The first 690 miles…

The first couple days of a long distance road trip are typically the least interesting with the focus on getting somewhere rather than enjoying where you are. Especially the first bit where everything is familiar. We drove north on I-77 through West Virginia to one of our favorite stopover campgrounds in an Amish community in Northeast Ohio. Scenic Hills RV park in Berlin, OH is surrounded by rolling green hills, shops, bakeries, and an abundance of Amish charm.

We stocked up on groceries and fresh produce in town and still had a little time to check out Zinck’s Fabric where I found some great deals last year. Nothing much caught my eye this time but it’s fun to browse the hundreds of bolts of fabrics, mostly wondering who in the world would want some of them and what on earth would you make with it? They must realize this too with clearance prices of $1 for an entire bolt!

The highlight of the day was meeting a great group of people camping across from us who invited us to join their circle around the campfire. Riley noticed their “Mountaineer Chapter FMCA” sign earlier and walked over to say hello. The group of 18 or so travel and camp together 2-3 times a year. Most members are from WV but some from KY, TN, and one couple is from Greensboro, NC just a few minutes from us. We enjoyed hanging out around the fire, chatting and being honorary attendees of the annual chapter business meeting. 🙂

We actually are members of the Family Motor Coach Association but really haven’t been involved other than reading the bi-monthly magazine. Maybe we’ll reach out and join this group back here next year. I mean, any group that plans the day around meals seems like a perfect fit. Right, Riley? Ha ha.

Riley set up the Starlink and plugged the Fire TV stick in the television so we could stream Netflix before bed. After a bit of trial and error he figured out the UBS port on the tv doesn’t provide power so he stretched the cord as far as it would reach to plug it into the USB port on the solar panel. Success! …as long as you don’t mind doing the limbo to get to the front of the coach. <add usb charger to shopping list tomorrow>

After a peaceful night’s sleep, we woke up early and headed westward. The weather has been beautiful, sunny but not too hot and relatively low humidity compared to NC. The drive through the rolling hills of rural Ohio is quite scenic. Seeing the occasional horse and buggy and laundry drying on the clotheslines remind me how much simpler, and undoubtedly harder, life could be.

The National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo sounded interesting so we made a short detour to check it out and spent the better part of two hours exploring the artifacts, photographs and interactive exhibits that tell the history and geography of the Great Lakes. The largest exhibit is the Col. James M Schoonmaker ship, a 617 ft. iron ore freighter and tug Ohio docked in the Maumee River beside the museum.

Afterwards we satisfied Riley’s appetite for authentic Chicago style deep dish pizza with a late lunch at Pizza Papalis in downtown Toledo. Yum! I’m pretty sure that will be the last meal we eat today.

Back on the highway, we zipped along with no traffic congestion aside from the occasional road construction narrowing the traffic to one lane. Suddenly, we heard SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT, SPLAT! and the windshield was immediately covered with big greasy bug guts. I counted more than 40 of them splattered across of the windshield. So gross! Definitely bad timing for a swarm of whatever they were to be crossing the highway. Judging from the semi that passed us we weren’t the only ones in need of a good cleaning. Fortunately that was the extent of the excitement for today.

We’ll spend the night at a KOA campground just outside Elkhart, IN. No limbo will be required tonight thanks to a quick stop at a trusty Walmart in Sturgis, MI.