LESSONS LEARNED

Through the years of traveling and towing the Rocketship, we’ve learned a few lessons. Some were learned the hard way. Others just by sheer luck or the lack of. No matter how we learned them, they’ve stuck with us through the years.  We mostly abide by these, but sometimes they slip through the cracks, especially when planning a lengthy trip.

LESSON #1: FOLLOW THE 18-WHEELERS

2017 east Texas. It was the first day of our first long trip and the details of the origin of this lesson are a bit vague. Basically, this is how it went. We were on a divided state highway in east Texas when several 18-wheelers in front of us uncharacteristically changed lanes. As we progressed, we found a large pile of debris that lane. Farther down the road, a similar situation occurred coming upon a lane closure. Lesson learned

LESSON #2:  DON’T GO TO WALMART ON THE FRIDAY AFTERNOON OF A HOLIDAY WEEKEND  

Hot Springs, Arkansas.  It was Good Friday and we decided to go to Walmart to get a few things.  That venture adventure involved more than just a couple of challenges.  I truly think that we got the very last parking space in the lot.  Aisles were crowded, a couple of shoppers were trying to grab the same last chocolate bunny, a toddler scored a top “10” performing a perfect tantrum, there were no eggs to be found in the store.  Maybe chocolate marshmallow eggs wouldn’t be so bad for breakfast but I don’t think there were any of those left either. The checkout line reached across the store and some employees had lost their “Welcome to Walmart” smile and attitude. Lesson learned.  

 LESSON #3: DON’T GO TO A NATIONAL PARK ON A 3-DAY WEEKEND

Hot Springs National Park. Being Easter weekend and with perfect weather, we should have expected that the Park would resemble Walmart. And it did. So much so that we abandoned seeing some of The Park. Lesson almost learned, but not quite.

Acadia National Park. Since we didn’t learn our lesson at Hot Springs National Park on Easter Weekend, we visited Acadia National Park in Maine on the July 4th weekend. In The Park, Cadilac Mountain is the highest point on the eastern seaboard of the United States. It is well-known for stunning views and being one of the first places in the U.S. to see the sunrise. It is the top thing to do in Acadia National Park and maybe in the State of Maine. On Monday at sunrise, we could not even get near Cadilac Mountain. The parking lot was completely full. The rangers were making everyone turn around. So, people started parking alongside the road on both sides for over a mile and walking in. This reduced the two-lane road to a one-lane. It was a complicated the situation and the rangers had their hands full. There still wasn’t any parking available when we went back midmorning. We also missed the sunrise from Cadilac Mountain on Tuesday, the 4th, for the same situation. By mid-morning the parking lot was finally open. The only open parking place in the entire lot was a handicap space. It was one time that I considered being handicapped as “lucky”. We missed the sunrise but we finally got to see the incredible view. Two cars vied for our parking place as we pulled out. Much to their dismay, neither had a handicap permit. We finally learned this lesson. 

LESSON #4: CHECK FOR MAJOR EVENTS HAPPENING AT YOUR DESTINATION

This lesson is a double sided one. 

The Con - Cleveland, Ohio. We planned a short side trip to Cleveland, Ohio to go to the Rock-N-Roll Hall of Fame. Little did we know that there was a Triathlon happening that day and the finish line was in front of the Hall of Fame. Numerous streets were closed for the race and parking lots were either full or closed. Making matters worse, several surrounding streets were either closed or had a reduced number of lanes due to construction. A lot of our time was consumed just trying to get near the Museum. In the end, I dropped John off several blocks away, found a nearby park, got out a novel, and waited for him to call me to come pick him up.

The Pro - Springfield, Illinois: We happened upon the weekend of The Birthplace of Route 66 Festival, an annual event. The festival is a huge 2-day event spread over the entire city. The car show is the headliner, it also includes a farmers’ market, a Miss 66 pageant, a Burn Out contest, afternoon and evening concerts, vendor booths, sidewalk cafes, food trucks, and ends with the awards for the cars judged in 40 categories. We’ve heard conflicting reports of 1,000 to 2,500 cars, The competing show cars were angled parked on both sides of the street, taking up at least 20 blocks. Cars ranged from vintage models in various stages of restoration to current models that have been accessorized or tweaked to the max. If you can imagine it, we saw it and probably a few things you couldn’t imagine. In a day and a half, we didn’t see all the cars. It was a fun and enjoyable weekend and glad we stumbled upon it. 

So, know before you go. Lesson learned, almost! 

LESSON #5: DON’T ALWAYS TRUST THE GPS

Mix up in Maine. We set up the address of our next campground on the GPS and headed out. This campground was in a rural part of Maine and privately owned so there weren’t any signs advertising it along the way. As we neared our destination, the GPS indicated that the entrance was on our right and that’s where we were closely watching. OOPS! We saw the small sign and driveway to our campground on our left just as we well passed it. We didn’t believe that it was a big deal and instead of backing up with the Airstream, we went forward as the GPS showed we could go up a little farther and go around “the block” and we’d be back on track. We made the first left turn, all good, the second left, all good, and the third left, not good at all! That third left took us onto private property. There was a large yard that doubled as a driveway between a house, a barn, a shed with several tractors, and a couple of other buildings. We successfully got turned around and very happy that we did before any farmer might come out with a shot gun!

Mount Mitchell, North Carolina. We wanted to go to the peak of Mt. Mitchell. We entered the coordinates in the GPS, gathered up, and headed out following directions. We traveled on the Interstate, to a US highway, to a state road, to a county road, to a “hard surface” road, to a one lane road, to a wooden bridge with no guard rails, and then a dirt road.  Extremely glad that we weren’t towing the Rocketship.  We did not meet or see another vehicle for the next 11 miles. But we did see some spectacular scenery and had another a wild turkey encounter, on the road, not in the bottle.  We double checked and found the GPS was correctly set to “avoid unpaved roads”. Hmmm.

Shenandoah National Park. Since our trip to Crabtree Falls was not very far and we weren’t towing the Rocketship, we didn’t do any advance planning and took off. Apparently, our GPS still does not understand that it is supposed to “avoid unpaved roads”. It took us on an unpaved road and we even had to switch to 4-wheel drive.  On the bright side, we became very intimate with Virginia country side and very thankful that we weren’t towing.

Near Nolin Lake State Park, Kentucky: I guess by this time our GPS decided that is going to retaliate for us talking bad about it and directed us to turn right at the next road.  In the nick of time, we spotted the “Dead End” sign before we fully committed to the turn and there wasn’t any other traffic around. This confirms that we are slow learners.

Lesson learned, don’t trust the GPS or maybe it should be, get a new one or get a map! 

Note: these things all happened in 2017. Times and technology have changed. We did get a new GPS and we do carry an atlas, and even some state maps. Cell service has improved but there is still reason to be cautious. 

LESSON #6: GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE ELECTRONICS

Don’t remember where. We were headed for a new campground. To resolve some of our trust issues we had with the GPS, we also entered the destination in on Google Maps on my cell phone. We anticipated that we were only a few miles from our new campground when we came upon a T-intersection. The GPS directed us to turn left and Maps said to turn right. We decided to turn left. When we didn’t find the campground, we retraced our route returning to same intersection. While waiting for other traffic to pass, we looked up and there ”as big as Dallas” was a huge sign directly in front of us directing us to the right to the campground.  Lesson Learned  

LESSON #7: DOUBLE CHECK IF “RESORT” APPEARS IN THE NAME OF THE CAMPGROUND

Lantern Lane Resort, New Hampshire. We reserved our site at this campground based on a couple of basic points, it was on our route, there was a vacancy, the price was right, and reviews were positive. What we didn’t do was to read more about the amenities of the campground. What we learned later was that this campground has a special theme for each weekend during the summer, such as carnival weekend, western weekend, luau weekend, a couple of water weekends, 2 Halloween weekends in August, etc. Each weekend had scheduled events from Friday evening to Sunday noon. We were at this campground from Friday afternoon until Saturday afternoon.  While we are always glad to see families enjoying the great outdoors and kids out playing, it can be a challenge. Our campsite was near the pavilion where many of the events occurred, like ice cream afternoon, movie night, and the pancake breakfast. What bothered us more than the noise was everyone biking, walking, or running through our campsite with some even bumping into the Rocketship. They need to learn lessons about campground etiquette. We learned our lesson, be prepared, suck up, or move on!

  LESSON #8: STAY ONLY IN STATE PARKS IN PENNSYLVANIA 

We have towed our Rocketship for 8 years over almost 90,000 miles in 49 US states, 8 Canadian Provinces, and 1 Canadian Territory. Most of our memorable, scary, hair curling, underwear-changing experiences have happened on Pennsylvania roads while towing the Rocketship. The first four incidents occurred within a three-week period IN 2017. The memory of our previous experiences wasn’t very vivid and honestly, we had forgotten about them, until Friday, which was our second trip to Pennsylvania in the Rocketship.

The first event, in 2017, happened while following the directions given to us by the campground. Our reservation confirmation advised that that GPS & Google directions to the campground would be incorrect and written directions were provided. We proceeded as directed and we were on a one lane dirt road. As we came around a curve there was an electrical service crew with a pickup truck and 3 linemen’s crane/bucket trucks coming straight for us. A raging bull-proof fence was very close to the road on one side and a ditch outlined with bushes and trees on the other. There was no place for any of us to pass, to move over, or turn around. After contemplating the situation with the drivers, they backed up all of their trucks a fair distance and turned into someone’s front yard to let us by. As we continued on our way, we became very suspicious of our path and enlisted the help of a friendly lady out walking her dog. She gave excellent directions for an alternate route and we arrived at the campground none too much worse for the adventure. 

The second Pennsylvania adventure included meeting an 18-wheeler delivery truck on a very narrow bridge. Apparently, the driver was accustomed to traversing that bridge. He stopped before entering the bridge and waved us on. 

The third incident occurred while driving down a paved 2-lane street in a small town.  The area was a mixture of businesses and homes. We were flagged down by the driver of a pickup truck waiting for us to pass before pulling out of his driveway. He said, “I don’t know where you think you’re going, but you ain’t gonna get there!”  He went on to describe what was in front of us. He suggested that we go just a little farther and turn through the driveway of the lumberyard that would be on our left to turn around. He also suggested that we just wave to the people that would come out to see what was going on and keep going. They did and we did! 

Each of these events was cause for some unpleasant thoughts and major concern for a short period of time. Each had a favorable outcome within a fairly short period of time and with the help of very nice and friendly Pennsylvanians. 

The next incident involved coming upon a small one-lane wooden bridge without guard rails and with a warning “Weight Limit 3 Tons”. We weigh close to 8 tons. There was no advance warning until we were at the bridge. There was no place to turn around and it would have involved backing up for miles. Once again, we were correctly following directions provided by the campground. That’s all I have to say about the situation and we are still here to tell the story. 

Fast forward to 2025. We were on a 2-lane paved road (no shoulders or center stripe) through a residential neighborhood, heading for a new campground, and came upon a “Road Closed” barricade. There was no advance warning at the last intersection. Immediately in front of the barricade and in the dead center of the road was pickup with the name & telephone number of a paving company on the door. There were no drivers or any workers anywhere around. Behind that pickup and directly in front of us was another pick-up truck with a trailer attached stopped and only slightly off to the side.  It didn’t appear that this truck was associated with the other truck.  Again, no driver anywhere around. It was probably about a half of a mile or more back to the nearest intersection. There was a line of trees along one side the road which bordered someone’s yard. On the other side, there was a muddy ditch broken up by a long driveway bisecting a massive yard to someone’s very nice house. The entrance to that driveway was outlined on both sides with boulders about the size of hot tubs. Now, to make the situation a bit more interesting, we were being followed by a concrete delivery truck and several cars. 

There was a pretty intense conversation with the concrete truck driver, while trying to ignore the honking horns. I’m sure the cars behind the concrete truck had no idea what was in front us. No one answered our telephone calls to the company whose truck was in front of the barricade making sure we wouldn’t be tempted to go around. If that wasn’t enough, the homeowner appeared wanting to get out of her driveway. By this time the other cars had backed to the closest intersection or had the ability to turn around. We able to maneuvered enough forward so the lady could get out of her driveway. She politely gave us permission to use her driveway but made it very clear that she expected us the be gone by the time she returned. The concrete truck driver had no choice except put it in reverse and do the same as the cars had done. John’s excellent driving backing, his unwavering patience, about 30 minutes, using the driveway, getting up close and personal with the trees, the ditch, and the boulders (no mating occurred), we were finally on our way to our campground. Geeze!

The following day, we were stopped on the bridge over the Delaware River that divides New Jersey and Pennsylvania waiting for the light to change. A truck coming toward us chose to occupy part of our lane too and his rearview mirror did a “meet and greet” with ours. Breathtaking, but no damage to ours.  Thankfully, we weren't towing. Considering the event, I’m absolutely certain that we had to have been on the Pennsylvania side of the center of the river. Surely this would not have happened to us in New Jersey. 

Only two hours later as we were leaving the grocery store, a driver of a relatively new BMW sedan ran into one of the bollards in front of adjacent store, backed up, ‘goosed’ it, and then kept going. There was significant damage to the front driver’s quarter panel. 

Three days later we were moving farther north to a new campground, still in Pennsylvania. We were on a gravel road. It was wider than a single lane, but not quite a full-fledged 2 lane when we met a middle-aged woman in a sedan. We moved over as far as we possibly could and slowed almost to a complete stop. She crept up even with us, opened her window, and yelled out with great vibrato that we were on the wrong road and going the wrong way. We were less than a mile from the campground so we ignored that part of her bold declaration but we did wonder if we had missed a ‘one way’ sign or that our GPS was having another brain fart.

That night we had a very serious discussion reviewing all of these incidents, our ability to follow directions, the age of our GPS, the reliability of Google Maps, our choice of Pennsylvania campgrounds, the conditions of Pennsylvania roads, and if we would ever return to the State. We concluded that we would give PA one more chance with the condition that we would only stay at campgrounds in State Parks that were located on larger highways. Lesson learned so we changed some of our reservations for our trip through PA on the way home. The return trip through PA was successful. Lesson Learned.

 LESSON #9: CHECK NATIONAL PARK WEBSITES FOR ALERTS BEFORE GOING TO CAMP THERE

We want to visit and/or camp at as many of the National Parks as we can. In our travels, we like having reservations for our campsites. To reserve campsites in National Parks, you go online, select your date, the campground, and the campsite. When availability is confirmed, you select your site, make your reservation and payment. After that you will receive a written confirmation and receipt by email. Smooth sailing camping. Here comes the crazy part or should I say, the typical government way to handle things.

Death Valley National Park. Today was an assortment of highs and lows. The low was our intended 182-mile trip from Atlatl Campground in The Valley of Fire State Park to the Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley National Park turned into a 434-mile trip to Big Bend of the Colorado State Park. 

When we arrived at Furnace Creek to check in, we learned that the campground was closed. The road to the campground was being repaved and they were having problems. It was so hot that the newly poured asphalt wasn’t curing properly. The Park office informed us that an alert had been posted on the Park’s website about the closure. More ‘lows’ followed. There wasn’t another campground in the Death Valley National Park. We had no cell service while in the park. We were without means to locate another campground. We did not have a map and could only guess which road out of the park would be the best option to take to find a new campground. 

The highs and lows continued. The altitude in Death Valley ranged from 282 ft below sea level to 3317 ft. high at Salsberry Pass. An additional high was the temperature reached 106 degrees. Other highs included seeing the incredible sights of Death Valley from a nice air-conditioned truck, knowing that the freezer and refrigerator of the Airstream held its temperature, seeing miles of a Joshua tree forest, and finding a vacancy at a campground when we arrived 9 hours after leaving Valley of Fire. A long day!

Lassen Valley Volcanic National Park. Lassen Valley Volcanic National Park consists of 106,600 acres, 7 campgrounds, only 2 entrances from a paved road, and a 30-mile road across the park that connects the two entrances. 

Our unusually long tow to Lassen Volcanic turned into an exceptionally long one. We headed to Lassen Valley Volcanic National Park from our campground near Oakland, CA, in the midst of 8 o’clock traffic. Luckily, we were headed out of the city and traffic was not nearly as bad as we expected. We made really good time. The miles through the valley displayed a patchwork quilt of orchards and crops. Our reservation was at a campground near the northern part of the park and we entered at the southern entrance. We planned to travel the park’s highway to get to our campground at the other end. At the park entrance, our luck changed and our forward progress was halted. The road through the park was closed because of heavy snow. We had to back track and go completely out of and around the park to get to our campground. This added well over 100 miles to our trip in some rain and some snow. Luck was finally back on our side. Our campground was the only one in the park that had remained open due to the snow and we had a great campsite.

We found out that once again a notice had been posted on the website about the closures. It certainly would have been more helpful if the notice would have gone out by email. When we were able to, we checked the website to see what had been posted. The alert was posted several pages back, not even on the first page. There just isn’t anything else to say about this! 

LESSON #13 – KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PARK THAN JUST THE CAMPGROUND

This lesson is very similar to Lesson #7 but the Resort Lesson has been #7 for so long (since 2017), we just added a new one instead of rewording the old one. Sometimes, we get on a path of reserving campsites that are very popular, highly promoted, or it is all about the location that we don’t delve into all the details of the park. It has taken several years to learn that we need to slow down and do just a bit more research.

Just because it’s a State or National Park, it may not be made for you or you may want to adjust the time you stay there. Check it out carefully. Don’t be disappointed or get bored. Life’s too short.

Letchworth State Park (left) and Watkins Glen State Park (right), are consistently on someone’s “The Best Of New York” list. It’s a tight race and we’ve stayed at both. Both have spectacular scenery with trails to get up close and personal with it and numerous amenities. The scenery at Letchworth is easily seen by everyone regardless of age or ability. The best scenery at Watkins Glen requires a fairly strenuous hike plus about 300 steps. For campers, Watkins Glen offers more campsites and much more to do in the surrounding area than Letchworth.

The only attraction, other than a campground, for many some National Parks and Provincial Parks, such as Kejimkujik National Park, is hiking. Some parks are in very remote locations and there isn’t much else to do in the area surrounding the park. So, know before you go. Lesson learned. 

LESSON #14: AFTER THEY INSPECT, WE INSPECT

June 21, 2025 St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada. This trip was the sixth time we’ve towed the Airstream into Canada and the first time to be inspected at the border. After unlocking the Airstream, we were directed to a waiting room. Two Canadian agents inspected the cab and bed of the truck and the inside of the Airstream. With the time it took, I’m sure they learned the brand of dental floss we use and the color of our underwear.  

The agents were pleasant and friendly when they told us that there were no issues and we were free to go. We were anxious to get on the road as we started later than we planned and had not anticipated the additional time of the inspection. We locked up quickly and hit the road to our next campground which took about an hour. 

It was a surprise when we arrived, parked, and went inside. Several drawers were standing open. The refrigerator was standing open with its decorative panel loose and on the floor. That in itself wasn’t so bad and easily fixed. It was the carton of eggs and container of freshly roasted green chilis that fell out of the fridge and came open that was a different story. Needless to say, our new carpet has been broken in and we don’t have to wonder which one of us will be the first one to spill something on it.  Lesson learned.