A short report on today's preparations - I vacuum packed my autumn and winter clothes in those "space age" plastic bags. Pretty cool! I hope the clothes don't wrinkle too much, but I will certainly find out. These bags will go in the storage area under the RV.
One other note - day of departure is now set for Sunday, July 10.
Eileen
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Itinerary
A few people have asked about our travel itinerary. Generally speaking, we plan to travel across the northern tier of the United States to visit Mackinaw Island, Yellowstone, Glacier, the Grand Tetons, and then to Idaho for a family reunion organized by my uncle in August.
Next we will head for the Washington coast, then down through Oregon. We will spend the holidays - Thanksgiving and Christmas - with our families in northern California, then will go south to warmer weather in San Diego, where Lee went to high school.
Finally, we will head east across the lower tier of the U.S. to Arizona and New Mexico, then New Orleans and the Florida panhandle. We plan to be home sometime in May, to once again pull weeds from the garden!
Hence, all the planning. There's so much to think about!
Getting ready
Hello, all.
For those of you who were not able to follow the blog of our trip through Florida, it is now open to the public and you can view it at:
We hope to leave next week, on about July 8th. There is a slight catch, however. Lee found out, through a magazine article, that a Class B non-commercial license is required in Pennsylvania to drive any vehicle over 26,000 pounds. This was a surprise to us, as no one, not even the dealer who sold the RV to us, had told us this. We have since learned that it is a relatively new law in PA (2007), and that most people either don’t know about the law or choose to ignore it, including the police and DMV!! At any rate, Lee is scheduled to take the driving test next week, July 5. I will sign up for a learner’s permit at the same time. If Lee passes the test, we will leave on the 7th or 8th of July. If Lee does not pass the test, it may be another four weeks before he can take it again.
In the meantime, I thought I would report on our current preparations for the next trip. First off, we will be gone for several months. Given the length of our trip (approx. 10 months) we have been very busy doing the following:
• Fine tuning epayments;
• Suspending services we won’t need (eg, trash removal);
• Visiting doctors, dentists (annual appointments);
• Taking the cars in for their safety inspections;
• Packing autumn and winter clothing;
• Researching house maintenance and winterizing;
• Putting aside items we forgot on our first trip that we definitely want the second time around: back scratcher!);
• Cleaning house and covering the furniture with sheets;
• Checking with the insurance company about their requirements;
• Lee purchased a sling box so we can watch Eagles games (very important!)
In addition, our motor home has been in the shop. I didn’t mention this in the Florida blog but we have discovered that motor homes need almost constant work. The RV is currently in the shop to repair the air conditioning unit, the motorized awning, and two of the four jacks. It turns out that awnings are very important for controlling temperature inside the RV, since they keep the sun off the windows. Jacks are used to level the motor home in a campground, and two of the four would not retract on the Florida trip, so Lee had to crawl under the RV and push them up manually before each departure. Not much fun.
You will hear again from me on July 5 with the results of Lee’s driving test!
Eileen