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Published: December 31st 2022
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First Welcome to our newest Blog, Sorry for the change in hosting sites, but Off Exploring looks like it is no longer being supported.
During our Great Loop Adventure, Angel and I decided to buy a RV so we could contiune our adventures. No we are not gving up our boat. We will continue to boat during the summer, and travel by RV during the winter. We both have decide that we like the warm weather much better the the cold. (In fact right now I am typing this from St Petersburg, FL and I am outside wearing shorts, flipflops and a teeshirt, and it is 7:30pm!) I will get the blog caught up as soon as possible.
We left New Jersey December 26th at 10am. It was a little difficult getting everything transfered from the boat to the RV, as it was still only 17 degrees out when we left. Because it was so cold, we were not able to fill the RV with water, and had to stop on our way to our first stop to fill up. Our first two stops we will be "Dry Camping" with no access to power water or sewer.
The RV is very well set for this type of camping but we are still very new at it. We are also very fortunate to have good friends keeping an eye on our boat for us.
Our RV is a 36 foot Tiffin Allegro Open Road, Class A Motor Home. Class A motorhomes, are the monsters that look like a bus driving down the highway. It is equipped with heat, air conditioning, full sized refrigerator, bath and a half, satelite TV, generator, and enough battery to last one day. We spent several months looking for the right one and ended up buying the first one we looked at. We kept comparing each one we looked at to this one. We also lucked out, that this one came with a 2004 Jeep Liberty, all setup to flat tow behind the RV.
Much like when we looping, we plan to keep our travel days to 4 to 5 hours, but we will cover much more ground.
Our first day did not work out how we planned. As I mentioned we wanted to fill the RV with water before we left, but the hose was still frozen, so plan B was to fill up at Flying J Travel Center on our way to our first stop, we also needed to fill the propane (Heat & Hot water) as well as top off the fuel tank. I had called the Flying J in North East, MD to confirm that their water fill station was not winterized. Flying J has, RV lanes, where you call fill your fresh water tanks, Propane and fuel, as well as empty your holding tanks. They are very RV friendly, unfortunately the person I spoke was wrong, no water and no propane. The clerk was very helpful, she told me I could use a hose along the side of the building, the only problem was we ended up blocking about 10 parking spots while we got water. We also tried two more Flying J's for propane with no luck. We did have 3/4 of a tank, and figure that would be enough for a few days.
With all the challenges getting the RV filled up, and the traffic it ended up taking us over eight hours to get to our first stop. Our planning software had it taking us 5 hours, so much for planning!!!!!
When we bought the RV we join a service called Harvest Host. Harvest Host is a Camping Membership that gives us access to over 4500 locations were we can camp. The neet things is they are not campgrounds, and it does not cost to stay at them. They are wineries, breweries, golf course, farms etc. They only asked that you spend a little money at each vendor.
Our first stop was a winery in Glenn Allen VA. Our plan was to arrive around 4:30, then taste thier wine, buy a bittle and enjoy the winery. As the poem says "The best laid plans of mice and men".... We did not arrive until the winery was closing, so we modified our plans, after purchasing a couple of bottles of wine, and cooked dinner in the RV, and enjoyed one of the bottles with dinner. Much like when we did the Great Loop, it is important to remain flexible.
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