Preparations

Last Saturday, June 25, we picked up the RV, a 30-foot C-class motorhome, from the "Cruise America" rental facility in Danbury, CT. Man, this thing seemed awesome. After an instruction section that was much too short for my liking (and much too long for Rachelle) we headed back to Williamstown. Rachelle and Amaya took the lead in the Subaru Tribeca and Keiko and I took the RV for it's inaugural cruise. Dude, the first 5 minutes with this thing were terrifying! I had no idea how quickly it would respond to the gas, brakes, or steering. Every turn was an exercise in how to drive in other people's lanes. After a half an hour or so, I felt pretty comfortable. We were cruising up Route 7 at the speed limit and it felt pretty good. Keiko fell asleep almost immediately. The hum and vibration of the motor is pretty strong and the air noise and cabin rattle take on a mesmerizing quality after a while. I "cranked" some NPR and we were home after a three-hour drive.

Originally, we had planned to depart on our trip right away, but our plans changed several times over the last few months. Now, Keiko and Amaya were participating in a girls-only soccer camp run by the coach of the Williams Women's Soccer Team and a bunch of her players. The girls were having a fantastic time at camp and we had an extra four days to prepare for our trip. On Tuesday, June 28, we took the RV to Coyote Flaco for a practice driving and parking run. After our first successful parking job, we continued on to the parking lot at Mount Greylock High School and practices our maneuvering skills. We used orange soccer cones and cardboard boxes to mark out some mock parking spots and took turns backing in to them. My parking performance was adequate, but Rachelle's was perfect. She suggested--and I agreed--that this is likely due to a combination of her excellent parking abilities with my outstanding spotting/directing from the parking lot surface. We were checked out.

Packing the RV was stretched over several days. I made a packing list based upon a few I found online and then we started gathering "the stuff." Holy crap. There are so many little cubbies and crannies in that beast that we just had to fill them all up. Nah, we did a pretty good job of paring it down. Six days' worth of clothes and several days' worth of food in the little refrigerator is where we started. The decision NOT to bring the coffee machine was questioned more than once. We'll see how that plays out. Keiko and Amaya invited a few friends to sleep over in the RV during the week, too. Very cute. They were really excited about showing their friends everything about the RV. Over the course of a few evenings I studied how all of the systems worked. Pretty cool that when the "shore line" is plugged in, the air conditioner will work. The refrigerator--which had been maligned in every reference source as being incapable of keeping its contents cold--worked splendidly. The water/shower/toilet plumbing and draining system is still a bit of a "black box" (uggggh). For now, I'm just going to trust that I'll be able to figure it out eventually. After talking with Charley Stevenson, who just made an RV trip near the Grand Canyon, about this, I added a box of disposable rubber gloves to my list of necessities. Fortunately, I knew where I could get my hands on a box of these... After packing the last of the food late Thursday night, we were ready to roll for a Friday morning departure.