I just want you to know that we left! We drove out of our front yard the other day and Old Gal was great! Her springs were squeaking and there was some moaning and groaning going on, but she was awesome! The engine sounds strong and her brakes are tight, and it was so cool to finally get her rolling!
Then we drove around the block and came back, but our maiden voyage was a great success!
The fact that we haven't left yet must be pretty annoying to some of you who just want to hear about how the trip went! Well believe me, it's annoying to me too, because I am tired of going through my things and packing, packing, packing! A number of friends have called or emailed asking, "So where are you right now? Are you on the road? I hope you guys are ok!" I feel bad when I have to burst their bubble and tell them we're still here. I am very concerned about money and finding work as soon as possible, but we need to do this right, and rushing will not help. Add to that the fact that we are both physically and emotionally exhausted, and wrapping everything up here has been more of a challenge than we could have anticipated.
But we're getting there!
Packing an RV with all of your belongings isn't like packing a moving van. There are nooks and crannies in an RV, and in order to find a place for your things, you need to use as many of those as possible. This means looking at a space, estimating its size relative to the things you have, and then actually putting things in there. The first thing you try doesn't fit and then you panic about where you're going to put that thing while you find another thing to fill the space. Then you find something else in the house that you need to bring and you realize that this thing will go better in that space than the other thing, and you keep putting things and taking them out and arranging until hopefully everything fits just so. There are overhead bins throughout the RV, and those are relatively easy to fill. I made sure that things we use regularly would go in the most accessible bins. Music and DVD's? All taken out of their cases and put in albums, which are stashed above the couch in the 'living room'. No problem! But there are also two smallish nooks under the couch that are only accessible by pulling the front off of it. You really have to get down on your stomach to access that space, but I have put at least 20 books in there. Nice! In the 'kitchen' there is a lot of room under the bench seats at the table, but there's a water heater taking up part of the space on one side, and the benches have an aluminum frame that makes it hard to slide things in. If it won't fit in between the frame rungs, it doesn't go there! We also have space underneath the bed frame in the back (which J ingeniously built in 4 pieces that all come out). It's a pain to wrangle the mattress out of the way to put stuff back there, so we have to put things there that we don't need to access very often, like winter clothes and photo albums! She's getting pretty full, and we have to be concerned with weight - Old Gal won't get to New Mexico if we make her too heavy! I'm almost done with the packing, and it can't be finished soon enough for me!
We have to take some "after" pictures today, but very soon I will post before/after pics so you can get an idea of where we're living and how far we've come in making Old Gal a home! It's pretty cool!
We drove down to Wilkes-Barre yesterday to an RV parts store. J. needed a new voltage regulator, which we think is what's causing the fridge and the electrical to go crazy. He'll put that in today, and hopefully it'll take care of a lot of the problems we've been having. I get to do all the packing because J has to take care of all the really important stuff! I love our division of labor...
I fold towels and figure out where to put the Q-tips, and all J has to do is make the 3,000 parts of this rig run! Nice!
We're planning our route, and for those of you interested in the journey, here is our approximate route: we are going to Ohio via route 80, then making a left in Youngstown and heading southwest. We'll be traveling on route 71 to route 70 and then route 44 to route 40 (old route 66) until we pull in to ABQ. Along the way we will be going through Akron, Columbus, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Amarillo, and then New Mexico. Not the most exciting places in the country, perhaps, but I've never been to MO, OK, or TX (or NM!) so it should still be interesting! We are going to stop in St. Louis and visit the Gateway Arch, and then maybe find the world's largest ball of string or something along the way!
It's a bit of a bummer that I am going to be driving our car separately and following J in Old Gal, because we had hoped to be together on the journey. But towing the car just wasn't feasible, financially or practically, so we'll make the best of it!
My birthday is Saturday and J was hoping to have me in ABQ by that day, but I think we might not make it. Just a hunch I have. We're anticipating that it will take 4 or 5 days for the whole trip so we'll be on the road that day, but we'll celebrate when we get there!
It should only be another day or two, tops, until we leave! I think we should leave tomorrow, because we would be leaving on the 3rd anniversary of the day we met, May 26th, 2007. That would be cool and meaningful in some sort of way, right?
If we're going to do that, I'd better be off to cram some more stuff into those nooks and crannies!
