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Monday, August 31, 2015

Rocky Mountain Preparations

We returned from two weeks in the redwoods with two weeks to get ready for our first Caravan and our longest trip to date.

Here we are parked in the Redwoods.  It's Santa Cruz RV redwood park and one of our favorites.  We have family, friends and grandchildren in Scotts Valley and Santa Cruz so it's a frequent destination for us.   This park feels like coming home and I love being in among the tall trees.



Mark plotted out our Rocky Mountain trip including stops, distances and driving times.  It's a caravan with 25 other air streamers and a first for us.  We had tried to join last year only to be told it was full.  When an  unexpected cancellation came up in May of this year we were asked if we were still interested.  It coincided well with my retirement plans and we had nothing on  Septembers schedule so we said yes.  I have never been to Yellowstone, Grand Junction or  Estes park but I know each will be incredibly beautiful.


Not having done this kind of trip before and not entirely knowing what to expect we've been busy planning.  For me that means comforts and food!  I keep everything in Evernote so I created a menu plan in Word, saved it as a pdf and sent it to Evernote.  I then took photos of the recipes I wanted to use and sent them to Evernote as well.  The menu plan notes if the meal is to be made on the airstream or ahead of time and saved in food saver bags in the freezer for easy meals.  It also notes which fresh foods will be required so we can look for them when we are able to.  My ratio is about 1/2 and 1/2 so on longer travel days we can just thaw and heat and on leisurely days we will make a meal.  I've also left lots of holes in the menu plan for eating out when the opportunity presents itself.  This is vacation after all.

Onto create comforts……and bedding.  Airstream beds are oddly shaped due to the rounded corners.  We opted for the front twin beds which afford you three extra storage units, and a large space between the beds creates essentially a room where it's easy to stand to get dressed instead of the small space a walk around queen allows for.  I also love that visually one can see down the length of the airstream making it appear roomier.  

This all means I have two sets of twin sheets that don't fit well.  All the wrinkles and untucking made me crazy so I decided on a solution.  I went off to the local fabric notions store and purchased several garters and a heavy flat elastic.  I wrapped the mattress in the sheets and pulled them taut and measured the length across the opening.  I then cut the elastic and stitched each of the ends to hold the garters.  I used three per bed and it works perfectly.  Sheet is taut and stays in place.  Brilliant right?  Well apparently I could have gone to a store and purchased this solution!  There is a product called sheet garters.  Who knew?  Certainly not me.  I'm still happy with mine as they are custom fit.

So today is for cooking and freezing.  Tomorrow is fine tuning the storage solutions and checking our list.  We will experience a variety of climates during the month long trip so we need to plan accordingly.  We're also trying to fit in some extra walking to make sure we're ready for all the exploring we'll be doing.



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