On the road again!

It's funny how quickly one's spirits can change. After 29 hours of being stranded, we finally got a mechanic who knew what he was doing. The slider was in within 5 minutes of him arriving! "Rob" is the man!

We think it was drained batteries as a result of the wedged tin clippers and our multiple efforts to get it in. Rob used a 12" wrench to crank on some shaft while we pushed / used the motor to get it in. Fingers crossed knock on wood that we're good to go from here on in!

We are now the proud owners of that 12" wrench.... Rob traded it for the tin clippers.

See Yah!



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Stuck in Pacifica CA

We could not have been more excited to get on the road yesterday. We started securing everything in the RV and sliding in the retractable sides. But one side wouldn't move. We literally placed 25+ phone calls to All Star RV "emergency assistance," home office staff and the owner himself. However, being that it was a Sunday making contact with people was proving to be problematic. We kept being told that people were out of cell phone range and/or that a mechanic was on the way. Finally, voicemail boxes were full and we had sat another full day in the same RV park. So we spent another night in Pacifica CA.

This morning a mechanic showed up bright and early. After some tinkering he found what we thought was going to be the problem. A pair of tin snips wedged into a place they shouldn't ever be and preventing the slide out from moving. Alas, removing the misplaced tool did not fix the problem.

Here's the tin snips:

After a couple hours, the original mechanic has been pulled off the job and we are told that another mechanic is en route who can "certainly figure out the problem." So why wasn't he the first person called to assist us yesterday? Great question. Should he not be able to diagnose the problem, a replacement RV should (might?) be showing up at some point this afternoon once it arrives from Las Vegas and gets cleaned.

The bummer of this whole thing is that it puts us behind schedule. We intentionally planned our trip to drive 150-200 miles a day which would allow us time to explore the area where we stopped. Because of the delays we are now going to have to make up for lost time and drive many more hours. Hopefully we can still see the Redwoods and I certainly don't want to miss out on dune buggies in Florence. Obviously the bigger issue would be making sure we arrive at Shane and Thereasa's wedding on Thursday.

Thus far everyone is remaining upbeat, positive and optimistic. But the constant set-backs and lack of customer service is mentally draining.

Hopefully the next post is from 350 miles north of Pacifica CA! Stay tuned.

Go Time!

We picked up the 40 foot RV in Clayton CA yesterday...at a place connected to a feed store! The RV is ridiculous. It really is just a small home; there is so much space inside. It's officially named See Ya by Alfa. Which means we will be calling it Alfie for the duration of the trip. Pics to come soon. We parked it in Pacifica CA right on a cliff overlooking the ocean at the San Francisco RV Park. The summer months here though mean foggy and slightly cool weather and I don't think we packed the right clothing.

Last night, we met some of Keith's college friends out for dinner and drinks in San Francisco. Today we need to stop at a Target-type store to stock up on provisions then find a spot to watch the World Cup final. Michelle arrives around 6:30PM. The plan is pick her up at the airport in Alfie then immediately head north. The next stop is Mendocino CA.

T minus 3

How can the last post be from the holidays?! As long as we have been talking about this trip, it was always in the back of my mind that it just may not happen. It may changed slightly, but it's still a go!

Here's the original mission statement: "Five Friends. Two Dogs. One RV. The trip of a lifetime from Boston to Portland and back." We quickly realized driving all the way across the country was going to take too far too much time which meant that we wouldn't have time to stop and see anything; it would just be straight driving. Though there can be some fun in doing that, that wasn't the trip we were looking to do. So then we thought we could find a one way rental from San Diego to Portland/Seattle. Finding an available RV proved to be far too difficult. We brainstormed on it and finally came up with starting in San Francisco; heading north up the Pacific Coast Highway; at some point head due West from the Oregon coast to hit the wedding in Bend; beeline it to Yosemite National Park; then finish again in San Francisco.

The new mission statement: "Five Friends. One RV. The trip of a lifetime in the Pacific Northwest." Still a damn fine trip if you ask me.

I feel like I'm vibrating waiting to leave on Friday. There is still so much stuff to do in order to be ready to leave though, not just packing things that I wouldn't normally pack for a wedding trip (a headlamp for example) but also stuff like temporarily shutting off our mail.

So stay tuned. We haven't been updating the blog much. But now that the trip is finally upon us, there will be plenty of updates to highlight our temporary home and all the stops along the way.

Let's roll!!!!

How time flies...

Wow. The holidays, new year, getting back to school, the start of another work year... time to get back up to speed with the blog and our search for a sponsor! Goal for the week is to finish off the more extended powerpoint presentation, write-up a one page overview of what we are doing, and develop a list of contacts to get in touch with.

The summer is approaching pretty quickly!

RVing in the Eighties...

So earlier I posted about our RV trip as kids with the promise of some photos!  Well here we are starting out on our trip...My parents, Leslie and Geoff, my brother, Kyle and I with our family friends, Joyce and her three kids, Audrey, Charlie and Will.  By looking at this photo, I definitely think this is the middle of our trip as we all look a little worn out!

The previously mentioned, most memorable moment of our first rv trip, the magnets on our cabinets didn't work so well and every time we went around a corner, we had to hold the doors shut!

A quick stop at Colonial Williamsburg, to stamp out some bricks...

It must have been hot in Virginia...as I can't remember my dad ever relaxing like this before....could have been all the kids driving him crazy!

Audrey and I, in our preteen glory pretending we can drive too!

Disco Era Cross Country

Since I was talking about previous cross country trips already, I had to include a photo from one of my family's numerous trips. Growing up in a military meant moving every few years and our family always made the move into a vacation. If this photo is the trip I'm thinking it is, my parents had my uncle and his buddy (both fresh out of high school) drive our VW bug across the country with us. I'm not sure if that idea was wilder or if it was my handmade clothes. Gotta love the late '70s!

And NO, that is not the RV we want to take on our trip in 2010!

Mini-Road Trips & Dressed Up Dogs

Happy Thanksgiving! Long road-trips over the last couple of days for us all. But, enough of that. On to what's important. Cooper! Here he is, wearing his Thanksgiving Day outfit. Note that Keith had nothing to do with this, as he was in Jersey and Cooper was in New York. Renee is the one to thank for this...

And here's how things are going with training... pretty good! Wondering what should be next... spin the other way round? Get me a beer from the fridge? So many possibilities.

Let's Visit Hillsboro!

Alright, so that title doesn't seem very exciting nor to make sense when this entire blog is devoted to taking a cross country trip. But after you plot all the Hillsboros (including Hillsboro Mountain, VT and Hillsboro Beach, FL) in this country on a U.S. map, you get a different picture all together. Though the two NH ladies on this trip will claim there is a Hillsboro in every state, there is actually only 30 states represented. Which to me is still a strong showing.

So, which ones do we visit?

Found the iPhone App!

I'm pretty pumped! I found an app through the AppStore that let's me post straight to the blog from my iPhone. This is going to be instrumental on the trip!

Picture us driving along, seeing absolutely stunning things across the US, and being able to share them right at that moment - with a little blurb. I took the pic below a few weeks back when I was in south carolina - setting sun behind the blue ridge mountains.


I'm excited to get home and see what the post looks like on the blog.