While fueling up the RV in Billings this morning I saw this ad placed above the pump that caught my attention.  The ad is from ZeeCreative a company that offers web design, hosting and other consulting services.

Are there a lot of folks in Billings, MT who are filling up their tanks and thinking, “Who can help me sort out an SSL certificate for my web site?”

Just struck me as funny.

Here is a closeup of the ad.

I woke this morning at 6:30 filled with excitement.  We were up late last night packing the RV, pretty much all we had to do this morning was shower and pack our toiletries, most of our stuff was waiting for us in our 25-foot 2005 Ambient.  My excitement was mixed with a little bit of worry, because yesterday’s test connection of the Jeep to the RV for brake lights and turn signals revealed it didn’t work right.  This was totally not my fault, but still not good to learn at 6pm when the wiring place closed at 5:30.

The original plan was to try to leave between 8 and 9 so we could get to Portland to enjoy the Red Bull Flugtag Event, but now we had to detour to Advanced Trucks for Toys in South Everett to get the wiring sorted out.  We arrived there at about 9:15.  Doug, the only employee working Saturday morning, was super helpful and tested the connections many ways and basically determined the wiring inside the Jeep is messed up and for some reason their tech didn’t fix this when they had my Jeep weeks back and instead performed an unsuccessful workaround.  This wasn’t what I wanted to learn.  If we hurried we could still make the Flugtag!

10am When it became apparent that the Jeep’s wiring was just messed up, I suggested to Doug that we’d best call it off and go with one of them nice magnetic tail light things I’d seen before, like what tow truck drivers use.  We could solve the Jeep’s wiring when I got back from this trip.  Doug helped me locate a set of lights nearby and I went to sort it out.

Meanwhile Jessie and Sarah Michael were so great.  While I was playing auto shop with Doug they waited in the RV, and when I went to update them on my mess, I found them playing Go Fish.  I thanked them profusely for being so patient.

11am Nothing is easy.  The place that had the magnetic lights didn’t have in stock any wiring adapters or pieces that could get the lights’ connector to the wiring of the RV.  So I had to run to another store to buy the wiring connector and a tiny screwdriver to put everything together with.  But it was ok, I wasn’t stressed, I remained pleasantly calm.  But we did get going, somewhere around 11am.  This picture was taken at 11:47 in SeaTac as I was filling up.

Hey, this reminds me.  I’m trying to geotag our photos, so when you see them on Flickr you can further immerse yourself in the experience by clicking on the map link next to each picture to see where it was taken.  Also check out the link on the right side of this page, it goes to a nice map on Flickr where you can see all of the photos from our trip identified on a map.

Once we were on the road it was smooth.  The RV handles fine.  I can’t even see the Jeep when I’m towing it unless I’m taking a fairly sharp turn, enough to move the Jeep into the view of the side view mirrors.  You can hear plenty of rattling of our dishes and whatever else is packed into our home on wheels as we plow along, but it is comfortable.  Sarah Michael kept busy playing and listening to and singing along with music on an iPod.  Jessie relaxed, played with SM, tried to sleep, hung out.  I drove and drove and drank energy drinks.

It all went well, but it became clear we weren’t going to make it to the Flugtag.  So we decided to head straight toward Cannon Beach.

We stopped at a viewpoint-pullout-beside-the-road-thing just over the Oregon border to survey the Columbia River, that was nice.

We weren’t in Oregon long before we stopped again.  As we drove thought the community of Clatskanie OR Jessie noticed out her window a Bluegrass Festival.  That was all the motivation I needed.  We parked the RV and went to see what was going on.  You can imagine our delight to find that there wasn’t just music being played, there was a quilt show going on too!

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

The music we heard was actually quite lovely.  We only stayed for a few songs from the band you see you see in the short video and this picture, but I did enjoy them.  They had about zero stage presence though, they looked nearly bored as they played, and their costumes made them look like regular heavy-set country folk.  Maybe they weren’t costumes?  A true mystery.

Anyway, it was a worthy stop.  SM had a hot dog and Jessie made friends with old men in the concessions line.  I just smiled, I was happy.

Just before Astoria we stopped by a roadside glass blowing studio that we’ve passed many times before and I’d always wanted to stop at.  Well, we’re in no hurry today!  We watched the artist work on a wine goblet.  Even SM enjoyed it.

We checked in to the RV Resort in Cannon Beach at around 5:30pm, and it was easy to get everything connected.  It is kinda fun to see all of the other RVs and how people had their gear set up.  The bigger RVs have fancy hydraulic leveling systems, there are ingenious sewer pipe supports and all kinds of other goodies.  I see a trip to the RV supply store in our future.

Dinner, SM and Jessie went swimming, then relaxing, me working for hours on this post, that’s how we spent the evening.

Tomorrow we’ll visit the beach, go shopping, maybe find something to explore in the Jeep.

Until tomorrow…