Departure Day 10-15-2018

We pull out of the Columbia River RV park and head to Davey Rocket’s for the final adjustments to the tow bar. Davey assures us there will be room on the lot so we will not need to park in the middle of the street. We are now 4 days later than we wanted to be because of the tow bar and two weeks later because of the medical delays I had, so our drive to TX will not be leisurely. We arrive at Davey’s and no room to park, Angela has been pretty patient at this point but comes unglued this morning as the big trucks are rushing by, she jumps out and runs to Davey’s lot looking for him and wanting to express her anger at him not making space for us and again putting us in danger on the road. Davey is nowhere to be found so she takes her anger out on one of the workmen who calmly says you might want to talk to Davey. Davey shows up and jumps in to a large RV to drive it up the street allowing the space that should have been available now available. He comes back and by now steam is coming out of Angela’s ears, she lets him have it, I stand back as no use in getting involved in this one. I can see Davey doing a dance to avoid the verbal attack that Angela is giving him. The Mini Cooper is done, Davey picked the drop receiver this morning on the way to work, everything is finally coming together. One of the problems is making sure the steering wheel does not lock, most cars have a locking mechanism that if you do not have the key in the ignition the steering wheel will lock. With the key in the ignition it activates the electrical system which without the engine on will drain the battery, a problem that will plague us down the road. Davey shows me how the hookup works and he says let’s go for a drive to make sure all is working well. With key in the ignition, verifying the steering wheel does not lock, stick in neutral and hand brake off we head down the road for a test run, it all feels well. The tow bar and extra-long receiver makes the total length of our vehicle 45 feet long. That’s a lot to get down the road. There is a learning curve getting use to driving almost 20,000 lbs. and 45ft in length down the road. The Cooper follows easily and, on the Hwy, only a slight difference than before. Planning your route, turning radius and parking are a must, no backing this train up or you will damage the tow bar and vehicle. We have another errand to head back to the Quest lab to get my urine test done before we head down I5 out of town. Its late in the afternoon and we plan to stop at Camping World in Wilsonville outside of Portland OR to see if they have a Roadmaster Tow Defender Protective Screening. They do but getting it installed was a week out due to scheduling plus it was really expensive. Off we go headed as far south as we could go while its still light as Davey’s electrical light guy did not show up for the install, so we have brake lights for the Cooper but nothing else, the only saving grace is the Cooper is low to the ground and the RV lights are up high easily visible to cars behind us, its still illegal if a state patrol wanted to they could issue us a ticket. Angela is searching on her iPhone places to stay, we consider Eugene as the sun is setting, we head to a COSTCO as they are the best on gas prices. We fill up and look for food, we find a park Armitage a old familiar haunt of my high school days, we drive in to find its all full. We are starving and find a Market of Choice not to far away as the have good pre-made food. We fill up and grab a few things that don’t need to be refrigerated and head down to Creswell OR where Angela found Meadow Lark RV I’m nervous driving, concerned about our tow vehicle lights being seen, we keep pledging to ourselves to not travel or set up in the dark. We arrive past check in and drive through this small tight RV park to find a drive through space and set up.