Day 37: Saturday 31-Jul-1999
From: Bellefonte, Pennsylvania
To: Merrimack, New Hampshire
Distance: 450 mi (720 km)
We set the alarm on 4:30 but were slow getting up. We wanted to get up early so that we could work the hills of Pennsylvania early in the morning to reduce the risk of overheating. Same procedure as usual .. almost. Per was going to put the swimsuits into the shower, when he noticed that the shower was full of water. Then we notices that there were lots of water in the rug on the floor in the bathroom. How could that be?. Aha the kids took a show last night and did not turn off the shower completely, so it had been leaking water the whole night. First it filled up the tank and then the shower tub and finally it spilled over onto the floor. We wiped up most of the water with towels so hopefully this will not case any major damage to the wooden floor that is under the carpet. As Per walked outside of the trailer he noticed a wet spot on the ground so it had definitely leaked. Anyhow we were finally on the road at about 6:30.
The trip home was not too terribly exciting. We drove through at least 40 miles of thick fog in Pennsylvania. Sometimes we had to go through single lane road constructions, in fog. It was tough, because you could not see the signs until we were very close. When arrived home at about 3pm. We had expected our grass to be brown, but it was actually quite green. We had also expected our garden to be dead, but it had born fruits! Ahh .. red rocks and desert is nice, but green lush trees are not bad either. Some of the trees had grown a lot. It was nice to see the house again. We finally got a chance to inspect the storm damage from the 9th of July that John Dustin had told us about. Apparently our kid's trampoline had become airborne during a serious storm and had smashed one of our windows at the SECOND floor. It had also bent our TV dish.
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| Traces of our trampoline having smashed our windows and
bent the TV dish. Our neighbor thankfully helped us in our absence and taped
something over it. |
What about the pets? 38 days at the Kennel is quite long. The dog was just fine. Soon after we returned home he realized we did not have air conditioning at home. They had that at the kennel. Our house gets quite warm during a few weeks of the summer. And the cat? The cat had packed on a few pounds and we worried that he'd take a while to find his good self. It only took a few hours until he returned back home with a chipmunk in his mouth. It was alive, as usual. He let it go before my feet in the kitchen whereupon it started to jump around on its hine legs, spitting out 20 unchewed sunflower seeds. Before I could do anything it jumped underneath our kitchen cabinets using a path previously unknown to me.
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| A basket full of mail and some vegetables from our
garden. The basket was full to the rim when we came home. Above is just the
pure junkmail (about 2/3). |
And Izzy's friend Ben? He was fine. In fact, he also had poison ivy in his face! They caught a 3ft (1m) snake in the grass which they soon hung around their necks. Soon we also realized another sign of being back in NH. The road work flaggers have hairy legs up here unlike in the southwest where some looked nice enough to cause an accident.
Did you like this diary? Did it inspire you to get an Airstream and just go southwest? We're very happy with this trip and will probably do something similar again some day. If you like you can drop us a mail and share your thoughts with us by clicking here.
How far did we go? 9550 miles (15280km). Of that we towed about 5K miles. Our Chevy Suburban was very reliable and managed to burn only a 1/2 quart (1/2 liter) of oil during the entire trip.