Big Cashew - On the Road Again (or why did I sign up for this ridiculous trip)

Well, its good to be back..  It has been like 6 years since you last saw, read, cursed, wailed or nashed some teeth before during and after reading one of my stories of life on the road.  This one is the a new theme.  We, Chiara and I, are headed on an "Adventure", at least according to the Great Alaskan Holiday company.  As you might guess, this company is in Alaska.  They rent RV's.  Every year they buy new ones that are made in middle America and get suckers, err, customers to drive them up north to Anchorage, Alaska, and they only charge us a discounted amount.  This is the trip I signed up for and volunteered Chiara to be a willing participant.  We have 18 days to drive the "Big Rig" to its final destination.  In the meantime, we can get in whatever site seeing we can drive to.  So this will be the theme over the next two plus weeks.  You will be entertained by our profound statements and pictures that prove what an inane idea this was.  So site back, grab a beer, or something a lot stronger and keep drinking to ease the pain in your head from reading this tome of woe.

Days 1 and 2.

I could not provide you with a write up yesterday as there was not internet where we started our trip.  And day 2 was not much better in that respect.  The internet at the KOA was horrible and dropped every few minutes.

Our 1st day started at 7 AM on Friday.  We had a 10:55 AM flight out in a torrential downpour.  It was raining so hard that I was soaked just taking the suitcases out of car and transferring them to the van taking us to the airport.  Our flight was delayed but we ended getting to Chicago only 10 minutes late.  There we then waited until 4:30 for our charter bus to show up to take us to that town that always sleeps, Wakarusa, Indiana.  Due to traffic and construction, we did not arrive until almost 9 PM.  We were then handed keys to our RV.  The keys only worked the side entrance door as they hold the ignition key until the next morning.  There were endless rows of RV's.  We slept in the RV Friday nite and then Saturday we received orientation on the use of the vehicle (very redundant as I had watched this video 3 times previously).  Since there were about 60 RVs that were being sent up to Alaska, there was a crowd and it took a while to get everyone squared away.  As it turned out, we did not leave until almost noon.  Our goals were to shop for supplies at the nearest grocery and then head west to our reserved campground, only 490 miles away.  A mere short stretch of the legs!!!.  A piece of cake.  Be there in no time.  Of course we did not account for the detour to get to RT 80 that took us about 20 miles out of our way, the traffic going to Chicago, the regular Saturday travelers and a seemingly gale force wind that always appeared to be coming at us like an F5 tornado. We marched on and were making a valiant effort to stay on schedule.  We had to stop at a service center so Chiara could look for nick-naks of Illinois.  This will be another continuing theme, stopping at all truck stops.  Then we stopped to re-position a couple of the suitcases which fell off the bed due to the RV movements.  This stop, at a remote exit,  also added miles as I could not turn around to get back on the highway.  Another 12 mile detour. 

We finally got back on the road and were making headway when I notice my side mirror was not providing a good view of the traffic behind me.  I could not figure it out until I looked closely at the side of the RV.  As a point of reference, the RV has two "bump outs", which means the vehicle living space expands when it is parked.  These have to be closed and re-tracked back into the vehicle before you drive away.  And this was all done correctly.  Unfortunately, about 300 miles into the drive ,the wind must have forced its way under something and the bump out behind the driver was partially pulled out and extended while I drove.  Since it is dangerous to stop on highways, even on the shoulder, I had to get to the next exit.  Once there I surveyed the scene and reacted in my usual calm and orderly style.  I cried my eyes out and cursed all RV manufacturers.  Then Chiara calmed me down and we called Great Alaskan.  Of course they had me try stuff which seemed to work initially, and then the unit would not budge.  The front part was still out while the back end was at an angle instead of parallel to the the side.  I finally has to physically push the back end out forcefully and then push the entire bump out back in.  Then to top it all off, I had to wedge some wooden blocks into the top to prevent the unit from moving in any direction.  As of now, we cannot use this bump out, although there is still plenty of run for us to sit down and eat or whatever.  Also, this issue with the bump out caused the linoleum floor to rip. We found some loose screws under the unit which was a cause of the ripping problem.  This is the manufactures error.  But the fix seemed to have worked, and back on the road we went.  Due to all these stops and issues, we arrived at the KOA in Adel, IA, at 9:16 PM.  Boy am I burned out.  We were on the road for 9 1/2 hours.  The campground was filled but dark as the office was closed.  I did find my reservation in the laundry room.  At least we had the first space so we slid in, got hooked up and tried to recharge from the day.  

So tomorrow is another day.  I promise more pictures.  We head to Midland, South Dakota, just outside of Bad Lands NP.  We hope for smoother sailing also.