Going full throttle

In the early morning hours of Monday, July 27, we got woken up by the loud sounds of crashing thunder. No storms were in the forecast, and so we hadn't taken any preparations to keep our belongings from getting soaked. We had been dealing with roof leaks ever since a blizzard knocked tree branches onto our trailer in February, but recently, another fallen branch compromised our roof even more. The seals on our roof had cracks everywhere, most hidden by our AC units and therefore not accessible for us to do an adequate patch job. When there's a chance of downpours, we'll get out towels, buckets, and large bowls in case of leaks. This time, we expected clear skies all night, and since we were only at Lums Pond State Park for one night, we mostly kept the trailer in travel mode.

"Travel mode" looked different these days. We had just completed a trip to New England to get a bunch of our things out of storage, much of it we packed into the trailer to haul down to our new cottage in SC. In addition to our typical RV items, we now had 2 desks (both with integrated electronics), an office chair, studio equipment for my job (which included one of my harps), and countless other smaller items. Roof leaks had the potential to damage a lot of stuff.

It wasn't all bad news. We have an ATC trailer, which is all-aluminum, and so we don't have any materials in our ceiling that could rot. We do, however, have ducts and wiring. Because we started getting leaks back in February, we already had an appointment scheduled to get our roof replaced. Also fortunate – if we can call any of this fortunate – was that we also planned on getting both AC units replaced. Our main AC has been on the fritz for almost a year, and frankly we're stunned and thankful that it's continued to work all this time, especially given the crazy heat we've endured. Then the bedroom AC was the first to have leaks, and so we decided it's best to just replace both, get upgraded units, and start fresh. We could at least rest assured that these issues would get taken care of soon. Right now, though, we had to jump into action and try to catch all the dripping water.

We didn't want to make any rash decisions so late at night, but I kept thinking about the next leg of our journey. We were supposed to spend 2 days in VA, but Tuesday's forecast was concerning. The Mid-Atlantic had been hammered with severe weather this year, and another outbreak was possible. I booked a site at Lake Fairfax Park knowing that the campground was situated on a hill, and last time we stayed there, even moderate winds shimmied our rig. I also knew that there were very few places to take shelter if the weather turned extreme. The bathhouses are fairly sturdy, but the park staff warns that, if the power goes out, they close and lock the bathhouses. This makes sense for safety purposes during regular outages, but what about severe weather outages? You can't expect RVers to stay in their rigs if the power goes out because of an imminent tornado! Nevertheless, the park was our best option given all the constraints we had.

I accounted for the wind. I even accounted for possible tornadoes. But the most likely damaging factor, I had overlooked: heavy rains. We booked an extra night at Lake Fairfax for 2 reasons, so we could take a breather after our long drive from MA, and so we could see our friend Roberto. But if we encountered severe weather, neither would happen. We wouldn't leave the pets in high winds and rain to go hang out with our friend, and sitting in a leaking, shimmying RV certainly wouldn't be a breather!

I knew this logic, but I also knew that after our surprise thunderstorm, I was in flight mode. I decided to sleep on it and see how I felt in the morning.

We obviously didn't sleep well, but after a few hours, I woke up with clarity: we needed to move. I needed to talk to Anthony about it, but he was on an early morning work call. As soon as he got off, I shared my thoughts.

"I know last night I briefly mentioned that we might want to skip VA and book it further south. Honestly, I still feel that way."

Anthony wasn't supposed to have anymore calls that morning, but he let me know that one of his earlier calls got moved to 10am. This would put a wedge in the whole plan if we wanted to have a long drive day. To complicate matters further, I had a meeting at 7pm, which restricted our travel time even more.

We weighed our options. We could start packing up now, Anthony could take his 10am call, and we could leave right after. We would have loved to hitch up ahead of time, but the site wasn't long enough. We could leave now and drive as far as possible, and then take a break at 10am for his call. He could try to take his call from the road and I could drive the first leg.

We had a lot of reasons to rule out option 3. I hadn't towed in a couple years, and the first leg included the Bay Bridge, which sure, I could handle, but did I want to? Not particularly. Plus with both cats sitting copilot with us, Anthony would need to somehow multitask on his meeting, also navigating me and keeping an eye on the pets, namely Macky, who often tried to climb out of the seat and leap into the back, to his mesh car seat that was currently filled with glassware. And...our internet hadn't been working.

Again?! Oh, yes. Before the storms, we were having such a nice time at Lums Pond that we overlooked the fact that our hotspot wasn't connecting to the network. We had enough cell service to use our phone hotspots, and we didn't need much internet that night anyway because we got in so late, took our walk, had some dinner, and got ready for bed. We knew we'd probably need to call customer service for the hotspot, though, because as far as we could tell, this wasn't a location-specific issue. Lums was supposed to have Verizon coverage, and looking at our device, we noticed that we were fast approaching our 40GB data max. We renewed it, but we wondered if it hadn't registered the renewal and cut us off.

Now down to only our cellular data, we couldn't risk Anthony taking a call while in motion. So between options 1 and 2...we chose the latter. And we still don't know if we made the right choice. By the time we packed, hitched up, and got out of the campground, we only made it 8 miles before we needed to pull off.

Anthony was just happy to have gotten any forward momentum, but leaving Lums also meant that we left our electric hookups behind, and the day was already heating up quick. We pulled into a Park & Ride just before the ramp onto US301. We had cell service, the spot was level, and we had plenty of space, but we were on asphalt with no shade. It was a race against the rising temperatures.

When we got back into the trailer, we noticed that whatever water had pooled on our roof had now come in on the drive. Water had dripped everywhere and the ceiling was still covered in droplets. Our furniture was wet, the towels and rugs had sopped up so much water that they were perpetually damp, and we couldn't walk anywhere without our feet getting wet. While Anthony took his call, I did the best I could to wipe things dry, knowing full well that the leaks would probably continue as we drove.

But, we were on the road, and we didn't want to stop until we got past the region where the storms were predicted. If we could make it all the way to Raleigh, we could call them and ask to switch our reservation, so we wouldn't need to pay a cancellation fee. We already knew we'd be eating the cost of our Lake Fairfax stay, but we called them anyway to let them know they could open up our site for another camper. We decided to get through DC first and then call Raleigh Oaks once we were more certain we could make it all the way down there. This would mean two 380-mile drive days in a row, running on sheer determination.

Once through most of VA, I texted Roberto and told him the change of plans. Then at our next rest stop outside of Richmond, we called Raleigh Oaks. By that point, the temperatures were in the 90s, we were exhausted, and it took every bit of will to not totally crash out, but we had to keep our eyes on the prize. By the end of the day, we'd be in a safe RV spot, out of the way of the storms. And by the end of the day tomorrow, we'd be back at our cottage. We could do this.

We made it to Raleigh Oaks by sunset, where we had booked a long pull-thru site so we could stay hitched. This came in clutch even more now that we had gone full throttle for 380 miles and needed all the simplicity we could get. We did need to do some minimal leveling, but that was fine with us. Anthony pulled some of the bins out and stuck them under the trailer so we could have more room inside. Otherwise, we kept everything in travel mode. (Side note: Heavy winds blowing dirt into our under-rig bins was yet another issue. The Lums storm caked our bins and camping chairs in mud – so much, in fact, that we took our chairs out of their carrying bag and threw the bag away).

Our drive the next day would only be 3 hours, which felt like a blip compared to the past 2 days, but we needed to be cognizant of timing. Storms were coming into the Raleigh area by mid-day, and we wanted to be out before they arrived. We also wanted to give ourselves extra time at our RV storage facility. We had rented our spot over the phone and hadn't seen it in person. In case anything went amiss, we wanted to make sure the office was still open and we could solve any problems that might arise. It was a daunting thought, to haul 56ft of length into the facility without even scoping it out first, but under these circumstances, we had to settle for "good enough."

We made it back to Myrtle Beach around 2pm, stopping at the Welcome Center (the official one, IYKYK) for one last pit stop before making our way into the city. The Carolina humidity was heavy and we looked like physical wrecks. The pets were ready to jump out of their paws. On my way out of the restroom, one of the workers beckoned me. "Are you headed to the beach?" They're always extra willing to give guidance and coupons to the tourists. "Oh, no. I live here," I responded. She smiled. "Oh, gotcha."

It was exactly the conversation I needed to plant me back in my city. The locals here have the best of both worlds. We can flock to downtown and the beaches whenever we wish, which means no pressure to go at peak times. Then we retreat to the back corners for some peace and quiet, and trust me, it is peaceful and quiet. That's what the onlookers don't understand. "But it's so crowded!" Not everywhere. "It's filled with tourist traps!" Not all of them are. I love watching the comments flood in on social media from locals shooting down the Negative Nellies. "Oh please, that's such a tourist trap. There's no way any locals go there." A local chimes in, straight and to the point: "Why not?"

This is why Myrtle Beach was the perfect landing zone for us. We spent the last year in a desperate search for agency, and this is where we have it. If we want to stay home and enjoy the quiet, we can. If we want to hit the town, play tourist, or find hidden gems, we can. If we want to hop back in the RV and leave town for a bit, we can. Boy, that feels good.

We might never know if leaving Lums before Anthony's call was the optimal choice, but blitzing back to SC definitely was. Tuesday night, from the comfort of my living room, I tuned into the severe weather livestreams. Maryland got it worst; the number of tornado warnings hit double digits. Parts of northwestern NC had tornadoes, too. Raleigh did in fact get storms shortly after we left. Even the counties around Lums Pond had tornado warnings! It was like every place we stayed and every place we drove through got pummeled.

And Fairfax County, VA? We would have been under a tornado watch, and later, a severe thunderstorm warning. Wind gusts in the area reached 60mph according to the radar. Heavy downpours occurred with the storm. There's no doubt we would have faced extensive leaks and lots of stress. 380-mile drives twice in a row was tough, but the alternative would have been worse. And now, after 5 weeks that felt like months, we were home.