February 1-14, 2017

Preparing for a three-month trip was quite a challenge.  In the middle of Winter, how do you know the weather will allow you to depart on schedule?  You cannot plan ahead by more than a day or two.  Most campgrounds desire reservations in advance, some require them.  But if you don’t know in advance when you can leave and how far weather conditions will allow you to travel, how can you make a reservation?  (You can’t unless you want to take the chance that you’ll have to cancel or change your reservation – campgrounds charge additional fees to do this.)  What happens if you arrive at a campground and they are full?  (You find another one and hope they will have room for you.)  What about your mail when you are gone?  (You use a mail forwarding service.)

Wait, there’s much, much more!  How do your bills get pain?  What about home security?  What about your pipes freezing in your house?  How about medical care away from home, for you and your cats?  Who is going to plow your driveway after a snow storm or mow your lawn so it won’t be obvious the house is empty?  What if you need to order something from Amazon or a particular food item from a particular store and where do you get your regularly-used prescriptions?  How do you fit enough clothes in the RV to cover the transition from very cold weather to very warm weather?  What about TV?  Do you want to pay for cable or satellite for many months when you aren’t there to use it?  The list goes on……..

We’d been working on solutions to these issues for many months prior to Rob’s retirement and had most problems solved.  The earliest we felt we could be ready to leave was during the second week in February.  Because neither of us likes hot, humid weather, we wanted to leave as early as possible and head south BEFORE it got too warm.  Most campgrounds in the North and Mid-Atlantic States are not open during the Winter.  Slim pickings.  But then you look down in Florida, Georgia, & Louisiana and not only are most campgrounds open, they are fully booked for months in advance – particularly Florida.  And if not fully booked, definitely full on the weekends.  So, when planning this trip, we decided not to visit Florida, but to go another time and get there earlier, like November.
We set a goal of departure for Feb. 14, Valentine’s Day, and spent two weeks packing up the RV,

Supplies loaded into the rig, but not yet stored away.

getting retirement & financial issues in order, preparing food to take with us, saying good-bye to friends (thanks Cathie, Suzanne, Ann; Carol, Judy, Duane), and watching the weather forecasts.

The ominous forecast for the day before our planned departure.

We’d had only an inch or two of snow prior to February but the temperatures were below freezing often.  Between Feb. 5 and 12 we were hit with two major snow storms and a smaller one which brought some ice.

On Feb. 13 following the second large storm, with a foot & a half of snow on the ground, we got hit with winds with gusts to 60 mph.  Trees came down everywhere in the area (including right next to the house) and we lost power.  Could not leave home before the power came back up – what if the pipes froze.  We’d held all our trash for a trip to the dump on February 12 – a huge load because we wanted to leave nothing behind for 3 months while we were gone.  Blizzard conditions on the 12th forced the dump to remain closed.  No way could we leave the trash in the garage!  And the dump would not be open again for almost a week.  We continued striving to leave on February 14.  Rob went thru all the trash (YUK) and separated things that could stink from things that wouldn’t.  Five bags of possibly-stink-prone-trash would have to come with us in the back of the towed car until we could dump them at campgrounds.  One item in a trash bag was old, outdated carbon monoxide/smoke alarms.  When running final errands on the 13th, we kept hearing voices.  Over and over they were chirping, Warning, Carbon Monoxide, beep beep beep and FIRE FIRE FIRE.  The evening of the 13th, we loaded all the food into the RV refrigerator & freezer, and went back into the house to get the final loads.  When we came back out to the RV, we heard water running and the counter by the kitchen sink was flooded.  The 3 drawers which hold silverware and cooking utensils near the sink were flooded with water.  We were starting to think all this could be an omen that we shouldn’t leave!  (Turned out that when one of us had tossed a bag full of items on the counter, we’d hit the faucet and blocked it from shutting off.)  The power had come back on and exhausted, we headed to bed, wondering what Feb. 14 would bring.