Family Adventure 1, Day 1
Goodbye Pennsylvania
With the camper packed and the gas tank filled the night before, we planned an early departure on Day 1. Our first destination is in Indiana; about 350 miles away. Not only are we setting out on a new extended adventure for the first time, but this day will be the longest day we’ve had on the road, towing the camper…ever. Today’s leg is twice as far as we’ve ever towed, and we’ve got 7000 miles ahead of us. All things considered, we’re feeling a little bit of pressure. Fingers crossed that everything goes as planned!
En Route Entertainment: Audiobooks
The first day excitement starts to dwindle around the second hour. What did we get ourselves into?!? The kids start picking at each other; the parents scold the kids for picking. Is it too late to turn around? Luckily, we have a breakthrough just about then…audiobooks! In a vehicle lacking a DVD player, audiobooks are a great form of entertainment for the whole family. You can, of course, subscribe to services, but you should also check out your local library. Our small-town library has a very large selection of audiobooks available; we can download them via our library’s app. Then we connect our phone to the track via bluetooth: instant entertainment!
With 4 weeks on the road ahead of us, we chose to start the Harry Potter series. We parents and our oldest have already read the books (more than once). But this is all new for the younger ones! Needless to say, this is a huge win. Before we know it, it’s time to find a pit stop for lunch.
Pro Tip: Ohio Turnpike Rest Stops
As a general rule, the Ohio Turnpike rest stops are quite well maintained. Manicured lawns. Picnic areas. Clean Restrooms. Some with playgrounds. On the Ohio Turnpike, most rest stops boast spots where you’re permitted to spend the night; currently the rate is $20, and this includes a parking spot with power, a fill station and a dump station. It may not be glamping, but it’s a quick easy option. For today, this was just a lunch stop and a game of frisbee, but we keep these types of places in mind while we’re on the road.
Welcome to Indiana
Back on the road, we settle in for a few more chapters of our audiobook. The kids are settling in to the ride, and we are doing it! We make our way across Ohio and enter our target state for the first day’s drive: Indiana.
Harvest Hosts: Atypical Campsites
Making decent time, we arrive at our first camping spot: Briali Winery in Fremont, IN. Yes, we’re spending the night at a winery! If you’ve never heard of Harvest Hosts or Boondockers Welcome, this might come as a surprise to you. We review the Harvest Hosts program in detail here, but the short version is that you sign up for a membership to access a list of places to camp with your RV for free! Reservations are made through the Harvest Hosts/Boondockers Welcome site. Harvest Hosts request that patronize the business (the suggested amount is $20) in return for your nights’ parking space, but since most of them are wineries, breweries, farms, and museums, we probably would have done that anyway! Boondockers Welcome hosts do not request any sort of payment for your night’s layover.
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Briali Winery, Fremont, IN
When we roll into Briali Winery, the owner directs us to park anywhere we like! It turns out this winery is planted on the grounds of an old golf course, and there are a lot of places to park, almost all of it with views of green spaces, ponds or the vines! They even have a honey bee hive in an old wine barrel. So we find a spot all by ourselves with a nice view and set up camp for our first night away from home. The kids walk the old cart paths around the property while we get set up, and then we go and have a glass of wine before we cook dinner. The wine is delicious (we’ve bought a bottle for another evening too!) and the owner is very friendly and accommodating.
After dinner, we explore some more and head inside. Even though we were only a few miles of the interstate, it feels like we’re in the country, which beats parking in a crowded parking lot or a truck stop for the night. We are close enough to civilization to pick up quite a few channels on tv. Our adventure focuses mostly on the outdoors, but it’s good to have options for indoor activities that keep the kids getting along in a small space. Most people don’t realize how many TV channels can be received with a modern RV’s antenna. Ours has a nice Winegard omnidirectional antenna pre-wired on the roof that connects to the TV inside. With the shift to digital over-the-air broadcasts, we can get HD pictures and sometimes even a guide to what’s on next.
Seeing that day 1 is in the books (literally, we record all of our stays in The Ultimate RV Logbook), and with no major incidents or meltdowns with the kids, we head to bed and prepare for our second day of driving west. Next stop Illinois and the Mississippi river!
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