On the road!

The journey has begun! We are on the road after hours of preparation. Months ago the idea for this trip popped into our minds and we eagerly started planning. First we created a map of our route to each national park in the lower 48 states. We have since added more stops to the list to see family and friends across the country. Paul spent countless hours designing and building a platform for the back of the pickup as well as working on other projects to make the truck ready for the trek. Now the back is packed and the kayak is securely strapped down...adventure awaits!

The first day of travel was definitely full... mostly of... packing. We wanted to get to Sunset Lake in time to spend Thursday with Kirk and Christine (Julie's brother and sister in law) on their day off, so we really wanted to get going on Wednesday! Unfortunately... and completely shockingly... packing took a BIT longer than we expected. The plan was to leave early afternoon so we could be up there in the evening and maybe have supper at the camp. Sadly, that didn't exactly happen.

Part of the problem was that we still had a few things to do on the truck in the morning... some back story on the truck: The trip is going to be undertaken in a 1988 Toyota Pickup. This pickup is sitting at 283,000ish miles, and is basically bone stock. Or it was until recently. In preparation for the trip we have added several new features! Air conditioning! (Definitely a good thing to have when we head south!) A canopy on the pickup bed! (Helpful for keeping off the rain) And a sleeping platform in the back! (Good for, well, sleeping on...) There are a few other sundry upgrades as well, but they are fairly minor and don't warrant mention here and now (possibly in a future post someday).

Anyway, part of the sleeping platform is a drawer system with a built in food cooler. In order to get the food cooler sealed we used some silicone, which has a long drying time, so we couldn't actually load any of the collected food into the drawers. This caused some packing mayhem, not to mention the fact that we were still putting finishing touches on everything. So the day got later... and later... and then even later. We ended up leaving somewhere around 9:30ish on Wednesday night. No worries. Oh wait, they close the gate at 10:30 at Sunset lake... slight worries...

So we departed, with far less fanfare than we were planning on! (There were still an appropriate number of pictures taken of course) The journey is in full swing! First stop, Washington State, about 20 minutes away! We took some more epic and meaningful pictures at... the gas station. Because... that is where we stopped. With gas and pictures acquired we once again sallied forth!

Washington State!

We kept on sallying until about 1:15 am, when we arrived at the locked gate. Which would have been a real problem. Except that Julie had, in her infinite wisdom, called ahead! We were informed that we were cordially invited to park outside the gate and walk in! Which we did. Around 1:30 we finally dropped into the prepared beds, and slept.

On the list for Thursday, Mt. Rainier National Park! Woohoo!