Both my beautiful wife and I attended The Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. It is in fact, the place we met and fell in love. It was quite fitting then that the last 'leg' of our first trip in the Carpe Diem go through there.
The Carpe Diem at the College Gate in Athens, Ohio.
Before we get there, we need to catch up a little on the trip since the last update. We loaded up and headed to Granville, OH where our good friends Mike and Christina were in town to visit their family. We met them for a nice brunch at a place called Day y Noche.
Mike and I with the Carpe Diem.
After a great visit with them, we dropped them off at Mike's parent's home. We were able to see his Mom and Dad too. I was very close to them too.
Erica and I turned towards Athens and things were looking well. Then, near disaster struck. We were on one of the many small roads that lead towards Athens. We heard a loud plunk and then the sound of metal scraping across concrete/gravel. I was able to quickly check to be sure that it was safe to pull over. I did so and we carefully got out to take stock of what happened. The tongue of the trailer popped off the tow ball. Thankfully the safety chains held, the tongue of the trailer actually rode up onto the basket on the front of the trailer. If we had been on a larger road, or going faster, things might not have turned out as well.
The basket took a little bit of a hit; nothing a sledge hammer can't fix.
I learned to pull up on the tongue to make sure it has properly latched!
The road rubbed the tongue a bit, but nothing a little Rustoleum can't fix.
We took a huge breath, hugged each other and counted our blessings. We started back towards Athens. The rain had held off all morning, but it started again along the way. Almost everything had changed. Even the freeways were different; the small towns of Lancaster and Nelsonville had bypasses which were terrific for travel, but I'm not sure they will be good for the small businesses in those towns. We made it to Athens and went to The Strouds Run State Park. Neither of us had camped there before and mid July, during the week, is apparently the least visited time in the park. In fact, we were the only people in the park. It rained almost all evening and into the night. Something was going on with our battery and it did not fully charge while we were in Powell. So, the hot and humid weather, and the relentless rain made for a less than perfect night of sleep. Well, that and the fact that we were the only people in the entire park, in the middle of Appalachia, without any cell service... Nonetheless, we made it and here is the view we had when we woke up this morning.
Here was our campsite.
I love the panoramic feature on the iPhone!
We hitched up and headed back to Athens. We thought that early morning would be a good time to try to take the photo of the Carpe Diem at the top of this post. Then, we headed north to pick up the kids.
My parents and my nephew with my kiddos!
The skies looked ominous as we started toward home. About half way home the skies opened up. We stopped for gas and I checked on the teardrop. I was not happy to see a white, milky-type substance dripping from the front of the teardrop. The caulk was clearly not dry and it was obviously not reacting well to the pounding rain. I decided to not think about it and deal with it when we finally got home.
The arch at the border of Ohio and Indiana; a brief respite from the rain.
About five hours later, we pulled into our driveway. The kids were great; they jumped out and started clearing out the car and the teardrop like a pit crew at the Indianapolis 500! A little while later, we had the teardrop on the concrete patio, the luggage and laundry emptied and were ready to assess the damage from the rain.
The aluminum 'drip guard' that we had glued in place came off again. Thankfully, it fell into the basket again and we were able to retrieve it. One corner started peeling away a bit. We'll need to re-glue that corner once everything has dried out.
All our gear washed and ready to dry.
The sheet of linoleum on the back of the teardrop drying after being washed of the liquified caulk. We put the EZ Up overt the teardrop so that we could let everything dry. Once it does, we'll start all over with the caulking process. Hopefully we'll get a stretch of dry weather. We were all very happy to shower and head to a much needed night of rest. It was a terrific trip, but we are all glad to be back!
