Oregon Trail 2.0: But Ho Ho Dear Readers!

It's been a mad, mad, mad couple of days for us here, and I apologize for not having posted in a few days, but we've been under quite a bit of pressure. I'll try and keep this post short, but I just wanted to update the page and bring everyone up to speed.

After leaving Connecticut and Christie's family we once again braved the New Jersey Turnpike arrive at my father's house, quietly nestled in the hills some ways outside of the fair city of Philadelphia. This is where the real fun began...

I must once again thank my sisters and brothers for all getting together one last time with Christie and myself before we venture even further west. It was great seeing all of you and thank you for the cake! (The niece and nephew were also especially adorable.)

It was a pretty tasty cake.

He's pretty much the world's cutest nephew.

The next morning we rose bright and earlier for a less than fun drive in the pouring rain to visit my grandparents. Weather and packing only permitted us to have lunch out with them, but it was lovely outing and I was very sad afterward to be leaving them on the east coast...

HUGS!!

Then we come to today, one of backbreaking labors and heartbreaking moments. I've always been of the school where you rip off a band-aid as opposed to taking your time peeling it off, better to get it over with then drag out the pain. That said here comes today's big shocker... Rocinante will not be making the trip with us... It's sad but it's true... While packing her we realized that we were so weighed down the the tires were rubbing on the underside of the camper, which is just no good. At first we attempted to lighten the load, removing everything but our most essential packing needs. Even then we were still so heavily laden down that it just wasn't safe to make the trip. After some last minute fist clenching and nail biting we decided to bite the bullet and rent a trailer to haul our things out west. Personally I don't believe it violates the spirit of the trip, seeing as our little Rocinante was going to be used solely as a carrier and not as a camper, but nonetheless these events certainly sting. That said we still plan on going through with getting her out west and fixing her up to a first rate camper, starting with replacing the axle and making damn sure the new one is up to the task of holding up more weight! The constant repacking has slowed us up a bit and instead of posting tonight from Ithaca, NY, we're still in Pennsylvania, but we plan on getting on the road bright and early tomorrow. It's been a long day however and this weary traveler needs some shut-eye before rising early to meet the road yet again.