Eric Pepin’s: Multi-Dimensional Consciousness

9/20/07
7:40am

Waking up was hard. Spent all last night packing last minute essentials, and the house is a mess. Then it hits my morning daze, “we are leaving on the trip of a lifetime, in 1.5 hours.” Can you say leap out of bed?

No time to manage morning teeth or stubble, Eric wants us to hitch up by 9am! Started packing the remain items, putting computer components, clothes, kitchen items, and everythign else I think I would need in trashbags. Then lugging them all, two at a time, down two flights of stairs to my driveway. Halfway down I noticed a hot pot of coffee on, with the spoon and hazelnut coffeemate next to it — there is a God!

After sipping some of that goodness, grabbing 2 Magneurol and a vitamin C pill, I continued moving the bags. Talk about morning stair stepping! Thomas, whos riding with me on the trip, arrived and helped me load the back of my truck. Figured I’d better pack it all in one trip if I’m going to meet Eric’s deadline. My 5th wheel trailer is down the street in a church parking lot.

After loading everything, standing in my driveway. 8:45am. Am I forgetting anything? Damn nagging feeling in the back of my head. Ahhh! My new laptop! The very thing that would keep me connected to HBI and everything else! Started back up the stairs, 3 step leaps, then realized right after almost stepping on my cat vash, I can’t pack the laptop yet, Baard still has to set up GPS / MS Trips and Streets software! Okay, must remember to get before we leave. One more thing that will take video game timing.

On that “timing” note - so far, everything has been strangely falling together, and when I say strangely, I mean:

Within ONE week period of time:

- Sold my Subaru

- Bought an diesel truck. (Note: You can’t imagine how rare this type of vehicle is in this area. Eric scoured the Northwest region for a 3/4 ton Diesel longbed for me for 3 days. I called on two the day each ad went up, to find out “sorry, already sold”. But the force came through. Eric found a truck out near Seattle. This truck was absolutely perfect — Clean carfax report, well-cared for, aftermarket parts, plenty of horsepower. Too perfect to be true. Called. The guy was on vacation, but he gave me a call when he returned. He decided to meet me half way from Portland, and kept it for me until I sold my Subaru without a deposit. Too ideal! Really laid back guy. Everything was lining up too perfectly. When it was all said and done, he even gave me a brand new set of tires with the purchase. Didn’t even have to bargain for them.)

- Bought a 5th Wheel. (Again, same story. Totally rare to find the brand Eric wanted me to get, Eric scoured the net for days helping me, then after almost giving up after not wanting to haul one he found up from Ontario, CA - we decided to stop by this dealership in Portland to find out what they had. Total shot in the dark. And there it was. Within the tow capacity, oh I won’t bore you with anymore details.)

- Got all the Loans, insurance, DMV, emissions, and everything else taken care of.

- Then the other general stuff: work, planning events, packing, etc.

Strangly there have been no speed bumps with anything! Nothing has gone ary. All the pieces have slid in perfectly. Usually, murphy’s law has a way of showing its face when the days are counting down.

After loading the truck with the bags and misc items, we hopped in and drove to the 5th wheel. Loaded it up, and fastened down what we could. He’s going to be here any minute. Then I heard another diesel engine growing louder in the background. Here’s here. Time to roll out.

Well, the way my rig was parked at the church required me to get a swift lesson in back up while towing. First lesson, steering is completely backwards! But luckily, I had a great teacher who already learned it already with his standing out in front directing me. Needless to say, it was slow going at first, but we finally got it out and parked it on the street to double check everything before taking off. While inspecting, we looked at my tires, and I asked Eric if they looked like they had 10k miles of towing left in them, or if I should have the other installed.

Long and frustrating story made short, and time left to get on the road made longer, we opted to have the tires switched at a local tire shop. What I found out was this, the tires that came with my truck were worth $1200! And the originals that were on the truck, had about 3k miles left on them. So much for being a truck expert! But how amazing that the force even included the tires for me.

The tire switch took a surprising 30 minutes. After which, we went back, unloaded the old tires at my house, (grabbed the laptop… see? - timing was perfect) hitched up the 5th wheel trailer, and met up Eric once he hitched up his.

Whew! Finally time to hit the road…

Next stop - RV park in “Podunkville”, OR

Stay tuned for more.