January 2012: Florida awaits!

Monday, Jan. 9, 2012

BINGHAMTON, NY --- It took a couple of extra loops off Interstate 81 to reach our destination Best Western hotel, thanks to our new GPS unit. But here we are after our first day on the road, headed for a Florida adventure that will take us to as many corners of that state as we can squeeze in.

The weather cooperated by not sloshing us with rain, freezing us with wind chill, or burying us in snow as we trucked out the last items from the house to the motorhome and hitched our Honda FIT to the RV so it could tag along for the journey. It was a bit of a challenge to get the brake buddy settled in place inside the Honda. It’s a gizmo the size of a bread box that sits on the car floor and automatically presses the car brakes whenever the driver of the RV hits the brake pedal. We only installed it once before, some five months ago when we bought it, so it took a bit of time.

It was great to be on the road again, passing snow-striped farmers’ fields, black silhouettes of leafless trees, and roadside rocks with cascades of ice, all reminding us of the wintry landscape that we won’t be seeing for the next nine weeks or so! We stopped for one last Tim Horton coffee just before turning off to cross the Thousand Islands bridge to the US at lunch time.

The route was quite familiar, as we came this same way last February when we traveled to Arizona. Our hotel is within sight of the one we stayed in last year, in a suburb of Binghamton called Johnson City. Our new GPS unit guided us through the intersection where it was located, instead of telling us to turn right, so we went some distance before both of us started wondering what was going on. Our confidence was further undermined when we were told to turn left at Grey’s Crossing, but when we got to the corner, it was a really tight underpass under the Interstate that looked like a culvert! No way we were going to venture through that! So we pulled over and started over again with the GPS. This time we were directed in a wide loop back the way we had come, and when we were on the right road again, the screen flashed the black checkered flag indicating our arrival when there was no hotel in sight. We finally reverted to old-fashioned navigating by house numbers on the street until the Best Western came into view! Not a great way to initiate a brand new GPS unit.

Anyway, we’re safely here, had a nice supper at the restaurant next door, and are pleased to have Day One squared away.