Captains Log: Day 1 (and 2!)

Reflections from life on the road!!!

Hi, friends!! It’s been a minute since I’ve written on here. The pandemic was a long, strange trip for everyone and I felt like the words that usually tumble out of my heart and mind just simply wouldn’t come. A few months ago, my husband, Patrick, found himself in the midst of a job change and we were given the gift of time. We had 30 days. And we decided to make the most of it to take the trip of a lifetime and rent an RV to explore 18 states in this great nation. (For those of you who are new here, he and I met in college and have been married for 15 years this year. We have four children, ages 13, 11, 8, and 6, girl, boy, boy, girl.)

Telling friends and family about our plans, usually there was one in a couple who thought this was the most amazing idea ever and another who shuddered at the thought of it. Some couples had two members who were wholly anti-concept. And there were only a blessed few who had both parties thinking this idea was sound and exciting. It remains to be seen if we are super fun and adventurous or if this is an insane idea after all!!

This has taken months of planning, and accumulating info and gear and mapping and coordinating timelines and visits and campsites. This is my husband’s very favorite thing to do. We discovered that there is something called Harvest Hosts, that for $75/year you can stay at local farms, wineries, breweries, distilleries, creameries and then you patronize them in some way. We will visit some family and friends along the way and hike and explore and sample local flavors.

I am going to aim, over the course of the next 30 days to post to Facebook and Instagram (@katemcmahon) our updates and then use this space to sort of process our experiences and observations and share funny stories and tips and tricks we learn along the way.

We realized very quickly that the adventure lies in just being together this month. There are up’s and downs and moments of insanity already, and it is only day 2.

So far….

We had our youngest get car sick less than 30 minutes from home (which was just slightly concerning as we were at the verrry start of this whole endeavor)… before even getting to our RV.

The rubber fasteners on the bike rack on one of our cars holding our six bikes began to melt and bikes started falling off of the rack on the highway just south of Lancaster, PA.

When we arrived to pick up our RV, it was about an hour in 94 degree heat (with humidity, it felt like 109 degrees) touring the ins and outs of the RV and then 3 hours unpacking our two cars into the vehicle. Our entire family was a drenched puddle of sweat, as we fumbled about trying to set up shop in this 31’ long (+ maybe another 4’ with the bikes on the back), 11.5’ high, 8.5’ wide (without the mirrors), 13,000 pound (without our stuff) vehicle. There were some sideways glances and laughs and curses as we tried to get ourselves organized. Turns out that is literally the name of the game, bins of all shapes and sizes are your friend. I was vibing so hard with The Home Edit ladies and McGyver as we figured out creative Tetris type situations for our soups and snacks and socks and games. Our oldest had read that in the military, they recommend folding an outfit: shirt, shorts, sock and underwear and then rolling it into the other sock worked well to save space and keep yourself sorted.

Then at last, we hit the road!! Only to realize the first portion of the trip was on tiny country roads and we felt like our mirrors, which stick out like Dumbo ears, were going to crash into every car we passed. And then on the horizon we saw rain coming and checked weather only to realize we were driving directly into a torrential downpour with severe thunder storms. Casual. So we went through the rainy farmland, onto a highway, realizing we hadn’t formally eaten lunch or dinner yet…and it was 7:30pm. Pat pulled off onto a random stop, which turned out, of course, to be teeny tiny desolate roads at dusk with names like Turkey Trot Lane and Potato Valley Road. These one lane roads began getting steep and twirly as it got darker and darker and we realized somehow we would have to eventually turn around…. But we had never practiced yet going in reverse. Aaaaack!!! We searched and found that there was this old Fort Hunter Mansion along the Susquehanna River so we got to see the final moments of the already-set sun and microwaved some enchiladas, wiped down with baby wipes lol and into pajamas. We had about 3 hours left of driving and we arrived at our first destination, Starr Hill Winery in Curwensville, PA around midnight. 

It was total darkness, obviously, upon arrival, but knew we were climbing up up up into some mountainous neighborhood. Billboards for gun shops peeped hello at us to welcome us to town. So we pulled in to the winery and it didn’t have hookups (for electricity/water/sewage) and it was hot as bonkers so we expanded the sides, got the kids tucked away, turned on the generator and the AC blasted and we slipped right into sleep. About an hour in, we realized that some places have rules and guidelines about the hours you can run your generator (for us, it was like a sound machine, but for neighbors, it can be noisy). Pat woke up with a start and said he was going to explore and look to see if they had a different compatible hookup we could use, and when he returned without success, he said let’s cut it and open the windows (it was raining and the temperature was dropping, but still very muggy). I sort of cringed and agreed (you know, we didn’t want any friendly fire from our new neighbors to welcome us to the ‘hood). The temperature immediately skyrocketed and we laid down on the “cool touch” tempurpedic mattress topper to upgrade the experience to a glamping vibe lol and we looked at each other at like 2am like “does this feel cool to you?” “No.” “You?” “No.” And Pat goes… “you know, we could always stop next at a resort and just stay there for 30 days. No one would ever know and we could just say ‘those 30days we spent in the RV (that first day) were epic’ and we wouldn’t be lying….” 😂. So we are laughing, which is good.

And then! We woke up in the morning to a most glorious view of the vineyards at Starr Hill. Absolutely gorgeous! Such a fun surprise!! 

We started the day with some waffles, sausage and fruit and then meandered to support the local winery and tasted all sorts of exciting things like banana wine and blackberry fruit beverage (which, for any curious mind, is neither wine nor beer). They also had options like raspberry white chocolate wine, if you’re into that sort of thing. We got some Drunken Flamingo which was a fun canned rosé and an autographed bottle from the one and only winner of the show Alone, which tests people to see if they can survive 100 days fully on their own in the Alaskan backwoods. In 7 seasons, only one man made it, and he did so by killing a muskox with a bow and arrow, finishing him with a knife… and surviving on that meat for a long time as well as cultivating cranberries by storing them in a log (not bog… a log)… I meaaaan….. I was of course fascinated by this and we got an autographed bottle for my Uncle Rick who is obsessed with the show. The people were sooooo nice, pulling out a foosball table for the kids and I would totally recommend it if you’re passing through that area and like sweet wines!

We came back to the RV and did our first Give Get Do for the day. We decided right before our trip that it might be fun to provide some structure and fun to each day. So step one: *give* thanks for something that happened in the last 24 hours. Step two: *get* a pearl of wisdom from a loved one. Step three: *do* something fun (ie, do a 2 minute plank, ride our bikes to ice cream, drive through a suburb). So we have been gleaning words of wisdom and inspiration from our sage family members and figured it would be a nice way to begin each day with a piece of someone who is loved and with a lesson we could learn from. First one was from my dad, who shared a poem that was on his fathers desk in Hicksville, NY for many years.

We have a two minute plank in our future and the kids and us said lots of nice things about family and being together and staying positive. ❤️

So far, we’ve driven through 3 states and in the first 8 hours we saw 25 license plates! We are currently up to 34.

We stopped at Walmart for some purchases (coffee creamer, dry shampoo lol), and debated buying a few rifles or machetes…but opted out lol, left into a torrential downpour, filled up our half a tank ($80!!) and then hit the road!! We passed through the highest point of I-80 east of the Mississippi, and are making our way westward! Next stop was Sandy Ridge Winery in Norwalk, OH and having someone serve us yummy foods and wines while the sun set was absolute HEAVEN.