Cross-Country Camping Trip, Part 4

Thursday, 8/31/06, was a totally driving day. We needed to be in Columbus, Ohio on Friday morning to pick up our tent trailer, so we did a big push and made it all the way from Hudson, Wisconsin (just over the border from St. Paul, Minnesota) completely across Wisconsin, completely across Illinois, completely across Indiana, and halfway across Ohio to a hotel on the outskirts of Columbus. Four states and 723 miles. Yikes.

I was driving for the part of the day that included Chicago, and unfortunately, we got there right at rush hour. It took nearly two hours to get from one side of the city to the other. I did OK, but was very tired and glad to turn the keys over to Shaun when we stopped for gas in Indiana. I am so not a city person.

Friday morning, 9/1/06, we went across Columbus to the RV dealership to pick up the trailer. It’s a cute little thing, a fairly bare bones model, which suits us fine. No shower or toilet or fridge or fancy cabinets; just two beds, a table (which can turn into another bed), a sink, some storage, and a two burner propane stove.

I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I am now an “RV person,” but I think this will be a good thing. With the trailer, we are far more likely to actually get out and go places than if we were tenting. I really like tenting, but it is undeniably less comfortable. Try not to be too disgusted with me.



The rest of the day Friday was spent in traveling across Ohio, a little corner of Pennsylvania, and partway into New York. We camped that night at the Darien Lake State Park. It was a very nice campground, through crowded with lots of families with noisy and annoying teenagers. This was the Friday of Labor Day weekend, and there was some sort of concert happening in the area the next day, and also a Six Flags park right up the road, so I think that accounted for the large numbers of shrieking, laughing fifteen year old girls who were carefully not noticing the too-cool-to-be-interested 15 year old boys. At 11:45 at night. Ah, well. They were having fun.

Saturday morning it started to rain about 6:00 am (remnants of Tropical Storm Ernesto), and we had to pack up the trailer wet. Hopefully the rain will have stopped by the time we get to Shaun’s dad’s house in Vermont so we can set it up and let it dry out.

Eight days and 3468 miles into the trip, the traveling has been pretty painless so far. Emma has been a fantastic traveler, and there haven’t been any meltdowns. The dog and cat have been great as well, though the cat is a bit tired of Emma wanting to hold him on her lap. We're trying to encourage her to use her alphabet computer or look at books instead...



Next, on to Vermont!