Mt. St. Helens day!

We headed out for our first big trip on May 16^th, 2013 — destination Portland, OR. The last minute details started to rack up and we just decided to “toss” everything into the MoHo and MDX and hit the road knowing we would have plenty of time to organize down the road. (For those of you who know Traci, that was a huge dilemma not having everything put in its place before we left! Needless to say, “organized Olly” felt a bit out of sorts.)

We had the Miller MoHo serviced on the 15^th with an oil change and toad car breaking system repair. A part had to be ordered and overnighted to Infinity Coach in Sumner, WA. We stopped by the shop on our way out of town and picked up the part, then got down the road and found a parking lot to hook up the MDX and install the part. When we pulled into the lot to connect the car, Mike noticed something was awry. There was oil all over the back of the RV! Quick look and there it was — the oil cap had come off, but how much oil was missing? Fortunately, not enough to see any significant loss, so lets connect the MDX and get going.

Car is connected and all of a sudden there is a big 18-wheeler behind us wanting to deliver to a store in the parking lot we are parked in. We hurry into the MoHo and off we go. Minute or two later, Mike asks Traci “did we make sure the parking break was off on the MDX?” Neither can remember, but wheels are turning fine so lets keep going. About 2-3 minutes later, some guy motions to us on the freeway to pull over! Oh #*%#, the break must still be on. Hurry off the freeway to the shoulder and sure enough the back end of the MDX is smoking hot and stinks! Take off the break and lets just deal with it later, at this point we can’t do anything more – ROOKIES!!

Arrive in Portland at the Columbia River RV Park about 4:45pm, a couple hours later than we wanted, but we are here! Unhook the MDX and do a quick check to make sure it drives and stops, seems to be no issues with our error thank goodness – we won’t make that mistake again! Check in is quick, drive to site #99 and we are here!!!  It finally is starting to feel real, we have been planning this for so long and now we are settled in our first site! Now we get to start organizing, and let me tell you, there is a lot of organizing to do. We basically just tossed all our dry food into the MDX and the rest of our stuff into the MoHo and hit the road. We spent the next couple hours trying to find room for stuff, and in the process decide we just have to toss a bunch of junk we had held onto for too long and will never ever use – the purge is a very good feeling.

While here in Portland, we are attending the NWAACC Women’s Fast Pitch Softball Tourney, rooting for coach Pflu’s mighty Knights from Wenatchee Valley College. Day one the Knights get two wins, the second game is a very entertaining 18-3 blow out! Day two of the tourney starts out with a rain delay – time for us to update and post this blog report! We will let you know how it all goes, but needless to say, we are very happy with our MoHo and the Knights are kicking some tail in the tourney!