Writing in the Backseat While Doing Some “Coaching”

Writing took a backseat for a couple of months while my husband and I considered buying a larger RV for our trip to the East Coast this summer. We finally decided on a brand new 2014 Newmar Class A Coach for sale at a dealer in New Mexico. We visited a dealer in Tucson and drove a similar model, but the options we wanted weren’t available there.

Since the net cast on the Internet swings wide, we found the perfect model over in Albuquerque. We made contact with the dealer and arranged to go over and take a look. After renting a U-Haul truck for the trip, we loaded up all our supplies from our current trailer with high hopes to return home with a new rig.

We checked our “Weather Bug” app and found five sunny days following a few days of forecast sleet and freezing rain on the roads we needed to travel. We made the trip over in one day, took one look at this amazing coach and signed on the dotted line. We spend a couple days at a KOA near the dealer and then bravely left for our first highway experience with the “big rig.” We had bright sunny days the whole trip!

We couldn’t have had more fun than we did on the way home. Seeing the desert through those huge front and side windows made it seem like seeing it for the very first time. I found I loved facing the rear sitting in the kitchen booth and looking at the scenery fly by out the side window. It made me think of traveling from Indiana to Arizona on a train so many years ago.

After that first day on the road from Albuquerque, we stayed at a KOA in Las Cruses, and headed out for Phoenix from there on a Friday morning. We had guests arriving at 11 a.m. to see the rig on Saturday, but we still needed to round up food for lunch, straighten up the trailer, and put out a buffet table service for 10 people. Frank headed out to buy a part for the rig, and I flew around the house and rig getting things shipshape.

Ten people came by to see the rig and eight stayed for the lunch of Chinese food I’d picked up at the Panda Restaurant a few blocks away. We gathered in the house around our circular dining table for six, but somehow squeezed in eight so we could all sit together! The conversation remained lively, and our guests seemed to really enjoy the food and good company.  By the time everyone drifted home, Frank and I collapsed. We left the rest of the unloading of the rig until Sunday.

Besides being tired from our exciting trip and purchase, Frank and I had trimmed our neighbor’s tree across the street from us upon arriving home on Friday evening. We couldn’t turn into our driveway without a substantial tree limb damaging the coach, so we asked for permission to trim the tree that hung quite a distance out over the street. After that Frank moved the trailer out of the driveway, and we maneuvered the big rig into the driveway behind the gates. It wasn’t easy as night had fallen and the automatic headlights kept me guessing if Frank might be heading for disaster as he drove the rig through our narrow gate opening! We prevailed!!!! By the way, we do have a second driveway for our cars.

Now we’re in the process of selling our Dodge Ram Hemi Truck and the trailer we’ve pulled behind it for the last few years. Our plan is to buy a “smart car” and load it into our built-in garage whenever we are no longer hauling British motorcycles around to rallies. In the meantime, we might buy a scooter or rent or borrow a car at our destination. Frank’s “show bikes” really aren’t good grocery-store transportation.

Writing has taken a backseat to all this planning and traveling. I’m just now getting back into blogging and communicating with readers again. Once we take off for Seattle in June and then on to North Carolina and other points east this summer, I hope to do a fair amount of writing on the road as I have a lovely “desk” next to the passenger seat. Travel always spurs my imagination, so “on-the-road” writing should let my creative juices run wild.

In Las Cruses, I met a guy on a book tour in his RV. He had the name of his book plastered across the side of his RV and planned a long trip with his family aboard to promote his new book. Frank and I have decided to name our coach “Starship Arrowstar.” I’m sure I’ll be selling and signing a few books along the way this summer while Frank talks motorcycles at the rally in Ashville and along the eastern seaboard.

“Let the good times roll!”

Write on!

Cheryl