Aerie Report, June 1, 2010

The showers (quite heavy at times) continued for much of the morning and ended between noon and 1 PM. The sun then came out and the temperature climbed to near 80 degrees. At nightfall, there wasn't a cloud in the sky and, with the minds still blowing from the north quadrant, it should get very comfortable tonight.

I'll be heading north early tomorrow morning to the land of dial-up connections. Then early Thursday, I'll be bringing the trailer down to Ives Run Campground for a week. Check-in time is 4 PM so I'll have to time my arrival to around that hour.

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Got most of the things I needed to get done finished today while waiting for Don and Adam. They plumb forgot to show up, however, so Terry gets to deal with them tomorrow afternoon--if they remember. The two of them have so much going on in their lives right now it isn't funny. They were both better off when we were building the Aerie and they had one job to focus on for nine months.

Anywho, I've made arrangements for all the bills to be paid either on-line, automatically, or via credit card so as long as we have email access we're okay. I'll just have to get into a routine for dealing with it. (Actually, there is one car loan that we have to pay with a coupon book. Setting it up to pay electronically would cost an extra $30 a month so we'll do it the old fashioned way. I wonder what they'll think when they get a payment postmarked from Fairbanks and another from Colorado Springs?) Terry will arrange to have the mail stopped and held until we get back.

We've got a reservation for the first weekend on the road (two nights in Volo, IL as we say hi! to our DIL's parents). Good thing I called today, too. The fella on the phone said they are booked for this weekend and had only one or two slots for the 11th and 12th.

Besides the actual tour with the Good Sam folks, these are the only reservations we've made so far. I like to think of it as maintaining flexibility. It wouldn't take a mechanical breakdown on my part to throw everything a kilter. A major accident or construction work could ruin my driving schedule enough that we would want to stop earlier than planned. I've tried to plot a course that will give us plenty of time (no more than 6 hours driving, for instance, and a time limit of from 9 AM to 4 PM) to get where we are going. I even put an extra day in the plans so we can do a little sightseeing or move on to get to Dawson Creek a day early. It's all dependent upon how we feel, what the roads are like, and how the weather behaves.

Yeah, I've--make that WE'VE--planned things out carefully, but a major road trip like this is like a military battle: once it has begun, you can throw the plans out the window. That's one of the reasons we opted to do the bulk of the trip (43 days) with a group that has a Wagon Master and Assistant. Not just the extras such as the meals, tours and shows that Good Sam has arranged, but the logistics of time, distance, and booking a parking space at the campground. Those days should be a snap. It's the fourteen days getting to Dawson Creek and the twenty days getting home that will be a bit of a task. (Although, the layovers in Portland with the kids Colorado Springs with some even bigger kids, will take some of the pressure off.)

Yes. I am rambling--a little. Call it nerves. Or anticipation. There are a million and one things going through my mind: Have I forgotten to do something here at the Aerie--or the Bolt Hole--that needs to get done? Have I packed all the gear I will need? Should I bring this, that, or the other; or will they be just so much extra weight? Are we ready for 75 days on the road?

Oh well, that's why we will have the trailer parked at Ives Run for six days for a shake down/refresher in camping. Just like when you were a little kid camping in the backyard, there's always the option of going inside if things aren't working out.