3 hours at the most.

They could not have been nicer and bent over backwards to get us in and everything fixed.  They are also reimbursing our expenses to and from.  Meaning all the fuel and food and even paying for the reservations that wouldn’t refund us.  

Trust me, they needed to do this but it was nice they took care of us and were so apologetic on what happened.   The Service Manager, Gary told us he was so upset about this that he couldn’t sleep, he was so upset about this happening to us that at 9:30 pm he woke up and thought it was morning since it was still light outside in Indiana, that he got up and dressed and was heading to work thinking he was late and told his wife to call his assistant to tell her he was on the way.   His wife stopped him as he was walking out the door.  We all had a good laugh!

On the way to Indiana, I contacted Grand Design as we were still having issues with our kitchen slide.  Yes, we had it fixed by a RV Tech in West Virginia, and it was working, BUT, when we started traveling it was starting to slide out a bit.  OMG!!!  

We contacted our amazing customer service person, Chris and she was able to get us an appointment to just have someone take a look at it.  This is why we bought Grand Design!  The customer service is amazing.  The slide is working!!  Since we were just there in March, we were able to say hi to all the amazing staff they have.  We will always be a Grand Design customer.

We decided to stay the night in Elkhart so we could both get some sleep. There is no way Jerry could even think about driving at all! We will head out early to start the journey to Freeport, Maine to arrive on our scheduled day of Sunday. Yes, it’s a 16 hour drive to Freeport from Elkhart but we will be making two overnight stops along the way.

Our original plan was to spend Friday and Saturday night in Sturbridge, Massachusetts to visit with friends. At least we will be there Saturday night. Jerry drove 9 hours Friday to get us close. Now we only have 4 hours to Massachusetts. We will do this!!!

This has been a crazy time for us!  We have survived and are still talking to each other!   And, now onto our next ADVENTURE, New England!

Just One More….issue with our RV (I’m done!!!!!!)  

Please mark your calendar for June 30 and help us celebrate our 1 year anniversary on the road. Join our Facebook Live event!  5:00 PST, 8:00 EST.  Look out for more details!!