Getting Back On The Road Again

You could say it started with a PBS show, American Epic, running during pledge week on WVIA. Just a few minutes of music featuring a circa 1927 recording device and I thought “Francis would be fascinated”. It was days later, we sat down to watch the full show and were enraptured with the story of the first recordings of truly indigenous American music.

To wit: In 1927 music agents went to rural Bristol, Tennessee and put an advertisment in the local papers: $50 for anyone who came to town and recorded themselves. Among the first folks to show up was A.P. Carter, with his wife, Sara, and his sister-in-law, Maybelle; another group was a gospel choir led by Elder J.E. Burch, from Cheraw, S.C. The legacy of the Carter Family is well known but the names of many of those recorded have faded into obscurity. Elder Burch and his church choir were an influence on Dizzy Gillespie!

Research revealed that Bristol was an interesting place in its own right. The VA / TN state line runs right through town, one side of main street is VA and the other side is TN! There were two museums dedicated to American Roots music, one in each state. In addition, on Saturday nights, a roots music concert was held at the Carter Family Fold, the site of the old Carter family farm. We decided that we would make a pilgrimage to Bristol the keystone of our upcoming RV camping trip from PA to FL, determining our schedule around that Saturday night concert.

Driving for days along route 95 is about as boring as travel can be. It is disconcerting too, as enormous tractor-trailers and doubles speed by you in the slow lane creating wind turbulence. Our travel mantra is avoid the major highway full of big-rigs and semis if so ever possible. On our previous trip in our first RV trailer, we went as far East as we could, using bridges and ferries to hop from one barrier island to another along the coast. Through the deep South we followed the secondary highways, pausing along the way to explore the historic cities of Charleston, Savannah and St. Augustine. This time we would head West with a route from the Blue Ridge into the music scene, then down through the Smokeys into the Cherokee homeland, before heading to the flatlands.

About the RV: We had purchased a boxy 20” trailer and made the ubiquitous cross country trip, spending a Winter in residence in FL. Sadly Francis had unpleasant associations between the trailer and my illness and the half the trailer floor rotted away due to water infiltration in just two years. While I would have thought it worthless, this tuned out to not be the case. A Craiglist posting and the next day a couple came by with cash in hand. They were living on a 20” boat with their Granddaughter. A 20 “ trailer provides much more space and privacy than a similar size sailboat! In a week they had replaced the rot and were ready to roll on the road. Enhanced karma for all concerned.

We stayed off the road for a year, until Francis expressed a renewed interest in RV camping. Me, I love travel on ANY kind. 'Just wanna' see new places, on foot, on the road, foreign or domestic. The first RV purchase was determined by Francis' criteria that it be under 20” and have walk around queen size bed. There was only one trailer on the market which met those conditions! This time he agreed to accept the more common cozy bed, a queen bed ran across the trailer width. After much more research than we had made with the first RV, we decided on an R-pod. You can't walk around the bed but it is just 18” long and the roof is a rounded, a seamless teardrop. The contour one-piece roof design results in less potential for leaks and much better aerodynamics, better resistance to that buffeting from big trucks! It has a tiny bathroom, a kitchenette, a queen bed, a dining area that converts into a full bed. It hauls like a dream and is too cute to boot.

We negotiated a good price from a large dealer, Meyer's Superstore, in Rochester, New York. Since I wanted to see Niagara Falls, Rodchester headed us in the right direction. We would proceed North to Niagara Falls for a shake down cruise before driving back to PA. We would make one stop on the way home, to visit a friend and show off the new mobile residence. That aerodynamic curved roof really does make a difference. On our way home, heading further West to visit our friend by Harvey's Lake, PA, we drove through a tornado, through the mountains in a tornado! The rain and winds were so strong we had to slow our pace but the little trailer pulled smoothly. Arriving at out friend's home, we realized we had left the RV windows open and no rain had come inside!

Back home, we prepped the little trailer for the big trip South. This tends to be a separate but equal process; while I make the inside cozy and research tech upgrades, Francis fusses over the power systems and installs upgrades. The sole defects from my perspectives of the tiny RV were a dark interior color scheme, lack of storage and no rear view. Changing out all the interior fabrics and installing a myriad of wall pockets took care of the interior. A wifi camera hooked to our GPS will provide a rear view.

This Rpod, like many RVs, comes ready for solar power. Just in case you ever wondered - - solar only powers the 12 volt battery, DC, which in our case would be the interior lighting and bathroom fan. The fridge and furnace can run on the compressed gas tank but the TV, radio and outlets are AC, regular house power. No music, no laptop & no phone charger! We are still working on a converter to pull the DC charge into more useful AC power.

For luck we added every international symbol we could think of, from the Sicilian Trinacria to the Lenne Lenape turtle medicine wheel to a Feng shui Toad to Saravasta and a travel mezzuzah, we are taking no chances. 

An aesthetic issue for me is labels. Commercial logos and labels I immediately remove. In the case of the RV, the brand name with it's charming frog in a canoe were replaced with custom Asian dragon, phoenix and good luck bats. The dragon and phoenix are related to the ying yang, a balance of male and female principles for a balanced household. Five blue bats symbolically circle around the household eliminating bad luck, just as bats swoop down from the sky removing biting insects. Inside and out, mechanically and aesthetically, we were ready to roll.