I consider myself a fairly well-traveled guy. But, today was a bunch of firsts for me. The day started off fairly normal. We got up and prepped the RV to travel. That consists of pulling in the slides, raising the leveling jacks, unhooking water, electric, sewer, and hooking the truck up to be towed. It really helped that the Jersey Shore is mostly level and our campsite was hard packed sand. Speaking of sand, it has been made mention that I have a slight aversion to sand. That is an understatement. I would be perfectly fine mixing in equal amounts of Portland cement and some water and just smoothing it all out. This would have the added benefit of almost completely eliminating erosion. I see this as a win-win for everyone. Knowing that was most likely not going to happen, I started researching solutions to sand getting in the RV the one time we went to an RV park on the beach in Destin. I found a company in Australia that had created a fabric weave that would only allow sand to pass in one direction. It was designed to be used as a helicopter landing pad out in the sandy outback. So, I called them to enquire whether or not they made slightly smaller versions of the pad. I was in luck, someone at their company might hate sand as much as I do, and had started producing a mat for the commercial market. I bought one immediately. Long story slightly less long, this was the first time in a decade I had a chance to try it out. It is possible I might have made Melissa mad enough the last time we were on sand that she swore to never take me to the beach again. I really love her commitment and follow through. Well, anyway, the mat works like a charm and we don’t have much (a little bit is to be expected) sand in the RV. With everything stowed we headed out to my second ‘first’. Slipped the first ‘first’ in on ya there.
There are two ways to get from southern New Jersey to Delaware. One way is to back track towards Pennsylvania and head south from there. The second is to drive to exit 0 and take the Cape May – Lewes ferry across the Delaware Bay. Ok, you might think loading the RV, complete with tow vehicle, is my 2nd ‘first’. It’s not. I have never seen an exit 0 before, let alone exited on it. We were headed to the ferry. With reservation in hand we got in line to float the RV across the water. We weren’t the only big ole’ RV on the boat. Right in front of us was a similar RV without the tow vehicle. So, we were the longest on the boat. As the guy in front loaded, he rolled his tires up on the curb. I asserted that I would not be doing that. Melissa offered to take a picture of me making that assertion; I declined. Through slow and methodical navigation, I followed the instructions of the folks lining us up and was able to get on without incident. I should have made a bet. The ferry ride is 85 minutes and went without a hitch. Kevin the adventure dog made his rounds on both decks of the ferry and received many oohs and ahs along the way. He really is a handsome little pup. Third ‘first’ out of the way, we headed to our very roomy and level RV park.
This next one will really only make sense to RVer’s or anyone that has had the pleasure of listening to me pontificate about RV park wireless. It is universally crap. I mean it’s really, really bad. If you can log on at all, it is slow and painful. Never try to stream anything, it ain’t gonna happen. As I was pulling into our site, I noticed a neat grid of poles on each row. Each pole had multiple directional antenna creating a mesh of radio signal. I am little bit of a geeky guy and I was getting excited to test the coverage and throughput of the WiFi at our campground. Oh wow-wee was it good! The signal was strong, roaming worked, and I got 85Mbps download speed. This is truly the ‘first’ time I have ever said ‘this wifi is great!’ The day was barely half over and I had already experienced 4 ‘firsts’. What else could the day hold?
As we travel through these great United States we have to stay a night and do something touristy. Our thing for Delaware was the Marvel Carriage Museum. Come to find out, it has been closed for a year and a half. Undeterred, Melissa called over and was able to speak with Rosalee with the Georgetown Historical Society. She offered to let us come and to be our personal tour guide. Her only condition was that we had to ignore the mess. She is truly passionate about the museum and has volunteered there for over 20 years. She loves the exhibits, and I am sure just wanted us to see them through the ‘clutter’ and love them too. We estimate she is in her upper-eighties (based her senior yearbook on display at the museum) and was the best tour guide possible! We originally went to see the world’s largest frying pan. It can hold 800 chicken parts and is actually used from time to time. There are reportedly 4 frying pans claiming to the world’s largest. This particular one was undisputed until 1988 and is the largest we have ever seen. Since this a carriage museum, we took time to see the carriages. There were all kinds of carriages including one that was Walt Disney’s! They are all beautifully preserved and we even were able to climb up into the seats. It was great fun. There is also a full replica of a Western Auto store, and a work in progress model train room. As we were exiting the train room Jim, the President of the Georgetown Historical Society, drove up and offered to give us a tour of the Telephone building. Both he and Rosalee worked for the phone company for a very long time, and he has collected quite a bit of phone paraphernalia. The sheer quantity of items would be difficult to list here. There were full pay phone booths, switch boards, hundreds of phones, and other miscellaneous items. Our favorite was the picture of Ms Rosalee working as a phone operator in the 50s. It was all very fascinating. After the telephone building we looked at the one room school house, the church, another barn full of carriages (with the specially crafted tack from melted down silver spoons used in Mr. Marvel’s funeral), and the long building full of player pianos, photos, cameras, books, cheeses keepers, sausage stuffers, and lots of other stuff. Oh, and actual ghost stories. We ended the tour taking a spin through Rosalee’s Gift Shop where Melissa found a Christmas Ornament for her collection. I don’t know how many ‘firsts’ were in this tour. It was absolutely a highlight of our trip so far, and wonderful to see folks who love life and what they do.
Everyone was exhausted and some pretty violent storms were blowing through, so we went and picked up some dinner and watched True Lies, streamed on the fabulous campground WiFi during my first visit to the first state.
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