Hello! I'm back! Well, I was always here and giving friends little updates on Facebook, but I have not been able to bring myself to continue writing here until now. All I can say to sum up the last 2 months is:
Whew! What a long strange trip it's been!!!
For those of you who don't know (are there any of you?) we made it to Albuquerque! We're here and living in our RV and ... well, let me start from where I left off...
So - it's Monday, May 31st, Memorial Day. Jimmy & I had spent the entire holiday weekend filling bags of garbage, carting usable things to the Salvation Army, and packing the car and the RV. It was meltingly hot and oppressively humid, and we talked little and stayed focused on getting done. We both had this sense of being "late" for our departure - we had been ready to leave for so long in our minds, but the task of emptying the house was bigger than we could ever have imagined (and this from a girl who's moved a gazillion times!) We were feeling dispirited and hot and exhausted, and just done, and yet the task was not yet done. We ended up having to leave more things in the house than we wanted to, but if we waited to leave until we could clear out every last scrap, we'd still be there right now! We left the few things we thought family members might want or might want to sell in a cluster in the living room, and left.
At about 5:30 pm, we got everything on the bus, I jammed every last thing I could into the car, and drove away from our little house for the last time. It might have been sad, but we had done that already so we focused on what exciting and interesting things lay ahead of us. Freddie, as usual, just took things in stride - she hopped up into the co-pilot's seat in Old Gal and seemed happy to have a full view of the road ahead. We drove past the beautiful and serene lake that marked the entrance to our little development, and began our epic cross-country journey.
45 minutes later, we arrived at our first stop - Avoca, PA, halfway between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Okay, so it wasn't exactly a long trip, but the important thing was that we had FINALLY left! I had a gigantic smile on my face the whole trip, and sang with abandon to a favorite CD. At the Petro truck stop, exhausted from our long day of work and short bit of driving, we wolfed down some dinner and collapsed into bed.
The morning proved interesting, as I had my first shower in a truck stop! Jimmy had worked for a short while as a truck driver, so he was familiar with these showers, but I imagined some giant room with a bunch of shower nozzles, and a bunch of sweaty, hairy men all trying hard not to drop their soap! Clearly I've seen too many prison and football movies! After Jimmy had a good laugh and spent some time assuring me that they were nothing like that, I agreed, mostly because I was so gross and smelly from the day before! For a small fee, you get a towel and a key to a shower room. It was pretty wonderful! A very clean, big room with a nice hot shower, a bench on which to put your things and sit down while you're dressing, and a sink for brushing teeth and such! We had been gone for less than a day and I had already learned so much! Ah, travel!
Our day of driving was relatively uneventful, but it was a nice rest and change of pace from all the work we'd been doing to prepare for our trip! I'm sure many of you have driven the length of Route 80 across Pennsylvania, so you know that it's really a magnificent road! It's long - about 310 miles from end to end, but what struck me most about it this time was just how unbelievably GREEN Pennsylvania is. The most luscious and varied shades of green as far as one could see. The highway meanders through rolling mountains and valleys. I was also grateful to see that it has not yet been littered by endless billboards or lined with strip malls. I followed behind Old Gal, who was journeying at a steady 60 or so miles per hour, and it was a relaxing and slower pace than the rest of the traffic. Easier to enjoy the scenery!
We got to Ohio, made a left turn at Youngstown, and stopped for the evening in Akron. We headed for the Camping World there, and camped in their parking lot. We needed some parts for Old Gal, and had to wait until morning to take care of business. One full day down, another 4 or so to go! Unless, of course, we ran into technical difficulties...
