Today was a travel day so we departed Scotrun, PA, crossed into New York state on Hwy 209 and continued until we made it to Accord, NY. It was mostly an uneventful drive through gorgeous countryside with the exception of a little scare in Port Jervis, NY, where they have cleverly neglected to inform motorists that as you depart town on Hwy 209 you will be required to pass through an underpass that has a clearance sign indicating 12′-6″ maximum height. The low bridge is located in a depression where backing up is virtually impossible due to heavy traffic and the sign is located on the bridge itself.
Unfortunately, the height of the Barbarian Invader is 12′-10″ so we got down in the depression and slammed on the brakes because I was afraid we would scrape the air conditioners off the roof of our portable home. Peg hopped out, directed some traffic around us and got herself into a place where she could see whether we were two-blocked or not. It seems that the sign understates the actual clearance by a few inches and we squeaked through but only after I almost soiled my trousers.
We scampered out of Port Jervis and continued up 209 until we arrived in Accord and found our TT site – Rondout Valley Resort. This is a nice campground with full hookups and large campsites surrounded by grass meadows. I was delighted we still had air conditioners atop the Invader and had passed unscathed over the crummy NY roads. The first thing the lady at the resort desk asked us was what did we think of NY roads and we were obliged to tell her that they were not too terrific, at least the part we had traveled to get to Accord. Signage is not too good in this part of the world, either. There are quite a few places where the folks responsible for maintaining wayfinding signs have allowed the arrows that inform ignorant drivers, like me, where to go to fall off the post to which they were mounted. In some other strategic locations they have cleverly failed to put up signs where you should turn such that you continue for some distance before realizing you are going the wrong way and that you should have turned in some unknown location known only to the personnel who don’t put up proper signage. These folks are quite clever if their intent was to confuse drivers from locations other than where they are responsible for signage.