Our First Week
Olivia posted this in Olivia's Diary
After an action-packed kickoff weekend with Flood and Jen in Ohiopyle we wound our way through the Laurel Highlands and are now tucked away in the Hickory Hollow Campground where we’ve made quite the nest for the past week.
I really love our spot. We’re surrounded by rolling green hills dotted with cows and trees hugging all views. Its really peaceful and quiet, I can’t hear traffic or even trains from our spot, in fact its been pretty sparsely occupied all week, filling up to a very comfortable level over the weekend. We have so much glorious space.
Last night we celebrated the green corn moon and the final child-free Saturday night of love with champagne and skewered some shrimp over the fire. We rocked on till close to dawn snagging left over firewood from unused fire rings to fuel our desire to stay awake.
Tomorrow I will have a full house of wriggly boys as Tristan finally joins us from his summer vacations with various grandparents, bringing his older brother Ryan for the first week. I think they’re going to love playing here in the park, riding around on bikes, paddleboating over the little lake, feeding the pygmy goats, slip n sliding, and getting up to mischief with the other kids. This place is much more rustic and laid back than a typical amusement parkish sort of campground. We’ve booked 2 days at Jellystone for the end of the week which I believe is totally geared towards kids fun – its such a great name! In fact its making me hungry for sweeties.
I spent the first half of the week just cleaning and cleaning like a nut job. We didn’t know anything about treating water at RV parks with chlorine, and the two weeks the RV was standing out on the farm while we packed up in Pittsburgh made the water go yellow and smell like rotten eggs. It took a lot of flushing and disinfecting of the tank water to get it clean again, it took me a couple of days in fact. And the contents of the fully stocked fridge went off while the RV was in for repairs at Ford, leaking out rotten fish juices throughout and enticing a small dedicated colony of flies. That took multiple cleans with bleach, bicarb and fresh water, not the easiest feat in an RV with no clean water. There is still a lingering smell but it lessens every day and I think after a week it’ll be completely gone. The mistake I made was forgetting that while we had a full propane tank to power the fridge, the coach battery kept the propane flowing to it, and after a few days it ran out of juice. Wow it was heart-breaking to throw out all that gorgeous good food and some of our favourite hard to come-by sauces. We have learnt so much already, and not all of the lessons are so hard. I’ve been visiting various RV basics and New RVer sites for tips on everyday care and use to avoid further problems, hopefully making the experience as easy and laid back as possible this year.
Tomorrow we’re going to check our tire pressure and make sure they’re set up safely and try to find a cafe with wifi. The AT&T and Sprint cellphone reception out here is mostly in roaming, when that’s even available, and as our internet connectivity relies on our data cards we’re starting to get antsy over it affecting our work. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to afford a good booster or come up with another solution. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m so excited about this gorgeous new site Nathan has created for our tumblewagoneering chronicling, fit for a gypsy queen – its going to be packed with goodies soon, including photos and movies so please be patient while we stock the site and your eyeballs.
I love our new life and I’m really looking forward to it being enriched so much more when Tristan is finally home, the three of us roaming everywhere together.
