Friday, Jauary 8, 2020

I woke up at 5:30 am after having a dream that is was snowing and we already had 3 inches of snow on the ground.Thank the good Lord that it was only a dream.  However, the actual forecast was for mixed precipitation in the next half hour!!  We got on the road at 6:30 with a light sprinkle of rain.  It continued to lightly rain as we drove through Richmond, Va.

We took the Beltway (I-495) around Washington, DC.  Then we took I-895 around Baltimore. It was a little scary as we had to take the Harbor Tunnel which was rather close to the height of our RV.  I was scared to death as we entered.   Peter was right as usual, we weren't too tall !!!  It was close to 11 am when we drove  out of the tunnel,  and we had not yet had anything to eat.  I decided we needed to stop driving and  have breakfast/lunch  at Cracker Barrel. While waiting for our lunch we took out our lap top and road atlas and worked out the next step of our trip.  We thought we could get to Connecticut today.  However we next stopped for gas and after we got back on the road, we realized the side  steps on our RV were out! The traffic was so bad we had no chance of pulling over to try to fix them.  All was okay in Delaware, but  the width of the toll booths in New Jersey caused us some damage to the steps.  fortunately they did not get ripped of, only bent.  Just another one of those heart pounding experiences!!! I guess ADVENTURES are supposed to have those kind of experiences.

The idea of getting to Connecticut started to fade, as there are NO campgrounds between us and our destination anyway.  So we decided it was too cold to spend the night in a Walmart parking lot, so we attempted to find a "Pet Friendly" motel just off I 95 in the city of Elizabeth New Jersey.  We went thru the toll booths about 6 times trying to find our way around.  I can hardly wait to get our EZpass statement.  4 axels can't be cheap in NJ.

Finally found a Red Roof Inn that would allow Chelsea.  Not in one of the nicest neighborhoods I have ever been in, it was very clean and had a microwave oven, so we were able to cook supper and not have to go out!  

Our phones had not been charging well in the RV.  So we proceeded to charge both of our phones and the laptop that I use to write my blog.  After a half an hour we had less charge than before.  Soon we had no charge.  The lap top had a little.  I sent an email to my brother Thomas and daughter Erika as they were staying in touch with us every day, to advise them we had no phones.  Without our phones we had no way to map us to get us back on the road.  It made for a very poor sleep.  So that was what our Friday was like. 

PS I forgot that in the morning before we hit the road, the glass in our shower door had slid out of the frame, (obviously due to bumpy roads) so we had to remove it and stand it up against the wall in the bathroom. Just another one of those adventure experiences.