I Love April

April 10, 2010
Peoria, AZ

Yes, it's the time of year when pollen fills the Phoenix air and the TV stations run contests for people to predict the first day with 100° high temperatures. For me, it's also the time of year when we get down to the business of hitting the road for the summer. The signs are all around us. We've got clean teeth and groomed puppies and Geri's OK with her doctors until the fall. House projects are either done or as done as they're going to get for now. Coach stuff is in pretty good shape, other than needing a nice wash and wax, and boxes and baskets of stuff are starting to appear around the house in staging areas. Ah, yes, I love April.

Since our last update, we've been busy checking things off the to-do list. I've laid in supplies of things that are difficult to get while on the road, and done most of the routine maintenance (generator oil and filter, chassis lube) that the coach will need. Oil and filters for the coach will be done somewhere on the road this year, based on the mileage since I changed everything in December. I also changed the oil and filter in the Range Rover. I miss "4-year scheduled maintenance". This is the first vehicle that we've had in a long time that we kept beyond the warranty period.

We're having our "last supper" with friends Ana & Larry tonight (Geri's famous Lasagna - woo-hoo!) and we'll bring the coach over to the house to facilitate loading tomorrow and probably once more during the week. I've got a few projects to complete (installing a support so we can have the DirecTV DVR in the front of the coach, upgrading the electrical power protection system, fitting a slab of maple that'll be used as a computer table when we're parked), and I'll wash and wax the roof as well.

We had originally planned to load on April 14-15 and leave on the 16th, but we decided to shift that off a week to give ourselves a little breathing room. We'll now load on April 20-21 and hit the road mid-day on the 22nd.

Our travels will take us west at first, with our first stop being the Lompoc, CA, area. We'll visit with Geri's sister and pick up some wine from various mailing lists we're on (even though we don't have them mail the wine to us - go figure). We'll then head back east, hopefully catching up with our friends Wayne& Eva in Indio, then stopping at the "stick house" to unload wines that need to be in the "wine box". Then we'll continue east, hopefully making stops in Casa Grande, San Antonio, Livingston (TX), New Orleans, and Summerdale (AL) before arriving in Albertville (AL) around May 15th. We'll probably hang out with my brother and his extended family there for the rest of May. From there, the travel plan gets a little murky but, hey what the heck, it's an adventure, right?