We are back on the road. This is the seventh winter we plan to cross the US from Rochester to Los Angeles and return. The plan is a bit obscure right now. We have made it to Malena and Dan’s in Covesville, VA (that’s Charlottesville for most people). The trip started a day early because there was a forecast of ten inches of snow overnight on January 1. Rather than see what would happen we left on the first at 2 PM. This was exciting as we decided to try for this at 9 AM while dawdling over breakfast. From the moment we said “let’s try” we went in to high gear and by 1:50 PM the car was ready to tow with the bikes on the roof and almost everything was packed in some fashion or other. I say almost because some things got left behind, most notably all of the dressier shoes I usually move back and forth except my sneakers and sandals. The dressiest shoes I have are docksider type shoes and I guess they will do until we get to a shoe outlet in our wanderings.

The plan for now is St Petersburg, FL from January 13 to 17 taking a stop in Raleigh, NC to visit the Cohens on Thursday the 10^th. From there we roll over to I 95 down to Jacksonville, FL and across to Ft Desoto where we have reservations while we visit Carol’s bother and sister-in-law Art and Natalie. Other family concerns might force us to go deeper into Florida for a day or two but we firmly intend to be on our way west no later than the 19^th. We may stop in Louisiana on our way, but we have no reservations for Marde Gras and I understand it is at the end of January into the first week in February. We will have to avoid that. We hope to begin our eastward journey well into April which should make Utah and Colorado doable on our way east. This all remains to be seen. We have family concerns that will necessitate my flying back to Rochester a couple of times and may cause other unplanned diversions.

As we prepared to depart several concerns plagued me. The biggest was getting the water system back together and dewinterized in the expected deep freeze of Rochester. Another was my four new back tires. Finally, I had dragged the hitch pretty hard on the last stop of our summer run and I was worried about that. None of these caused a problem. I did find that the 12 volt power points by the driver were not working meaning I could not run the computer without running the generator while underway. The other was the entry door would not open easily from the outside. Since I found myself going in through the driver door to open the entry door for Carol a couple of times this was nasty. Fortunately a liberal does of silicone spray (not WD-40) freed up the catch and all is working there. Next, I pulled out the chassis builder’s operational manual for the fuse layout and wonder of wonders it pointed me to the exact fuse that might be causing the problem. As it was too cold to stand outside the driver door and lean in under the dash, I pretzeled myself around the drivers seat and located the fuse. I pulled it and upon examination I could see it was blown. I had a spare which I plugged in and it is working for now. I just bought 5 replacements for the mini 20 amp fuse, just in case. I had been carrying the one I had since our first trip in Goliath 7 years ago.

I have washed off the Northeast salt and road grime and other than a large drawer that has fallen off its slide everything is ready for us to move on when the time comes.

Our visit with the kids lasted until Thursday, the 10^th when, as planned, we left for Florida by way of Raleigh. Before we could leave some more repairs became necessary. A drawer that carries considerable weight in food, batteries and other sundries decided that its track had been sufficiently abused by rough roads and it dropped a bunch of ball bearings and other parts in my lap as I tried to reseat it. I got it back together, sort of, and set out to find replacement parts which are now in storage awaiting a down day with mediocre weather or a total collapse of the existing track, whichever comes first. Having satisfied myself that I could accomplish no more in that arena, I set out to put the under sink drinking water filter back into service, the very last step in dewinterizing the water system. I no sooner hooked it up and turned it on than it sprayed water in my face. Further examination determined that the plastic shaft that passes through the counter has a small hole in it. No reasonable repair is likely, need to buy new, and of couse the only way to by new is a complete kit. It awaits installation.

As we set out from Dan’s we stopped at the bottom of his road to reconnect the car for towing. As I started to walk to the door to drive off I noticed that the rock guard which extends across the rear of the coach was not hanging right. Closer examination revealed that one of the two welds that it hangs from had broken. This approaches being a show stopper. I tied it up with bungy cords and said to Carol that surely we would find someone with a welding setup along the road who could fix it easily. 120 miles later just after a driver change I spotted Tony’s Painting and Body Shop just south of Tightsqueeze, in Chatham, VA on US 29. I pulled in and went in to see if Tony could help. Boy could he help! He pulled his welder out to the coach and stationed a helper to reset the breaker every time he tripped it while redoing the weld. 15 minutes later we were headed down the road and Tony, who has his own RV refused to accepted any payment for helping another RVer with a problem.

Thus we made it the Harv and Lisa Cohen’s in Raleigh where we parked on the street in front of their house as we had four or five years back. I had forgotten how steep the street is. The back of the coach was so low that water would not flow up hill from the rear bath to the holding tank. We also tripped the GFI in the garage during the night and woke up to battery power only. Not a real issue except when it comes to grinding the coffee beans. I fired up the generator for that chore as the inverter had also gone on strike. Not a good start to the day! We did have a wonderful visit and got to see their daughter Rebecca in her goalie array at practice and dinner at Sweet Tomato.

First thing in the morning we rolled out with Florida in our sights.