March 10, 2014: We have now been home for a week; everything has been put away and we are thinking about where and when for the next trip--which most likely will be in warmer weather.

To wrap up this first trip in the camper, a winter trip; on Feb. 27, we left the North Fork Resort--and I use the term resort only because it is part of their name--thankful that we did not book more than one night. It was an extremely crowded campground with a railroad track running through the middle of it. We were upset because of the lack of communication: they didn't mention that the water was off at the sites when we called to book a site, they didn't mention that the water was off at the bathhouse when we checked in, and they didn't tell us that the water was back on in the bathhouse on the morning we checked out. We enjoyed the brief visit to Front Royal and would recommend it to anyone visiting that area--but do not include North Fork Resort. 

Last night I called campground, Pinch Pond Family Campground, in Manheim, PA, to book a site for tonight. I had to leave a message on their voicemail. This morning, they called back and we reserved a site--with water--for tonight.

The distance between North Fork and Pinch Pond was, according to Google, 168  miles and two and a half hours away. When I spoke to the Pinch Pond office in the morning, they said they closed at 4:00; I said I expected to be there around 2:00. But, because I asked OnStar not to include any interstate highways on the route, it actually took us 189 miles and seven hours. We arrived at 5:00. The woman I spoke to this morning, and again at 3:00 when I called from the road to say I now expected be there at 4:00, waited until we arrived to check us in.

The reason for the extra time had to be because we went through some very scenic byways and through every crowded business district of every small and medium size town, with traffic lights at every intersection--the lights always changed to red as we approached.

The site had water, as promised, but the camp requested that we disconnect our water hose at night; they expected the temperature to go down to single digits. The shutoff valve for water supply pipe was below ground and, in order for the water to drain out of the exposed pipe above ground, the hose had to be off the spigot. 

We settled in for the night: We had supper, I took a shower, I disconnected the water hose, we watched some TV--the cable hook-up provided a huge number of channels--then went to bed.

It was Friday morning, the last day of Feburary, the temperature was at 5°. When I reconnected the hose to the faucet, the water would not flow into the camper; the hose connection on the side of the camper had frozen. B couldn't take her shower in the camper, so she decided to go to the campground's bathhouse for her shower. We also decided not stay any additional nights in the campground, instead we would head home. The forecast was for more extreme cold temperatures.

While B went to take her shower, I got the camper ready to leave. It was so cold that the sewer hose was frozen. I had to use a hammer to loosen the connector where the hose attached to the camper.   The hose then broke open when I tried to straighten it out to put it back into the storage tube. The hose ended up in the dumpster.

By now B was returning from her shower. She said the bathhouse showers were closed but a woman in the office directed her to some showers located in the laundry building. That was a good thing--B would not have been happy if she had to go two days without a shower--she did that when we used to go backpacking and didn't want to do that any more.

We left the campground and headed north, this time on an interstate highway, I-81, north to Binghamton, NY, and then towards Albany on I-88. We spent the night at a Holiday Inn in Oneonta, NY. We had a nice snack and drinks while sitting at the bar--we were the only ones in the bar--while watching BBC America on the TV and talking to the bartender, a young man, who was hooked on watching Top Gear, a BBC show about British cars.

The next morning we continued on through Albany, through Vermont, and finally, into NH. We arrived home at 3:30. The ride from Bristol, around Newfound Lake, and home, was an quite a ride. Neither one of us recall the frost heaves being this bad in previous years--of course, we didn't have a 3000 pound camper behind us in previous years.

Our driveway was plowed, but we had a mound of snow blocking access to our walkway, and the walkway and front deck had about two feet of snow. We broke our way through this and got into the house; the heat was on, I turned on the water pump to refill our water pipes while I brought in some of our gear from the camper. Once the pipes were filled, I was pleased to see that there were no leaks. Even the plants survived the cold temps while we were away. 

We were glad to be home, but also a little sorry that the trip was over.