Leaving Tomorrow

This is the last post from home. We’re taking off sometime tomorrow, hopefully in the morning.  Our home for the next 3.5 weeks is stuffed to the gills with food and supplies, even to the point of strapping a large cooler to the bike carrier in the back and using it for supplies.

As always, there were last-minute hiccups.  I pulled the rear hubcap to check the tire pressure and noticed a missing lug nut.  I checked at the nearby tire store, they didn’t have one.  I also checked at a couple nearby auto parts stores whose web sites said they had some in stock... nothing.  They told me to go to the dealer.  I asked the guy at the tire store if it was safe to drive with five lug nuts, knowing what his answer would be.  Long distances?  Definitely not.

I’ve had experience with lug nuts before.  Our first motorhome odyssey almost 25 years ago was captured in a series of journal entries spanning over 30 pages and was appropriately titled Road Kill: Revenge of the Lug Nuts.  We nearly lost a couple of rear wheels on that one.  So I would rather have all six lug nuts snugly in place.

I called the local Dodge dealer who told me they didn’t have any, but their Wayland location (about an hour’s drive away) had a few.  And, he could get a couple here by 8:30 tomorrow morning.  Great.  I’ll take two.  One for a spare.  It will join the growing pile of tools and miscellaneous junk in the bottom drawer, just in case.

We’re in that time where everything is packed that can be, but a bunch of stuff needs to go in tomorrow morning.  A lull in which there is nothing really to do.  Both of us were a bit restless so we took a walk while it was still light.  The wind is starting to pick up, perhaps foreshadowing the storm to come.

Seems like there’s always some sort of storm when we leave.  We’ll probably be driving in the rain (hopefully not freezing rain) for a good deal of the first day.  After that, who knows?