On Our Way Again

Location: Dade City, FL

We left Charleston on a clear and hot Tuesday on our way to Florida. Before you wonder, yes we do know how hot Florida is in August. In fact we're enjoying 100 degree temperatures as I write this. The trip down was uneventful however it was long. We try to limit ourselves to 4 hours not more than 6 hours of driving per day but since we were late getting out of Charleston we decided to make the drive down to Dade City in one day.

Matt has been promising his mother that he'd visit this summer. We needed someplace to be after we cleared out the house so we decided that we'd spend August in Dade City and head up north to Virginia in September. We both prefer colder weather so we won't mind welcoming the first cold snap leading up to winter. Right now our plans are to stay in Florida until the middle of September and then head up to Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville, VA. We stayed in that park on our way back from New York after we were married and really wished we had more time to spend there. The plan is to stay through the end of the year. We'll be close to my favorite aunt and will be able to spend time with her. After the first of the year the plan is to move up to Liberty Harbor RV Park outside of Jersey City. We don't have any idea how long we'll stay. Matt's current book is based in New York and he wants to spend some time there as part of his research. Matt spends a lot of time making sure the details of his books are accurate and that takes some research. I tease him that I think he likes the research better than the writing.

We're basically waiting for the powers that be to bless the sale of the house. We spent a week packing up what was left after the estate sale, throwing away items that we couldn't give away or donate and relying on the kindness of our friends Mina and Sarah to let us store some things that needed to be temperature controlled in their house. The week was brutal for two reasons. First we had to make some very hard decisions about giving up things that we loved. Second, even though we only had our bedroom, the kitchen and the lanai to work though the task was monumental. The heat didn't help nor did the boxes of books that we kept and carried up a flight of stairs for storage. I guess that is what happens when you marry a bibliophile.

August in Charleston is really hot and humid. When you go outside it's like someone threw a wet blanket on you. We worked hard through those days filling up a dumpster we rented to get rid of the things that Habitat for Humanity wouldn't take. We left the house very clean, unlike when we moved in. I never imagined that over 10 years later we'd be moving out. After our last move we both decided to never move again. This time we had no choice.

Driving out of Charleston for the last time wasn't really a big deal. I drove right pass the turn off to the house on my way down to I-95 and then south to Dade City without really giving it a thought. The trip was long and uneventful. I rolled into the campground at about 7:00 PM and that's when all the fun started.

Our trailer is 31 feet long and it takes some work to get it backed into a campsite. Matt was about an hour behind me so I had to try and get the trailer into the campsite before it got dark. The narrowness of the road, an ill placed fence and no one to guide me was making my attempts at parking Mabel Rubain difficult. After about 5 aborted tries someone from the campground came over and asked if I would like some help. His name was Brian and we managed, after some additional aborted attempts, to get Mabel Rubain into the slot between another camper a fence a tree and a picnic table. All that was left was to unhitch and get the water and power on. Easier said than done. Getting the hitch undone is usually a two man job. It's a special hitch that is designed to balance the load between the truck and the trailer. The hitch itself weights a good 50 or 60 pounds. The problem is the trailer part of the whole contraption doesn't always unhook without some jumping up and down on the rig or getting the truck to jiggle just enough to make it come loose. That is hard to do when you're alone. Once it did unhitch I managed to get the tow chains too tight so they wouldn't unhook from the truck. After I resolved all of those issues I realized that our spot wasn't even so I had to hook up the trailer again and move it to a more even spot on the site. It's still not even but at this point if I don't fall out of bed it's good enough for me.

After all of that maneuvering I had managed to get the back end of the trailer very close to the utility stand where we needed to hook up for water and power. It was so close that I couldn't get the bay door open to get out the power cable or the water hose and filter. That meant that I would have to crawl into the other side and pull all of the equipment out that way. By this time I was out of breath, soaking wet with sweat and ready to get the air conditioner running. If nothing else was going to happen that night the air conditioner was going to be on and running at full blast.

Matt, of course, arrived after all of this. Both the dogs and I were grateful to see him. They had been sitting in the truck watching this whole maneuver and actually being quiet. I was surprised. Matt was their hero though. He took them out for a walk they desperately needed.

As I write this Charlotte is asleep curled up behind me. Gracie is asleep in her crate and Matt is dozing off next to me while mumbling something about not writing bad things about him. This is our life and so far it's been a little challenging. Each day we learn a little more about our rig. Today we managed to figure out the awning. Tomorrow I'm going to be figuring out the process for emptying our tanks. One or two more things and we should become more experienced and this whole process will get easier. We have 28 more days here to figure it out here in Dade City. Then it's up to Virginia where we'll get to learn all about the furnace. That should be fun.