First Travel Day

First Travel Day

Leaving from Lebanon Pennsylvania at Sycamore Hill RV heading to Carolina Crossroads RV Resort in NC.

That was the plan, normally a 5 1/2 hour drive and we never made it there.....

We left Lebanon at 820 am everything was fine, until we were 15 miles away from D.C..Then we got into snow. We were in the truck from 8:20 am until 6:30 that night never getting out of the truck once. Because there was nowhere to go. They just showed it on the news as I'm writing this blog. and we lived it. Snow covered roads, Fallen trees, car spun out, down power lines. First time driving this rig after Dark, we had no choice. Just glad wasn't later.

First time I ever wished we had a motorhome, why you ask, well because they have a bathroom I could have gotten to. Let's just say some stuff happened in the truck that we will not discuss any further.

It was stop and go traffic, more stop then go. There was nowhere to go, no place to get off.

Took 3 hours to go 5 miles, most of that was the ramp to exit.  He found a Wal-Mart. I said bet you never thought we would be boondocking tonight, and we so happy to find a place to pull off. The WM was on left side we pulled into a Lowe's parking lot in Garrisonville, VA. They had spots plowed we pulled along side huge snow pile. We walked to a Hardee's,  was so cold, 20 something degrees. They were closed,, talked to an employees who was shoveling out her car. They were not expecting what they had, they were not prepared for it.. walked back on sheets of ice,, we just drove over.. Put out BR slide. Jim went to put genny on, I heard it running wouldn't come on. Our surge protector said faulty ground and open ground. He worked and worked on it, nothing. Batteries were getting low. Didn't want to let AGM Batteries go under 50%. Had the heat on a little, Jim was so cold from doing all that. 

We were afraid if we put the slides out we couldn't get them back in if the batteries went too low. I suggested we turn off the inverter so the fridge and our outdoor freezer would not run. To save batteries for the a.m. so that is what we did. We had the bed out a little bit but we put it in right before we went to bed. Got the Arctic sleeping bag we had underneath the bed,  put on top of our heavy comforter kept 

Our warm clothes on. 

There were a few plows and trucks outside cleaning the parking lot a little more . I found some food in the fridge didn't plan as well as I should have . Without having the kitchen slide out I had some chicken already grilled and some flat tater tots that I made in a pan for Jim . I heated up some veggie soup for myself . We hardly ate anything today . But we were a lot better off than those people still on the highway . There was one other RV near us which made us feel better. Went to bed about 9:30.

Never got a picture of area we parked, to cold stressful, alot going on.

Lesson Learned look at national weather forecast way ahead of departure day. 

Better bathroom in truck, lol

Bring more food in the truck, I had lunch made. In fridge, but we couldn't get to it. Thank goodness I had protein bars, and plenty of water.

When you test run the generator aka genny, test it with a load on. 

Day 2. Tuesday January 4, 2022

We both woke up at 7:30. We slept a lot better than we thought we would considering it was 36 degrees in the RV. Amazingly I was not cold at all except for if my Face was out too much. I love my head covered anyway. Jim was cold when his face was out to much. 

It was cold when we got out of bed though, was 14 degrees outside. but we didn't have to get dressed. I had a  hat on and we both had hooded sweat shirts on, hoods up. I heated water made coffee. Jim looked at phone to see what roads were open. 95 was closed. He found a bypass around it. I packed more food, still had his sandwich ready from yesterday, grabbed my refrigerator oatmeal. Jim went for a walk out to the light to see how traffic was, he took a bad fall on the ice and wreached his back. We ran the truck long time to warm up, couldn't plug in last night. We left at 930 ish. Lowe's was open, way more traffic than I thought would be with the road conditions. Was thick frozen slush, that was so ruff. No red lights were working.  GPS took us through a main road through housing development. Was BAD, alot spun out or stuck on the side of the road. Trees down, we had to make a tight left turn. Till he got to the top of hill he was sliding. I had to get out of the truck and go ask 2 cars behind us to backup a little so we could too and get a running start. They did, and he did AWESOME. I walked around the corner. Off we went again.

 It took about 45 minutes or so to get to highway, back to 95. It was alot of slow and stop and go traffic. Then roads cleared snow was less and less, the temperature went up alittle. We really had to get fuel, was getting SOoooo low. Never got any yesterday, after we drove 8 hours.

We found a Flying J , we only had 56 miles to empty. That was nerve racking. A guy was at the entrance directing traffic that was very helpful. He pulled into the first fuel lane, no diesel hoes on drives side there, I again had to ask the truck behind us to back up a little too. I said you can go first, he said,  be better if you did. Everyone was so nice. We backup up and he ate his sandwich and then pumped fuel. I went inside to pay, a customer said wow an hour ago there was 100 people in here. So finally we had good timing. I ate my oatmeal while we figured out how to get out of there, he was still directing traffic. 

Once we got on the highway we had about a 2 1/2 hour drive. 

We arrived at Carolina Crossroads RV Resort at 3ish.

Which was supposed to be our first stop last night.Talked with people from PA as soon as we arrived they were heading back now. They saw salt on our RV, wanted to know if we were in the mess that was on the news. 

What a difference a day makes.

We got a great gazebo site.

He unhooked,  leveled. And went to get diesel. His back was really hurting. I went in and got 2 Instant pots going for dinner. One deer meat, the 3 qt, had carrots, new potatoes, onions, celery, green beans in microwave. While it cooked, together we washed salt off of the truck and RV. 

  Before pictures will take after tomorrow am.

We came in ate, so really for good hot meal, so good. Didn't get picture of it. Jim took a shower and I did this blog. We talked to a few  people on the phone who were worried about  us when they saw the news. 

Watched TV saw Channel 8 with traffic jam. 

I showered washed dishes watched a little TV.