We Slept in a Park Last Night..

 As I committed a misdemeanor in the grass at Brooklyn Park at 3:30am in east Portland on our first night in the van I realized what I may enjoy most about this trip. Waking up in a different spot every morning starts the day off with a sense of adventure we aren't yet used to. I had a smile on my face thinking about all the little puddles we'll make all the way down the Americas. The last week has been a fantastic mix of stress(packing all of our belongings into a 10x13 storage unit), joy(ramming home over 100 chicken wings @ Fire on the Mountain over three visits in a week), and exhaustion(on the trail @ 4:30am to climb 12300ft Mt. Adams over the course of 12 miles & 13hrs). A heckofa September so far.

For those of you who aren't familiar with our new home, I'll bring you up to speed. Claudette is a 1994 Econoline E150 with a Starcraft up-fit package. White on Blue velour. We removed the tv/vcr(painful i know) and both center captains chairs to add space. My man Rudy Ramos installed our "closet/garage" behind the driver seat to house everything from clothes, our kitchen, books, and just about anything else you can think of. Linds and I then built an extension of about 8in to the existing fold down bed in the rear of the van to give us a 72in square sleeping area. We added several cargo nets, some coat hooks, a 1 3/4in custom foam pad and a limo tint job. She is capable of anything. The kind folks at Auto Trim Design provided the cargo extender that holds our little 6-pack getter- a 1985 Honda elite 80cc. The scooter gets about 55mpg but is banged up on all sides and looks like it was put away wet for the last 25 years; hopefully this discourages theft south of the border. The rack will also hold a gas tank and anything else deemed too stinky to ride in the van(Lindsay).

Well, night one is under our belts and we feel great. At noon we drop the keys for our former condo and head to the coast for a drive up to Long Beach, WA. Thanks so much to all of you who have been such good friends! We will miss you Portland!