July 2007-The Adventure Begins

The Adventure Begins:

Well, the Davis Family is off on our first adventure. We are headed to and should arrive in Lewiston, Maine by tomorrow morning July 30th. We left the DFW area on Tuesday morning July 25th, after a cruise to Mexico (life is hard on Island Time, as you can see here)

a week at South Padre Island and a brief visit in Perry, Oklahoma.

The picture below is NOT Perry, Oklahoma, by the way. I am still trying to understand the posting procedures for this blog, and for the time being I am entering photos by cutting and pasting the HTML markers. I suck at this. This is somewhere on the north side of Lake Superior.

We have driven the ENTIRE length of I-35 (from South Texas all the way to the end in Duluth, Minnesota). By the way, there are A LOT of corn fields in Iowa and Kansas.

Again, this picture is not a cornfield in Iowa. I still suck, and this is still Lake Superior.
Minnesota is BEAUTIFUL!! We didn’t get to spend much time there but are now planning on taking an assignment somewhere in Minnesota to afford some time to enjoy the rolling hills, beautiful forests, and MILLION lakes/rivers. After a full inspection at the Canadian border (which included extending all the slides out for the border patrol and maybe a little canine compost left as a sign of cross-border good will)... (cont'd below next 3 pictures)

Us parked at an Indian casino in Northern Minnesota, Superior in the background. Some nights we were not too particular about where we laid the landing gear!

Allison and the mutts at Two Harbors, Minnesota. We heartily recommend the 80-mile day trip called North Shore Drive for anyone visiting the North Woods area (as if anyone from Texas except those fruitcakes Scotty -n- Ali would ever come here!).

Canadian Border Patrol, protecting their country from Spies Like Us. They refused to believe that, being from Texas, we didn't have ONE SINGLE GUN. I believe they expected to see a Colt Peacemaker strapped around my waist.


(continued, as promised, from above) ...we began our international journey. We drove through Canada, all the way around the northern side of Lake Superior. Again, beautiful scenery. We were unaware of how mountainous southern Ontario is. The drive was difficult and long…but a journey we shall never forget. Cell service was spotty at best, everyone sounds like Bob and Doug MacKenzie on the old Saturday Night Live (those that don't speak only French), RV accommodations were, well, marginal….but all in all a fun trip.
It took us over an hour to get through the American Border Patrol to re-enter the USA in Vermont…but the wait was well worth it…Northern Vermont is absolutely gorgeous. I can’t describe it…like a postcard, just better!! Tomorrow morning, we take off one last time (for a while) for Maine. We will be there until about Thanksgiving….we will keep everyone posted…..

The Night We Stayed At St. Johnsbury VT:

Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We miss everyone back home!! Keep us updated with your lives as well!!

Love
Scotty and Allison

PS: Things we have learned thus far:

Carry wet-wipes in the car so when you drop your chocolate bar between your legs at 70 MPH you don’t later look like you pooped your pants while pumping diesel at a truck stop where everyone's handle is 'Killer' or 'Butch'.

Always, always look for objects in the way of your slides being retracted….otherwise, you may squish the object and bend the slide (for example, a steel garbage can doesn't compress very efficiently).

Just because it doesn’t say anything about mountains on the map doesn't necessarily mean it's anything close to flat. There is a good reason that the map north of where we were in Ontario is just a blank space overlaid with Medieval text that says 'Here There Be Dragons'.

This is what it looks like north of the Trans-Canada Highway (and, as far as we can tell, all the way to the Arctic Circle)

RV directories must be on the take…otherwise there is no way they would recommend some of the places we have stayed. It is conceivable that the RV park can be located in the middle of a sewage treatment plant and still get moderately acceptable ratings. THIS IS THE RECREATIONAL VERSION OF PAYOLA…

RV people are funny kind of folk….friendly, just take a little getting used to. Original teeth are optional. They all wanna know what fuel mileage we get, so Scotty has a new game where he lies just to watch their eyes get red. Think they’re gonna stroke out...

The phrase “expect isolated showers”, when uttered by a weather forecaster in Vermont, really means “stand real still while someone on a ladder pours a bucket of ice water over your head”.

If you drive a big, shiny rig, EVERYONE will come and want to talk about it when you pull into most parks. Usually these are guys with no hair in Mandals, high socks (and GARTERS for God's sake!) and no shirt. These guys REALLY need to wear shirts, they all look like crepe paper and have wattles.

While frustrating and time-consuming, leveling the rig and checking electrical outlets BEFORE you unhitch can be very rewarding at about 2 in the morning. Beds work way better when all four corners are in the same ZIP code.