Maiden Voyage

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

We are on the road again only this time the 4-Runner is getting a well deserved rest in our garage in Lexington and we are navagating our way to Arab (pronouned A-rab), Alabama in the land yacht and tugging the trusty little Camry along behind. We delayed this maiden voyage repeatedly due to various circumstances, the latest one being some deadly weather that developed directly in our pathway to Alabama. It was a wise decision. The storm passed over Lexington at 1:30 in the morning rocking me out of bed. The cable was out so I got on the laptop and found that there was a tornado warning, not totally unheard of, but very rare in Lexington in the winter. You would have thought that I would have been smart enough to at least be freaked out about it but one of my obsessions over rode my good sense and I diverted my attention to CNN.com for election results. More on that at another time.

So on this damp drizzly morning we situated Breezy's bed and chew bones behind the co-pilot's seat (mine), buckled up and John (the pilot) navigated the BUS down McCowan's Ferry Road to the Bluegrass Parkway and we were on our way. It was great. It was cool. We were taking in the scenery and enjoying the smooth and quiet air ride. I kept the instruction manual (known from here on as The Bible) in my lap so I could attempt to answer each of the pilot's one million and one questions which arose as we traveled down the road. I got reports in ten minute intevals on our fuel economy (funny). "According to the computer we are getting five and a half miles to the gallon." Ten minutes later: "According to the computer we are now getting six miles to the gallon." Gee...our trip to the poor house just delayed itself by about a week...

As we approached Bowling Green I got up and went to the galley to fill Breezy's water dish and check cupboards for shifting items (nothing moves...it's a miracle) when I heard John ask me to check weather.com and see what kind of weather that we were driving into. I looked out the front window and saw a massive bank of black clouds looming in front of us. I got the laptop out, plugged in the air card and waited...and waited...and waited. Apparently we were too far from a signal to get online. No problem. We have Sirius Radio and it has an emergency and weather channel. So I turned on the radio and tuned into channel 184. After hearing about the devastation that the line of tornado-producing thunderstorms was currently wreaking on Mississippi and Tennessee we were informed that there was another band of dangerous storms forming near the southern border of Kentucky. Unfortunately they didn't specifiy WHERE on the border. Judging by the smut black clouds and the wind gusts that were gaining strength as we continued on our journey we guessed it was close to where we were. Soon we were being buffeted around on the highway by the wind. John was gripping the wheel with white knuckles as he corrected for every blast of wind. He said it was like driving a giant bread box down the highway.

Thirty minutes later we had dodged the big black cloud bank and were again motoring down the highway with Breezy in her bed behind me and The Bible in my lap answering more questions. It was great. It was cool. John seemed a little more relaxed with the wind conditions and we were tuned into CNN radio listening to the latest political updates when all of the sudden a huge gust of wind hit the BUS and something (like ALL HELL) broke loose on the top of the thing. The Bible hit the floor and I raced to the galley where I could see something resembling fabric attempting to beat the exhaust fan to death. John is screaming, "WHAT IS IT?!!" and I'm screaming back "IT LOOKS LIKE THE FAN!!" and he screams, "WHAT??? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" (over the racket that was going on it was not a surprise) and I screamed again, "IT'S THE FAN!!!" and this scenario repeated three times before I filled my lungs to capacity and bellowed, "THE FAN...THE #%$*# FAN!!". He heard me.

He pulled over on the shoulder of I-65, got out and crawled up a bank on the side of the road and made an assessment of the situation. He came back to the BUS and informed me that it had something to do with the canvas that was attached to the awning (which had been damaged in an earlier incident that I won't get into here) that had come loose and was flapping in the wind. He said he knew what to do. When I asked what he said, "Duct tape". Immediately I thought of an Internet joke that has circulated for years about applications for duct tape. "Duct tape?" I ask. "Yes, duct tape but I need a step ladder." I naively suggested that he use the ladder that is built onto the back of the coach. He wisely informed me that walking on top of the coach under the current wind conditions could be suicidal. True. So we got back on the road with the flapping canvas and drove the longest four miles of our lives to date praying that the the awning itself would not fall down and scrape the paint off of the BUS...or worse. We found a Pilot Truck Stop and John took over while I sat inside and watched from a limited perspective out the window. Judging by his body language it seemed prudent to stay out of the way. He disappeared for a few minutes and when he returned he had a tall step ladder on wheels borrowed from the truck wash. He pointed and smiled as the wind whipped his hat and sunglasses off of his head and he darted after them. He came back with hat, broken glasses and a roll of duct tape. I watched him ascend the ladder with duct tape in hand as I emailed our friend Mary Ann and told her (to her great amusement) what he was doing. He ascended and descended and ascended again taping as he went. I saw his hat blow by the window again with him in hot pursuit. Finally he disappeared with the borrowed ladder and returned with his trashed hat and pronouced that we were ready to roll again. Great. Cool. We were on the road again.

A few hours later we arrived in Arab and settled in a small RV park where we are spending our first night in our new home on wheels. After extending the slides I went directly to the galley where I mixed us both a double Scotch and we toasted the fact that we made it to Arab...not totally without incident, but safe and sound. We are proud. We are happy. And we are tired!

To say that the BUS is beautiful is an understatement. To say that the learning curve is steep for this marvel of engineering is a gross understatement. Our contact in Wakarusa, Indiana at the Monaco factory is Dennis Bowen. Dennis is not only one hell of a nice guy (as are all of the people at Monaco) he is probably the most patient indivudual on the planet. He endures daily and sometimes twice or three times daily questions (the ones that I can't find answers to in The Bible). We actually went one whole day without calling him and I told John that he probably thinks that we drove off of a cliff. Tomorrow we are going to look at some horses at Winsalot Stables and then we will be back on the road again. We are going across country to Cartersville, Georgia. Wish us luck!