Sunday, June 24, 2012

Running Away (Grand Forks ND Trip, Day 1)

At 8:15 am, Mike and I set out from our home in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, for a “running away” trip in our 2009 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Class B motor home. We are heading to Grand Forks, North Dakota—1,100 miles away.

Running away in our camper is a chance to simplify. Before getting underway, I packed a few rugged, comfortable clothes that don’t show road or camping grime, stowed in nylon sacks tucked into the upper rear cabinets. For his clothes, Mike prefers hard, rectangular bins that just fit in the cabinets. Jackets and better shirts for “dressing up,” if we must, easily hang in the closet.

For food, I picked lettuce and snap peas from our garden, hard-boiled some eggs, cooked some bacon, and roast beets for salads. Yesterday, at the West Side Market, we bought cheeses and Mexican roasted pork loin for salad toppers and sandwiches. I also made a barley, mushroom and greens stew with produce from our CSA farm share. All of this fits easily into our RV’s large fridge and freezer.

We also brought our bikes, packed behind the couch inside the motor home; we’re hoping to have time in Minnesota to try more of the bike trails we enjoyed there last year.

Once underway, we start figuring out how far we might get this first day. We call old friends in Milwaukee, and they invite us to stop for dinner. Now we have a destination to happily anticipate. Mike does most of the driving, as he usually does, but I drive for two hours while he catches up on emails.  Our friends in Milwaukee, we learn, are moving to a family cabin on a lake north of Montreal. They are considering getting a motor home, thinking it will be the perfect way to travel in their new life.

After dinner in Milwaukee, we push on for a few hours, ending up at a KOA campground in De Forest, Wisconsin, just East of Madison. We usually don’t stay at KOAs, preferring less-developed campgrounds, but this one is right off the highway. It is also clean, well-maintained, and the staff is friendly. We walk around the campground, nod at people sitting around their large RVs, and laugh about how small our motor home looks in comparison. Families with kids are gathered around campfires or catching the last few minutes of daylight on the playground.

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