Saturday 22nd October - on the move and learning RV skills

I had a much better night’s sleep, I put it down to the fresh air and exercise or maybe I’m just getting the hang of this?!  

Before we left today we needed to fill up our fresh water tank – sadly in the pouring rain.  A learning experience, we had no idea how long this takes.  We have a very handy little console of sorts inside Harvey that gives us a sit rep (situation report) on our levels with red LEDs.  We have one for the LPG gas, one for the battery (for the inside stuff not the engine), one for fresh water, one for black water (sewage) and one for grey water (sinks & shower water).  When you push the appropriate button it tells you if that tank is empty, a third full (or two thirds empty for the pessimists out there!), two-thirds full or full.  When you attach our hose between the tap and the inlet on the side of the RV and let the water flow in, from outside you have no idea how much you need and, if left unchecked, the fresh tank will over-fill and burst leaving you without any water - disaster.  So, we were understandably cautious for a first fill – me in full wet-weather gear outside hovering next to the tap, Simon in the nice dry RV pushing a little button to check the level.  Turns out you can turn on the tap and leave it running for aaaaaaages if you want to!  From nearly empty it can take 10-15 minutes to fill our tank, I think it’s 50 litres? Anyway, it’s a learning curve, but we successfully re-stocked on water.

Then, on the way out of the Park we went for our first dump together.  Don’t be freaked out, it’s perfectly normal!  We have a system of pipes on the underside of Harvey with nifty colour-coded pull-handles; grey for the grey water and black for the….. you’re there I guess?!  You can’t just unload your waste any old place; you need to go to the dump station where you attach your hopefully very secure and watertight hose with connectors to the drain and pull your coloured handles one at a time (we have invested in stock of latex gloves for this purpose – we just can’t seem to leave the old habits behind!). The system works well, no bad smells and you don’t physically see any waste as it’s a sealed system. Well, I’ve complained about getting drenched for the water but, I am a lucky girl, for Simon has decided that this is really his area of responsibility and I am not gonna argue!!  But having stayed at this park for two nights it taught us that in reality we can only be self-contained for 24-36 hours max without needing at least a tap and a drain.  When we’ve both had a shower (and that’s one where you’ve turned off the flow of water in between ‘rinses’) and all the washing-up, tooth-brushing etc. has been done we are running low on our supply of fresh water and, understandably, this also means our grey tank is brimming.  When that’s full the drains or the shower tray back-up so it must be sorted.  We aim not to let the black tank reach that point….

Anyway, ablutions sorted we hit the road heading south as fast as Harvey could carry us to try and escape the winter-type weather enveloping the Catskill Mountains, briefly stopping off to see the darn waterfall we never found on our bikes the previous day.... unfinished business!

We had agreed New York City maybe a great way to finish this trip, instead of trying it out as one of the first destinations in our over-sized new home.  So, with NYC on the back burner, we estimated that a reasonable day’s drive would be to head towards Atlantic City on the East Coast with a view to visiting Philadelphia afterwards.

An example of our highway view from the RV

I had the very important matter of sorting our access to cash out once we were back in the land of phone signal.  We stopped at some services and tried swapping back our British SIM cards into our phones to be able to add credit to make the necessary call to Halifax.  Ironically enough, we needed to add credit via the credit card that was blocked to be able to do this.  Fail!  Ruing the day we decided to rely solely on the Halifax Clarity Card…. So, I headed into the services to use a public phone, however much it cost, I would buy a phone card or get a stack of quarters to finance this urgent call.  No phone in the services, and to this day I don’t think I have seen a single public phone booth anywhere in the US, seriously!?!  Why are they needed these days when everyone has access to a mobile (sorry, cell phone) I guess?  I returned to the RV dejectedly.  We were fast using our gas, meaning that we’d have to dip into our spare emergency cash and again tonight if we wanted to stay somewhere.  Stuck needing to get in touch with Halifax with no phone available and no email address I could use.  Then I thought of social media in the realisation that at least I had some data with my AT&T phone-plan!  Thank goodness for Twitter! There, I said it.  But without the little white tweetie bird I don’t know how we would have sorted our situation?! I send a direct tweet to @AskHalifaxBank sounding as desperate as possible and explaining the situation.  They advised that if I had access to a landline I could make a reverse charge call via the operator to them and they would accept the call.  I replied explaining that was not possible and that it had already cost me enough trying to resolve this matter – the only way was for someone there in the UK to call me to sort it out, please?! (despite it being late on a Saturday afternoon in the UK of course!).  We drove on.  Sometime later I received a response asking if now was a good time for a call from Halifax. Yes, anytime is a good time for the call, thank you.  I must have been on the phone for at least 20-30 minutes going through security and answering so many questions about my suspicious transactions.  Thank goodness I wasn’t paying!  I was grateful to Halifax but also angry that, despite telling them my plans, we had to go through this.  I verified that they would put a note on my account explaining that any sus-looking transactions for the foreseeable future would more likely than not, be me!!

Having averted this financial disaster and been somewhat taken aback at how much it costs to stay in what is essentially our own home for a night with a bit of water thrown in the deal, now is a good time for me to mention a couple of camping clubs that we joined.  This was following the recommendations of a couple who’s blog about touring the US we’d skirted over in the UK; as per their advice we had joined ‘Passport America’ and ‘Good Sam’s Club’.  Joining each was reasonable, about $40-50 as I recall.  You get a membership card and a catalogue of the campsites that your membership is valid in.  The difference – PA gives you 50% off the camping rates! 50%, wow! I hear you say.  But there are conditions…. (boo) most of which are that you can’t use this reduction at weekends or Holidays and other conditions limit the number of nights you can use the deal at the same campsite.  On the other hand, Good Sam only gives you a 10% reduction in price which isn’t a lot when you’re paying $50-60 but it’s better than nothing and there are no sneaky conditions with them.  In our experience since this trip began, Good Sam camps are expensive but always very well maintained and run whereas PA sites can be very shabby and make you want to leave as soon as you arrive sometimes (read on…!).  So, it being a Saturday night tonight meaning that a PA site was out we thought we would see what life is like on the road for free! Especially as we had somehow spanked half of our weekly budget in two days and I reasoned with it being the weekend the services would have a reduced population of truckers, possibly?! 

Having seen some pretty-looking services earlier in the day we felt positive, but when we got to the Atlantic city approach all the services started appearing in the middle of the road.  That doesn’t sound right!… what I mean is that the services were now on the land dividing the north-bound and south-bound tracks of the Highway, right in the middle, instead of being down a slip-road from the slow-lane, away from the road.  In the end, it was getting late so we ran out of options and ended up in a parking spot near the front of the Police Station at one of these Services.  So, bonus points for security, but minus points for being near the fast lane of a busy Highway!  Simon said “there is no way you’re gonna sleep at all here tonight!” Sounds like a challenge to me!  So, after a hasty microwaved dinner with accompanying beer, as we had found a liquor store to celebrate having a working credit card, we settled down for the night having ensured all the doors were well and truly locked!