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
