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6/7/19: The journey to New York went rather well as we arrived with no issues, no surprises and the 52’ in the same condition as it was when we left South Carolina. It was rather long, about 950 miles in which we broke up into three days. The intent was try to get home in two with the realization that it may take longer, trailering an additional five thousand pounds. I rented a U-Haul car transporter that came with a little sign “55 MPH Max” posted on the front of the trailer fender, written backwards so it was readable every time I checked the side mirror. This created a constant battle that I was fighting in my head. Push down that accelerator and you’ll get home quicker, but every time I checked the side mirror, I’d see that ominous little sign warning me to slow down for safety’s sake.

We didn’t leave quite as soon as we had planned as our very good friends and neighbors invited us to eat at a local restaurant the night before. This did cost us some valuable packing time that we ultimately left for the day we were leaving. My wife and I are both retired so it doesn’t really matter if we leave a little bit latter as long as we’re not traveling in the dark. My old tired eyes don’t see as well in the night as they used too, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

There’s allot to do when closing up a house for six months so we didn’t end up leaving until close to 1PM. Traveling thru South and North Carolina was a breeze. We clocked in about 400 miles that first day making it to Fredericksburg VA. Our confidence that we could do the 550 miles left on day two, quickly got squelched. My wife, my trusty navigator, informed me of a backup on I81, a route we usually take to avoid the intense traffic on I95 between Richmond and New York City. Living upstate in New York we find that I81 is a much nicer, more scenic and less stressful option, especially pulling an extra two and a half tons. We usually crossover from I95 to I81 in Fredericksburg VA via Rt. 17 to I66. This backup on I81 was just north of the I66 interchange and the delay at this point was over an hour, promising to increase by the minute. We decided to take some secondary roads to avoid this delay. In the past, using Google’s not so trusty map app on my wife’s phone has taken us thru some of the more rural, and sometimes dreadfully slow roads when taking detours. Google didn’t disappoint this time either. My wife and I have a theory that Google is somehow payed to route traffic into the local business sections. It seems that given a choice to use a bypass road or business section, Google will always chose the later. We did manage to avoid the backup after about two additional hours on the back roads of Virginia. Fortunately that part of Virginia is beautiful. Did we save any time? I would like to think we did, however I don’t really know.

Feeling smug that we outsmarted some of the traffic south of us, we quickly ran into two additional delays in Pennsylvania that squelched any thought that we could get home that day. We didn’t want to arrive home in the dark, then have to open up a house that had been winterized and closed up for six months. That involves turning on all of the utility’s, not to mention unpacking the truck.

We settled for making it to the New York border, staying in a hotel we found in Binghamton. We found a nice BBQ restaurant just across the street, with good food and craft beer. Life is good!

The next day we had about 160 miles to go, roughly a three plus hour trip. On a previous return trip to NY, we were greeted with a broken copper water pipe I failed to drain properly. I did this repair myself but it still cost us roughly two hours before I could cut in the water. I keep a running list of everything I need to do, to properly winterize my house, so hopefully I learned from my mistakes. I turned on the water and everything went fairly smooth with the exception of one shower mixing valve o-ring failure (not my fault) that I isolated with the supply valves. A minor problem I could deal with at a later date. Everything else, refrigerators, furnace, hot water heater, etc., I was able to get started with no issues.

The next day, which was Friday, I got our Ole 52’ Chevy off the trailer with satisfaction that we successfully transported her 950 miles with no issues.

Now some of the issues that I was not able to address in South Carolina could now be fixed with the resources available to me, in my shop affectionately called “Hak’s Alley Garage”.