Connecticut and Crankiness (and Pennsylvania)

I will say that our last day in Boston was by far the worst.  Every once in awhile I think maybe things are improving and my children won’t just leave me forever one day, but then a huge fight and “you are the worst mom ever” and “ow” and…..ughhh.  We were sick of each other and tired. The good thing about our situation is that we HAVE to make up with each other quickly because we are in such close proximity to each other. We had a campfire that night and spent some time talking and laughing before the big drive the next day.

We traveled onto Connecticut to see my Uncle, Aunt, and Cousins. Unfortunately, my Uncle’s house is on a one lane road and very difficult to maneuver my RV into the driveway. When I got to his house, there was a line of cars behind me and I had to drive off – only to find it was a dead end of a one lane road. By now, Caleb and Harmony had already gotten out, so Caleb wasn’t there to help me unhook or drive the jeep.  I’m pretty sure I looked like Rumplestiltskin with my stomping and screaming at this point.  I eventually got the jeep unhooked and parked in someone’s driveway, and was able to get the RV turned around.  Then Harmony came running up to me in tears. Apparently when she got out and I drove off she thought I was leaving her behind. I actually thought I’d hit her with the RV because she was crying so hard.  Then Caleb eventually caught up with us, too and was able to drive the jeep back to the house for me. We had to have other people in the neighborhood help direct us into the driveway at that point, but we got settled! (I will never be good at this, and by the way, I just got a $200+ rate increase on my insurance from backing into my house last spring, so I guess they don’t think I’ll ever be good at it either!)

This was a great break from before. Boston was a little too much for us (although super-educational). In Connecticut we went to the beach (the weather was still nice), ate a lot of great food, relaxed and regrouped with family. I love being with friends and family (have you heard this before?). Not only am I plugged into electricity, but I’m plugged into other people. My aunt’s brother fixed a bunch more that was wrong with the RV and that was a huge blessing, as well.

We also went kayaking, which was a first for most of us (but one we have been wanting to do). After a nice relaxing long weekend, we were ready to move on, and my first thought was “could everything wrong with the RV actually be fixed?”

Of course not, we hadn’t driven very far when about a cup of water dumped from some unknown corner of the RV. Very disheartening, but I had to get going (hmm, still haven’t figured that one out, maybe I should put this on a to do list somewhere). We drove on to Pennsylvania using some new apps on my phone for RVs. Unfortunately, Caleb was sleeping the whole way and it was our first “Four stater” (ie Four states in one day). Because of all this, we hit many toll roads and racked up a ton of tolls.  I made it to the Truck Stop (as far as the GPS was concerned) that we were staying at for the night and the gates were closed because we were on the back side of it.  Of course there was no place to turn around. I mean there had been earlier if I had realized that the gates were up, but nope, not going to happen. Why were there gates at the back of the truck stop!?!? Rumplestiltskin came out again and I FREAKED out (remember when I said I just didn’t care anymore? Apparently I was VERY wrong). Then we disconnected MOST of the jeep. Stupidly, I thought we could just unhook half the stuff and back them both up simultaneously, so I ended up snapping some important cords.  So we got turned back around and got going again and had to go to the actual entrance. We had to go through a toll road to get there (which is why we weren’t allowed to go through the back, it was there way of charging us to stay there). So, I thought we were staying somewhere for free, and instead I’m still not sure how much in tolls I paid there, mostly likely more than an expensive RV resort.  (The next morning I was forced to drive 11 miles on this road, turn around, and drive it 11 miles the other way just to get turned in the direction we were going to go.

While at the truck stop we met up with some friends who had recently moved to the area so we could both see some friendly faces. It was good to see friends after having freaked out in the back of the truck stop. Huge blessing.

We drove to Hershey World the next day. I mean, it’s important to fully educate my children on the importance of chocolate, right? It was fun and at the end of the day, we rushed to the parking lot to have a FaceTime violin lesson.

That night was a Walmart kind of night and by then our refrigerator started to lose the ability to work. I swear it was working at the truck stop when we weren’t plugged in, but by the time we were at Walmart, we hadn’t been plugged in for a couple of days and it was getting HOT. It was a nice Walmart, though and the next day we headed towards Gettysburg and an RV campground! (Oh and PS after a couple hours of working at it, I MOSTLY fixed the snapped cords to my brake lights)

Sadly, we had to throw out all of our refrigerated food once we got there because of the lack of cooling in the fridge, but we settled in, headed to Gettysburg late in the day and got a few Gettysburg things crossed off the to do list.

The next morning was great, we had a tour with a Licensed Battlefield Guide.  We had booked a few days before at the advice of a friend/educator. He gave us a private tour in our car (he drove) and it really wasn’t that expensive (I highly recommend it). None of us are huge “war buffs” but we definitely learned more about the war than we knew before (and did it hands on). We then bought (only) a couple of days worth of food (seeing as we’ll have to throw it out if we keep more than that) and packed up for the next big stop.

We spent the next 2 days furiously driving because we were going to be staying with family of family and when I know PEOPLE and electricity and no campground fees are out there, I will drive hard to get there.  Originally I had planned on not driving more than 300 miles per day. Yeah that’s crazy talk. Even when I furiously drive and have no other purpose 250 miles is a lot at this point. It was our second four-stater on the whole trip, as well as within a week – and technically it was a six-stater since we crossed the border a few times. Plus it’s super hot (why is it 90 degrees 3 days in a row at the end of September?), my generator stopped working, and my fridge wasn’t working (at least when not hooked up to electricity). I wasn’t going to stay at Walmart again with our issues, but when you get in at 6pm at night the thought of paying $50 for a campspot isn’t enticing. This place was noisy, didn’t have a Starbucks, and we were all kind of/very cranky. I didn’t even have any clue what city or even state I was in by the time I woke up the next morning. (Also – not that I’m trying to NOT think about Adam, but I’ve been kind of busy and since I’m in a new environment every day it doesn’t come up often, but when I drive for 200+ miles, I can’t help but think of nothing but Adam, too)

By the time we made it to our family-in-laws house I was literally sweaty (I don’t get sweaty unless I exercise, ew) and all of us were about to drop from heat exhaustion. But we got cooled down, hooked up and……… you’ll have to hear how we fared in Ohio on my next post.

Blessings:

• Obviously my blessings are my family, my friends, and my family of family and all they did for me mentally and physically
• When I’m hooked up things seem to work, even if they don’t work when I’m not hooked up
• I kind of fixed something by myself for once.  Kind of fixed and kind of by myself – I’ll take the credit.
• The Beach. The beach is always a blessing. I’ve gone back and forth with this through the years, mostly because I’m a doer and the idea of sitting there at a beach seems boring, but I am learning to rest and enjoy God’s creation in a new way, and this is something I really do like, especially when my daughters are playing in the water in front of me, such a delight.
• It may be my imagination, but sometimes it seems like we are a real family. Making jokes and having fun like real families do…but again, maybe it’s my imagination.

Harmony’s Corner

So I Went to Connecticut to visit my Uncle (By the way his name is John). By the time we were on his dead end street, my mom came to do something outside and I wanted to see what it was, so my mom told me to go inside (and it was very difficult to open the door but now it is easy) and was opening the door when my mom started driving away! There I saw a little nine and a half year old on the streets (which was me) and I learned two lessons: One, you should always stay in the RV. Two, RV’S are SUPERR slow, but nooo matter how fast you run, an RV is faster then you. (even with a towed car).

Then one of the days we stayed at his house. I played with his grandchild. She and I captured Bear Bear. We had fun together. Then we went kayaking. It was boring because all I did was sit in a boat and didn’t even get to paddle!

Then we went to Pennsylvania. We went to Hershey World – favorite place ever. I talked to a kiss. Guess what? Since I told her I have the power of glitter the Hershey bar was like “So what should we do to the evil villain, throw some glitter on him, shoot spider webs at him? Oh wait, Caleb forgot his slingers. My mom texted the Reeses guy and told him we were traveling the country for the school year. I’m guessing that the Reeses told the Hershey bar about it and that’s how he knows about it (he brought it up in the 4D Chocolate Mystery). Last but not least, I made a chocolate bar. It was really fun and it was also the best chocolate bar I have tasted in my life and it was only milk chocolate, dark chocolate and butterscotch chips. Tasty!!