Day 12: Trip Home

Sunday was our last day and it really was just the drive home from New Jersey. We had stayed the night before right on the NJ/PA border so we were basically driving across Pennsylvania, which was just over 6 hours.

Allyson and I both wanted to get back in time to be able to enjoy the day on Sunday, so we were going to leave very early in the morning. In the past when we drove early we usually got up and 5:00am to try and be driving by 6:00am. However, recently the kids have just been staying up when we leave at that time. So I had proposed getting up even earlier at 3:30am and getting moving as early as possible. We did that and were on the road by 4:00am.

Everything was going smoothly until we were about half way across Pennsylvania. While driving along I-80 I could hear all kinds of yelling in the back of the motorhome. Caroline came up front and told me it was Mom yelling that water was leaking everywhere in the back of the motorhome. I immediately knew the cause of the problem. On our last evening the flusher, which is foot operated began to malfunction in the rear bathroom. This has been and on-again off-again issue for the past couple seasons. Eventually on the morning we were leaving the pedal completely stopped working. I wasn't too concerned because everyone was sleeping and we would be home early, so I just shut off the water pump so that water wouldn't leak anywhere and then figured I fix the issue at home. Well at some point on the drive someone turned the pump on the either use the front bathroom or wash their hands. Water began leaking from the back bathroom and it wasn't noticed until it has basically covered the floor.

A water leak in your motorhome is just as bad as one in your house. The water on the floor is obviously an issue, but the real problem is the water that leaked down past the floor. In the motorhome under the floor you have a couple inches of subfloor space where wires and tubing is routed, and then you have all the storage compartments. The water eventually makes it into those compartments and soaks your stuff. Fortunately, nothing was ruined by the issue. However it meant that on Sunday I would have to take time to unload the compartments and get a fan set up to dry them out. I suppose it could have been worse.

The rest of the drive was really easy. As previously noted in these posts, driving through New England in an RV is awful (I'll spare readers more complaints on that). So, driving for a couple hours on a relatively straight, flat interstate was no problem for me.

We made it into Ohio and then stopped at a turnpike plaza to dump the tanks and get some Dunkin' Donuts. Then we finished the drive home. I think everyone was happy to be back, but no one was happier than Nolan who was now able to run around with some more space.

This was another great trip for us. We ended up staying in 8 states, drove 2,100 miles and did a ton of stuff, including historical stuff, sightseeing, and unique stops. The kids were all awesome about the driving in the motorhome which is encouraging for future trips. We only have two more states to stay at East of the Mississippi and we intend to get to those within the next 12 months. So we'll be taking some more trips out west in the future, which means longer drives. We have now stayed overnight in 30 states, which is more than I ever thought we'd do.