SNOW!

In planning this trip to Pa for Thanksgiving, Kim had expressed some concern, “what if it snows?” to which I replied, “it’s only November, they never get much snow.”  That would come back to haunt me very quickly.  We weren’t that concerned about the cold since our Reflection 337RLS is 4-Seasons.  As long as we have propane and some battery power we have heat.  If we have shore power we have a plug in heater and the electric fireplace to help out.  I was looking forward to seeing my side of the family for Thanksgiving so we planned a trip up north while most RVers were heading south. 

At first, we just encountered some freezing temps overnight but as we approached Pa, the daytime temps dropped as well, and we had to wear pants full time!  For Texans this is a big deal – I only own two pair!  We ran into a couple of days of rain which was fine and made for some sporty boondocking but once we reached my Mom’s place and set up our rig there, everything seemed fine if a little cold.  About 4 days after arriving, the weathermen started throwing around the possibility of snow.  A couple of days later they were predicting NE Pa getting hammered with up to a foot of snow.  I caught some dirty looks from my wife at this point!  Then the snow started falling and by the time we went to bed, there was about 2 inches on the ground. 

I still wasn’t terribly worried because when have these weather guys ever been right about heavy snowfall?  I woke up early in the morning and checked outside.  The door was pushing snow off the steps as I opened it so we had at least 8 more inches of snow overnight since I had cleaned off the steps when we went to bed and the top step is at least 6 inches below the door.  The entire area had been transformed into a winter wonderland!  It continued snowing for several more hours only stopping in the late afternoon and we had 12 inches total!  It was the wet heavy type of snow that breaks branches and brings down powerlines!  We had to get that snow off the rig since it was so heavy. I also feared that the as the snow melted, the water would be trapped on the roof in places and might make it's way inside.

I grabbed our broom and was brushing the snow off the slides and what part of the roof I could reach from our ladder but that wasn’t nearly enough.  Ultimately, Kim had to climb up on the roof with a push broom to clean it off completely.  We knew that another 1-2 inches was expected but that wouldn’t be so heavy and daytime temps were such that 1-2 inches wouldn’t last long.  Our poor dogs, had trouble walking around the yard since they were in snow up to their bellies!

While we were working outside, we heard what sounded like a gunshot and Mom’s generator started. We figured it was a transformer going out or branch on a line that took the power out. It stayed out for nearly a whole day. As I write this, the upper 30's temps during the day is slowly melting the thick snow and we are down to around 2-3 inches in most places with some places in the yard completely cleared off. We survived our first real snowfall in the RV but will be rethinking heading this far north this late in the year! And I'm sure Kim will remind of this experience if I ever bring it up again!