Chris and Jay's Odyssey: Departure

Hi Everyone,

The six weeks leading up to and the first few days after we left home was much more hectic and stressful than we had ever imagined. One would think that with 10 months of planning and preparing for our departure we would be relaxed, have everything done, leisurely complete the final details and be on our way. Not to be!!!

Neither of our cars sold as quickly or for the money we wanted (based on Kelly Blue Book values) and the Honda was delivered to the new owner the day we departed. Chris made a 4,000+ mile cross-country trip with her daughter from December 6th to the 17th and her business made more demands on her than she had planned. These obligations cut into the time she needed to sort through and move the kitchen items and supplies, and her office papers and equipment to Sonny, thus causing way too much "last minute" work than we had expected. The weather in Maryland for all of November and December was much colder than anticipated and everything just simply took longer to complete and turned out harder than we thought it would be.

The good news is that even with last minute repairs needed in the house (a leaky pipe under the kitchen sink), in Sonny (the wintry temperatures caused water pipes to freeze) , Christmas and a hundred other little hurdles to overcome, we managed to leave by 5 p.m., Friday the 26th of December - AND WITHOUT A DIVORCE!!!

A little frazzled but happy, Jay is retracting the front support legs of Sonny as part of the last preparations for actually pulling out of the driveway.

Chris, Jay and Max just before getting in "Ol' Blue" and heading down the road.

We are taking care of Jessica's, (Chris' daughter), dog (Max) and cat (Little Miss) while she attends the Coast Guard's Officer Candidate School from January through early May.

Since we had so little experience with how well the contents of the trailer would travel, Chris spent the first 5 miles inside Sonny with a walki talki to tell Jay how it was going. We were pleasantly surprised at how smoothly it rode. Drawers and cabinets stayed shut and we arrived at the RV park in Fort Meade, MD and set up after dark with virtually no problems. Now just because our first day's journey was only 14.1 miles does not mean it wasn't a significant achievement. We were afraid Sonny had sat way too long and been so cold that it wouldn't move at all!!

The weather the next day was actually warm with a balmy breeze as we headed south. The traffic getting around D.C. was terrible (it was the first weekend after Christmas) we got to the RV park at Quantico Marine Base in Va to experience a most enjoyable sunset and evening at our lakefront campsite.