July was a whirlwind.
The month was filled with finishing up last minute things on the truck, including the fiberglass siding, drilling holes for the stub-ups for plumbing, installing the rubber roof, putting on the metal corner guards, installing the door and windows, and the subfloor.
After all of that, we were only off schedule by one day, and left for New Hampshire on August 2nd!
We drove through Washington, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota, and stayed three nights at Will's family reunion outside of Madison, Wisconsin. It took me a few days to learn all 13 of the Marchek sibling's names, but we had a great time visiting and meeting new family, canoeing, swimming, and relaxing!
(We figured out that Radar loves to swim so long as he has a life jacket on that will keep his ears out of the water!)
We put our mattress in the truck and the rest of the space was used for storage, so we had a place to sleep for the night when we stopped in Idaho, Montana, and Minnesota. We learned on the trip that the truck is extremely slow on big hills - we frequently had to put the hazards on - and that it isn't nearly as good on gas mileage as we had hoped. We averaged 10 MPG, putting us at about $800 in gas for the ONE way trip.
Here are some shots from our preparations in July and from our cross country trip
It's important to stretch on the road!
Will in Wall, South Dakota
Swimming in the Columbia River
Stopping for lunch in the Gorge (Oregon side)
Making breakfast in Couer d'Alene, Idaho
Hot puppy
Montana wildfires
It was.
Impromptu swim in downtown Missoula, Montana
Beautiful Minnesota morning
Radar wants to go to Chicago