We were both tired all day, since we’d barely slept the night before. It was the wee hours of the morning by the time we found a place to stop and then Miki was stressed and needing attention. So when we saw a nice camp ground in the middle of the afternoon, we stopped. It was a lovely spot, the weather was perfect, and we set our tent up under a tree. The two people and the two dogs were thrilled. The dogs loved tent camping and were happy to settle into the tent on their blankets. As the journey went on, they got really excited when we’d stop and they saw us setting up the tent. Once we were done taking stuff out of the truck, we placed some food on the floor of the passenger side and the makeshift litter box in the space under the steering wheel, opened the sliding windows on the cab and the back of the cab, and let Pearl (the cat) out of her carrier. Once the four-legged furry kids were settled, Bill and I took turns in the showers. We’d been living without running water for the whole of the previous year and most of the year before that, so we weren’t really used to showers any more. Bill went first. He came back and said it cost a quarter to get the hot water, but it went on forever. I actually found this a bit stressful! I went in, stuck my quarter in the slot and the water began coming. I washed my hair and the rest of me and the water kept coming. There was no way to turn it off and I didn’t want to waste it, but I was unsure what else I could do, so in the end, I just decided to stand there and enjoy it. We made some supper and hung out with the dogs. It was a nice evening and we all slept really well.
The next day, the rain came. It rained, rained, and rained some more. We didn’t want to set up the tent under the circumstances, so we stopped at a place with little cabins and hoped they’d let us in with the dogs. Bill went in and asked. The woman said she wasn’t really supposed to let dogs in, but considering the weather, she would if we promised to clean up well when we left. We did and were grateful. It was a cute little cabin with a small kitchen and bathroom and a very comfortable bed.
It was quite an enjoyable trip south. We’d agreed we would not rush but wouldn’t dawdle, either. We were on schedule until what we thought would be the penultimate night. We were somewhere in British Columbia and planned to stay the night there, cross the border the following day, and stay somewhere in Washington before going on to our new home. We stopped at what looked like a beautiful camp ground—and it was quite breathtaking with big trees and a sort of deep ravine running through it. Bill paid for a site, but when we got to it and I got out of the truck, I was almost blown into the side of it by the wind! Clearly we were not going to be able to set up a tent under the circumstances, so we decided to walk the dogs and see if it eased up. It didn’t. We decided to leave, push on across the border, stay in Washington that night, and get to our destination a day sooner than expected. Back into the truck we all went. We stopped somewhere and got subs to eat later for dinner. We stopped for the day a few hours later than we’d planned and we were both so hungry that subs never tasted so good!
