Parallel parking

Cortland Camping... Yes it is there!

Here we are!

We left Cortland NY at around 11:30. When we arrived yesterday at the campsite, the office was closed but there was a note to go and setup on any available site, and to return to the office the following day to pay. That’s what we did.

At 09:00 the next day I went to the office, it was still closed. We slowly started to do our preparation to leave, I was expecting someone to come rushing and tell me: “Hey buster, are you trying to get out of here without paying?” But no one came.  When we were done, I drove to the office, my wife got out to pay for our stay. Meanwhile, I drove to the place where you can flush the tanks. If you don’t have a RV and don’t know, there are 2 tanks, the first one is the grey and contains all the water from the kitchen sink and the shower. The black tank contains… all matters from the toilet. Don’t worry, it is not messy, I also wear the same type of gloves a surgeon would wear for such a delicate operation J

My wife walked back to me, there was still no one in the office and she asked people around but no one knew where the personnel were. There is a box beside the office where we can drop payment, but we didn’t have small bills and nobody else did. So with our conscience not as clear as the tanks, we left. We will be staying at the same place in the spring and we will pay them then.

We were driving on the I-81, there is a lot of up and down… it made for an interesting drive. We were in the slow lane, as a matter of fact, we were passed by every cars and trucks, I can’t wait to get to the Amish country, I’m pretty confident I will be the one passing the buggies.

We stopped at the Pennsylvania’s visitor center. After a mere 88 KM (53 Milles), hey we are not in any rush to get to anywhere, why not stop and smell the not-one-to-be-seen-anywhere roses.

Fall is following us!!

 

Retiree R us

Our plan was to go to a camping in Harrisburg PA, which is the capital of Pennsylvania, close to Hershey where we could visit the chocolate factory. We were also thinking about going to see a hockey game, the Hershey Bear were playing the following day.

But when we got to the camping, it was so run down, I couldn’t believe it, and there were a lot of blue tarps and trailers that had suffered from a lack of tender loving care. At one of the first sites, there was a “friendly” sign saying to KEEP OUT. The ground was not kept; I didn’t have a good feeling and was picturing myself finishing as a shish kabob… We left!

It was starting to be a bit late but we had an alternating plan… sleep at a Walmart. For those of you who are not familiar with RV lifestyle, it is well known that Walmart is RV friendly and allows us to spend the night in their parking lot. This is not ideal but it is usually available.  We take the opportunity to do some shopping, including grocery.  Everyone wins.

When we were close to Wally, we saw a Verizon store. We stopped there first to get a 4G LTE Mobile Hotspot. This is a device that allows us to go on the internet almost anywhere in the US. We can have up to 5 devices connected at the same time, so my wife and I don’t need to share the keyboard…  We paid $129 for it, no contract, plus we took a plan that allows us 10 GB of data at $90 per month. The device is fantastic! Yesterday we were Skyping with our daughters while we were driving down on the interstate. My wife was skyping, that is, I was driving, of course!
 

I am sooooo connected!

Finally we stopped at Walmart. My wife went to the store to ask for permission to stay for the night. She was told that we couldn’t stay there for the night; it is a town’s bylaw! We were really disappointed. Well, it is their lost because we were about to spend some money in the walmart.  After we would have had a good night sleep having now acquired the internet capabilities, we would have found a camping close by and stayed several days and spent $$$ on all kind of tourist visits.  Instead, we just when back to the I-81 and drove further south.

We stopped at a Flying J, this is also a truck/RV friendly gas station. They have everything available for trucker: showers, TV rooms, food, gadget, etc. We arrived at around 20:30.  By that time the parking lot where most of the RV spends the night was full. I drove around a couple of time and then in front of my very own eyes, I saw a spot where I could finally stop driving for the day. However, it involved parallel parking… with the trailer… it took me a couple of try but I made it.

Plenty of room... NOT!

If you have never slept at a Flying J, and I assume most of you haven’t, it is far from a perfect place, but it is safe and you have all kind of amenities. But it is mainly designed for truckers, and truckers, they leave their trucks running all night. So it is noisy! Too bad I had already gone to my doctor a couple of weeks ago, to get my ears un-plugged… I now regret not having waited a bit longer as it would have helped me now hahaha!


I am a bit late posting, we are currently park for a week, so I should have time to Ketchup :)

Total mileage for today: 430 KM (258 Miles)