With all the business this week I forgot to mention the results of our service appointment at Airstream.   They aligned the axles, replaced a few broken parts under warranty, re-packed the wheel bearings, verified that the disc brake pads are still good, and tweaked a few other things.   Overall the Airstream has a clean bill of health and should be good to go for quite a long time before it needs service again.

This morning we hitched up and moved out again, away from the “Mother Ship” Airstream factory and on the road west.   As we were prepping the trailer, we noticed the folks from the previous night who had locked themselves out of their trailer.   Someone had decided to give them a “trailer dumping seminar” at the Airstream dump station.

I have never considered giving a seminar on dumping holding tanks, but from the rapt attention of these folks, it seems like I’d have an eager audience.     We ran into the new owners again a few hours later, at a gas station in Illinois.   They were on their way home to California.   So I gave them a quick summary of overnight parking procedure at Wal-Mart, Cracker Barrel, etc. to which they reacted politely (but I could tell they were thinking, “Never in a million years.”)

Little stops like that are all we are going to get today and tomorrow.   We are moving faster than usual in order to get a few stops completed, and up to Montana, before the weather starts getting too cold and stormy in the mountains up north.   This means we have to make tough choices and skip some places where we would otherwise have stopped.   Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas will all get passed over for the most part, so that we can spend time in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and Alberta.

Covering 1200 miles in four days is do-able, even for us with a kid in the car.   I just hate the sensation of covering miles without seeing much.   On the other hand, I’m alone in the truck and it’s a chance to really think about things.   If I want to talk to Eleanor and Emma I have the walkie-talkie, and if I want distraction I have the iPod.

I have come to measure distances in songs rather than miles, during these long drives.   Perry GA to Vermont was 353 songs.   From Vermont to here (St Charles MO), I’ve listened to only 186 songs (I’ve been thinking a lot).   The iPod has 1,542 songs so I should be good all the way to the west coast, which we will reach sometime in October.   By then we’ll have dropped off the Fit for temporary storage and I’ll have E&E back in the truck, so I may not get much further down the playlist.   When we’re all together it’s hard to listen to music everyone likes.

The new blog is pretty much set up now.   Let me know if you encounter any problems with it.   Once I’m comfortable with it I’ll try to add some nice features for viewing photos, etc.