E16 Wineries KOAs Snow and arriving back home - a podcast by Paul Sebastian

So the last episode we left you when we were arriving at the winery. The day we arrived there we had driven 160 MI but it took us 7 hours to do that. We left from Prince William's Forest campground Virginia to Cedar Valley winery in Logan township New Jersey. I was beat when we arrived at the winery but I was very glad that we stuck to our 3-hour drives per day. Planning for 3 hour drive day allowed us to get to the winery before bedtime. Lol. When we arrived I was beat. But I was very glad that I listened to my intuition and canceled our stay in Maryland. Have we gone there we would have been way off the beaten path and stranded in the snow with a flat tire. Yay intuition. Another problem was when we pulled into the winery I forgot to turn off the driving lights on the Jeep so the battery was dead and are towed. We unhooked I pulled the RV next to the Jeep and jump started it for more chassis battery. So we arrived during the storm of November 2018, do you remember that storm? It had dumped almost a foot of snow on New York City. We had gotten 5" of snow in south Jersey. That night it was supposed to be super cold so we planned on bringing the slide in to cut down on drafts however the slide would not come in. We thought it had broken again. But with the 5 in of snow up on top of the slide it would not come in so I had to climb up on top of those rig to clean off our topper.
George our repair guy from slate Hill New York had always said if it's going to rain or snow pull the slide in. When we left this winery we drove a very short distance to the KOA in clarksboro New Jersey. Koa's or not our first choice that's for sure. And once again we were not surprised to find this isn't a great campground. We pulled into our site and it was full of garbage that we had to clean up. The picnic table had a torn tablecloth on it. We went over we picked up Trish's grandson and we took him to our rig. He was amazed by it he had his own bed over the cab. This was the first time we were having anybody sleep on that bed. He had a great time practicing climbing up and down the ladder getting on and off the bed. We had pizza delivered to our site. Then we had a nice campfire and sat outside. The next day we took him to an all-you-can-eat buffet which he loved. The next day we dropped him off at home and we drove over to spotswood New Jersey to visit Trish's cousins and aunts. We parked the rig for a night of mooch docking. The next day we drove up to Bloomfield New Jersey and parked in Trish's dad's driveway and spent the night there. This was the first night that we slept outside the rig in over 5 months. It felt a little surreal. The next day we drove home I looked at the odometer and so that we had driven the rig over 8,000 miles and another $5,000 on our toad. We had stayed in 17 States, two countries.
Wow what a trip! We had our ups and downs. A ripped topper a broken generator. We slept in temperatures of over 100 degrees fahrenheit. We had to slide that wouldn't work. Electrical problems. Killing our batteries. A trip to thor. Getting stuck in mud. A flat tire. Closet door falling off. And lots of rain leaks. And yet through it all we had a wonderful five-month trip we've seen so many sites and met really wonderful people.
It took us two days to unload everything from the rig. We organized RV stuff into bins so it'll be easier to reload. Now it's time to do an oil change.
So what are the things that we learned on this trip? First and foremost patience. Patience with each other and with the rig.
#2 help each other when you can. It really does take a pilot and a co-pilot to drive a rig. #3 set aside time for chores and root planning. #4 remember takes a lot longer to drive the rig a certain amount of Miles than a normal car. #5 set limits to driving times and distances to meet your needs. #plane driving days and off days a day off to do laundry and catch your breath is always helpful. #6 laugh! Laugh at yourselves and things .
The next thing we will add to this rig is a new mattress.
We ordered a 6" inner coil mattress from Mattress Insider and wow do we love it ! And if you go to relaxrv.org/discounts you can get a discount on all if their bedding stuff like mattresses and sheets etc.

So what do you do to help MANAGE your STRESS? Perhaps you or someone you know would benefit from listening to Stress Management Exercises? I have 3 FREE Stress Management recordings at https://relaxrv.org/help/

If that ain't your thing, I have DISCOUNTS on my website to various RV related stuff.
https://relaxrv.org/discounts/

I’ve made some videos about improvements and fixes I’ve done to the RV. Here’s a link to them on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzwH6GhSMBDJ7qKxsLng-TA
Or you can watch them on my website at
https://relaxrv.org/videos/

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