What a busy few weeks!! We left Co on a Saturday after the show and headed out to PA. What a trip that was, we booked it onto 70 and drove all day each day, pulling into an RV park just before dark most days.
We made it to indianapolis on wednesday and the next day we covered 4 states all in one day. Indiana
Ohio
West VA
Pennsylvania - we took the PA Turnpike and once again went through all those great tunnels.
We rested at an rv park that night and the next day drove into Langsdale PA which is due N of Phillydelphia.
Setup was friday, so we did some shopping fri morning and headed into Erwinna PA. The park (Tinicum) is located right on the Delaware river which is the border between PA and New Jersey. The roads are winding and quaint little towns dot each intersection. The houses are tall and narrow, they look exactly like houses we were taught to draw as children. Lots of windows in the front with shutters. Many of them are built out of stone, which there is alot of back here. The trees are beautiful, just starting to get their early spring foliage and blossoms everwhere. The dogwoods are in bloom, I remember my mom loving the dogwood trees with their big four petal flowers. I got an appreciation from her for those beautiful trees.
The show was not what it was cracked up to be, we will not come back for a one day hit. After wards we were going to follow hwy 32 N along the river to get to I-78. What a great idea!! OOPS there was a detour due to the road being washed away. The angle that we would have had to turn was not possible with an RV this large. A car came by and told us that we could go past the point of the detour to an Inn down the road and turn around in their parking lot. We asked if it was a large parking lot and they assured us that it was!
So we tooled on down the road and around a couple of curves was a beautiful 200 year old bar/resturant/Inn called Indian Rock Inn, right on the River...the original building was right there, stuccoed/plastered over brick. A sheer rock wall was cut out behind them. In front of the building ran hwy 32, a narrow two lane road with a guard rail on the river side. On either side of the building was a parking area that accomadated maybe 10 cars each with just enough room to walk behind them and not be in the road.
Peter drove to the end of the road, there were actual road work barriers across the road with sand bags holding them down. Beyond the barrier we could see that half the road had been washed out in a storm they had had in the area just recently.
There was a bit wider spot that was dirt just beyond the parking area and Peter thought he could manuver the rv around if we dropped the trailer out of the way. A couple of people came out of the Inn and said they would help us get turned around. We were very optimistic that we could get out of there safely.
Peter went back and dropped the trailer and I stayed with it, one guy helping us to turn it around and get ready to be backed into and pulled out the correct way. Peter drove to the end of the road and with another persons help proceded to turn the RV around. He's done this so many times that I was not concerned about him. In the dirt area; which was very solid; there was a grating that took water away from the hill, under the roadway into the river. Peter saw it and figured he would stay away from it without a problem if the person helping him told him when he was close to it.
That is NOT how it went, the guy must have figured that Peter could go through it and urged him to turn, Peter couldn't see it and trusted the guy, lack of commincation happened and the RV wound up with one of the duals hanging over the grating. The tag was holding it from dropping into the grating and the hitch tore a groove into the pavement. The RV was STUCK!!! and it would not go forward nor backwards..
One guy wanted to get his flat bed truck and pull us out but we declined that offer and called for a tow truck. It was after dark when he arrived but he had lights that lit up the area like it was daylight! It was a huge truck and David (the driver) said it was his second biggest one.
He lifted the back of the rv and as it lifted it was pulled backwards, he then moved his truck and lifted again and the back duals were once more on the road. Then he put a huge 12X8 block of wood over the grating and had Peter back the front tire out over it. This was all on the drivers side of the RV, the passenger side had been on solid ground the whole time. Nothing on the RV was injured and our insurance will reimburse us for the cost of the tow.
Once we were out we pulled into a now empty parking lot of the inn and I went inside to ask permission to stay the night, the owners and some guests were at the bar and offered me a drink after all that stress, I gracefully declined and they granted my wish to stay and wished me a good nites rest.
We both slept like logs, it was so quiet down in that gully. Here is the link for their website, a picture of the inn is there. It also shows walking bridges across the river but those have been washed out too.
The next morning we hitched up our trailer and headed back down hwy 32, we decided not to take the detour and instead went across the bridge into New Jersey. The town of Milton was right there, so quaint and beautiful, and we turned onto another country hwy that took us up to I-78. It's very hilly in that area and the hills are covered with rocks. I can't imagine farmers clearing the fields, the rock is thick, the average size of the rocks is about like a frozen turkey. Much of is looks like shale, some granite, but I pity the farmers that tried to farm there. There are many fields that are beautiful and must have been cleared with back breaking work.
We got onto Hwy 78 and then turned north onto 33 which took us to I-80.
We traveled through the Appalachians to a KOA which was right at the base of a tree covered hill, Hoshi and I took a walk up the trail and around the campground, it was very pretty. The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed our stay. In the evening I got spasms in my lower back and hips which shot pain all the way to my ankles on both legs. I was in agony; I know how to handle pain but this was worse than any I had ever had, I could not walk, I could not turn, I crawled into bed and put the heating pad on each joint; Peter gave me some light drugs which didn't help much and I slept fitfully, rousing every few minutes to shift the heating pad. The pain lasted all through the night and into the next day until we got down out of the mountains. Right now I'm sore but can at least move some without too much distress. Peter thankfully has been feeling well today and was able to take care of much of the RV needs.
We are currently at a KOA in Ohio, we have a dog show this next weekend at Tallmadge, I've got to get Hoshi entered into the Bloomington show at the end of the month.
