We woke up Monday morning eager to head out on our excellent adventure. Roger opened the garage door and found a heart-warming surprise on the driveway between the RV and the garage. Our friends, David and Elizabeth, had left us a three-foot tall wooden Christmas reindeer (a revolving joke between us), and the reindeer was holding some wonderful adventure send-off gifts.
We planned to leave before noon, however, "we" refers to Roger and me, not to the RV. The RV apparently didn't want to leave that soon. At 11:00 a.m., we were running just a little behind our plan, but we thought we would leave within an hour. Roger turned the refrigerator on so it would be cold when we were ready to move food into it. But, the refrigerator did not get cold. After working with it for a while and talking to two different RV mechanics about it, Roger took the RV to the repair shop (where he had to go at some point anyhow to fill the propane tank). It turns out that this make of RV refrigerator takes about 24 hours to cool down and will not cool down on a slant (like our driveway). So, Roger and the RV were back in the driveway an hour later, ready to move forward.
I continued to load, load, load......what a lot of stuff we loaded even after we finished loading all Rebecca's stuff! Roger began filling the water tank. That's where the problems continued. He discovered we had no water pressure. He worked with the system for about an hour and then took the RV to the repair shop, again. Luckily, the water system was fine, it just works differently than our old RV. He was almost back to our house when a loud non-stop alarm starting screaming at him indicating that one of the leveling jacks was down. So, he turned the RV around (no small feat!) and headed back to the repair shop. This time, there was a problem, but just a small one and he now knows how to handle it if it should happen again.
Another two hours, and Roger was back home with the RV again. By now, it was about 5:00 p.m. and everything was working. Since we had thought we were only an hour from leaving when the issues started, it seemed logical that we were only an hour from leaving at this point. But, as we started into the last minute things, like loading the motorcycle onto the end of the RV, we discovered that we had quite a list of last-minute things to accomplish since we will be gone over two months. Thus, it was 11:30 when we finally pulled out.
As soon as we got on the road, I turned on my laptop and tried to tether with my phone for Internet service so I could update the blog. But, I couldn't get connected. At that point, it was too dark, and I was too tired to go forward. So, I just put my computer away and opened that little bag of goodies from David and Elizabeth and did a bit of initial practice playing our new harmonica! I have to say that a harmonica is a charming instrument. Even though I have no general musical skill and no harmonica experience at all, I was able to generate some sweet sounds and some simple songs. My best creation were melancholy sounds that Roger says would go well with a cowboy movie or a war-time movie.
Since we got such a late start, we planned to drive to the reststop just north of Austin and stop for the night. We figured that we would much appreciate being past Austin traffic when we woke up. Well, as luck would have it, the reststop was closed due to construction. So, we drove on looking for a Wal-mart (since Wal-marts invite RVers to spend the night) so we would not have to drive clear to the next reststop. We didn't find a Wal-mart before the next reststop......and, unfortuneately, we didn't find the next reststop either. Finally, we found a Sam's Club in Waco at about 3:00 a.m. and spent what was left of the night there.
It was cool enough that we did not need to run the air conditioner (which is good since it prolongs the need to refill the propane tank). Since we have Rebecca's mattress strapped to one bedroom wall and her mattress box strapped to the other bedroom wall, we couldn't get a great breeze through our open windows, but it was still pleasant enough to sleep comfortably.
We got up this morning and walked around Sam's Club, HEB, and Wal-mart to get some wine, breakfast, and ice packs. Since our freezer seems to work fairly well, but our refrigerator isn't as cold as we would like it, we are going to freeze some ice packs and then use them to help the refrigerator stay cold.
We left Waco about 10:00 this morning, and I again tried to tether to my phone to get Internet service. I was unable to do so on my computer (again), but this time I tried Roger's computer and got right on. So, since then, Roger has been driving down the Interstate and I checked our e-mails and am now typing in the blog. When I finish here, I will then grade some papers from our online college classes and send feedback to our students and then I will work on aligning science test questions to state standards. This drive and work plan is going well....as long as I have work I can do in Roger's computer. Hopefully, I will eventually figure out how to get my computer on.
We were a little concerned that the police would not like the fact that our scooter covers up our license plate. But a policeman passed us a while ago and didn't seem to mine.
Right now, Roger is manipulating his way through some very tight lanes of construction in Dallas. He says that our mirrors almost touch the mirrors of the semi trucks in the next lane. Nasty!
Even though we got a late start, we are rolling along nicely now! We are going to head out of Dallas on Highway 30 and towards Arkansas.
Internet tethering permitting, we will be blogging again tonight or tomorrow morning. Until then....Adios!
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