I’ve decided I’m OK with the dawn patrol.  Up at dark, campground shower with no one else around, kids rousted and then allowed to go right back to sleep, and a few hours of driving before anyone’s on the road to get in our way.

One little tidbit we hadn’t considered until late last night was that you can’t just check into a campground at 9AM.  Not unlike a hotel, there’s a check in and check out time.  Oops.  So we tried to rent our campsite (which very fortunately for us was not occupied) for last night, but the online system wouldn’t let us.  A bit disconcerting to get on the road knowing we’d have to do a very quick turnaround at the campground but not knowing for sure we’d be able to park there.  Fortunately an 8AM phone call to the campground rewarded us with a very nice worker (ranger?) who said it would be no problem to set up in our site early and they wouldn’t even charge us.

Here’s what I’m not OK with — multiple roundabouts in a residential area when I’m lugging 50′ of clumsy vehicle.  I made the considerable mistake of using Waze to get us up to the State Park once we got into the Detroit area.  While I’m sure it’s an excellent app, it’s perfectly happy driving you down any old residential street if it thinks it might save you a minute or two.  Frustratingly though (and this is a pet peeve of GPS driving/map apps in general), it doesn’t show you an overview of your route, just the next 500′ or so.  So you get a “hey, if you turn left here, I can save you 15 minutes!” which of course you assent to, then the next thing you know you’re getting rudely gestured at (rightfully so) and scraping the top of the motorhome on low hanging trees as you try to avoid people attempting to get in their cars to go to work.  Even more infuriating was watching the ETA click steadily right back up to beyond where it was before our turn off the interstate.  And don’t even get me started on roundabouts.  I’m a fan of them as long as I’m in a car and I’m among other drivers who know how they work (pro tip: you have to yield to the drivers in the circle.  You do not have to stop.)  But in the motorhome where every sharp turn sends things on shelves skittering to undesired places and you have to think about your turn radius with the towed car and the fact that your tail end swings outward due to how far forward the rear wheels are… it’s a special kind of hell.  Anyway, rant off.  We made it unscathed.  Here’s the route:

The park / campground is nice.  Woodsy, lakes, trails.  There’s even an “inflatable park” in one of the lakes that I’m hoping the kids will get a chance to play on.

As for now I’m off to work.  I did nearly get removed from a flight today, however, which is a first for me.  Generally commuting is easy no matter which airline I fly on, but today I managed to get the surly gate agent we all dread.  She was quite short with me and some other commuting crew from her own airline, but that was fine.  The situation deteriorated when she decided I didn’t have time to ask for a ride from the captain, who was in the lav right behind the cockpit at the time, and ordered me to my seat.  Things escalated when I explained that protocol and courtesy dictated that I do, in fact, need to check in with the captain and she vigorously disagreed.  The flight attendant was horrified by this and attempted to intercede on my behalf, but that only upset the gate agent further, prompting her to hiss “I’m 30 seconds from kicking you off this plane!” as I walked back to my seat after checking in quickly with the captain.  Crisis averted though, I’m on my way to Portland, and my family is tucked safely into the campsite in the Michigan woods north of 8 Mile.

 

First of all, the KOA!  I have to admit, there have been several times in my life when I thought “why would I ever stay in a KOA?”  Call it camp snobbery or something, but my assumption was that if I couldn’t be backpacking, I’d want to be as far from an “organized campground” as possible.  That even if the campground were well-appointed, I’d want it to look like it was primitive.  I’m now re-thinking that.

It was actually pretty cool, and served our purposes well.  They’re clearly used to folks like us rolling in with their homes on wheels and rolling right back out, and they ensured we were up and running with everything we needed within 10 minutes.  The location left a bit to be desired.  It was hard not to flash back to My Cousin Vinny after the freight train rolled through in the wee hours.  “She’s s’posed to come through ten after 4!…”  Some day I’ll have to figure out why all the horn honking on those things, and whether they do that for their entire route or only when they pass sleeping people.

I was also surprised to see how many people seem to spend months at a time at KOAs, or at least at this one.  Some of the setups people were sporting implied very long term stays (actual porches built from lumber, satellite dishes dug into the ground and wired, etc).  I tend to see the KOA more as a fine solution to the temporary problem of “where do I sleep tonight?”

Cedar Point.  Another very cool place within very specific parameters.  It sits on a peninsula (used to be an island) that juts out into Lake Erie, and is basically a mega amusement park and resort with an emphasis on roller coasters.  There are 16, and just about all of them would qualify as the flagship ride at any other park.  I think we lucked out with the weather again.  It was low 80s, perfectly clear, and low humidity.  Cedar Point strikes me as the kind of place where you get a lot of summer thunderstorms and rarely dry off.  Not so today.

Amusement parks tend to be a mixed bag for us these days, given the kids’ ages.  Inevitably we (parents) need to split up due to the girls wanting to ride different rides than Keeper (and us).  Lots of texting and checking phone battery life. “where are you right now?”  “getting on in 5” “I’m down to 16%” “meet you in front of that fried Oreo shop”  I’m struck once again by how impossible the task of herding any sized group must have been just a few years ago, before we could tell each other exactly where we were moment by moment.  Also, and I’m a bit ashamed to admit this, but my career choice notwithstanding, there are lots and lots of rides that make me feel like crap.  Even roller coasters.  Too much twisting & inverting?  I need an hour to let my head settle.  Head banging back and forth?  Sore for half the day.  Anything that swings?  Fuggedaboudit, I’m scrambled and done.

But, again, the roller coasters there are spectacular, and there was plenty for the kids to do.  Firebolt and Woodsprite were even able to up their coaster game a bit too.  Firebolt has been uncharacteristically tentative in the thrill ride department.  The last time she rode a roller coaster (at Universal in Florida), she calmly told us thereafter that “I didn’t enjoy that.  It made my heart scream.”  Fair enough, and I love your choice of words!  We did manage to find a semi-thrill ride we could all ride, that was new to me.  Basically it simulated a half-pipe and had about 40 of us in one big car that was allowed to spin freely as it rocked back and forth along the half pipe.  It was sportier than it looked from the ground.  The kids all loved it; I was about 2 minutes from puking.

I think the best ride is pictured up above, behind Keeper doing his I’m-not-the-least-bit-nervous face.  It’s called Top Thrill Dragster, and shoots you via linear induction to 125 mph, then up and over that huge vertical hill.  I guess on occasion it doesn’t quite make it over the top and comes back down in reverse.  Unfortunately we made it over the first time.  Quick ride, but intense the entire time.  I could’ve done it all day.  Keeper got to do it twice in a row due to the “parent swap” option they offer you, which, if you’re a parent of young kids and don’t know about this, by all means check it out. When I pointed out to him that a cat shot on an aircraft carrier gets you to almost twice that speed in the same distance, he responded “sure Dad, but you’re not open air and not nearly as close to the ground, so the sensation of speed isn’t the same.”  Very good point!

Another highlight was the Millennium Force, which was easily the smoothest coaster I’ve ever ridden, with nearly constant G force (from zero to ?) and a good bit of speed.  After Tacco got off she said that it was fantastic, but she was pretty sure she had greyed out at least once. (!)

Overall it was a good, if busy, day.  I think we’re all still finding our stride and trying to catch up to all the change.  It’s moving fast, and it’s taxing to stay a few steps ahead so that we’re not just reacting to everything.  There’s been no relaxing yet.  The next few days may be challenging, as I’ll be commuting to work for the first time from the road and flying for a couple days.  I’m not thrilled about leaving them behind, but it’s something we’ll all clearly need to get used to.  Working out the logistics was daunting, as we’re planning to stay at a State Rec Area in Michigan about an hour north of the Detroit airport and my flight leaves at noon, so we need to break camp here in Ohio, drive up to the campsite there, set up very quickly, and pile everyone back into the car to drive back down to DTW and drop me off.  That means dawn patrol, at least for me.  I’m hoping I can get everyone right back to sleep once we get on the road.

Perfect weather, after some ugly days.  House not sold, though the original plan stipulated a sold house as a requirement.  Two divergent (and poorly communicated) ideas about how our last day in Maryland would look, scheduling-wise, leading to some frustration at 1AM the evening prior, or I guess I should say the morning of.  There has to be either some foreshadowing or some greater truth in there, but I haven’t made the effort to dig deeper and probably won’t.  Because ultimately we took the first step, which I’ve got to think is the biggest, and we pulled it off!

[Note:  we’re not using our actual names on this site.  See the “Who Are We” page or click here for explanation of callsigns.]

Backing up slightly and with the benefit of a little hindsight, I can see that there was simply no way we were going to feel prepared.  For months I’d blabbered about how we had so incredibly much to do and we had to get on it now now now, but that now seems naive at best, somewhere south of annoying at worst.  Though I’m sure we could have executed more efficiently on several levels, it was always going to come down to that last week.  Later and later nights sorting / discarding / donating / fretting / fixing / packing throughout the week, with Davista parked in our driveway (much to our HOA’s chagrin I’m sure), culminating in a no-kidding all-nighter by Tacco the night before leaving.  After a going-away party and the attendant clean-up no less.  It really was a herculean effort — I loaded food and “stuff” into the fridge and various RV compartments until I was incoherent, and then fell into bed, likely fully clothed.  I knew it was time when I tried to have a conversation with TC about our progress but found myself unable to form words.  But, and here’s the herculean part, I remember waking at some point while it was still dark — call it 4:30AM — and hearing a whirring noise from downstairs.  I found out the next day that it was TC on the sewing machine, making new duvet covers for the kids and pillows for the couch.  Spontaneous last minute project.  And they’re fantastic; they really add a sorely needed touch of home.  Wow.

7AM stretched to 10AM, which stretched to 1PM.  There really is a lot of “last minute” when you’re packing your life into a small space, possibly for good, and attempting to leave your house in a state in which it can be shown to potential buyers.  Yet in retrospect that part went as well as it possibly could have.  The hot & sticky sun and the hot & sticky rain finally relented and we enjoyed a 78 degree un-humid morning during which we were able to sign one of the studs in our basement for posterity, spread some of the ashes of our Cascadian Mountain Dogs in the yard in which they spent so much time playing, and enjoy a last picnic lunch by the pool.

And then we headed out.  The picture on the top of the blog is from the moment we hooked up the car to the back, I gasped in temporary horror at the beast of a rig we were about to lumber around the country, and we left our Maryland house in the newly installed back-up camera (no real rear view mirrors on this thing).

Our first destination was Cedar Point, in Sandusky, OH.  Not so much because we were dying to ride the roller coasters there, as that it’s generally in the direction we wanted to go and seemed about the right distance to travel.  But the coasters were kind of a bonus.  Though I’m nowhere near as much of a fan as I was when I was young, I’ve passed some of that bug on to Keeper, and I still get a kick out of a well-designed thrill ride.  TC saved me, about a half second prior to an ill-advised mouse click, from booking disgustingly expensive lodging right at the park (no RV sites available, so I figured we’d just park it and stay in a “cabin.”  Bad idea jeans.), and we opted for the far more reasonable Sandusky KOA instead.  KOA!  This will be a first for all of us.  Interested to peek behind that particular curtain, particularly since we’ll likely be spending quite a bit of time behind it for the next year.

Here’s our route:

Ignore that max speed.  That would be against the law.  Plus I’m pretty sure we didn’t get up to 2614′ in the Appalachians.  Silly app.

I’m trying out a few different iPhone apps to track our progress, so these maps will undoubtedly vary in appearance.

The best I can describe the driving is that there’s a learning curve.  For the first two hours or so, driving took every bit of my attention, so much so that I couldn’t even really engage in conversation.  In aviation we talk a lot about “Situational Awareness” or “SA” for short.  It’s essentially a catch all term for having an instant-by-instant understanding of where you are, what’s around you, what the potential hazards are, your “energy state” (much more complex in an aircraft than an RV, but essentially how fast you’re going with a consideration of how fast you might want to be going a moment from now), the status of your equipment, a host of “what ifs,” etc etc.  That’s what driving this thing feels like — starting all over with driving SA, and needing much more of it than I was used to.  You can’t stop, turn, or change lanes quickly, you take up about 50′ of road front-to-back and all but about 2′ of the lane side to side, and the inputs you’re getting from the mirrors and cameras aren’t familiar.  Plus reverse is impossible without disconnecting the car you’re towing, so there’s some foresight required there as well.  Anyone who has driven a full-sized truck would probably yawn at this, but it’s new to me, and far more challenging than towing a boat.  I’m continually surprised by how much the entire thing flexes and yaws and buckles with every turn or gust of wind or bump in the road; I’d imagined motorhomes to have a much more solid feel to them.  We learned early on (i.e. well before today) that we needed child safety latches for the drawers to keep them from flying open and sending all our plates, pots, and pans flying across the floor during left turns.  All that said, after a few hours the driving felt pretty comfortable.

I found myself amazed that all this equipment is working together, as advertised.  Learning the motorhome systems was one thing, but two months ago the idea of buying a car we could tow, installing all the requisite aftermarket gear on it, and actually getting it and all our “stuff” on the road was completely overwhelming.  I had to break the task into tiny, achievable sub-parts to keep from throwing my hands up.  But here I was barreling down the road looking, via the camera I’d installed, at the car with the 2 bikes on top and the new base plate bolted to the frame and attached to the RV via the two telescoping bars and the wiring harness I’d wired, and sure enough, when I pressed the brake, the little light I’d installed in the dash came on, telling me that the cylinder and control box I’d bolted to the floor of the Outback and tied into its braking system was, indeed, pulling on the cable that I’d attached to the brake pedal and actuating the Outback’s brakes for me.  Amazed, but it also feels like a mini-victory.  This kind of thing was never in my skill set, so slogging through putting it all together, understanding how it works, and watching it actually function is far more satisfying to me than maybe it ought to be.  Perhaps you’re accusing me of risking a hurt shoulder while patting myself on the back, and I won’t argue with that.  In this case I highly recommend it though.

The route was pretty, but not mind-blowing.  I think we were all wrapped up in fairly heavy introspection/processing.  Still are.  And with that, I’ll sign off, other than to say that the KOA is….. interesting.  And I promise most posts won’t be this long.  Unless they are.