He’s home.  Finally.  California – Texas – Maine.  That’s 7 days of driving in total (3 in April from CA to TX and 4 this week from TX to ME), 3573 miles and lots of adventures.  To recap, Scott had to call 911 when a car in front of him swerved sharply and hit a guard rail.  The awning was blown off on a lonely stretch of AZ highway on day 2.  Scott parked the RV in the wrong storage unit in Texas (essentially stealing some poor guy’s space for 3 months).  The bottom of one of the storage compartments fell out in Texas after hitting a bump and Scott and Nate had to McGyver a duct tape solution (which adds a truly special element to the overall aesthetic of The Chief).  Unforgettably, Scott and Nate were pulled over by The Fuzz in TN, drug dogs alerted and a full scale search ensued.  That’s the first (and hopefully last) time I ever get this call, “Hey… I’m pretty sure I’m going to jail.”

The RV runs great.  Nothing like trial-by-fire to really work out the kinks.  Full system check, complete.

Now… it’s going in for a big tune-up.  Luckily, we live close to the place Gov. Angus King bought his RV before he took off on his cross-country adventure.  We have an appointment to drop ours off on the 5th of July.  We can’t run anything right now because the batteries had to be removed when the compartment fell out (it wasn’t secured to support the weight of 200 lbs of batteries).  The awning needs to be put back on.  The engine needs a tune-up.  We want to have the brake and propane lines checked out.

In full disclosure, while the tune up is a great idea it wasn’t mine and it wasn’t “optional”.  Todd {my brother} let me know that he felt it was his duty to step in where he believes Dad would have if he were still with us.  This is an obligatory security mandate (after losing his mind that we bought a 30+ year old rig).  As he puts it, “You have my niece and nephew in that thing [not in a nice way – in a spitting kinda way].  You’re going to do this.”