The first 3 days

Hello Everyone,

I'm sitting in my camper in the northern part of Alabama. It's the first moment I've had to really sit down and write a bit. I really have to make the most of it, as I don't want to lose the memory of these first few days. This will be a fairly long post, it's been a trip already.

Day 1

It was cold on the morning of my departure. There was a lot of ice on the ground and a light dusting of snow. I've said a lot of goodbyes already. To friends and family, but there were still more to do: I said goodbye to mom in the morning. Dad was coming with me to NY, I'd say goodbye to him later in the day.

At the border, I made the decision to be scrupulously honest. I was heading out on a road trip, hoping to get to Vancouver by May, I said. That aroused a bit of suspicion, and when the agent asked me if I had a job, my answer sealed my fate. No, I said. I was recently let go and was using my severance to fund the trip. "Okay, I'm just going to get you to pull over in that parking lot and another agent will be with you shortly." I spent about 15 minutes waiting in a small building while the other agent came. He asked me a few more questions, and as luck would have it, he was a mountain biker as well. I nailed all the questions after that.

At the RV place, I finally met the sales people I've been speaking to on the phone and got to see my future home. I'd like to say there was some sort of epiphany when I laid eyes on it, but I've looked at so many pictures by this point, that it seemed familiar already.

Dad and I went through through the orientation to learn how the unit operates. We were in the garage of the center, so Dad was in his element. When I left to go to the bathroom at one point, I came back to him getting the unit set up. He looked very much like a floor manager there. After about 2 hours, we had it loaded on the truck and loaded to the gills with my stuff. Despite a month of purging, I had still brought too much. I'm currently dealing with the consequences, surrounded by boxes.

After lunch at a local diner, it was time to say my last goodbye. After so many, one might think it would get easier. It does not. The first moment when I pulled out onto the highway and was truly on my own was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying. It reminded me a lot of the first time I drove on my own. I can't believe they are letting me do this, though in this case I'm not sure who "they" are.

I had originally hoped to make it pretty far south, and get to warmer weather by my first day. But it was the middle of the afternoon by the time I left and I'd been up for awhile. I made to Pennsylvania by about 6:30 and figured that was good enough. I pulled into a rest area and quickly set up the camper. I figured I would get some sleep and just pack up and go whenever I woke up. I had driven 607 km in total. I slept all night.

Day 2

When I went to bed the night before, it was raining out, but in the morning, I woke up to a sheet of snow. Now, I'm used to this kind of thing, I was just hoping to avoid it in this instance. It was cold again, so I quickly took Arthur for his business and then packed up. Except, all the brackets that hold down the top of the camper were covered in ice. Took me a solid 15 minutes of chipping away at it with a butter knife held in my bare hands to get them free. Then I had to go around and tuck in the canvas of the top. That was also cold, but I was finally on my way, bound for warm weather.

In the interests of brevity, let me just say that I did not find warm weather. I kept looking at the temperature reading on the dash of my truck, expecting it to climb above -8. It didn't. That night, I stayed again in a rest area, and again it was cold. My propane heater works well, but I didn't want to be burning through my tank, so I slept in my clothes, under a couple of wool blankets.

My highlight of the day was stopping in Virginia to get some water and stretch the 6 legs that were cooped up in the truck. There was a museum on the site of a Civil War battle, and it had an empty parking lot and a field where I could throw the ball for Arthur. He loved that, but what really struck me was reading the plaque about the battle at that site. It's happened to me a few times when travelling. To stand in a spot where some important element of history happened. I loved Ken Burn's documentary on the Civil War, and standing there, I could imagine what it would have been like to be in line, watching as an opposing army marched up the hill towards me. It was a heavy moment.

Had the weather been in my favour, I would have liked to have more of those moments, but I needed to get south. My rig wasn't ideal for cold temperatures.

Day 3

I had a goal in mind today. My first two days were all about putting down some miles. But now I had a destination. Coldwater Mountain, Alabama. I looked up a campsite, put the destination into google, and took off.

By the time I get to my campsite, I have travelled over 2,000 km, crossed 6 states and unpacked one solitary bag of my belongings. It feels like it's going to take me a month to get set up.

The lady at the gas station in the morning asked for my zip code to authorize my credit card. I said I didn't have one and told her I had a postal code. That was a first for her. I paid cash.

I wish I had a dash cam to capture a few of the amazing vehicles I've seen. The mint condition old black roadster I saw when I pulled into subway, the white pickup with a huge Confederate flag on a pole on the back end, the many military vehicles I've seen in transit.

I've been on the highway a lot so far. It felt good to get off, even for a bit, to get to this campsite. But don't kid yourself. This is glamping. Mine is by far the lowest end rig here. It's all decked out Class As and Bs. The lady at the front told me how to hook up the cable and what the wifi password was without prompting.

Even though I'm not unpacked, have only a vague idea of how to operate my camper and no idea where I'm going to stay tomorrow night, I'm still going to try to go riding tomorrow. I've come a long way, it's time to hit the trails, baby.

wes

#Travel