July 10th - A Bad Traveling Day

The 10th was a traveling day from Salisbury, Massachusetts toward Hershey, Pennsylvania.  Everything went fine until we hit New York City on I-95. The interstate was extremely rough, particularly the strips where the road met with overpasses. Those transitions were terrible even after braking as much as I could with the surrounding traffic we were jolted time after time. For long stretches of the highway everything was fine, then in other sections, even though the pavement was smooth, the truck front end was vibrating. At first I attributed it to wear in the pavement. Then WELCOME TO NEW YORK CITY.  Getting close to the George Washington bridge to cross into New Jersey there was a truck accident and it took us over two hours to go less than five miles. Once into New Jersey it was pretty clear that something was wrong with the truck’s front end.

Surprisingly there is not much in the way of truck stops or big cities along I-78 in New Jersey. When she got a signal Kelly got on her phone and found the nearest tire shop. It was a Pepboys in Bridgeport, which was fifteen miles off the interstate. We headed there, doing only 50 mph, a speed at which the front end did not shake too violently. When we arrived I pulled the trailer over on the adjoining street left my flashers on and went inside to seek help. They said they could look at the tires but they did not have a lift heavy enough to check anything else on a one ton truck. I was quite surprised at this. They had ten bays and none geared for large pickup trucks? Anyway, they said I could drop the trailer where it was (even though there were no parking signs) and bring the truck over. Before dropping the trailer I put out my emergency triangles. Luckily it was a street going into a shopping area and not a high traffic area. Here is a picture of Kellen helping with the triangles.

They got someone on the truck fairly quickly. He drove it around and quickly determined that the belts had shifted in both front tires. He showed me the lumps in the tires. With only 22,700 miles on them the Korean tires that came on my RAM had had enough of the rough roads of Newfoundland, Labrador, and everywhere between Missouri and here in New Jersey. They had Cooper Tires in the right size. I have no problem with Cooper tires but I hated that they were already over a year old. I was stuck so I bought them for $419.00..

Now the bad part. Upon mounting the new tires their tire machine gouged both aluminum wheels. The manager was very nice and apologized several times. He offered to have me bring the truck back and they would send the wheels off to be prepared. I told him we were heading back to Missouri and that would not work. He did not know what it would cost to repair the rims because the company would have to look at them to give a price. I was stuck. He offered to take $100.00 off the tire bill. I accepted, having no other option.

We hooked Marge back up and headed down the road with the idea of stopping at the first campground we could find. As I mentioned above, there isn’t much along I-78 and that includes campgrounds. We had driven all day, sat in traffic for hours, got the new tires put on, and were beat. We decided we would drive another two hours into Hershey, Pennsylvania if necessary. A few more miles down the road however we saw a sign for a campground in Jugtown, New Jersey. We pulled off at the exit listed on the sign. Of course when we did, there were no more signs telling us where to go. Kelly quickly got on her phone and got directions, which ended up not being totally accurate. As we were driving along I looked to the left and there was a big building with a sign on it “Jugtown Campground” with some of the letters missing. I was able to turn around up the road and head back..
Here is a picture of the entrance into Jugtown Mountain Campground as it led back through rows of trailers for sale. Not very inviting I must say but we were tired.

I didn’t see any office but to the right where we pulled in the lot there was a trailer sales office so I went in there. Fortunately it was the office for the campground as well, even though there was no sign saying “office” anywhere. It was $50.00 bucks for water and electric and they had sites available. We took one despite its appearance. The lady said I could drive back and take one of six different sites because some were muddy due to all the rain. Not a good omen.

As we approached the area where she told us our site would be I couldn’t tell where to go. A guy was sitting outside so I got out and asked directions from him. He directed me where to drive to get into our site. He said not to take the site next to him, it was a mud hole.  There was no road. I had to pull the trailer onto the grass and through trees to get into the campsite. In fact we ended up taking two sites in length so I wouldn’t have to unhook. Marge was out of level a lot and we tried several times to back her up on blocks to get level but they would just slide in the mud. We were finally able to get up on two small blocks, which helped a little. The trailer was still several inches out of level. Since it was just one night we put up with it. Here is a picture of the campsite on the dry side.

Here is a picture on the other side. The four wheel drive truck helped. I couldn't do anything without getting muddy.

Kelly then opened the door and this is what she found. A Kodak moment after a day from hell.

Due to the rough roads all day a cabinet door had come open and Goldfish had spilled all over the floor along with several other items.

It was 89 degrees inside Marge when we parked. I immediately plugged in the electric. When the AC unit would kick on the voltage would go down to 109 volts. There was nothing else on, I even unplugged the converter to get the volts up but it didn't help. Low voltage is not good for compressors and the AC unit is only a year old.  I didn't want to burn it up so I turned it off and turned on the Fantastic fans and portable fans we carry with us. It was sundown and I was hoping it would cool down quickly. Fifty dollars a night and not enough power to even run the AC for a while. What a crock. Of course, the Wi-fi didn’t work either.

Soon thereafter Kelly then called me into the bedroom and said “look at this”. A picture we have had hanging on the wall for ten years fell down from all the rough roads. Luckily the glass didn’t break. What had happened is that the wire holding it up broke in the middle. Here is a picture. Crazy.

I then got on my phone to call Hershey Camping Resort to get a reservation. I waited on line forever then when someone finally answered I could hear her but she couldn’t hear me. This happened two times. I got Kelly’s phone and had no issue. After finally getting through we could only get a reservation for one night, we wanted at least two nights so Kellen could do the amusement park. I called two other campgrounds in Hershey and got answering machines at both. I finally found another campground a little further away in Elizabethtown. The lady answered and said it was a brand new campground, had spaces with full hookups but the pool wasn’t ready yet. That was fine so I made a reservation for two nights. Surely in a new campground the electric will be better.