Blue Ridge foliage trip: Change of plans before we even start

The days leading up to our foliage trip had us on edge. What started as a fun experiment to use AI trip planning tools, turned into so many forced itinerary changes that we questioned whether this trip should happen at all. First, we needed to revamp all our dog-friendly plans when Tanner faced a sudden health issue and couldn't recover. Changing the logistics was the easier part. The hardest part was moving forward emotionally. Tanner had been our travel companion for our entire RV life and was the biggest fan of road trips. We knew that embarking on this trip would mean lots of tears and tender moments.

Soon after, we faced another obstacle. Our trailer, which had been in NC getting repairs since mid-September, was supposed to be ready well before our trip. Instead, pick-up got delayed, and now we'd need to grab it en route to the Blue Ridge Mountains. This meant no time to clean and organize, no time to get it travel-ready, and no time to make sure everything was functioning after repairs. This was exactly the situation we wanted to avoid. We started out planning a leisurely sightseeing trip, but now it was inundated with all the usual RV stressors that had plagued our whole year.

Then, just when we thought we had our plans straightened out...
1. Pick up the trailer at Trailers of the East Coast (TOEC)
2. Continue driving to our campground
3. Tow the trailer back to Myrtle Beach after the trip

...things shifted again. The repairs at TOEC weren't complete yet, but we were pulling double-duty, also getting our solar system back up and running after bad things happened...and then happened again. Instead of grabbing the trailer from TOEC, now we needed to pick it up from EcoEthic Solar. Not a big deal at first glance, since the two places are only about 20 minutes apart. But actually a huge mess logistically, because the TOEC repairs were still in progress. The plan now had to be:
1. Pick up the trailer at EcoEthic
2. Drive to our campground
3. After the trip, bring the trailer to TOEC and leave it there for the remaining repairs

This changed our trip route. We hoped to spend an overnight at a Harvest Host on Sunday October 18, but this Harvest Host was on the route home to Myrtle Beach and was now too out-of-the-way to justify a stop. I needed to go back to the drawing board and find a new overnight for Sunday.

Worst of all, this meant both drives to start and end our trip would be extra stressful. In case we're not clear about the logistical mess of this situation, here are some of the biggest challenges:
1. The cats' extra truck time means no use of their RV litter box and no breaks where they can decompress in the comfort of the RV.
2. We need to pack all our stuff for the whole trip into the truck, unload it into the RV once we pick it up, and then reload it back into the truck after the trip.
3. Even just the baseline, necessary tasks to make our RV livable again will take precious hours away from our already limited trip time – like putting batteries back in our smoke and CO detectors, making the bed, cleaning the fridge, cleaning the inevitable dirt that's been tracked in by the service techs, and putting our stuff away. Remember, this isn't a large hotel or Airbnb where we could live out of suitcases for 5 nights. This is a small space that can't have stuff in the way, or else we wouldn't have space to walk around! We also need to make sure everything is secure for travel so things won't shift around too much or break.
4. Beyond the baseline, we have to consider that our trailer hasn't been climate-controlled since August, and the weather has been humid. We don't know if we'll walk into mold and mildew. We don't know if we'll walk into smells. We need to be prepared for extra cleaning.

We must ask then, what's Zen about this?! Would the colorful beauty and fresh mountain air really be enough to offset all this added work? We feared that we were thrusting ourselves right back into the types of scenario that burned us out in the first place. How would we ever rekindle our love for the RV life if these were the circumstances?

Then, the weekend before we were set to leave, the remnants of Hurricane Isaias pummeled Appalachia. Heavy rainfall and harsh winds led to damage and flooded roads. The region still hadn't fully recovered from Hurricane Helene in 2024, and the infrastructure was vulnerable. As we dealt with our own post-hurricane weather in Myrtle Beach, we carefully watched the forecast for the mountain towns.

Sunday, October 11 was the last day we could cancel our reservation at the Pineola and still get some of our money back. We talked about it. We talked about the extra work we now faced to make the RV livable, wondering if it was worth the effort for just 5 nights. We talked about our feelings of guilt that the cats would be trapped in the truck for hours. We talked about our reluctance to be back in the RV, because we still hadn't fully recovered from our year. We talked about how weird it feels to now be missing the only member of our family that actually still enjoyed time in the RV. But on the other hand, we knew that sooner or later, we needed to jump back in. We couldn't wait for the perfect trip, because perfect trips don't exist. All we could do was prepare ourselves, go in with realistic expectations, and take every moment as it comes. We kept the reservation.

Later that day, I returned to my conversation with Muse. The great part was, Muse already knew all about the trip, so all I had to do was request that it scour the internet for reports of damage in the areas we'd be. That's far more convenient than me trying to do my own research; AI can comb the internet in a matter of seconds and give me the latest updates. I went into the Muse app to find that it had continued talking to me even when the window was closed. This AI "keeps working" at all times – an advertised feature of the model that Anthony and I find rather disconcerting. Nevertheless, Muse kept regular updates of the weather for our trip, but hadn't specifically mentioned the hurricane remnants.

It also sent reminders that The Pineola would be charging the remainder of our payment, now that the refund deadline had passed.

Funny it should mention checking that the "right card is on file." It recommended this because, if you recall, I initially cancelled the transaction because I panicked that I was about to let a robot submit a paid booking on my behalf. However, we double checked and confirmed that the payment didn't go through. The second attempt was completed and confirmed.

Even still, we received this email from the Pineola that morning:

It wasn't the flubbed first transaction that caused our payment issue; it was the fact that we used a virtual card through Stripe Link. It never dawned on us that most campgrounds' software will try to charge the balance using the "card on file" and won't be able to because the number they have isn't a real credit card.

Though Muse intentionally uses a virtual card for added security, this isn't just a problem when someone uses AI to book. This will happen whenever someone uses a virtual card, AI or not. Nowadays, device wallets often generate and recommend using a virtual number. Sometimes it's as simple as clicking a button, and customers may not even notice that they used one. This could cause a lot of confusion if they use a virtual card for a deposit, and the balance doesn't go through. When we used Link for our booking, we authorized the full payment amount, but the software on the other end still didn't accept it. Virtual card numbers are important and will become increasingly more so, which means payment software programs will need to catch up. They're just not there yet – especially not at a rustic lodge/campground in the countryside of NC. So for now, we must take it as a disadvantage of using AI for booking deposits. Muse requires that we use a virtual card through Link, which means we'd always need to update our credit card information anyway. We might as well just input our credit card number manually and save everybody the hassle.

I let Muse know that we ran into this issue, but all it can do is make a note for the future, to remind us that, if we use a virtual card for a deposit, we'll likely run into issues when the remainder is due.

Now for the important part: asking Muse to check for post-Isaias destruction in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

So the trip was still on, as long as last-minute due diligence didn't yield any new obstacles. I cross-checked with some of my own research, which showed me that the Pineola was still open and accessible, as were the roads up there. And as for Linville Falls, hikers did their own post-storm assessments, and the videos were insane. But at least it meant the trails were open!

We might be in for quite the experience on that hike.

Now past the point of no return (barring something extreme happens), I needed to find us an overnight for Sunday to take the place of our Harvest Host stay at Point Lookout Vineyards. I asked Anthony if he cared if we'd have hookups, because now we weren't bringing the trailer home with us. Now that it was going back to TOEC for a while, we needed to think long and hard about handing it over with partially-filled waste tanks. But, since it'd only be a day's worth and the weather up there was cool enough to hold in gaseous fumes, Anthony made his preference clear. If we could find a good Harvest Host, that would be the best way to spend an overnight. I recalled the AI models mentioning lots of options in Yadkinville and surrounding towns when we first began trip planning. This would be an easy area to hit if we took State Route 421 instead of I-40. Unfortunately, finding a suitable Harvest Host is a little more difficult for us. Yadkinville has lots of vineyards, which are beautiful, but since we don't drink, we need to ensure there are alternative ways to pay patronage to the business. Ultimately, I found a Harvest Host that looked like a great fit – for both our rig size and our lifestyle. I booked it manually (because I'm still keeping Muse locked out of my member accounts), and once approved, told Muse so it could update the itinerary.

We really came down the wire, but our itinerary was now as finalized as we could make it. Of course, we always stay flexible with our plans. That's just good RV life protocol. If we wanted to be nitpicky, I could've asked Muse to update the campground section to reflect our Pineola booking, but this doesn't matter. We plan to use the itinerary for at-a-glance reminders of the daily activities, but in reality, we have everything important written down on our calendars. We can't break old habits that served us well all these years! Though the PDF is far more aesthetically pleasing...

But if planning was such a roller coaster, how would the trip be in reality? There was only one way to find out. Time to get packing!