DAY ONE :-)

Starting odometer reading in Skilpad: 8220. Odometer reading for the bakkie: 84 202 (abt 30 000 of those are from the previous trips!) This morning early the news people called saying that they are on their way. We quickly packed the rest of the stuff, tv, computers and cameras.... The interview went smoothly. Katie and Jess and my mom came to make sure that we left! When Steven came from work to say goodbye - channel 9 interviewed him too - he did really well and even posed rather cheekily next to his name on the rv! So nice to see. And then we left. It was lovely to see my family standing in a puddle waving us goodbye. I am going to miss them! We headed up Highway 111 from Soddy Daisy, into Kentucky - the Cumberland River looked beautiful and had a good few barges all over. We then headed up through Paducah Kentucky into Illinois - Effinham, Champagne and now in Peoria for the night. We drove a good 400 miles and more today and are both deadbeat! Many people honked as they went by and it was great watching the reactions of people noticing the rv as we tootled past.........I have figured out how to get the gps to work but am not enjoying having the laptop literally on my lap as we drive, so have gone back to the trusty paper version map book, only using the gps when we go through big and busy places. That gps is quite an amazing little thing - we got the cheapest little one available and it hangs by its suction cup on the windshield just waiting to be of some use. When I plug it into the laptop - it shows us exactly where we are, I mean exactly!, shows us what elevation we are at, how fast we are driving and something else too that I now forget! Quite a little piece of equipment. You can tell its the first time I have used one, right? It only took a few miles to stop the few rattles we have had no cupboards fly open - yet. There are a million and ten cords lying everywhere all tied to something that is charging. Its something one does not notice in a 'normal house' - they are spread around a tad more than they are in here now. It will take a day or three to get all this sorted out..... Opening the fridge is quite a trick and its interesting to try and catch 10 things at once as they leap out as soon as the safety clip is pressed! This evening when we stopped, the contents of the food cupboard did the same and I can see that quite a bit of reorganising is in order all around. The roads are generally pretty good here with some bad patches and thankfully almost no construction at all. It is beautiful and green, lush looking with many many miles of corn and soy beans growing. We saw a buck standing on the side of the freeway - almost looking as if he was waiting for the traffic to pass before crossing - hope he made it! There is not much to see along the roads we are using right now. We want to head up to North Dakota and then we will slow down, take the smaller roads and see what there is to see. The radio in Skilpad is very strange. It plays for a few minutes and then switches itself off for hours, coming on later for no apparent reason. No amount of punching buttons, flipping switches or muttering will get that thing to come on when we want it to, or stay on....... I bet its something simple.. The refridgerator also took a little while before it would work - helped when we switched the propane supply on.. :-) We figured it out that we get about 9 miles to the gallon - thats towing the pickup as well. Very close to what we estimated. Thats me for the night. Frank is already gently snoring in the room and its raining - sounds wonderful on the roof! Its really lovely being out on the road again and we are loving every minute of it Love and Light Annie and Frank XXXxxxxxxx www.RoadrunnersUSA.com www.livingwithcml.blogspot.com www.PenniesforCancer.com