Westward Ho the first leg of the trip and a Happy Birthday

We actually left right at the planned time of 6 AM. A new record for us. This was after an immense amount of cleaning and winterizing our Maine home. Jo is very particular about cleanliness at all times but when we leave and when we arrive home its all hands on deck and a clean home is made sparkling. Not an easy job with kids I mean me and Mocha tracking in lol. Well after a rather sleepless night we took off right at 6 for Philadelphia. The new RV GPS I purchased is supposed to keep me out of scary roads, parkways, low overpasses and bridges . It said the quickest RV safe way was to go through NYC and across the GW bridge rather than my sometimes western route using 84/684 and the Garden State. Did I mention a sleepless night pre trip thinking about the narrow lanes and swerving NY drivers lol. The GW bridge is stressful driving my pickup over without my Airstream, well to make a lonnnng trip story short traffic was a consistent mess all the way to our campsite in Southern NJ near Philly. What should have taken 7 hours took almost 10 but we made it safely and checked in to a nice campground.

The next day we had a little time before heading to my son’s place for dinner so we decided to check out the “Rocky” steps. For you youngsters reading this it was a movie about a prizefighter who despite all the odds made it big in part by using the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps to train. Jo ran up the steps and I took pics with the statue and of Jo running up the steps lol. Oh and our Pomapoo also ran up the steps.

After a nice night catching up with Zach, Marcos and Amanda we learned we could be babysitters for the day Friday so headed back to the campsite for a quick rest. Even though Marcos had a cold he was a real joy to be around. Always happy and with the Zach devilish gene. He kept going over to one of the outlets (one had a TV cord and the other outlet baby proofed) and threatened to pull a cord out turning to look a us as he did it and smiling. Thank you Amazon for next day delivery of cord protectors which i promptly installed.

Saturday was the one year old birthday party for Marcos. My daughter Jess and her family came down from NH as well As Amanda’s parents and her sister and niece. Marcos enjoyed being the hit of the party and partied hard until we had to leave to get back to Mocha. Great to see the kids, grandkids and Amanda and fam. Will be missing them while away but so much love was shared at the party. So blessed.

I havent mentioned that it was raining when we got to NJ breaking our record of rainless days on our last cross country trip but we felt very blessed were not getting the life threatening disaster of a Hurricane ripping through Florida, Georgia, SC and NC. We are praying for all of those affected.

Tomorrow we are off to an overnight stop in western PA on our way west to Oregon and California driving til we run out of road!