Events of Monday, October 4, 2010

          Today was a “necessity” kind of day. We have found on our travels that occasionally we must pause from our journey to take care of some basic, boring, everyday activities. Last night we had washed and dried eleven loads of laundry in four hours. It was something that just had to be done. Thankfully the campsite had four functional washers and four functional dryers, so we were able to run all machines simultaneously. But this morning we awoke to the reality of eleven loads of laundry that needed to be folded and put away.

          It has also turned cold. Fall has definitely come to the East coast. It seems hard to believe that a mere week or two ago we were sweating in the humidity of one of the hottest summers the Midwest has experienced in recent memory. Last night, here in New Hampshire, it got down to 32°. We chuckled to realize the last time we had experienced 32° weather was at Crater Lake, OR in July‼ But with the changing weather, came the need to change clothes. Since our storage space is limited and each of our “closet/dresser” areas measures about one foot high, two feet wide and one foot deep, we stored much of our fall/winter wear under the bed. So this morning was spent folding laundry, moving clothes, repacking storage spaces and general organizational tasks around the RV. While Ben, Lindsey, Caitlin and I folded clothes, Jim and Abby undertook the task of fixing us a delicious breakfast of pancakes. However, despite all our visits to Vermont’s Maple Syrup farms, we doused our pancakes in the good old knock off brands that true Vermonters will point out have 0% pure maple syrup. Sadly, purity comes at a price and $15-20 for a very small jar of pure Vermont Maple Syrup was a little too steep for our budget.

          Breakfast and folding finished, we moved on to showers, blogging, sorting and organizing. As we did so, a new dilemma arose. Remember, we left on our trip at the end of June, from Elk Grove where it was 105°. Trying then to plan clothes for East coast cooler fall weather was a bit difficult. So as each child sorted their stuff, several things came up missing. And then another cruel fact of life came into play. All our children are rapidly growing teen-agers. And some of the clothes that fit last winter, no longer fit. Therefore a shopping list began to develop to provide our children with the necessary accoutrements to face the weather adequately clothed. And a plan for our day slowly evolved to include a visit to Target and Walmart and perhaps, if we could find one, to Old Navy.

          All this activity took most of the morning and we prepared to depart fairly close to our noon check out time. It was at this time that another dilemma reared its ugly head. After determining early in our trip that the shower pressure in the RV was not worth spit (in fact it was pretty much like spit), the shower area has turned into extra storage space. This is where we keep our cooler to provide some extra cold storage when the refrigerator is full and this is also where we store our shoes as, like in our house, we have a “shoes off” policy for in the RV. However, we have been stymied by a water problem as often when we move things out of the shower to clean it, they are wet. We noticed this most recently in Ohio when we did our massive RV cleaning and even purchased some bath mats to cushion the floor of the shower from the cooler and our shoes. Well today, the shoe boxes were filled with water and the cooler was almost floating. Where was all this water coming from? Astute Ben pointed out that our gray water tank was full and perhaps it was backing up. Sure enough, all the water went down when we dumped at the dump station. Although our campsite had full hook ups, the covering to the sewage was glued on so Jim had not hooked us up. As I had done a few hand wash loads in the sink, our gray water usage was up as well. Lesson learned, we cleaned out the shower, removing the wet boxes and shoes, found temporary alternative storage for everything and were on our way.

          We have been planning on visiting the Shaker community in Canterbury, New Hampshire, but as we drove in last night Jim had seen some signs for a Shaker museum nearby. So after following a scenic “rabbit-trail” courtesy of Gypsy, our GPS, we finally found the museum. However, as admission was fairly pricey and the experience would not be as full as the living history experience awaiting us, we decided to pass. Driving back along gorgeous Mascoma Lake we found a beautiful spot for lunch and then drove on to the Robert Frost Farm and Museum. There we expected to find a nature walk punctuated by Frost poems and if we liked what we saw we were going to pay the admission price to tour the farm and museum. However, just on the outskirts of town, Ben read that it is only open Wednesday to Saturday, so we would have to be satisfied with just the nature walk. Arriving we found the nature walk and the numbers easily enough, but nothing to tell us which poems these particular numbers signified. Seeing a chance for Ben to run off some of his energy, we sent him to run the course of numbered posts 1 through 23 while we walked behind. Arriving at the end we were surprised not to see Ben. We waited a bit thinking he might have decided to run two cycles. Still not seeing him we began to worry and call for him. A brief time later he sheepishly appears on the horizon. Seems he “took the road less traveled by” and almost got himself lost.

          Returning to the RV we headed off to Nashua, NH; home of a Costco and hopefully a Target and a Walmart. Just before reaching Costco we stumbled on a Walmart and made our purchases there. Then it was off to dinner at Costco and a chance to sample an East coast specialty – Italian sausage with grilled peppers and onions. Delicious‼ However, it was interesting to note that we couldn’t order Polish sausages for the kids. It wasn’t an option. Only hotdogs were available. Fully satiated, we quickly did our Costco shopping while Jim checked in with the manager about us boondocking there for the night. We were directed to boondock on the “upper parking lot” where the semi’s hang out. Driving over we found an excellent dark spot, far from any roads or lights. We had also found a Target in walking distance so we walked over, completed that portion of our shopping and headed back to Harvey. As we were settling in a police car drove up. Apparently someone had seen us setting up camp and called the cops. However, once he knew we had permission and planned to move on in the morning, he was fine with it. In fact, upon learning we were from California and spending time touring the country, he pestered us with questions about our trip. Finally, he bid us good night and we settled in to my favorite type of boondock experience. Legal. Dark. Quiet. It doesn’t get much better than this.