It’s late in the day and we have only 4 hours until the sun sets.

We are finally on the road with our shiny new trailer… the “Escape Pod”.

It’s taken many numbers to get to this point… 8 months of tweaking our trailer’s custom order, a 4,500 kilometres road trip across the continent, 50 hours of driving, 6 states, 5 camp sites, 4 old friends and relatives visited, 3 hotels, an undisclosed bag of cash, much angst yet even more smiles. To describe the process as a challenge would be understated.

With all that behind us, we’re finally on the road and this is where we want to be. Our destinations are undetermined, and our time commitment is unclear. Only our direction is firm… south.

It was late in the season and it will be November in just 8 hours. Considering winter was approached quickly, we agreed that we needed to get south of the highlands of Washington and Oregon before the ice and snow settled in for the season. It was risky picking up the trailer so late in the season, however we had few options after balancing our many life’s obligations. So south we travelled lickedey quick… no dilly dawdling.

The trailer not only looked beautiful, she also pulled as expected … smooth and easy. We were proud parents.

All our required gear for our 5 months adventure was originally stuffed in garbage bags, boxes and duffle bags when we left Ottawa some 10 days ago. It included: loads of camping gear, 2 bikes, clothing for every conceivable social and outdoor pursuit, and far too much footwear!

We had no time to unpack all our goodies, so we simply stuffed much of it into the many trailer’s storage compartments, and the rest remained lousy goosy in the truck. We felt unsettled and kerfuffle with our travelling home still untested, unsorted and littered with gear. The only clue of our precious cargos whereabouts was provided by the many labels affixed to the rag-tag assortment of anonymous bags and boxes dutifully prepared by Tracy when they were originally packed weeks ago. It felt like chaos…controlled chaos!

Our first night was in a KOA at Burlington Washington… by all accounts it was a fine enough campground, however we weren’t there long enough to give her a respectable view. We arrived at dusk and left at dawn the next day. It’s important to note that after mid October, most campgrounds north of California are closed for the season, with the exception of a handful of KOA’s. KOA’s were essentially our only option.

The next stop was on the coast of Oregon at another KOA near Lincoln City. With temperatures dipping to 5ºc at night our tanks were safe from freezing yet our furnace roared most of night keeping us warm and cozy.

Tomorrow is California… and maybe we will even have time to unpack and our furnace will be turned off.