Things Change

Isn’t that the name of a song – “Things Change” – well yes they do.  I read a lot of blogs that start off with a statement that goes somewhat like this, “One of the wonderful aspects of this RV Lifestyle is….” And then some glowing statement about how wonderful it is to be able to be free and easy going down the road.  Well, another statement about this lifestyle is that it’s important to remain flexible with our plans. 

We’re flexible!  But the Castle isn’t so much.  So how did things change for us in the space of 20 minutes yesterday?

It all started off just fine.  We pulled out of Topsham Fairgrounds promptly at 9:38 a.m.  Remember, this is Saturday morning!  Off we go, saying good-bye to Maine and hello to New Hampshire.

Soon, we were in Massachusetts:

We’re really glad we’re not in that lane – those are people trying to get out of the city.  That line existed for miles and miles and miles…..you get the idea.

Oops, maybe I spoke too soon….

Was that New York?

We changed our minds at the last minute about our destination.  Darrell posted a comment about a casino in Connecticut, and Jim was enthusiastic about going to Foxwoods Casino near Norwich for an overnight stop, instead of the (Eastbound) Welcome Center at the opposite end of the state. 

We pulled into the parking lot at Foxwoods and picked out a nice spot to dry camp for the night, looking forward to some fun and relaxation in the casino, with a nice dinner we didn’t have to cook or clean up after.

Here’s where the story gets interesting.  We don’t know yet exactly what happened, but while we were trying to level the coach, the rear driver’s side jack had a major malfunction and extended that corner of the motor home way up in the air.  When it let go, the coach crashed down and the windshield cracked – big time.

The end result was a broken jack that would not retract, a jack control system with a constant beeping alarm, and a dangerously cracked windshield.  In a busy casino parking lot on a Saturday afternoon.

OK, well, this is an interesting development, to put it in a politically correct fashion.  What the heck do we do now.  A couple of other folks who were watching this entire happening came over to offer advice and help.  They’re familiar with the area and suggested we might not want to think about a repair facility anywhere in that area.  And, even if we did consider local repair, we most likely wouldn’t be able to get anything done until Monday anyway.  Plus, we already had plans to go to Red Bay after Labor Day, and a new windshield was already on our list of things to replace, due to a couple of cracks that happened recently.

We sat inside our little home for a family discussion, and after talking about our options, made the difficult and disappointing decision to postpone our reservations at Gettysburg, Bull Run Regional Park and Williamsburg.  Jim rigged the jack up with a rope, disabled the beeping alarm and made sure we could move without major problems and we set out.  We ended up last night staying at the aforementioned Connecticut Welcome Center on Eastbound I-84 at the New York State line.  If you’re not familiar with Connecticut, what this means is we traveled from north to south and from east to west across Connecticut yesterday!   

We were up and on the road at 5:07 this morning and after a total of 10 (I think it was 10) states in 2 days and 720 miles today, we’re at an RV Park somewhere in Tennessee tonight.  We have no jacks, so have not put our slides out, except for the bedroom so we can get some sleep, and the driver’s front slide just enough to uncover the air vents.

The day started in Connecticut, then we went through New York,

Bo Jangles sacked out on the step cover in front of my chair for a lot of the 13 1/2 hour travel day!

Of course rain just makes the orange cone zones more interesting:

Ah, a stopping point:

We plan to complete that last 400 or so miles to Red Bay tomorrow and get repairs completed as soon as possible.  Will we get back to the east soon?  Don’t know – after all, we’re flexible!

The good news in all of this is that we’re ok, no one is hurt, and our dear friends Mark and Dortha are also on their way to Red Bay, and so we’ll get to catch up with them!  See, there’s always a bright (and beautiful) side!