Catskills, Cats, & CAT Scales

The Prairie Smile Wagon has landed in Appalachia! (Hot tip: pronounced a-puh-la-chuh. So cool that we can learn new things each day, right?! Thanks, Julia!) We survived our first multi-day haul that stretched 800+ miles from New Hampshire to West Virginia.

Before we got to West Virginia, though, let's do a quick recap of our haul.

Our first stop took us to the tiny town of Cairo, New York on the outskirts of the Catskill Mountains. We stayed overnight in the parking lot of a brewery called Old Factory Brewing Company, which we found on another RV app called Harvest Hosts. It's essentially like Couchsurfing for RVs, where you can stay a night or two at random businesses or homes for free in exchange for small things like a meal, a beer, etc. The alternative on road trips is to either find a Walmart parking lot or pay for a campground. This was our first HH experience and it worked out so much better than we had hoped. We arrived, parked the rig, enjoyed some food and beers, then walked over a mile to a local eatery with homemade, farm-to-table ice cream because it was the only other place open in this tiny town on a Saturday evening.

We hit the road again in the morning to make our way to Milton, Pennsylvania -- home to my 1st year roommate Jaimie who is now in residency there (hey Dr. McPhedran!!!). Her partner Matt (hey Dr. Morrow!!!) is also one of Chad's good friends and happened to be visiting for the weekend, so we got to hang out with them, enjoy even more food and beer, and play with some of the only cats I like: Putter and his new sister Molly. Truly a 13/10 Airbnb experience.

The next day we made our way down to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia to stay at another HH site. This time it was a fellow RVer's driveway, with water and 50 amp electric hook ups for guests. What a dream! We checked out Harpers Ferry National Historical Park the next morning, enjoyed one of the best hot dogs we've ever had (I teared up), then hit the road again.

On the drive, we had to stop for fuel (diesel & Wendy's chicken nuggets, obviously) and figured out that the place had a CAT scale to weigh the rig, which we've been needing to do. We arrived to discover that it was the BUSIEST truck plaza we've ever seen -- each pump had multiple trucks in line. I was already panicking before even filling up and was immediately ready to split, but Chad insisted on weighing the rig while we had the opportunity. While I was having a meltdown, he was beautifully navigating between semi-trucks and backing the Smile Wagon up in front of dozens of truckers. This was a pretty good depiction of our relationship: me, hanging on by a thread, and Chad, cool as a cucumber. Truly a historic moment for the Prairie Smile Wagon.

As we made our way from Harpers Ferry to our final destination, some storms rolled in at the worst possible time. Never before have I driven on such scary roads which included multiple blind hairpin turns, 9% grades, no shoulders and random downpours. And to up the fear-factor, I had a 15,000 pound trailer hitched to me. I had an excellent navigator in the passenger seat, who was equally as busy having the time of his life looking at the landscape. We've never been more thankful to finally make it to a campground. And my sympathetic nervous system was shot.

We're excited to explore such uncharted territory for us. I'll be in the emergency department of a critical access hospital, and Chad will be at a correctional facility. Until then, we'll be busy walking to the (actual) local ice cream shop and singing the John Denver hit song Country Roads, Take Me Home.