Our RV Adventure, Day 3: Family Time

(To start from the beginning, see Our RV Adventure: Introduction.)

Friday, May 3, West Chester, Pennsylvania  

I hear a garbage truck in the distance at about 7 am. I wake again at 9:30 temporarily. Liam calls at 10:30 am, so we rouse ourselves. He drives up from town in the used Honda Civic we gave him for graduation, which is about 40 minutes away. Meanwhile, I eat breakfast.

Liam calls from the office parking lot. I walk down to greet him and officially check in. He gets a guest pass for his car. I ask, and the KOA manager says they don’t carry the Motor Carriers Road Atlas, or newspapers, because people don’t buy them. He blames GPS. He mentions the “trucker’s atlas,” which might not be the same thing as the MCRA. We walk to our campsite and we give Liam a tour of the RV. Cathleen makes him a veggie burger for lunch. I excuse myself to hook up the sewer and flush the holding tanks. I’m glad I learned about this ahead of time. It made this much easier than I feared.

I shower for the first time in the RV. I wanted to wait until after the sewer work. I use the “navy” method. Turn on water to get wet. Turn off water. Lather up. Turn on water and rinse. The water heater only holds 6 or 10 gallons, I forget which.

I haven’t flossed since Tuesday. This is how civilizations crumble. Better floss tonight.

After Cathleen takes a shower, Liam wants to drive us to his apartment. We’ll take the cats, so Liam and I walk to his car and drive it to our site to load them. We strap one carrier with both cats into the back seat with Cathleen. Then both strollers, cat litter box, and some cat food go in the trunk.

Liam walking to the KOA office. (Tomorrow we'll have a better picture of him.)

Driving to town, the winding, hilly roads seem easier, unsurprisingly, in the Civic. Liam hasn't paid a pet deposit, so we avoid other tenants and quickly stroll them in. Smuggling cats.

We hang out at Liam’s apartment, just relaxing and conversing about his job, bouldering, his life. The cats are free to roam. We put a YouTube video on TV featuring birds and squirrels eating food. It is so therapeutic not to have to drive for a day.

Liam’s girlfriend Joy is flying in from Boston tonight. Her flight is delayed. He doesn’t want to have to drive us all the way out there in the dark after getting her from the airport, which is fine with us. So, he’ll return us to the KOA before that.

Putting cats into Liam’s car for the ride back, Tallulah freaks out, and scratches Cathleen. We have not seen her act this crazy on a trip, and she's been to DC three times, Cornell University, and Niagara Falls. Not a good sign. Too many locales, perhaps. The rattling RV doesn’t help.

Dusty (foreground) and Tallulah lazing on our RV bed.

Back in the RV, the cats are fine. We can’t find the beef broth that Cathleen needs for a recipe. Shredded beef, quinoa, cauliflower and broccoli. She does without the broth. 

This is one of the smaller "Class C" RVs, the smallest (and cheapest) rented by Hometown RV. Not much floor space, crowded. It would be nice to have a bigger one, but I don’t relish the thought of driving an even bigger rig. 

After washing dishes (and our earlier showers), Cathleen asks to know about the holding tanks levels. The gray water tank already shows "Full" on the dashboard. I'll deal with it tomorrow.

We are asleep before midnight. 

To be continued...