"Tiny House, Big Living....."

Our intention was to depart my sister's property between 1000 and 1100, and as we pulled away I glanced down at the clock and saw that it was 1033......I guess that pretty much qualifies as 'between', right?

This is the third time we have parked the Newell on my sister's property in Spokane, and the second time with the trailer.  With the trailer it is a four step process to leave.....the first step occurs when we arrive......we must turn the trailer around so when we leave we can just hook up the Newell facing the correct direction on her 'DEAD END' street (with no adequate turnaround for our 62').  I guess we could wait until the day we leave, but then that would increase our departure time by at least 30-40 minutes, so we just do it when we arrive.  On departure day we must (first) back the coach up an incline to street level, then pull in front of the trailer, and (secondly) back up to drop the trailer on the hitch.  Once the trailer is hooked up then I must pull forward about 50 feet in order to drop the rear door on the trailer to (thirdly) insert the VW.  The entire process takes about an hour, give or take a few minutes, providing nothing goes wrong.....

......I had noticed the day before when I was cleaning the windshield so I could apply the 'Rain-X' (the forecast shows a lot of rain along our proposed route and this helps shed water off the windshield quickly) that the left lower corner of the the driver's side windshield had kind of popped out of the rubber gasket.  This can happen with almost any Class A motorhome......the forces exerted on the frame when attempting to level a Class A motorhome will sometimes cause this to happen, and it has now happened to me.  I can only assume this happened when I was leveling after arriving at my sister's home.  I had to level side to side and front to back, and I'm pretty sure I did it in the wrong order.....normally I level side to side first, then front to back if necessary, but I think I leveled front to back first.  At any rate I could not do anything about it until I started the Newell Wednesday and brought the coach back to ride height.  When I did that around 0900 the window moved back a little, but not all the way, so I had to get two putty knives to 'massage' the rubber molding up, and over the lower lip of the glass while gently pushing the windshield back into position.  It took about 30 minutes to get the desired result.  If you go too quickly you will end up with a cracked windshield.  My patient efforts were rewarded, and then it was time to back the Newell up to street level to hook up the trailer.....so from beginning to end, including the impromtu windshield repair, it took about 90 minutes. before we were rolling our wheels.

Our initial route plan had us heading directly south on HWY 195 from my sister's home traveling through Colfax, and Walla Walla on our way to Hermiston, OR and a Passport America RV park (Pioneer RV Park) for our first night (we needed to dump our gray and black tanks, which hadn't been emptied since Vancouver, WA on October 4th, and now it was October 28th).  We wanted to take this route as it would be totally new territory to us, but as we watched the weather forecasts portending copious amounts of rain along that route we opted to take the more familiar, shorter route out I-90 to US 395 and south to Hermiston.  Our initial route was about 45 miles longer than than the second option, but we figured it was worth it to see some new scenery.  Ultimately, the forecast changed or plans, and we opted for the more familiar, shorter route.

As we cruised first southwest on I-90, then southeast on US 395 we talked about how little we had actually lived in our home on wheels in the last 24 days......in all we had only lived in the Newell 4 of the past 24 days......that is extremely unusual for us, and now as we take a month to return to our home base in SoCal we will rectify that inequity in a big way.

We timed our departure from Hilary's home to travel during the forecast 'rain free window' hoping to arrive in Hermiston before the rain began, and we were completely successful.  Normally we stop every 70-100 miles as we travel to take mini breaks, but I was feeling so good, and the driving conditions were so optimal that I drove the 176 miles non-stop arriving in Hermiston about 1350 hours......3 hours and 17 minutes after leaving Spokane....and just 60 minutes before the rains came.  Over the next few days we hope to travel during the non rainy portions of each day....we'll see if that works.   

As we settled into the afternoon, and early evening I realized that for the first time in weeks our Newell was our home once again.....it feels good to be back in our 'tiny house'........our home.  We watched several previously recorded programs on our DVR, as well as game two of this year's World Series between the Mets and Royals......the Royals, unexpectedly, won 7-1 over Jacob deGrom, the Mets' pitching ace.

The skies are clearning!

Life is good......thanks for stopping by!