Road Trip March - Day 8

March 20th 2026 (Friday) 

Hooray, it's officially the first day of spring! Today sees us leave NYC, a day earlier than planned, but the water heater part that we'd ordered before we left last week has now arrived at our friend's house in New Jersey. So, it was decided, once we left the city we were not going to return just for 1 night. To be honest, I think we were both feeling the need to get away from all the hustle and bustle of city life. We're definitely more country lovers than city dwellers these day!

Taking a deep breath, we ran the gauntlet that is driving around NYC! Think of London's M25 motorway but 10 times worse. It actually reminded us of driving through some of the bigger cities in Italy in our old 'Wanda'. If the traffic is not bad enough to deal with, the horrendous pot holes and road conditions certainly add a 'Mario Cart' experience as we weave in and around things, complete with huge rigs blasting past us on both sides!!

We also have the added consideration of the size of our vehicle, as it means we are height and/or weight limited on some roads, albeit we only have a modest sized 24ft motorhome compared to most here in the US. Luckily we use the RV Life Pro app that helps you plan your 'RV Safe' route and only takes you on roads that are appropriate for your vehicle size & weight. It's been an absolute godsend, especially in places like NYC!....until the moment you miss a turn, which of course we did, and then we ended up on a very long detour!!! Lets just say, thank goodness Fred was in charge of driving again.

Finally free and out of NYC, we met up with our friend in a wonderfully more relaxed town near Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, for a much needed coffee and to collect the water heater part. We then located to the nearest Lowes that was on our route and parked up to get it replaced, alowing Fred to get any additional plumbing parts he needed to finish the job.  Thankfully, the weather was perfect, warmish and sunny.

I caught up on emails whilst Fred got the heater replaced, up and working. He finished just in time before the weather was starting to turn wet. We had a quick bite to eat then we were back on the road again for our next leg of our road trip. Unfortunately it wasn't such a pleasant drive, with the wet roads and a really black old night, but luckily we only had to do an hour or so to reach our park-up for the night.

Tonight's stay was in the car park of Cabela's in Hamburg, Pennsylvania - chosen particularly for its free dump station and huge parking area for cars, RVs and even trucks. Unfortunately, there was no drinkable water so we'll need to find that tomorrow, but there was plenty of space and several other RVs were parked up already.

Fuel prices are noticeably higher than last week, due to the sudden and ongoing conflict in Iran - if we can find anything less than $3.85 for regular unleaded petrol (gas) today we’ve been incredibly lucky.

Road Trip Day 8 - total distance travelled aprox 160 miles