We are officially "west bound and down"! We departed Brandywine Creek Campground this morning at 0920 hrs, a little later than expected. The drive from the campground up to the turnpike sucked. It is a beautiful area but tons of low-hanging tree branches and dragging a 13 foot 4 inch RV through there made me cringe, but there was really not a better route. We will not be going back there. So far the only known damage is to my WiFi Ranger antenna which is bent over. It was previously damaged in the 10 Aug 2020 Derecho near Des Moines and I epoxied it back together but it was either damaged coming into the campground a few days ago, or departing today. Either way I need to see if I can salvage it again or just replace it.
Once we hit the turnpike and started our westbound journey it was not a bad drive. No rain today. Crops look great. Traffic not bad.
Our GPS has a heart attack as we approach the tunnels since it is a truckers GPS and we have it programmed for height, width, length and HAZMAT since we carry propane. It is supposed to route us around hazards such as low bridges, tunnels that don't allow hazmat, etc. I researched the PA turnpike tunnels and the small amount of propane we carry (2 x 30lb tanks) is not an issue, but our Garmin does not know that. It is in total panic mode trying it's best to reroute us and we just keep pressing!
Since we don't have mountains or interstate tunnels in the Midwest they are kind of interesting for us. There require total focus on my part as there is not any too much width clearance when you are towing a trailer that is 101" wide. You just have to be "on point" and keep things centered.
We passed though four tunnels I believe. Blue Mountain Tunnel, Kittatinny Mountain Tunnel, Tuscarora Mountain Tunnel, and the Allegheny Mountain Tunnel.
Blue Mountain Tunnel
Kittatinny Mountain Tunnel
Typical view inside any of them
Tuscarora Mountain Tunnel
Allegheny Mountain Tunnel
Periodically along the turnpike there are service plaza's. We made three stops during our westward travels today. Two were convenience and one was for a late lunch. It was during the last stop we had quite the experience!
So dragging an almost 35 foot long trailer you typically follow the route of the semi's. WE get fuel in the same places and we take breaks in the same places. We pulled into one of the service plazas and followed the signs for Trucks/RV's. One of the open parking slots had a semi to the left and another pickup pulling a trailer to the right. So we pulled in there and parked. We typically use our own bathroom facilities in our RV, so after we stop I usually make my rounds measuring wheel temperature with an infrared pistol-looking device and then lastly I open our walk-in door, drop the stairs and then either Doreen or I use the "loo". This trailer right next to us was really strange, but awesome! It had Lexan sides making the contents visible. It was full of some of the most gorgeous custom motorcycles you have ever seen! And not just regular run of the mill choppers, I'm taking a bad-assed, V-8 powered, lime green and chrome trike. This thing was crazy!
Custom built display trailer
I went inside the service plaza and got us some lunch to go while Doreen walked Liberty in the nearby grass. When we came out a gentleman and his son approached us and complimented us on our Alliance fifth wheel. So we struck up a conversation and this guy was the owner / designer / builder of the motorcycles!
Meet Paul Andrecola, PhD (x3), chemical engineer, retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant, Vietnam vet. Chief Operating Officer of Inventek Colloidal Cleaners. He also owns InventeK Engineering where he custom designs and builds motorcycles, trike and autos! So Paul just got back from overseas where he was showing the "Gremlin". the lime green trike on the trailer next to us and now Paul and his family are headed for Sturgis!
From Paul's Facebook page, the Gremlin powerplant is a GM 502 CI Big Block engine. It features aluminum heads, roller cam, twin 4 barrel carbs on a tunnel ram intake mated to a turbo 400 race tranny connected to a 9” Ford aluminum rear-end. Custom 20 inch rims w/ Mickey Thompson 29x18x20 donuts and separate propane tank for the flame thrower exhaust gives it pizzazz. Custom springer front end with custom handle bars drips with triple nickel show chrome.
So you never know who you are going to meet on the road!. Paul opened up his custom trailer and gave us a couple tee shirts and we thanked each other for our military service.
Later we arrived at the Madison/Pittsburgh SE KOA Campground. This was the first opportunity we had to "order ahead " so we ordered the items we had on out "to buy" list and they had a heap of Amazon and other boxes waiting for us here! Ten of them, actually!
We have no firm plans here yet. We will see what tomorrow brings! We are here for five nights.
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