Susan and Orbit Leave New England—The First Hitch Up and Haul to NY
Written by outoforbit
The first stop on our trip was upstate in Taconic, New York. I grew up in New York, so this felt a little like a homecoming before our big adventure. Upon arriving in this small upstate town, I took a road close to a pond, per the GPS. This is where I learned to run two GPS apps. The GPS took me down a one-lane road close to a lake.
I had to park the rig in the middle of the road and put the four-ways on to go find the tree trimming trucks that were working and blocking me from passing. After thirty-minutes of waiting for bucket trucks and super duty trucks, they were kindly moved so we could drive five minutes down the road and around the corner (to the other side of the lake) where our campground was waiting.
I learned about so many new RV things while traveling so slowly across the states I wanted to conquer (according to my itinerary). Said plan would have me conveniently parked and drinking a local beverage before nightfall on Sunday – just in time for my workday on Monday.
We arrived onsite and they had a porter, or rather, a person who drives a golf cart ahead of you and tells you which way to turn well in advance so you can take wide turns snaking through a generally oval-shaped plot of property. I saw our first site that wasn’t Camping World and learned how to back the RV up rather seamlessly with the assistance of this twenty-something porter. I was glad to have met him and in fact, I wound up speaking with him again when I thought my sink backed up.
After two hours of chatting with him and going through the rig to figure out what the issue was, we both learned that I had another gray tank I either didn’t know I had or had forgotten about. Anyway, after taking apart half the sink guts and learning about plumbing stuff, we put it all back together and I went in and watched more videos on black, gray, and fresh-water tanks.
Learning about RV Plumbing and “oh by the way” you have two gray tanks.
Learning how to attach the huge RV to the huge truck!
Orbs and I spent a week in upstate New York before moving on to our next destination in Pennsylvania to a town I am fond of—Lock Haven! I pulled into the Walmart parking lot as I would have loved to have done in my twenties, calling friends I knew close by to see my new home!
I spent the night in the parking lot. I learned about so many new RV things while traveling slowly across the states I wanted to conquer according to my itinerary which would have me parked and drinking a local brew before nightfall on Sunday. So this way, I would be waking up in my ranch house on wheels in a new place for work on Monday morning.
I am pretty sure it was the end of July 2021 before my boss was asking where I was “these days.” I said emphatically that I was living in my RV on the road! He was surprised and supportive. I had a few discussions with many people at my company who seemed rather concerned. They didn’t realize that I had this all figured out and they were, of course, worried it meant I was quitting. My boss knew and understood that I kept everything quiet, composed, and business as usual.
I even committed to making sure I placed and set all analog clocks in my rig to eastern time (as it is the time zone of my work corporate headquarters). I decided I would live according to eastern time no matter where I was located in the country and then just calculate the local time by one to three hours as needed. This has worked for me for three years and I would say in that time, I have only been late to things due to time zones maybe twice. Also, the clocks stay set whether you are plugged in to electricity or not, that is, if you do not have clocks on an alternate power source (and I did not at the time).
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