Wintering

Winter in western Pennsylvania can bring some drastic changes in a very short time. Yesterday was one of those days. I picked up my mother for lunch at Amazing Foods Catering Co. & Cafe in Franklin. In the 24 hours previous to our lunch, we saw rain and temperatures nearing 60 degrees. I loved it! But, as we were warned by the weather folks, a big change came. It happened over lunch. When we entered the restaurant, it was 52 degrees outside. When we came out afterwards it was 42. But, it was even worse than that! We dropped 20 degrees within two hours and the downward trend continued as the rain turned to sleet, then snow. When we woke up this morning, there was about nine inches of drifting snow on the ground. I spent an hour-and-a-half shoveling.

If you’ve read our introductory blog post, you know that we are working toward retiring with a Class B or C RV to travel to warm weather during the winter months. We have been following several families on YouTube that have done just that. They bring us inspiration and help us narrow our focus of what we think we would like for the journey.

Although we have not yet entered the fray as YouTube content creators, we have started this travel blog and post my photography to our Instagram page (@thetravelingkites). Things were rolling along quite nicely during the summer camping season, but then winter hit. As I write, there are 55 miles separating us from our Keystone Hideout travel trailer. It is in the mine at Bradys Bend. I wrote about storage day here.

As winter gets long, one thing that we have done the past two years to break up the frozen season is to attend the Pittsburgh and Erie RV shows. The Pittsburgh show is always in January and the Erie show is in February. It was recommended to us by some friends that we try the Ohio RV Supershow this year. Held in Cleveland, this show is proclaimed to be the country’s largest indoor RV show. We had originally planned on going to Pittsburgh today, but the Cleveland show was also this weekend, so we decided to go to Cleveland instead. Then… the big snowstorm! We thought we would rather not show up on one of those YouTube interstate pileup videos, so we called today’s trip off. Pittsburgh is about a one-and-a-half-hour drive and Cleveland two-hours-twenty-minutes. Who knows how long it would take today? So, now we wait a month for the smaller Erie show.

So, at this almost-mid-way point through the winter, I thought it appropriate to check in to let you know we’re still here and looking forward to spring. Binx, the camping cat, is as anxious as we are to get back out there. As for now, I’ll just happily sip my coffee.

A couple of weeks ago, we made reservations for Memorial and Labor Day weekends. It feels good to have a couple of trips scheduled. The planning continues as we consider our vacation travels for this summer. So, stay tuned! The 2018 camping season will kick off in a few months. In the mean-time, stay warm and healthy. We’ll see you after the Erie RV show!

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