The last month has kept us busy and away from the blog. We all the sudden found that our departure date had arrived. Because we want to keep everyone up to date we’re going to skip some of the last stages of the build and jump to our leaving. Ry will fill in on the build in bits and pieces as we go. Just a week before we finally managed to hook up with a house sitter thanks to the networking power of our friend Jen. So with that important detail finally aside we could shift into full preparation mode on Friday afternoon when Ry arrived home from work The lists were long and stuff was everywhere. Things had been accumulating in piles around the house and shop for the last few weeks, in an attempt to decide what was still needed. We had packages arriving from Amazon as late as Thursday afternoon. Our postman has become a regular visitor, driving up our driveway each day deliver an odd assortment of trailer parts and trip accouterments.
Saturday we began shifting stuff to the trailer and truck. As Ry watched the leaf springs begin to compress on the truck he became anxious about going over the truck’s payload limit. But after bringing in my brothers, John for internet searching and Sam for engineering consult, it was established that “We were fine” and “Nowhere near going over the payload limit.” So we moved on, there were other things to worry about. Speaking of worries, now might be a good time to introduce some guests that are traveling with us. There’s a fabulous toy & game company in our area that has introduced a new product this June. The Worry Eaters. These friendly creatures hold your worries for you so that you can go about your day and then talk about them Mom or Dad or any loved one later. They’re a great parent child communication facilitator and are adorable. We’ve been asked by the lovely people at Haywire Group, to help introduce these critters to their new country. So you’ll be seeing Flint, Bill, Betti, Polli, and Enno, a lot as we travel across the states.
The girls were not particularly helpful on Saturday, (lots of lying around in the back of the truck), but by Sunday, the excitement of going was a real motivator, and the task of preparing became a true team effort. By 2:00 Sunday, we were as ready as we were going to be to set off. After hitching up the trailer and snapping a few pictures at the end of the driveway in a persistent drizzle we left the comforts of home in the rear view mirror for the next six or seven weeks.
Before leaving town, we decided to stop at “Classic Burger”, the local burger joint, for a bite to eat. Barry, the owner spotted our rig and came over to ask about it. He quickly offered to buy our lunch and struck up a conversation about his own experience traveling cross- country with his family some years earlier. The Mariposa grove in Yosemite N.P. had clearly been among Barry’s favorite memories from his trip, so it has gotten a star next to it on the itinerary. He also mentioned a few times how jealous he was of us and the time we were bound to have. Ry was reminded of “Travels with Charley” when Steinbeck talked of the look of “longing to go” he would see in people’s eyes whenever they heard of his plans or saw his truck. We took this as a good omen, finished our burgers, said our good byes, and got on the road.
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