July 4- Well, the day is almost here. I am sitting in the office at kevins typing this while Morgan worries over the batteries he’s working on hooking up. The goodbyes are said, mostly, and another place has a piece of my heart. I imagine my heart must look like swiss cheese, full of holes for every place I’ve lived and people I’ve loved. I’m glad. I hope all of you have swiss cheese hearts too. Hopefully by the time I post this we will be on the road and cruising, but I did want to quickly write a bit tonight.

This week we have been working on batteries so we can run the fridge and lights when we stop for nights, even if we aren’t hooked up to shore power. We still would like to put on solar panels, but since we aren’t going to be living full-time in the bus in Enderby, we will work on them later on when we aren’t pressed for time. Morgan built a side table we can set up when we stop, and then set our grill out or set up coffee there when you come visit us + the bus. It is the cutest table.

Friday evening the Elmer Jantz family reunion kicked off with supper and we spent some of the meals there this weekend, meeting new friends and connecting with old, and swimming out at the pond. In between meals we worked at cleaning up the lot where we live, loading our Jeep which will stay here for the summer, and hooking up our grey tank under the bus. Morgan figured out how to load our bikes and our flat top grill that we can’t bear to leave here. Actually, we are hoping to use that flat top to make street tacos for a fundraiser in Michigan when we get there! We drove the bus to the reunion Saturday and everything rode fine which is saying something on these California roads.

I am hoping to update the blog here every couple days, or at least more regularly while we are on the road so you know where we are and what we are doing. Our longest travel day is maybe 6 hours of driving and we are excited to take it easy with friends and explore places we decide to stop.

Yesterday we left around 10:30 in the morning with lots of last minute stuff pushing off our departure. What a feeling to finally get on Hwy 99 and start driving! The bus rides pretty smooth at 50 and 60 mph but 55 is really bumpy inside the bus so we had to find the sweet spot. We have some of the windows down for air flow since we don’t run the A/C while we drive. We also are going to try to get our driving done in the mornings so it’s nice and cool. We stopped at the Donner Pass rest area to walk and let the bus rest for a little. When we got to Reno we had a grocery stop to get things for our meals on the road. I found an old stone quarry about a mile off I-80, away down a rough washboard road that we drove down. We parked the bus there on a mesa against some hills. We had steak and salad for supper sitting on our chairs, watching the sunset from start to finish. The traffic on 80 was a low noise and the stars came out slowly. We showered outdoors to cool off because it was warm most of the night. We slept with all the windows open and the desert breezes coming through.

July 6- This morning we were up and on the road by 6:15. We stopped in Winnemucca for coffees (would rate 6/10) and have been cruising along ever since. I drove for a couple hours which was fun. All the campers and vans and RVs wave at us, and lots of trucks too. Soon I’m going to make sandwiches for lunch. We are planning to be at Uncle Deans for the night outside Salt Lake City. Driving 60 mph definitely takes more time so we are glad we didn’t plan any longer days than we did!