Preparing the motorhome

Don't Janet and I look great in our Five for Alaska jerseys? They were designed by Michelle Stock, daughter of rider Bert Stock from Valencia, CA. The five of us will be wearing these jerseys when we depart on Friday (June 15) with the TV cameras rolling. Butte's CBS news station KXLF-TV will show us on their news broadcast as a follow-up to a segment they aired last Wednesday on rider Rick Smith who lives in Butte. Here is a link to that interview: http://www.kxlf.com/videoplayer/?video_id=13544&categories=255

Janet, her granddaughter Morgan, and I drove across the country last Tues- Fri and we're now in Clarkston, WA at her parents' home. The motorhome was already here (I drove it out last October and left it here when we returned to Ohio in early Feb). It was all-day driving to make it 2300 miles in three days, except we did take ONE side trip to see the Devil's Tower natural rock formation in northeast Wyoming. This photo shows my bike and three spare wheels on the back of my car, with Devil's Tower behind. If it looks familiar, it was featured in the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Since Saturday morning I've been working to clean up the motorhome and get it all ready for the trip. It's been a huge job to wash the rig, apply two coats of a rubber-roof coating to the entire roof, wax every square inch of the behemoth, vacuum and clean everything inside, put down protective plastic on the rug, fix this, and fix that. This morning at 8 am sharp I drove it to the RV dealer for some service. So, I'm hoping it will be all primed for the trip on Wednesday to Butte to begin the process of deciding what we have room to take with us. Actually, I still will be changing the oil at Rick Smith's house once I get to Butte.

After I washed the motorhome and waxed part of it on Saturday, it rained for about six hours, and then the sun came out. This is the view we were treated to:

Yesterday I took a bike ride after a 4-day layoff. I rode on hills for the first time in four months since Ohio has no hills to speak of (none longer than about 1/4 mile). I did their "famous" climb up the Lewiston, ID grade that is 7 miles long. I did it twice. (Janet did it a few times in the early 90s when she lived here.) My legs are pretty sore.

Bob Brown and his son Derek are near the end of their ride from Minneapolis to Butte, which they started on May 22. Their weather has finally improved as far as horrible headwinds. They should be in good shape from their three-week head start compared to the rest of us.