By Shelby
The week leading up to our departure didn’t go quite as planned. We spent the weekend moving most of our stuff out of our apartment with the help of our families (thank you!). We also spent the weekend working on building the bed platform in the Prius and loading stuff into the car. We had hoped to be completely out of the apartment by the end of the weekend, but unfortunately that hadn’t worked out. Since our work schedule had us working 8AM-5PM Monday through Wednesday, we had to complete our prep after work in order to be ready to go by Thursday.
The next few days were spent working at the local library, taking trips to our storage unit, bringing stuff to my parents for storage, making last-minute purchases, and frantically cleaning our apartment. In addition to all this, we were already sleeping in the car (at first, outside our apartment building and then in Planet Fitness parking lots) in order to make sure we had everything we needed before we left the area.
The weather at this time also was not as we had planned. The temperatures dropped below freezing at night. We certainly hadn’t expected such cold weather in the end of April. We kept the car running overnight to keep the temperature bearable at a constant 65 degrees. The car turned on every hour for about 5 minutes to keep its battery charged.
By Thursday morning, we were exhausted but ready for our final walk-through of the apartment. Thankfully we were done working for the week thanks to our new part-time jobs. After the successful walk-through, we went to the YMCA to relax in the hot tub while we planned out the next couple of days.
We decided to take off from Rochester that day, heading east towards Connecticut, our first stop. We stopped at Arnold Park in Vestal, NY (near Binghamton, NY) to attempt to make dinner and organize the car. It was here we realized our first mistake. We bought the wrong size propane tank for our stove and were unable to make pasta as we had planned. It was cold and windy anyway. We loaded our cooking equipment back into the car and went to a restaurant for dinner.
The next day (Friday), we continued on to Bridgeport, CT to Seaside Park to see the ocean. It was cold, windy, smelled of manure, and was next to an industrial factory but it was the ocean. We moved on up north to Southbury, CT where our next mishap occurred.
We both caught a stomach bug. After trying to suffer through it at first, we decided to check into a hotel for the night. Fortunately we both felt much better the next day. In order to stay on schedule with our trip, we abandoned our plans to visit Kent Falls State Park and the West Cornwall covered bridge and moved on to Newport, Rhode Island.
The drive through Rhode Island was uneventful besides two large bridges crossing Narragansett Bay. We arrived at Planet Fitness only to discover they close at 7. We moved on to a back-up Walmart for the night. Since the temperature was only predicted to get down to 44 degrees that night, we decided to sleep with the car off and the windows cracked to help prevent condensation. Unfortunately, as we were falling asleep, a street sweeper pulled into the parking lot and proceeded to clean the lot around us. We couldn’t help but laugh at our misfortunes. Eventually we were able to fall asleep. The temperature of the car was surprisingly quite comfortable. Despite all these mishaps, we are sticking to our travel plan and are looking forward to continuing our journey.
Fun facts from Week 1:
- P.T Barnum was elected mayor of Bridgeport, CT in 1875 and was buried there after he died
- Binghamton, NY is known for the “spiedie”, which is marinated meat cut into cubes and served in a roll
4 responses to “Week 1”
Looks awesome. Have great trip!
I love your commentary! I’ll keep checking back!
What an awesome experience I look forward to following you through the trip via your blog and your mom! Safe travels!
Safe travels! Hope the weather gets warmer for you. Love you both❤️❤️