Day 5- Belmont, Ohio to Randolph, NY

Driving through mountain tunnels

Thursday June 28^th –

Today we drove an extremely mountainous 287 miles from Belmont, Ohio to Randolph, NY

We got to experience the “grade brake“ on the Alison Transmission ( must be a good one ) and felt really comfortable going down these huge grades and letting the transmission do the braking for the Motorhome. I remembered when I used to tow the horses in Vermont I needed to pull over at the bottom of steep grades and let everything cool down.  This is so much better! I am becoming more and more confident with the driving/riding  as the days go by. Norm is doing most of the driving, and is doing a great job.

A-  Mt Airy, NC     B- Belmont Ohio  C-  Randolph, NY

Today we learned a few more “RV” quirks.  1)  the fuel gauge is not that accurate. Not that we ran into trouble, but we thought we were getting gas with a 1/3 of the 75 gallon tank left, and it took quite a bit more than we thought.  Good to know.  I am sure you are all wondering what our mileage is on this “rolling condo”.  We averaged a little over 7.5 mpg which was better than we estimated due to the extremely hilly terrain, and the hard work of the grade brake.  Rather staggering, but talking to other RV’ers  that is really very good. No wonder this country consumes so much fuel.  2)  when we are at a campsite that allows you to hook up the sewer line,  I need to take where those hook-ups are located into consideration when directing Norm during the parking process. I was so pleased that the parking and set-up appeared to be getting seamless.   Oops.   Poor Norm. 

 After dinner, when we learned we REALLY needed to finally dump the waste water tanks, we realized that I had instructed him to pull too far forward to reach the pit. , He then had to pull the slides in, lift the jacks, etc. then move back a bit, then re-set up.  Sorry, Norm  3)  we are also learning how long we can go between dumping water, sewer, etc. and how much water we need to carry.  So much to know.  I am envious of all the people we meet that have been doing this for 20 years or more.