Adventures with BB come to an end (for now)

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since we arrived home after our 7-week, multi-state adventure with BB, the 32-foot motorhome. I’d meant to wrap up my report earlier, but it’s taken that long to fully decompress and unpack! No lie, I had some random bags and boxes full of toiletries and office supplies that I finally put away in our Colorado home just this weekend.

Plus, we got home on October 19, a week prior to the season’s first big snowfall, which meant we had to spend time readying our garden, patio, and yard for winter (boo).

Anyway…. we did it! We pulled off this wild road trip. In a pandemic. And we accomplished our mission: Making it to NH to visit relatives, hitting 3 states I hadn’t been to (SD, ND, KY), exploring some new-to-us national parks, and visiting a bunch of friends along the way.

Since I last checked in, after overnighting at Harvest Hosts’ Casey Jones Distillery, in western Kentucky, we made an effort to beeline home in just 8 days. We were ready to sleep in our own beds, and I was aching to see my son, Ben, who goes to college in Colorado.

We were also over having to find good Wi-Fi on the road in order to work. We ended up staying 3 nights at a nondescript campground in random Marion, IL, simply because we had work to do, and the Verizon signal and the campground Wi-Fi was strong. Here’s where we spent our last week on the road:

• Marion, IL: Marion Campground & RV Park
• New Florence, MO: Wood Hat Distillers
• Kansas City, MO: Friend’s street!
• Ellis, KS: Ellis Lakeside Campground
• Longmont, CO: Inlaws’ yard!

That’s not to say we didn’t fully enjoy and savor our last few nights in BB! It felt good staying in one spot for 3 nights, in order to do at least six loads of laundry (it had piled up!). We loved just sitting out in our camp chairs watching the goings-on around us; in COVID-19 times, there’s little socializing going on in campgrounds (at least that was our m.o.), but we chatted with our neighbor for a bit, and otherwise watched little kids run around.

Our final campground of the trip was a scenic one, not far from I-70 in Kansas. The city campsite was set next to the city lake not far from a little downtown. At $20/night, with full electric and water hook-up, it was a steal. Applying that Kansas sticker on our RV map (see top of page) was bittersweet, for sure — the final state!

But I’d say a highlight of our final week on the road (in addition to seeing my son!) was visiting with one of my oldest friends in the universe! Connie and I met in 1990 when we were both interns at magazines in New York City. We then lived together in Hoboken, NJ, and Manhattan for nearly 3 years after we graduated from college. I think back to those carefree, formative years living as a young person in NYC (on a $20,000 editorial salary; yes, I got in debt) with only good memories! It was such a treat to see Connie again (last time was in 2000), and meet her husband and children and sweet doggos.

Honestly, from start to finish — 52 days! — I don’t think there’s much we’d have done differently. I mean, if I could take back my impetuous tirade I had when Quent realized we’d accidentally ran out of water in Kentucky, I would. And I wish I’d worked out more with the hand weights I’d dragged along.

One thing I said I was going to do at the start of our trip was record a video tour of BB. Well, that didn’t happen, but here are a few of photos of the interior I never published:

• the little nook at the foot of our bed (where I sometimes worked)
• the dining table (where I more often worked) and our living area (with the basket of said weights I didn’t use much)
• our kitchen (which I really loved — plenty of space to cook easy meals)

What’s next?

Maybe if we felt like we had more time (or energy) on this particular trip we wouldn’t have left those few states dangling — Michigan, Rhode Island, and Delaware look so lonely not filled in with a sticker (again, see above the photo at the top of this page). But I vowed I wouldn’t count states if we only dipped in and out of them with the sole intention of scoring a sticker. We had to spend some serious time driving through each state, or overnight in it, to make it count.

But that’s okay — I’m hoping we’ll take BB on another trip to the East Coast someday, maybe for my daughter’s college graduation in 2022. Wouldn’t it also be fun to fill in WA, OR, MT, and ID on a Pacific Northwest trip? Or head down to the Southwest, and fill in NM, AZ, CA, NV, UT?

That’s what I’m thinking we’ll do — head somewhere warm — this winter, after the kids go back to college after their looooooong winter break (both due home at Thanksgiving for at least 2 months!). If not in BB to the Southwest, I sure would like to make my dream of living for a few months in Hawaii or Mexico happen — even if we don’t have a COVID-19 vaccine yet come February.

Right now, it’s too tough for me to make any sort of commitment, so we browse RV parks in Arizona and consider other warm-weather options. That’s our mantra, as empty-nesters: “All the options are on the table.”

This guy

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my husband, without whom there’s no way in heck this dreamy RV trip could have happened. He shopped for and bought BB; her tore out the parts we didn’t want (couch, chair, wall mirror); he MacGuyvered and troubleshooted when we ran into issues (a lot of them) along the way.

And he bought himself a cute little set of coveralls — just like his Grandpa Williams used to wear — so he could stay relatively clean and dry while dealing with our electric and water hookups (such as below one 35-degree morning) and emptying the dreaded black tank).

His patience (for me always, but namely when I navigate him down the wrong path) and zeal for the unknown (“I don’t care where we’re staying, just tell me where to drive”) knows no bounds.

I’m forever grateful for the memories, Quenty & BB!