AZ Day 1

I left Frann’s somewhere around 9:30. I wanted to make sure I missed the rush-hour traffic that goes south to Stamford. I had a couple of stops to make, anyway. One of those stops was to go to Costco to return one of the four mats I purchased for the Van of Discovery. Somehow or other, I missed Costco. Next stop was MickeyD’s for breakfast; then we hit the road. Traveling was fairly uneventful, which is good because the day before was not good and I did not need any aggravation.


Every other time I drove down to VA, I took Rt 301 around Baltimore and Washington, D.C. This time, I took Rt 213 which bypasses Baltimore. What a great ride. It was a practically desolate road that went through farm country and a few small back country towns. The map noted it as a Scenic Route.

I looked for a park that I could stop and make lunch at and also take Hope for a walk and hopefully and free romp. I looked and looked and watched and no park did I pass, so I finally stopped at a marina. It was kind of cool because the boats that were at this marina were mostly very old yachts and houseboats. Each one had its own “garage.” So Hope and I walked up and down the different docks. At the end of one, I took a picture of the draw bridge that I previously drove over.

Back on the road, I didn’t drive for more than two minutes when what comes up? A park. Jeez! I knew it!

The destination for the night was to be either Cracker Barrel, a commuter lot that I saw the last time I was down here, or back to the Duncan Family Campground. I opted for the commuter lot. It was huge and packed, so I figured there would be quite a few cars there overnight. After dinner and the bed were all made up, I checked out the parking lot again. At 7:30, it was nearly empty. There were maybe two cars in the lot.

This was my first experience with boondocking alone. Boondocking is having no hookups – no electricity, no cable TV, no sewer. Just park somewhere, spend the night, and take off the next morning. Many RV’ers boondock in Wal*Mart, Flying-J’s, Cracker Barrels, and even hospital parking lots.

For those of you who do not already know, my PC got a virus of death the day before I had to leave. This was NOT good timing. I had prepared my laptop with everything I needed for this trip: many camping and RV’ing websites in my favorites and worked on jailbreaking my iPhone so I could tether it to the PC. The laptop was already set up to use at work, including LAN printer access (more on this problem tomorrow). Frann’s husband, Lane, tried to fix the PC to no avail. It was dead meat, so Frann and Lane lent me their Dell. (more on this problem tomorrow, as well). As of tonight, the only gripe I had about it was that I couldn’t hear the movie I watched. I had to put the earphones on.

At about 8:00, I turned off all the lights inside the van so I wouldn’t be so conspicuous and I watched a movie by PC light. Sleep that night was not good. I put earplugs in to drown out traffic and furnace noise. My earplugs are custom make for my ears and they have these little handles for ease of removing them. The handles stuck out too far and made it very difficult to sleep with.

So, ends Day 1.