Voyages of Starship Arrowstar

Voyages of Starship Arrowstar
Starship Arrowstar and Shuttlecraft Maxwell

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Captain’s Log - Stardate: 20-16-07-09 – Mission Day 4



First Officer’s Entry:
The captain made an interesting observation today.  She said, “America is on the move!”
She was observing all the campers and RV’s on the highways.  Once she said that I started really observing and realized, “Yeah, there’s a bunch of us!”


The RV/Camper spectrum is wide and varied.  Everything from Mom and Pop and the kiddles in an SUV with a cargo pod on top, to tear-drops, to pop-ups, to little trailers, to big trailers, to toy haulers, to 5th wheelers, to Class C’s, to Class B’s, to the gasser Class A’s, and on to the monster diesel pusher class A’s.  The biggest difference in the rigs is the number of occupants.  It seems the smaller the rig the more campers (eg:  Mom and Pop and the Kiddles) and the larger the rig the more likely it will only house the retired Gran-Moms and Pop-Pops.

In addition to being wide and varied, the RV/Camper spectrum is very ecumenical.  For the most part RV parks put folks wherever they can fit.  True that the big rigs need 50 amp electrical along with water and electric, and the smaller rigs are happy with 30 amp service, and the little rigs need only 120 ac/20amps, but usually all of these voltages are on the power pedestals anyway, so other than the length of the rig vs. the length of the spot, all rigs are treated equally.

The cross-spectrum interaction continues into the camp sites.  Once you are out of the rig and walking around no one knows what your camping “status” is.  So social interaction is simply a matter of how social you want to be.  Surprisingly I am (usually) more social than the captain.  Yeah, mean old, grumpy, pessimistic me.  I don’t know what happens, but get me out in the RV camp environment and I turn into Johnny Glad Hander.  It’s a mystery!

OK.  Now let’s go back to grumpy me.  Today I re-learned that important life lesson that one should NEVER fully trust the sweet tones of the woman in the GPS who my brother loving refers to as the BIB.  (B**** in the box.)  I first learned this lesson way back in I don’t remember when, when the BIB took us into the heart of Philadelphia City (the Tioga District) rather than to the town of Tioga, Pennsylvania.  

Today, when we were about 70 miles from Quincy, she tried to take us a hundred miles into California and up and down some dirt roads.  Fortunately I had really remembered the last part of this trip’s route, and I stopped at a rest area and examined what she was trying to do.  For some reason she was fixated on phantom “RV Length Restrictions” that she swore were on the way to Quincy at distances that ranged from four-tenths of a mile to 520 miles ahead of us.  We tried putting in false way-points in order to trick her into letting us use the direct route, but to no avail.  So we went back 30 years in technology and used a PAPER MAP! 
  
Let me tell you that was a very trying experience!  Imagine Cheryl reading the map and giving me directions and me not believing what she was saying.  Too much of that could seriously damage a marriage. But everything worked out OK, and we are safely in Quincy, all set up in our 60-foot, pull-thru with 230 volts, 50 amps, water, sewer, and cable TV, roughing it in the style to which we have become accustomed.  Life is good.

Just FYI, here’s a link to some really cute “retro” campers.

End First Officer’s Entry

Captain’s Entry:
It’s wonderfully cool and breezy here at the excellent Pioneer Campground. We’re camped under a big old cottonwood tree where we’ve spread our outdoor carpet and set up our comfy chairs next to the picnic table. I guess I won’t be flying home with the Lindbergh’s after all. 

Our campground is close enough to the fairgrounds where most of the Norton Rally events will take place that we’ll walk a path through the sunny woods to get there. I really love being among all these old cottonwood trees and tall pines! It’s a different world up here. Both of us are enjoying a lazy afternoon and evening, knowing we won’t have to pull up stakes again until the 19th.  It’s like breathing a big sigh and feeling as if we’re “home” at last.

I took a look over some of our past blogs this afternoon, and I’m amazed at all the travel we’ve done since we started out with our trailer in 2008. That year we emailed our adventures to friends, so we have no record of that trip to the Pennsylvania Norton Rally. In 2009 we began our “Trailer Spam” blog to cover the Colorado Norton Rally. In 2010 it was Lumby, British Columbia and then the Catskills in New York in 2011. That’s as far as I went, but I know we changed the name of our blog to “Arrowstarship” in 2015 a ways into our first trip in the Newmar coach when we suddenly realized, “We aren’t in the trailer anymore, Toto.” 

The ride over here took us on some winding mountain roads, while gusty winds tried to move us over a lane or two more than once. We passed a group of six or eight wild horses on the far side of the river next to the highway and just beyond saw a sign for California in a town called, what else, Bordertown. Soon thereafter we pulled into the state inspection station and declared our ½ watermelon. The agent let us keep it, and Frank joked with her that we promised to eat the rest of it today. 

We kept our promise . . . 

End Captain’s Entry

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