The View from the Driver's Seat

Well, here's the view as we left the storage spot this morning for a quick trip up the highway--with ME in the driver's spot. 


My first driving lesson went well.  It wasn't as scary or as difficult as I thought it would be.  I didn't hit anything--always a plus!  I don't see myself backing up anytime soon and turns are a little hairy, but with practice I can definitely see myself sharing a bit of the driving with Keith on our trip.


He's been busy making sure all the maintenance is done--he's replaced fluids, checked hoses, had an alignment done, fixed the hot water issue (Yay!)  and is looking at adding an aftermarket rear stabilizer---thingy.  


I'll let him deal with that--I've got to figure out what food we are going to initially bring, making sure we have enough, but not too much of anything.


I tell ya--this trip had *better* be fun.  :) 

What? You've Never Driven the RV?

I need to have my first lesson driving the RV--soon.  Yes, we've had the RV two years and I've yet to actually drive the thing.

Ever see the movie RV?  If you haven't, I highly recommend it.  The main character, Bob (played by the very funny Robin Williams) , a bigwig with a soda company, has to cancel his family's Hawaii vacation in order to make a sales pitch meeting in Colorado.

Rather than tell his family he has to cancel the vacation due to work, he rents a RV and proceeds to convince his wife that family bonding trumps Hawaii.

It's a quotable sort of movie.

In this clip, the family is just finding out that Hawaii is cancelled and they are packed and are just heading out.  Bob has a wee bit of difficulty navigating the RV for the first time.

Let's hope *MY* 1st time driving the RV goes a little bit smoother than Bob's.  I'll keep you posted.

No Hot Water???

Here's the thing about owning a RV--when something goes wrong it could be vehicle OR house related.  Thank goodness Keith is handy.  He noticed a problem with the water heater right before he came back from working out of state--after some troubleshooting, he determined that the ignition board was bad.  After a bit of searching, he was able to find one to order online.  Of course, everything RV related is more expensive than you would expect.  Oh well, you have to have hot water and better for it to go out now instead of in the middle of West Texas.

We spent the afternoon cleaning the RV--Keith did the outside while I worked inside. Here are a few pictures of the inside I took while cleaning this afternoon.  

Looking out the front

The kitchen.  Yup, that's it.  :)

The little fridge

The hallway sink

The shower

The bedroom

Looking towards the back

Oh boy....

Time really does fly!!  Here we are, just a little over a month away from our departure date.   I’m fairly confident that we’ll be ready.  The ‘to do’ list has been whittled down to one page.  Keith is now home so the list will benefit from the two of us working on it. 

The Little Things and a Confession

Confession: I’m not terribly detail oriented or organized.

I must give off some sort of organized vibe since I’ve been told more than once

“You’re so organized and detail oriented!” 

I’d show you my Tupperware cupboard as proof, but that would just be embarrassing.  For you AND me.  No pictures of closets will be forthcoming either. 

So, now that all the BIG planning is done, it’s on to the little stuff.  Blech.

*Vaccinations for the cats—done

*Vaccinations for the children (well, one child that’s traveling to Peru this summer) calls made, just waiting to hear from the pharmacist.

*Oil change and car inspection – appt made.

*Taxes are almost ready to take to the tax gal. Just waiting on that one last thing.

*Online bill pay set up.

*Dr. visits done and prescriptions filled.

*Mid weight jacket for son found and bought. Bonus-he likes it.  It’s a bear trying to find his size right now. 

*Tether app for cell phone downloaded.

*Starbucks card filled (I should’ve put this one at the top of the list—very important)

I still have to make a campground list and figure out if we are going to do any school and purchase some thank you gifts and, and, and....I think I'll be done for today.  :)

Ahhh, that's better....

I've been messing around with templates and colors and fonts *trying* to figure out why the blog just didn't look quite right to me.

I've added a picture of Mt Hood, which you can see in the distance not far from my house on a clear day.  Now the blog feels right.

I took this picture after riding the ski lift up the mountain at Ski Bowl last summer.   We were on our way up for our 3rd or 4th time down the 1/2 mile alpine slide.

Sweet Alpine Slide

Another Reservation Made

This time for Yellowstone, the last major stop of our trip.  I scored a spot in a campground just FIVE miles from the entrance.