The reluctant launch

For the past two years, we spent our holiday season stationary in Massachusetts, before launching back on the road just before New Year's:

• In 2022, we set up stationary on November 19 and launched back out on December 30.
• In 2023, we set up stationary on November 5 (arriving early so Anthony could have surgery) and launched back out on December 29.

This schedule makes for a pretty chaotic few days after Christmas. We always have a lot of cleaning and packing to do, if not last-minute repairs and modifications that we hadn't completed yet. So this year, even though we delayed our launch due to unforeseen circumstances, we felt a lot of relief knowing that we'd avoid the stressful haste of previous years.

We set our sights on a tentative launch of January 18, the Saturday of MLK Weekend, hoping we could utilize the 3-day weekend to gain some good miles. We had canceled all of our bookings for the month of January to give us flexibility. By this point, we knew which campgrounds were open in winter, and we had a good gauge on availability during the off-season. Not having a plan felt way less stressful than pressuring ourselves to head out on a specific date. We did, however, keep a few bookings for February, way out in New Mexico. If we could manage, we hoped to catch up on our plans there, because we had some pretty epic adventures planned around Anthony's birthday (February 18). If we actually launched on January 18, a month to get across the country seemed reasonable. However, we need to always remember the factors we're dealing with:

1. We both work full-time, so we can't just drive whenever we feel like it.
2. It's wintertime, so a straight shot across the country from MA doesn't usually work. We have a much better chance of blitzing west if we go along one of the southern interstates, like we did in Season 2.

Only in Season 2, we gave ourselves a month to go west, not to go south and west. This time, we wouldn't be able to linger very long in places, but if we planned our schedules accordingly, we were hopeful we could make good time. Of course, this is us we're talking about, and our travels hardly ever go as planned. We would need to give ourselves a lot of leeway in case of setbacks due to weather, repairs, or whatever other incidents we'd encounter along the way. As much as we weren't pressuring ourselves to a January 18 launch reservations-wise, in the back of our minds we still knew, if we wanted to catch up to our plans, it was January 18 or bust.

As our final week rolled around, we were struck by just how stressless everything seemed. No chaotic post-Christmas haste. We had a lot of repairs to get done, but we completed them with days to spare. We had more time to look around the rig for things we needed or were running out of, so we could order them and have them delivered to us on time. We were able to get in an extra visit to the land to check our trail cams and move one to a different tree. We also gradually made use of the empty corner of the rig that used to belong to Lily's litter cubby. We put down a plush rug, a new chair, and matched everything together with new curtains for our ramp door. I bought a walking pad for the days campground walks aren't feasible, and it tucks away nicely behind the new chair. We completed the corner with a Lily suncatcher, that we hung in what will always be her window.

Logistically, things were going smoothly, but mentally, we were feeling ambivalent. We could imagine what our travels might bring us this year: Another trip out west, more National Parks, gorgeous scenery, visiting new places and old favorites. We just couldn't get excited for it. Our alternative was to find a rental home for a few months, so we could wait out winter and then return to our RV in the spring. Some of the rentals we found were beautiful. We could even get a beachfront home if we wanted! But once again, we didn't feel excited for it. We had discussion after discussion on what we should do, and were still having that discussion on January 17.

We had run out of time and needed to make a decision. After all, sometimes the limbo is the most stressful part. We concluded that we needed to get back on the road, even to just try it out for a while. Perhaps being out there and getting back into our routine would boost our spirits. Perhaps the epic adventures that await us will eventually excite us as they get closer. Plus, we still have one pet who thrives on the travel life, and we know he's getting older, too. We want to share wonderful memories with Tanner for as long as we can. As much as we know he'd be just fine napping the day away in a beach house, we can't deny the face he has every time we pack the rig for a travel day. It happened again on January 18, when he followed me around with this look that said "Wait, REALLY?!" Apparently so, Tanny. Apparently so.

However, just because we launched didn't mean we weren't mentally preparing ourselves for a change of heart. In fact, we did something that we wish we had done in our first season of travels. Back then, we were so scared of not having anywhere to stay that we booked way ahead of time and barely left a margin. Then, when things broke or plans needed to change, we ended up needing to cancel a lot of reservations, resulting in a lot of cancellation fees. We wish we had booked only a few months, leaving a gap or two in case of a setback. We learned over time that our flexible way of life allows us to not need to plan every stay way ahead of time. We can book the big destinations in advance, but leave other destinations until a couple months, or even just a few days or weeks beforehand.

This year, we found natural "exit points" in our schedule, where if we truly weren't happy to be on the road, we could just turn around and head home. If we need to, we can reassess every month or two and ask ourselves if we want to continue onward. We don't intend to use them because we're sure we'll settle back into our routine just fine, but having them takes the pressure off.

With the plan now set to commit to a January 18 launch, I checked the weather forecast. A snowstorm would be moving through the Mid-Atlantic and up to the Northeast that following day, Sunday the 19th. This would mean no drive day for us. We hoped the roads would be clear enough to have another drive day on Monday. The whole point of launching during the long weekend was to get some miles in.

We knew we wouldn't be able to make it much further than our usual first destination, the Metro Philadelphia area. Wherever we ended up, it would need to be a place where we could ride out a snow day. We could think of no better campground than our beloved Lums Pond State Park in Delaware. We had stayed there in both Seasons 2 and 3. The sites have full hookups with frost-proof water spigots for wintertime. They have great resources such as a camp store, bathroom, and laundry. The state park is also near essentials like a gas station and Walmart. There are also trails that are easy to traverse in winter and would make for a beautiful snowy hike. Lums Pond is about a 6.5-7 hour drive without stops, which means we take up mostly all of the daylight on this drive. We set the plan in motion to head out just after dawn, and I booked us a site by the pond.

Our drive down was expectedly long, taking us 8 hours including stops, but it was probably the smoothest launch drive we've ever had. We didn't hit much traffic and avoided all precipitation except for some on-and-off rain in Jersey. As much as we would have liked to make progress on our miles south, having a rest day on Sunday was probably for the best. We settled back into our travel life, did some chores and work, and enjoyed the snow.

We felt good about our launch so far, but we soon realized that we had overlooked something important about our next drive day on Monday, January 20. In no year past did we have to deal with the very event that comes around only every four years: Inauguration Day. In all three previous years, we stopped in DC for several days. We have friends in the area, plus we simply like the area. This was the first year that, for time-saving purposes, we weren't expecting to stop. Now we knew we'd need to drive around. With the numerous amount of road closures that start downtown and extend to many of the surrounding highways, we would need to stay out of the metro region. We had no idea how the Inauguration would impact traffic on our drive.

We thought if we could get through DC on Monday, that we could do another whopper of a drive day, cover another 375 miles, and wind up somewhere outside of Raleigh, NC. This would make us feel like we covered a lot of ground, but more importantly, the Sunday Nor'easter had ushered in a cold front. Up towards DC and Delaware, temps would drop down to the single digits. The Carolinas wouldn't be much better, with low temps in the teens, but when it's that cold, even a few degrees make a huge difference. That could be the difference between having running water in the rig vs. having frozen pipes!

But soon, the cold was only part of our concern.

One of the strangest winter storms in history had hit the radar. A low jet stream coupled with the arctic blast was making for the potential of winter advisories in the Gulf Coast region and up along the southern part of the East Coast. Some of these areas had the potential for worse ice and snow than they had seen in decades. Suddenly, our plan to drive to North Carolina was looking uncertain. If we continued south, sooner or later we would run into this storm, and compared to where we're from, this region of the country doesn't have as many resources to deal with snowy and icy roads. Travel, especially with an RV, would be off the table. We would need to rethink our plan and figure out the safest path forward.

To be continued.