Massive Road Trip

This past Sunday night we returned from a 3-week cross country road trip.

About 2 months ago we bought a used Ford Conversion van in preparation for our trip. We put in around $1000 of repairs to get it trip ready, I wired a brake control module in so it could legally tow our camper and I did some maintenance on our camper because we were going to camp rather than stay in hotels.

Here is a link to a photo gallery of our trip. I am still going through it, and will be adding more photos and captioning, but there is a lot in here already.

We had planned on stopping in Nebraska and my cousins' ranch first for a Daharsh get-together, but the day we left they were exposed to Chicken Pox, so we opted to pass up the ranch and went straight to Ogallala, NE and camped our first night there.

Day 2 we drove to Des Moines, IA and camped at the Iowa state fair grounds overnight. Since our kids were out of school early, relatively few people were traveling, so for this and all the other places we camped we just showed up and didn't bother to make reservations. We had no trouble finding spots.

We spent a few days driving across Illinois and Wisconsin. We weren't able to see most of our friends, but we were able to catch a few folks along the way, including stopping by Studio North in Chicago, where I used to work. I saw all of the folks that were still there from when I worked there and was able to meet some of the new people I have worked with in recent months. Studio North is one of our clients so we stay in close contact with them.

From Chicago we buzzed rapidly across Indiana and camped in Sandusky, OH. This was the only rotten night of camping on the trip, as the bugs were horrible during set up, and there were trains running right by the KOA we stayed in. We were up early the next day and headed straight across PA, through New Jersey, around New York, across Conneticut and arrived in Westerly, RI around 10 PM local time.

My brother David and his family are in RI for the summer to try to start up some new vending operations for his employer, Jay Vending.

We popped up the camper in the driveway and spent the next week or so with them. During this time David and I did a lot of fishing at night and caught some incredible Striped Bass (also called Stripers or Rock Fish). This was one of the most fun fishing experiences of my life to this point. The fish were averaging 6-10 pounds and were a blast to try and land. David caught one 35.5 inches long. We didn't have a scale but I'd say it was in the 20 pound range.

While in RI, we spent most days on the beach at a state part, which the kids really enjoyed. We went to Newport twice, which was really cool. We could have spent a lot more time exploring, but we really wanted to spend time with family.
My other brother Andrew and his family joined us in RI near the end of our stay, and it was fun to have all the brothers and family together.

We headed out from RI and Nancy wanted to see the Statue of Liberty. We used Sprint's navigation feature to get us through New York, which went OK right up until we reached the Holland Tunnel and saw the sign saying no campers or propane. The cops immediately flagged us and pulled out a barricade to head us somewhere else. We were told to get to the Lincoln Tunnel and we could cross into New Jersey there. Our goal was to get to Liberty State Park which was the closest to the statue.

We spent another hour or so looking for the Lincoln tunnel, and once there ran into the same "No camper, no propane" sign. But the police had told me to go through previously, and there was no one there to stop us so we went through.

We spent another 2-3 hours lost in New Jersey because Sprint Navigation said that the State Park was right in the middle of some residential neighborhood.

Finally, after around 5 hours in the New York City Area we arrived at the state park and were able to see the statue at night, illuminated by spotlights. It was cold and rainy so we snapped a few pics and got out of there.



We drove late into the night until we finally stopped at a state park outside Chambersburg, PA. We met my parents the next day at my Uncle Mel and Aunt Shirley's house.

I'll continue the saga in a coming post...