Our First Day On The Road

We’ve been MIA from the blog for a while due a crazy last month prepping for the trip.  Most days were filled by a never-ending TO DO list; and any free days were spent trying to see friends and family as much as possible.  We’ll elaborate more on the Trip Prep stuff in a separate blog post but allow me to take a moment and say we have incredible friends/family!  It seemed like every weekend included a going-away party or happy hour to celebrate our trip.  We’re not even sure why they like us so much!  I guess every group needs a couple clowns to keep them entertained : )  We can’t thank everyone enough…Gracias!

Now on to our first day on the road!  We woke up, drank coffee, and then proceeded to ask each other every 15 minutes “is this really happening today?!?”  What looked like a nicely packed truck & camper turned into an episode of Hoarders as we crammed in every last minute item that we probably won’t need.  “Cheese grater?…sure, chuck it in.”  Jenna must have assumed we would never see running water again when she packed a five year supply of baby wipes.

Packing the camper.  What did we forget?

Once out of the driveway it was smooth sailing…for the first 500 yards.  We hit 40mph and realized that the door clips on our fancy new wind fairing didn’t allow the door to seal correctly, and created a terrible wind whistle.  Not turning back, we cranked up the music and headed for the mountains.

It wasn’t long before I spotted our first detour…Naughty Girl Donuts.  Had to!  Three of their ridiculous donuts disappeared and after talking to the owner about our trip we walked away with a bunch of free grub for the road!  Thanks Naughty Girl!

We chose to take the smaller roads and U.S. Rt. 50 to avoid traffic and get the road trip started off right.  Mile after mile of 9% grade with 20mph turns was a great test for the brakes and suspension.

Detour number two happened when I got it into my head that I must have a grilled steak on the first night.  It’s going to be a lot of PB&J and ramen noodles going forward so why not celebrate a bit!  Two ribeyes onboard, I was getting a bit hangry so when Jenna mentioned a camp site 30 mins away, I ditched the plan to boondock on the edge of Wayne National Forest.  We rolled into the campground to see 10 RVs and no tents, but it was on the water and I had steak on the brain.

Within the hour we were set up, steak sizzlin’, and sippin’ the celebratory wine my mom bought us for our engagement.  We made a toast to all the crazy decisions and work that led to this point and finally felt our shoulders get a little lighter. Damn this feels good.