When Chase was little, and we did what we called “a city vacation” (as opposed to a “beach vacation”), we’d often get up, have breakfast, then head out for a day of exploring. Inevitably, the question would come— “where are we going?” The answer almost always was, “we don’t know.” And we really didn’t. The point was to roam the city and discover what it had to offer us by way of art, food, and other new experiences. To this day, and especially on this trip, we try to achieve a good balance of planning and serendipity (more to come on the complexities of planning an RV life). Stumbling onto beautiful and/or interesting places can (and does) happen at any place along the way. But there’s an interesting thing that happens when you’re full-time RVing. We follow (generally) The 330 Rule: No More Than 330 Miles a Day or Stop by 3:30 PM Each Day. If you stick to that rule, and you want to go from Hector, NY to Nashville, TN, you need to do one-day overnights along the way. So we’ve found ourselves in places we’d never otherwise visit (Erie, PA, Lebanon, OH, etc.). In each place, we have one afternoon and one evening to explore. In Erie, we discovered Presque Isle State Park (“a 3,200-acre sandy peninsula that arches into Lake Erie…Pennsylvania’s only “seashore…”).

The pursuit of good food, beer, and cider brought us to Cartridge Brewing in a restored cartridge/ammunition factory. To get to Cartridge, we drove (the truck, NOT the RV!) down a winding road over the Little Miami River—it felt like we were heading towards a castle tucked into the woods! (Good practice for the mountain passes we’d encounter once we got to the Rockies, by the way.)