The adventures of pre trip packing is a practice in patience and perseverance. We shove off tomorrow and we are all excited!!
We bought a new bike carrier that is RV certified (and reviewed) to take bikes down to FW since we are going to forgo the golf cart this trip. I ordered it through
amazon and it showed up in no time. I figured the box is not damaged and I can deal with it later in the week. Well I went to assemble it after work and one major part is missing. No big deal, I have a welder, the will, and can find a way to fabricate the 3/8" by 30" rod used to secure the bike wheel bars to the cargo carrier. Its an annoyance most of all, and did not take up too much time to deal with. Right now I am looking at all thread as the solution which is easy to do.
Now before I bought this I measured everything based on dimensions and reviews and questions. And wouldn't you know it, that little loop on the receiver side stops me from putting it on the RV's cargo hitch by 4"!!! So I phone a friend who has a 7" extender that is 500# tongue weight rated so I can mount the carrier on the back of the RV. Phew that was a lot to get the bikes down to disney. But my engineering and willingness to make it all work perciviered through it.
With that all addressed, I move on to one other task that needed to be done before we left.....the lawn. Well that's just two hours of driving in circles listening to some tunes on my noice cancelling bluetooth headphones!!! So I load up my Disney playlist because its pre trip time and got mowing!! PS: highly recommend them for anyone who spends a good amount of time on a mower. I love listening to audio books or music while mowing.
If course, wouldn't you know it, Murphy had to strike. One hour into mowing with only the largest and easiest portion of the lawn and I blow out a deck drive belt. It is now after 8pm and tractor supply which is at least 25 minutes away closes in 35 minutes and I am not even remotely ready to run out and deal with this. So I take a deep breath and figure I can just get the parts on the way home tomorrow and finish it then. Which now I am ordering the parts for M to pick up while she is out running errands. I can finish the last of the lawn tonight even by spotlight if I have to!!!
I did not let that get me down though. After I cleaned up what I could about the lawn, J our 9 year old, went with me to put 60 gallons of diesel in the truck so we are topped off and ready to leave in the morning. That is good for about 600 miles of towing and will easily get us to the next fuel stop. M is going to work with the girls to get all the laundry loaded up and put away in the RV, I have a few little things left to do and my goal is to be hitched up and ready to leave with only shore power to disconnect before we hit the road.
Tomorrow is driving and if I have time I will make a post when we stop in Savannah for the night.