On The Road Summer 2015

The Summer of 2015 presented us with a unique opportunity to take a long awaited RV trip.

We have had two RVs in the last 20 years. Our first was a 1994 27' Ford / Coachman Leprechaun Class C which we picked up used in 1995. We very much enjoyed that camper and were able to bring our kids to all 48 contiguous states and 6 Canadian provinces over the 12 years that we owned that rig. In 2007, we replaced the Leprechaun with a used 1999 31' Class C Ford / Dutchman.

One of the great things about traveling is documenting and remembering the places we have been and the things we have done. The first camper had a map of north America outside next to the entry door that we nearly filled in - minus Alaska, Hawaii, and 2 western Canadian provinces - with the appropriate colored state and province stickers as we visited them. When we got the "new" camper in 2007 we put a new empty map on the exterior with the hopes of eventually filling that one in as well.

Over the first 7 years of the Dutchman we had managed to fill in the USA east coast pretty quickly and had also added some of the beautiful eastern Canadian provinces, but had not managed to get very far west since our 1998 and 2000 family cross country trips in the old camper.

As the Summer of 2015 approached, we decided it was time to fill in some more states.

We left Cape Cod early on July 5, 2015 and headed west with some general goals and a loose schedule to do what we could to see as much of this beautiful country as we could in the time we had available. Over the next 6 weeks we added 24 new states, put 9,737 miles on the odometer, and had a positively wonderful summer adventure. We took tons, about 15,000+ photos, of the scenic drives and sights, as well as a fair number of fire stations, apparatus, and related images.

This feature documents some of the places we went to and the things we did on our Great Summer of 2015 Cross Country Adventure. Enjoy!

DAY 1 - JULY 5
We left Cape Cod before sunrise on July 5 headed west towards Pennsylvania. Our plan was to drive Route 6 across northern PA as far as we could get in the day. Route 6 is one of the oldest and second longest - 3,227 miles - US highways and goes all the way from Provincetown, MA to Long Beach, CA. Rather than utilizing the Interstate system, we decided to start out with a slower, more scenic drive through smaller villages and scenic areas.

One of the first fire stations we came upon is the Greenville Fire District in New York state near the PA border. The station is volunteer and had a number of impressive apparatus. We continued west on Route 6 through some scenic areas finally stopping for the day in western PA. The first day logging 593 miles. One point of interest being a late gas stop in a town called Bradford at a "Crosby's" gas station. Seemed appropriate.