I drove all day yesterday. It was a beautiful day – breezy, sunny and cool. We arrived in Bangor last night around 7:15 p.m., ahead of schedule.

It’s always so nice to be home after a long trip…but we’re already planning the next one. We’ll be leaving for the midwest during the first week of September.

Stay tuned this week, however. We still have some more photos to post and I have five campground reviews to write.

When I left you last night, Ali, Max and I were waiting for a cab. They had just towed away our RV. The cab finally arrived and our driver, Roger, took us safely to our destination in Manassas, VA. Roger is from Pakistan. All the men in his family are in the Pakistani army but he’s the blacksheep of the family and has traveled to many countries, finally settling here. He speaks seven languages! It was a bit of a drive and he was very interesting to talk to.

The shop, JJ’s on Euclid in Manassas, took excellent care of us! The owners are also RVers and understood our predicament. They fixed us right up and we only had to wait for a little while. In fact, from break-down on the median to driving away from the shop, the entire ordeal only lasted 3 1/2 hours! The best part? The fix only cost us $50! (Well, okay, add in the $30 can fare and it still wasn’t terribly expensive.)

We decided it was still early and we could probably still make it to our scheduled campground that evening. We stopped for gas and hit the road. It was a beautiful day! No green goo was soaking my shoes and the RV wasn’t overheating.

I took over driving for awhile and, after about a half hour or so, it seemed like the RV was feeling a bit sluggish. I was on a highway (not a freeway) and was glad there were two lanes, because the RV didn’t seem to want to go above 55 mph. I realized I’d had the gas pedal on the floor for quite sometime and I still couldn’t get it to go any faster. And it was making a deep drag sound that I could see and even feel under my feet. Hmmm.

As the day wore on, it got worse and I could only get it up to about 45 mph. I was getting worried but didn’t want to say anything to Richard after our stressful morning. Perhaps it would just…go away! Yeah, the RV would fix itself if I just let enough time go by. If I could just get to the campground and let it rest for the evening, it would be just hunky dory in the morning! (sigh)

Just around dusk, when the RV was topping out around 40 and I was starting to wonder when Richard was going to ask me why I was driving so slowly, a red light caught my eye. I looked down and my stomach went into my throat.

CHECK ENGINE SOON.

I read it out loud.

Richard said, “You are KIDDING me!”

“No, dear. Not a joke.” I then told him what the RV had been doing to me all day.

“Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” he asked.

“Because…I love you?” I meekly replied.

We found a gas station with a repair bay and pulled over. They couldn’t help us, but told us the RV would probably make it another 40 miles (to our campground) since it had been running all day.

After we got gas, the engine light did not come back on and only 15 minutes later, it was running like normal.

I was starting to think we maybe got some bad gas in Manassas. About that time, Richard said, “Maybe we got some bad gas?” He’s always reading my mind like that.

We got to the campground and had a wonderful, peaceful evening.

We got up this morning and hit the road again. We’d planned to be home on Saturday (We have a hearing to attend on Tuesday and wanted to give ourselves some leeway) and thought maybe we could drive straight through and get there tonight instead of tomorrow. Frankly, we were tired of having engine trouble and anxious to get it to our personal mechanic for a complete checkup and maintenance (which, incidentally, we DID have done before our trip).

The RV was running just fine and we stopped for breakfast. Only moments after we asked the waitress for a child’s cup for Max (she’d brought him a regular glass), he spilled his chocolate milk all over himself. I took him to the RV, changed him, brought him back in, and we sat down to eat, look at the atlas, and re-route ourselves on a more direct route home (bypassing our final campground in Connecticut).

After breakfast, Richard took over driving and I sat back to relax. I even started getting drowsy…until I suddenly heard that familiar drag on the engine…the same drag I’d listened to all day yesterday. I was now wide awake.

Yep, it had started again. Except this time, when we got on the freeway, the RV was going so slow up one incline that we had to turn on our hazard lights.

We decided to pull over at the next town and have it looked at. There’s no way we could drive all the way to Maine going 40 mph. As we took the next exit, we looked to the left and there, in the golden sunshine, stood a stranded motorist’s oasis. A Chevy Dealership! We have a Chevy engine! Yea!!!

The manager there is a super nice guy and, despite being completely booked, looked under our hood, drove the RV and offered to get us in as fast as he could. They think it’s the fuel filter. One of their mechanics, Roger, agreed to run the diagnostics on it in the morning and fix it for us. God Bless Roger!

Tonight, we’re at the local Best Western and driving a rental car. We’re still planning to be home tomorrow night. If they can’t fix it tomorrow, it will have to wait until Monday. If that’s the case, the children, Percy, and I will drive the rental car to Maine (we’re only 7 hours from home) and Richard will stay behind with the sick RV and drive her home when she’s feeling better.

The best part about today? We have a full-sized shower to use this evening!

You may remember that we were having trouble with our engine block leaking coolant last week. Well, this morning, just after we jumped on I-95 in Virginia, it started spewing coolant again. The first thing we noticed was smoke coming from my side of the cab. We pulled over quickly and got the children (and yes, Percy, too!) out of the RV, put them safely far away from the highway, and investigated.

Green goo was pouring from the heater onto the passenger side floorboard. The “smoke” was actually steam…LOTS of it! We were glad it was the same old problem (aggravated by us adding more coolant that morning) and got back into the RV.

We should have figured something was amiss when, after getting back on the highway, the coolant started again pouring from the heater onto the floor, but faster than I could soak it up. Ali was handing me clean towels while Frank was taking the soaking (and steaming) ones into garbage bags.

While Richard was looking for a gas station, and about the time I ran completely out of dry towels, the engine started overheating severely. It went almost instantly to red. We had to pull off on a median of sorts. We were off the highway, but I was still very nervous because we were between two lanes of traffic. Richard looked under the hood while I finished mopping up the rest of the green goo. We figured if we could wait until the engine cooled, we might be able to get to a Target parking lot that was about a 1/2 mile away. So, we waited, and we waited, and we waited…

It took about 45 minutes for the RV to cool down. I have lots of experience driving leaky, overheating cars (don’t ask) so I took over the wheel. We timed it just right, when there was no traffic coming behind us and when there was a green light (not yellow or red!) about 1/4 mile in front of us. I gunned it (well, as much as you can gun an RV) and, while it only took us about one minute to get to the Target parking lot, the temperature gage was almost all the way to red again.

We whipped out our cell phone (thank God for those!) and called our friendly Roadside Assistance lady (thank God for her!), courtesy of Good Sam Club, and waited patiently for a tow truck. Boy, those RV tow trucks are big! You can see a picture of our poor RV on the tow truck HERE. It arrived pretty quickly and Richard, Frank and Percy rode in it while Ali, Max and I waited for a cab.

But that wasn’t the end of our troubles…

This story was continued the following day HERE.

We read online about Ferry Farm, which is George Washington’s boyhood home. We thought the children would love seeing that, so off we went. After driving for three hours, we finally arrived. Everybody jumped out of the RV and Max, having been cooped up for so long, started running circles around us. We paid our $4 per adult (we got the AAA discount) and $3 per child (Max was free) and spent about 25 minutes being disappointed. There are some large displays on the wall telling about George Washington’s life there and a very limited selection of artifacts (only one case that we could see). We went outside where there’s a garden featuring native plants and crops. To the right are three small buildings…none of them from George Washington’s time.

There’s an archeological dig there (looks like they were off for the winter so it was just a big square of dirt). So, they’re still looking for the actual house!

So, we visited George Washington’s “boyhood home”, hoping to see the actual home. But, the home is no more and hasn’t even been found yet. “Boyhood Yard” would be a more appropriate description. We were beyond disappointed and felt like we’d been duped. Look at their webpage HERE. See that cute little house? That is NOT George Washington’s house! It was built long after he died. Ug!

On a happier note, we stopped at Colonial Tavern Home to the Irish Brigade for dinner and were very happy we did so! The servers wear period costumes and the food is fantastic. Our waitress, Kate, made us feel right at home. Turns out she’s been to Maine. She has a great sense of humor and had us laughing throughout our meal. If you go, ask for Kate. Kate is great!

The Irish Soda Bread is outstanding and the appetizer of sausages in a pastry with horseradish sauce was irresistable.

Colonial Tavern Home to the Irish Brigade
406 Lafayette Boulevard
Fredericksburg, VA 22401
540-373-1313
http://www.irishbrigadetavern.com/

We left Salter Path, North Carolina early this morning and actually arrived in Virginia Beach ahead of schedule. We’ve stayed at this campground before and we like it a lot. But, they’re still not up and running 100% for the season. The children were disappointed because the store and gameroom won’t open until the end of the month. Ali took Max to the park, but then the rain came in torrents.

We’re all stuck here in the RV. There’s no cable TV here, which is a good thing (in my opinion anyway!). I cooked chicken, stuffing and corn for dinner. We had to use the oven instead of the grill because of the rain. We’re working tonight while Ali and Frank are doing their homeschooling lessons. Max is watching his tape of Milo and Otis…for about the hundredth time. He’s pretending he’s a dog. I had to reprimand Frank for giving Max a dog biscuit. Don’t worry. He’d only licked it by the time I figured out what he had.

We’re touring Williamsburg, Virginia tomorrow, even though the rain is supposed to continue. That’s why God made umbrellas, right?!

They’re in a Class C like us right now, but are upgrading to a fifth wheel.

Priscilla is a retired schoolteacher. She said, “Twenty-three years was enough!” They have a 4-year-old grandson in Pennsylvania and they can’t wait to see him on their way back to Maine. They’re traveling with a large dog who they found as a puppy in Colorado.

While they’re here in South Carolina, they’re spending two weeks helping build a house for Habitat for Humanity.

However, here in Charleston, South Carolina, they DO have No Seeums (a.k.a. Biting Midges) and you CAN see ‘em!

We had dinner this evening with our friend Harry Knickerbocker, who currently teaches Economics at the Citadel. He lives on his sailboat here. After a great dinner (Harry has some great stories from his international sailing adventures!), we were sitting in the RV chatting when a bug bit me. Then another took a bite, and another one. I noticed everybody else was slapping at themselves, too. We realized that a swarm of No Seeums has snuck in through our screen door and were now having their own dinner.

It was time for us to leave anyway, so we bid Harry a sad farewell and drove to the campground. Once here, we kept the door shut tight, not wanting to be eaten alive in our sleep. However, after about 15 minutes, I noticed a swarm of those darn critters by the light over our bed. I groaned when I realized the ceiling vent was open and they’d once again flown right through a screen.

I didn’t want to fill the RV with bug spray, so I had Ali grab my trusty can of hairspray. I figured out long ago that hairspray can not only stop pesky critters from flying, but can suffocate them as well. I went to work and we now have about 100 dead No Seeums stuck to the ceiling of the RV. In won! Heh… Needless to say, with the swarms out there, we’re all INSIDE the RV tonight.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. We’ll see my sister while we’re there and will be staying at a beautiful beachfront campground that we visited last year. See ya there!