A New Adventure

by: Kat
We're doing it again, abandoning our cozy home and hitting the road with the little trailer, Claudine. This time around we're headed in a south to north orientation rather than the sprawling east west journey we took last summer. We're taking a bit less time as well, a mere four weeks rather than the hefty seven. Our goal is to get time in with both sides of our family and see a bit more of the country with a quick jaunt into Canada, the first time for all of us. The dots on the map below show our planned route, you'll notice the dots on the east coast are more spread out than the ones in the interior.  This is because the coast line is our trip south and our families have vacation time scheduled for back to back weeks this year. This necessitates leaving early from one and arriving a bit late for the other while speeding up our travels south.

This summer's route in the planning stages, the small circles are the potential stops. Last year's route is the solid line.

The planning for this trip has been a bit more relaxed than last year, having last summer's trip under our belts we are feeling a bit less anxious about what we need. Ry did have some improvements and repairs to make on the trailer over the winter.  Top of the list was fixing the hatch hinge and covering the water damage on the hatch. 

 

In the above pictures you can see the water damage caused by the leaky galley hatch.  Even after making a band aid repair in San Diego, water still managed to work its way in around the hinge.  It seemed the only way to stop the leak would be to cover it completely.

A rubber strip across the hinge held in place by metal strips did the job. The next step was to camouflage the water stains. After a few different design options Ry came up with a stylish fix.

decorative trim piece with teardrop motif

wedged into place while the glue sets

That looks better.

There was also considerable staining on the outer edge of the hatch. Ry decided to spray the inside edges black. The process involved a whole lot of masking.

With that repair taken care of there were other small tweaks here and there but nothing particularly noteworthy. We began packing in earnest this past week and lists began to appear on the dinning room table along with a growing collection of stuff deemed necessary for travel. The last few days were spent cleaning animal cages and general house maintenance in perpetration for our house sitter. The girls were given packing lists, with the hope they would exercise some independence. Instead I spent a good bit of time chasing them out of various creative endeavors, including a photo shoot with spectacular results.

Our plan was to leave on the 1st as early as possible. Friday dawned with quite a bit of work still to do. We scrambled about rounding up the last of the needed supplies. I must of chased the girls out of the truck at least five times, why the girls felt the need to sit in a stationary truck when they would be living in those 2 ft sq of space for the next month is beyond me. At 12:30 we finally pulled out, headed for Maryland, and were off on an other epic adventure.