The Adventure Begins

Day one of the great RV trip!  There's some symmetry in starting a trip most-ways across the country on September 11th.

We spent the last 3 days at home loading Chuck with enough food and clothes for a 3rd world country, not to mention 2 cases of wine, just in case the rest of the country is out of wine.  Planned departure time - 10am, actual departure time, 11:30.  Not horrible considering it took almost an hour to get out of the driveway.  You'd think backing in would make pulling out easier, but that's wasn't the case.  Many forward/back inches and we still nearly lost an awning.  There will be chainsaw action when we get home.  Finally we would out of the driveway and all the way across the street where we parked ready to attach the Toad (towed = Toad - get it?). 

The cats were pretty patient in their carriers during all this.  The past week's dosing of Feliaway seems to have worked.  I swear I saw Xena with a rolled up twenty dollar bill sniffing over the diffuser but maybe not.  Soon the car was hooked up with only mild swearing and one skinned knuckle and we were on our way.  Of course I nearly turned north instead of south but a quick verbal "what the %$** are you thinking" from the navigator and on we went.  A brief stop at the first tollbooth on the IL tollway assured us that our I-Pass transponders were working.

The roads were pretty good, traffic not too bad, construction tolerable as we tootled along.  At about the 3 hour mark, the cab was increasing warm with sun beating down on Chuck.  We'd had a cab AC problem earlier so I was concerned.  Robin mentioned the heat and suggested turning the fan up from the lowest setting to something a little more robust.  Eureka!  At mid-power we were cool.  You learn something new everyday.  The cats seemed appreciative also.

Next stop - gas station - diesel to be exact, which means, in a 36 ft. RV - truck stop!  We have discount cards and a guide book for Pilot stations so that was the choice.  Bloomington, IL here we come.  Off the freeway, all 36' of Chuck and 12 or so feet of Toad - overall length just under a 1/4 mile.  Pulled in to find about a dozen trucks lined up waiting for fuel.  Screw the discount, on down the road to Citgo - no waiting.  Put the nozzle in, squeezed and a fountain of diesel geysered back out down my hand, the side of Chuck and splattered my shirt.  Great - day one and my favorite shirt has greasy spots on it.  Not to mention - diesel stinks.  Crap.  Tried again - same nozzle, same squeeze, same results, more spots.  What's the definition of insanity???  Third time, gentle squeeze dribbling gas in.  Heck, we only needed 60 gals.  Many minutes and dollars later, we were back on the road, just an hour from our stop for the night - Springfield, IL.

The reasonable cost of camping here at the IL State Fair Grounds almost makes up for the king's ransom (or is that governors' parole) in tolls to get here.  $20 got us a level, 50 amp site with easy back-in.  It helps that the navigator is over 55 years old (we're not saying how many years over).  We unhooked the Toad to back Chuck in (all that work to hook up just to unhook 5 hours later -seems wrong somehow), attached our electrical and water umbilical connections, fired up both air conditioners, released the cats from their carriers and discovered that the battery was dead in the Toad.  A quick call to AAA got the battery charged but there will be some reading of owner's manuals before we connect again! Oh yeah, we also realized that we left the extra set of rig keys hanging on the hook at home.  Guess we better be REALLY careful with the set we have with us.

Warmed up leftover Indian food for dinner, did dishes and now it's 8pm.  Luckily it's dark out so we can finally go to bed.  Of course, the cats have been cooped up all day, so they're raring to go.  Could be a long night!  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little less eventful.