White Knuckles

As Jimmy mentioned, I finally had my turn at the wheel this evening. I took over before we got to the PA mountains whose curves in the road left my hands sweaty and white knuckled. At first I couldn't even look in the side mirrors or take my eyes off of the road in front of me without feeling like I was swerving into the other lane. Once I learned how the wheel and pedals felt, I was almost able to loosen my grip. The sweet sounds of the new Earth to Eugene album (thanks Andy!) helped calm my nerves too. Towards the end of my shift, I was able to keep one hand on the wheel and use the other to pet the dog as she panted nervously by my side. She's really surprised me on this trip so far. She's a clingy dog but I've never seen her like this.. I move, she moves. She pants. She sits up. She pants. She lays down. She sits up 2 seconds later, etc. Its like she can't get settled. The RV does some clanking around and with each clank, she gets startled. She just wants to sit on our lap whether we're driving or not! The cat on the other hand is like a rock star in here. He's come out of his crate to explore and ended up spending hours chilling at the dinette table, on the couch and even on my lap while I rode shotgun for a bit. The coolest thing so far was seeing the cat and dog sit side by side on the couch. I wonder if this trip will give them a chance to really bond? For those that know them, they've gotten better over time but they certainly aren't on best friend terms yet! ;) We've got some funny pics of them which we'll be posting at some point, so stay tuned!

I think I drove a total of 200 miles (give or take) today. Jimmy's on his second leg of driving now and we are indeed stopping just outside of Columbus tonight. Its 2:27am as I write this and I'm just getting my second wind thanks to that late night grande nonfat iced latte from the 'bucks! We're about 30-40mins from the Cross Creek Camping Resort where we will spend the night or wee hours of the morning depending on how you look at it! We're getting there after hours so we were told to sign in on the sheet outside the office and pick an open spot. Being that this will be our first experience at an RV park, it'll be interesting to see how this all works out. We're definitely wanting electricity tonight to blast some AC! Its been a hut hut sweaty day since the RV itself doesn't have air unless we are hooked up to power. The front dash air does work, so providing we're sitting up front, we're cool-ish. We do have a generator, but its not working...probably for the best since using it blows through even more gas than we're already using. Though, as we're coasting now at 65mph, there is a fabulous cross breeze we're getting from having all of the windows open.

The music is helping to push us through and the sound system in the Four Winds is great! This reminds me that I must mention someone who has helped make this trip what it is - our friend Scott. He's the proud owner (much to his wife's dismay!) of the RV we're driving and was kind enough to let us borrow it for our drive as well as our time in San Francisco. Thanks again, we'll never forget this!

And here we are, again......at a gas station filling up before we get to the RV park. Any guesses on what a full tank costs us? We've got a 50 gallon tank and it was $3.92/gallon so you do the math!

At this point, I'm ready to be done with the road for the day. I'm sure Jimmy, Sebs and especially crazy Daisy would agree! Good night, or shall I say morning since its 3:03am as I sign off.......

~*Jennie*~