Day Two on the Road

456 miles. Who wouldn’t start at 5am?

My intention had been to get some solid rest since our first day had been so draining – emotionally and physically. I thought if we left around 8AM, we’d have plenty of time to make it to the Chicagoland area to meet friends for dinner. Arthur had other plans.

At 4am, Arthur determined that he had recovered from the previous day’s trauma enough to wake me with a combination of scratching on the side panel of the RV’s slide out and pouncing on my pillow and face. Message received, King Arthur. I’m not entirely sure what he wanted because he didn’t eat the wet food that I LOVINGLY prepared for him at 4:05AM.

Our stay was pretty uneventful. There was a dog in a camper about 300 yards from us who must’ve sensed that something had changed in The Force and barked non-stop for hours. Maybe that’s why Arthur woke me up? He might’ve been like, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

So, we did.

I would like to visit this campground again, but perhaps when the weather is warmer and the bathrooms are open. Did I mention that I’ve been dry camping? Since our test trip to Pinchot, I winterized the RV, which includes dumping all the water and pumping a bunch of pink antifreeze through all your hoses (and leaking some on the ground when you open the wrong valve). Basically, this renders the water and water lines unusable until you “de”winterize it.

So, how do you go to the bathroom when the bathrooms are closed?

Excellent question. The first step is planning. Also, I fully recognize that I’ve become much more comfort with discussing waste systems and waste in general, so feel free to skip this part if you’re not quite there yet in your waste journey or you’d rather not know that much about mine.

I bought a collapsible toilet because I don’t have a lot of space for a 5-gallon bucket; the collapsing is key. As you can imagine, you need to put something in the collapsible toilet, so I also bought some Double Doodie waste bags. These are very fancy, but I am cheap, so I’ll blog about the cheaper, acceptable option I found after I was nearing the end of these luxury poop bags.

The next part of the planning was to use a real restroom before getting to the camp site, so you don’t have to use the “tools” as often. I also probably drank less liquid than usual on these travel days – not recommended, but when in Rome…or when you must use a collapsible toilet….

The crystals that come in these luxury poop bags solidifies the waste you “deposit” in them. I do not poo in these bags. I think you can, but I do not. If I have to, I wait. I’m sure this is also bad for me, but I just cannot.

Come back here if you skipped the waste section!! (Yes, I made it yellow on purpose.)

Mishaps to Chicagoland

A reminder of the Mishap Scale >>> (🍫 = minor; 🍫🍫 = ordinary; 🍫🍫🍫 = embarrassing; 🍫🍫🍫🍫 = terrible; 🍫🍫🍫🍫🍫 = not enough chocolate in the RV to recover)

• Remember how I said Arthur found a different place to curl up while I drove in my last post? All of this went well until I tried to use the cruise control somewhere in Indiana. Noticing that there was space near the “danger zone”, Arthur proceeded to straddle the accelerator in a way that I could not move him, nor could I actually use the accelerator. I’m grateful that there wasn’t a lot of traffic, that we could pull over to the side of the road, and that Arthur finally listened when I told him that was unacceptable. 🍫🍫🍫🍫
• Starting early was fine. It wasn’t fine when we got to our site outside of Chicago. I was exhausted. I tried to take a nap before dinner, but I was unsuccessful. 🍫🍫
• My friend and her family having a standing Friday tradition – Sushi at a lovely spot that wasn’t super close to where I was camping. No big deal – let’s try something new. Other than being by the HQ for the Russian mafia and not having a bathroom (theme!), it looked perfectly fine. We ended up going to their regular haunt. 🍫

Not everything is shitty.

See what I did there?

Considering what I’ve experienced thus far, today’s mishaps were pretty minor on the grand scale of things. In fact, this leg of the trip had some really bright moments. The first one happened at a gas station. I don’t remember where I was, but I had just finished doing the dance of “where are the diesel pumps” and was going to go in to use the bathroom when a gal walked by and said, “Are you traveling by yourself?” She was heading to her semi-truck, and since I am a nice Midwestern lady who talks to strangers, I said “Yea. With my cat.” She said, “Good for you.”

She didn’t know me or my cat or my RV. She was driving a much more impressive rig than me – one of those UPS semis with double trailers – but she made me tear up with that. So kind. So unexpected. #ICanDoThis

The next bright spot was where I camped. It was this lovely, small camping site in Cook County – like in a somewhat populated area. I’m used to seeing campgrounds / RV parks outside of town, so this was a pleasant surprise, and their bathrooms were open!! I got a shower. It was glorious. I highly recommend Camp Reinberg, but not so highly that you all camp there, and I can’t get a spot. If the weather had been nicer, I would’ve ventured out on the trails. The sunrise was beautiful, too.

The best part of this second travel day was dinner with a friend and her family. When you work remotely, you’re not always conscious of how much you’re missing when you’re not in an office environment. Because I have so many meetings every day, it’s almost like you’re with these folks. But having dinner with a friend and just enjoying each other’s company was beyond delightful and reminded me of how much I miss being in an office from time to time.

Tomorrow’s a new day and another 400+ miles to go!