Tag Archives: Lao Tzu

2013/12/17-18 (T-W) Cleared For Departure

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We were planning to leave for Florida (in the bus) on Friday, December 20th, so by Tuesday the 17th our attention was starting to focus sharply on what we had to do to get out of town.  But first we had to get Marilyn to the airport for a mid-afternoon flight back to St. Louis, Missouri.  Linda did the shuttle run while I stayed home and started pulling together stuff to load on the bus or into the car.  I also started copying the files from the old Buffalo Technologies LinkStation Pro Duo NAS to the new Buffalo Technologies LS421e NAS.  This turned out to take quite a bit of time as I had to do the copying in pieces; there were too many files and too many gigabytes of data to copy and paste them in one move.

We also started watching the weather forecast, both at home at along our route.  By Wednesday the 18th it was becoming clear that we would be much better off leaving on Thursday the 19th instead of our planned date of the 20th.  We had planned to have company over for dinner on Wednesday, however, so we did not see how we could possibly be ready to leave the next day.  Although we were disappointed by a last minute cancelation due to the illness of one of our guests, it changed the situation in favor of a Thursday departure.  (We hope you are much better very soon Kristine.)

To paraphrase John Muir, “The driveway is calling and I must go.”

To paraphrase John Muir, “The driveway is calling and I must go.”

We originally intended to leave early enough on Friday the 20th to get past Ann Arbor, Michigan before the morning rush hour and make it a campground in Berea, Kentucky before dark.  It was clear that we could not be ready to leave that early on Thursday morning, and did not want to arrive anywhere in the dark, so we adjusted our plans.  (A true traveler has no fixed plan, and is not intent on arriving.  Lao Tzu).  We knew there was a Coast To Coast (C2C) RV resort near Wapakoneta, Ohio.  A quick check online indicated that they should still be open this time of year and that we still had enough C2C points in our account to cover the $10 per night cost.  A phone call verified that they were open and had plenty of available sites.  Although Wapakoneta was only 166 miles from our house it was far enough south to have overnight low temperatures above freezing.  It was also close enough that we could leave at noon and be there by 4 PM.  That would give us the morning to finish loading the bus and closing up the house.

 

2013_10_11 (F) Fulton Farms

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Our plan was to be almost completely packed yesterday with only a few things to load this morning.  It’s good to have a plan as long as you don’t take it too seriously.  Lao Tzu supposedly said that “A true traveler has no fixed plan, and it not intent on arriving.”  I love that sentiment, but I think most people interpret this as “the journey is more important than the destination.”  Or perhaps that “one should not have a plan”, but I don’t think it says that.  I think the emphasis is on not having a fixed plan.  At any given moment you need to have some idea of where you want to go next, or you would just sit in one place and never move.  And having decided to head there, you should have some idea of how you might get there.  But once the planning is done it’s time for the trip.  And it is a certainty that you will have opportunities along the way that you did not plan for and could not even have anticipated.  Whether you experience those will depend on whether you are flexible with regards to your plan.  You may not even make to your original (planned) destination, but if not, it will be the result of a thousand small decisions made along the way, not because you are lost.  As another quote goes “all who wander are not lost.”  I like that one too.

In other words, we woke up this morning with a plan to be on the road by noon but with lots still to do.  We were not in a panic about it, but got at it right away and it was a busy morning.  It helped that Linda had kept a running list yesterday of stuff we needed to load on the bus, and things we needed to do around the house, just before departure.  Although the morning was a bit more intense than I would have like, we pulled out about quarter past noon, so it all worked out OK.

We decided yesterday to divide up the trip to Townsend, Tennessee into three roughly equal segments of about 200 miles each and spent part of the afternoon researching places to stop for the night.  Given that we needed to be at the Tremont RV Resort in Townsend on Sunday, our route choices were basically determined; I-96 E to US-23 S into Ohio and onto I-75 S all the way to Knoxville, and then Tennessee highways from there into Townsend.  Our first leg would ideally put us somewhere just north of Dayton.   We are still learning to “boondock” (camp for the night without hookups and without paying for a site) so we looked for opportunities to do that.  A Walmart is often a possibility, but we always look for Coast-to-Coast resorts, where we can stay for $10/night, and Harvest Host locations where we can stay for free.

Exterior of Fulton Farms Market.

Exterior of Fulton Farms Market.

There is a Coast-to-Coast resort in Wapakoneta, OH, but it would have made our first leg about 150 miles.  We decided to head for the Fulton Farms Market instead.  They are located southeast of Troy, Ohio on Highway 202 about 6 miles from I-75 and 20 miles north of Dayton.  The market was still open when we arrived around 4:30 PM, having made a rest stop and a fuel stop along the way, and there were still plenty of customers there even though they close at 5 PM.

Linda talking to Joyce Fulton.

Linda talking to Joyce Fulton.

Fulton Farms Market is owned by Bill and Joyce Fulton and is a host location in the Harvest Hosts program that we belong to.  We went inside to let them know we had arrived and bought some apples and a blackberry pie (after reading the ingredients label very carefully).  We also got to meet Joyce and had a nice chat with her.  She was very gracious and glad we had stopped as they have not had very Harvest Hosts visitors in the time they have been a host location.

 

Interior of Fulton Farms Market.

Interior of Fulton Farms Market.

 

 

 

The Fulton Farm Market is a very nice place with a large, level, paved parking lot that easily accommodated our bus.  I recommend it to anyone passing through the Troy, OH area with or without an RV.  This is the third Harvest Hosts location where we have stopped.  The second one was the Forestedge Winery near Laporte, Minnesota which I wrote about previously.  Same thing; great place, great people, great products, and we were the first Harvest Hosts members who had ever stopped there.  HH is a great program, but I worry that host locations will drop out after a time if no one ever stops, and who could blame them?

We are headed for another Harvest Hosts location tomorrow in Kentucky, but that’s another story for another day.  Our main concern on this end will be repositioning the coach in the morning, without unhooking the car, so we are able to exit the premises after customers start showing up in their cars around 10 AM.  Our drive tomorrow is only about 180 miles and should only take about 4 hours, so we don’t want to leave here too early and Joyce made it clear that we welcome to stick around in the morning.