Not the Best Day
March 17, 2024 – Day 2
Cairo, New York to Lums Pond State Park, Bear Delaware
We woke up to an empty parking lot and looked forward to an easy 4 1/2 drive to Lums Pond in Bear, Delaware. We’ve stayed there a few times before. We know the roads. We know the campground. It was going to be easy.
Paul walked the parking lot exit since it looked like it might be steep or rutted, looking back you can see just how empty the parking lot was.
The front of Old Factory Brewery was also charming, especially with the sun rising behind it.
That’s probably the last time we’ll ever think that just because we think it’ll be easy that it will be easy because that is just asking for it.
Over breakfast we had the usual debate of highways versus back roads. Back roads are always longer but usaually more scenic. (susan here: Most of the time that’s good. Most of the time. Sometimes the scenic route is scenic in an urban blight kind of way.) The back roads route would take us west of Philadelphia which means steep up and down hills in the Pocono Mountains. We are, after all, about 30,000 pounds all loaded up with belongings, liquids and towing a Jeep. Maintaining highway speed can be a challenge in places like the Pocono Mountains.
We decided it would be best to skirt the outside of New York City. That should give us enough buffer from the traffic madness that is NYC while not getting too far into the mountainous stretches. It would add about half an hour to the trip which was acceptable. After all it was going to be a short and easy day, right?
Our first mistake was an early one, we got on I-87N not I-87 south (susan here: my fault actually as I was expecting an exit to the right not to the left). Oh well, there’s 20 minutes added to the day. Oopsie.
Next we pulled over at a text stop pullout area to double check that the Jeep, the “toad,” had its EZ-Pass in the mylar bag so we weren’t getting double charged for tolls. It was and we weren’t.
Then just a few miles down the road Clifford made a loud sound. Susan was driving and we both looked at each other. “You heard that, right?” She was climbing a moderate hill and the transmission downshifted and it started banging.
Then the “check engine” light started blinking on/off/on/off and finally after a while it just stayed on. You don’t know if it requires immediate attention or you can keep on trucking like the Do-Dah man. The coach has useful gauges, oil temp, oil pressure, engine temp and transmission temp. The “check engine” light was not giving us useful information. We figured that nothing super serious had gone wrong. And if we resisted the urge to “put the peddle to the metal” the coach stayed relatively noise-free.
We pulled over at the next rest top and spent about an hour there. Susan was on the phone upgrading our towing package. A year ago the dealer sold us one that we had never heard of. Many Class A owners use Coach Net for towing, their claim to fame is that they answer the phone and keep you completely up to date on the towing status. This is the opposite of what we experienced on the side of the road back in Running on Empty back in February 2023. Wow, we’ve come a long way since then. That was also the day our lunch consisted of the “Sadness Sandwich” from McDonald’s. We could have sworn that that was on I-87 and Susan would have sworn in was in the Lee rest stop on the Mass Pike!
During that time Paul crawled under to make sure nothing was obviously wrong. The good news is that there was nothing to find. The bad news is that we didn’t know what was wrong. We have a ODB2 bluetooth dongle but Paul has never made it work with the coach. He download lots of apps and nothing would talk to it. Odd, it works fine on the Subaru and the Jeep.
So we covered the Check Engine light with electrical tape and headed on down the road like a Do-Dah man. (Truthfully, we didn’t, but the joke is funny, right?) We refused to look at that part of the dashboard and drove slower to keep the bad sound from happening.
Paul took over driving. It was early for a driver’s change but we were already stopped so why not. During the drive we realized that our NYC detour would take us, slightly, into some hilly terrain. So Susan grabbed the GPS from the new mount that Paul made and removed the detour.
This new mount has exceed all expectations. The old mount was on about 1 1/2 feet of extension tubes suction cupped to the drivers side window. It bounced around, was hard to see, and the passenger could never get it to make changes. But it was the only place to put it. The new wooden platform is wonderful and it was pretty easy to make.
But this meant we were going closer to NYC.
At least we had our first sign of spring along the way. The Forsythia is in bloom down here!
The stupid GPS eventually put us on the Garden State Parkway. Paul knew not to go on that road, but he didn’t know what was ahead so we did it. It was 33 miles of nail biting terror.
Traffic was stop and go at times.
Notice how the right lane is going to end. People would come zooming up the on ramps, cut in front at the last minute and then stomp on the brakes. One time we had to brake so hard that a piece of wooden trim fell off!
There are many low bridges there and the sides are lower than we are tall. So he drove in the second lane and crowded the white line on his left to get more centered. The speed limit changed from 45 to 55 and we did 45 in the 45 zones. The cars around us, on both sides, were going 100mph. Ok, maybe not that fast but it feels like it. We’re not sure if it was legal for use to the be on the road. The signs said “No Trucks or Buses,” it did not say “Passenger Cars Only.” And the RV GPS, which is supposed to route you only onto roads that you fit and are legal to be on put us there. We saw a school bus but other than that we were the biggest thing on the road. So we thought we were legal. Plausible deniability if we were stopped.
Then Springsteen’s “Mister State Trooper” came on.
[Verse 1]
New Jersey turnpike
Ridin’ on a wet night
‘Neath the refinery’s glow
Out where the great black rivers flow[Verse 2]
License, registration
I ain’t got none
But I got a clear conscience
‘Bout the things that I done[Chorus]
Bruce Springsteen
Mister State Trooper
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Please don’t stop me
Really, you can’t make this stuff up. Our roof remained firmly attached to the RV and no rooftop devices were lost traversing the Garden State Parkway. That was a nail biter! We rated it 0/10 and not a do again.
We were quite happy to see the sign for the New Jersey Turnpike. We drove for a bit more until it was time for a driver’s change, but even though we weren’t ready for gas we stopped anyway and filled up. They actually have a small garage there. Paul went to suss out if they were a full garage with mechanics but it was a tire only garage.
Soon we made it to Delaware!
Hey Delaware, if you made these things narrower you could fit more lanes.
Really, our side mirrors had inches to spare. What a waste of highway space. These things are tight in a car and terrifying in the RV. Oh, and “Unpaid Proceed” is not what you want to see. I need to contact EZ Pass and see what is up with that.
We pulled into Lums Pond and stopped by the trash dumpster. Susan emptied home trash from New Hampshire and the RV bag of travel trash while Paul crawled under the dashboard. He had remembered that he carries a real ODB2 reader! Doh!
Engine misfire, cylinder number 4. We have an oil change scheduled for Tuesday and they’ll look at the engine code also.
Daily: 276
Miles/Day: 208
mpg: 6.74