We emptied the refrigerator, turn off the water and stopped the mail. We are finally on the road.

We are heading west to Northern Ohio and Michigan to visit family on the way to the Pacific Northwest. The first leg of the trip included the Pennsylvania turnpike from King of Prussia, PA to where it joins Highway 80, also known as the Ohio Turnpike as it traverses Ohio. One of Joe’s favorite songs about Highway 80 is by the late Dave Carter. It is available on Apple Music and here is the Spotify link and if you are interested.

These days it is unusual not to see multiple crashes. We saw the aftermath of a particularly bad accident involving 4 cars heading East on the Pa Turnpike. Our dash cam took this footage and if you look closely you will see that one or more cars impacted the central concrete barrier and punched holes in the barrier in two places.

So by now you may be wondering were we stayed the night. It was a first for both of us. We “camped out” at the Middle Ridge Service Plaza on the Ohio Turnpike. This was intentional. We didn’t run out of time and sleep in the parking lot, we planned to stay the night there. Unlike Pennsylvania, our home state, Ohio caters to RVers and provides dedicated RV parking and in many cases electrical hookups for $20 a night.

We did have one painful moment on this leg of our trip: We had to buy gas.

The next four days we will be visiting Sue’s cousins in Ohio and Michigan. Updates next week. Don’t miss the 5-planet conjunction this month.