RV Travels of Bill and Laura - Day 1 - Catskill to Preston, CT

Wow!  What a great first day!  Everything but the last 10 minutes was perfect.  I started writing this outside the camper sitting at our table and was attacked by a huge horsefly.  He drove me back inside for awhile.

Laura and I both slept much better last night.  I told our friend Lee it's like sailing off-shore.  The first night nobody can sleep with the motion of the boat and all the different sounds around.  The second night, you're so tired, you can sleep anywhere.

I slept almost 10 hours and woke up around 8:30 with a clear head and felt well rested.  I immediately started getting the trailer ready to leave the marina as Laura made us a small breakfast of scrambled egg and 1/2 toast each.  The only item added to our list in the night was hand-soap we needed from the boat.  I walked down to the boat, checked everything for the 20th time, grabbed the hand-soap and said a sad "Good bye" to Second Wind.

Lee stopped by as we were finishing breakfast to assist with getting underway.  He's owned a travel trailer and used it quite a bit.  I've been getting pointers from him the past few weeks.  He watched as Laura and I disconnected from power and water, lifted the jacks and stowed all the blocks in the back of the pickup.  I then backed up the truck as she directed me under the hitch.  It worked pretty well and we had the trailer hooked up with power and safety chains in just a few minutes.

I pulled the trailer off the lawn and into the parking lot.  We said, "See you soon!" to Lee (never say "Good-bye" to good friends.  We always see them again!) and drove out of the marina.  About 20 feet up the road was a good place to pull over and do a little planning. Bummer that we forgot to take any picture of us leaving.

I had forgotten our iPad doesn't have a GPS so we couldn't use the RV Life app on it.  Dang.  I had downloaded all the state and Canadian Province maps with the marina Wi-Fi so we could use the iPad off-line but had forgotten it was the "disconnected" model.  No GPS.  Instead, we used my iPhone which had the RV-Life app loaded but didn't have the state maps downloaded.  We downloaded NY, MA and CT while driving across the Rip Van Winkle bridge.  Then I pulled over and had it map our way to Mohegan Sun Casino.

A funny thing happened a short while later.  After about 1 1/2 hours driving, I decided to pull over and check the rig since we had been running it pretty hard up and down steep hills.  I found a place in front of a closed restaurant where we just fit off the road.  As I started to get out, Laura said, "I'm glad you stopped, I have to pee."  I guess I had a funny look on my face thinking she was going to walk around the side of the restaurant or something when she pointed behind the truck.  Oh yeah.  We were pulling a house with a bathroom.  Guess I'm not quite used to this yet.

Bill Tip - When you tell trip-planning software to "Avoid Highways", you'll be routed through every back-road in the area.  Don't do this!

After two hours of covering only 65 miles down many unimproved roads, we changed the settings on the app to just "Avoid Tolls" and not avoid highways.  Our trip to Mohegan Sun went from 4.5 hours to 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Yes!  We did end up on I-91 through Hartford but it all went pretty smooth.  I was glad to be off the (way-) back roads.  At one point in the morning, we stopped at an intersections and I looked ahead at the road ahead and it was very steep.  OK truck.  Let's go!  I tried to get up steam across the intersection but the truck never got out of first gear.  At one point we were only going 15 MPH and I had the gas peddle all the way to the floor.  Laura and I were both wondering we we were going to have to get out and push.  We held 15-20 MPH all the way up this 1/4 mile hill.  I was waiting for the engine temperature gauge to start going up but it never did. 

Laura spent a few hours looking up campgrounds around the Mystic Area in case we decided to not stay at Mohegan Sun.  There are no power hookups there and the temps all day today were near 90.  We might need our air-conditioning and we don't have a built-in generator - just my Honda 2000 in the back of the pickup.  The easiest way seemed to be using Google Maps on her iPhone and searching for Campgrounds.  She called several places in the $70-$90 range and finally found one that was only $50 with a river-side spot.  Nothing else she found was close to that.

None of the apps we've used so far (RV Trip Wizard, Good Sam Trip Planner, RV Life, Apple Maps or Google Maps) give campground prices.  If someone finds a way to easily see what each campground costs without called each one, please let me know.

 We were about 1/2 hours from Mystic Aquarium (our destination for today) when we passed a beautiful little lake just off the road.  I immediately said, "What a great place for a picnic" as we zoomed by a hidden road leading into a fishing spot by the lake.  About 1/2 mile down the road I found a small strip-mall and turned around.  We had found a great place for lunch!

Here is your first picture of our rig as we stopped for lunch.  2013 Chevy Silverado 1500 with towing package and 2012 - 23 foot Keystone Hideout.  See the beautiful little lake in the background?

As we munched left-over pizza from the night before with Lee and Linda, I looked up the Mystic Aquarium on my phone and saw they closed at 5:50pm.  It was already about 2:30pm and I was in no hurry to leave this beautiful lunch spot.  We talked about it and decided to stay at the campground with the river-side sites for two nights.  We'd use the truck for sightseeing around the Mystic area tomorrow and head out again on Thursday. 

I often say that our plans are always cast-in-jello.  On the water or on the road, we can change plans at the drop of a hat - no problem.

We punched the Hidden Acres Family Campground into my iPhone and were there in only about 40 minutes from our lunch stop.  I parked the rig next to the office and we walked in.

As we walked up the counter, a very nice lady said hello and we asked about a RV site for two nights.  I also mentioned that she had the distinct honor of being our first campground EVER.  She was very friendly and talked to us about a few available sights.  I mentioned we didn't have children or pets with us so she eventually gave us an isolated site away from the noises.  The sites were supposed to be $50 for river-side or $45 for the others.  Since she had picked the river-side site, she said it would only be $45.  $90 on our credit card and it was a done deal.  She had flagged down her husband who jumped into his golf cart and said, "Follow me..."

I had also told her husband this was our first campground EVER so he nicely gave me a few pointers about backing the trailer into the site.  One thing that helped was he said to walk around and look where we wanted the trailer to end up then scratch a line in the dirt with my heel to show where the edge of it should go.  I could see the dirt mark in the side mirror and line up the trailer accordingly.  After two or three tries to line everything up correctly, we were home!

Here is where we will be staying for the next two nights.  Beautiful spot under the trees and right next to a very shallow river.

After leveling the trailer and rolling out the awning, we set up camp outside to try and cool down.  Here's Laura sitting in the shade of our new home for the next two days.

I do want to mention what a pain-in-the-butt it is to level a trailer without hydraulic / automatic leveling jacks.  Even though I used a power drill to lower the jacks and level out the trailer, we were both completely drenched before we were done. It's hard to imagine being on the road every day and having to go through this each afternoon / evening.

This picture was our view from the back of the trailer.  You can just see a little dam someone made of stones in the river that built a little pond for wading.  After hooking up power and water to the trailing and turning on the AC, we put on our bathing suits and climbed into the water.  I was disappointed that it was warm and was hoping for cooler water.  But, it was refreshing and we both had fun.  It was only about 2-3 feet deep at the deepest.

After our swim we cleaned up and I washed, then hung-up the clothes I had been wearing because they were all sweaty.  We relaxed with a cocktail and ended up back inside with the air-conditioning to stop sweating and get away from the bugs.  I should mention that it is 91 degrees outside and no wind.  The next few days are supposed to be mid-80s so we're looking forward to that.

I'm hoping that today will not ruin the rest of the trip for us.  Our lunch spot and campsite were so scenic and beautiful.  Even the driving went well and the truck ran great.  Can the next 4 or 5 weeks get better?  Stay tuned....

Day 1 - Hidden Acres Campground, Preston, CT

     151 miles
     $91 spent - $90 for 2 nights at campground and $1 for air at gas station