Route 66 Chronicles - Part 1, Background

Hello all,

Background:
For those of you not following my life in minute detail, let me set the stage.

Last year I decided to celebrate the big "six ooh" by doing something completely out of character - or at least outside the character I'd worked so hard to build these last 25 years - and took a trip somewhere I've never been, doing something I've never tried before! After all, it WAS ..."MY birthday" and as it was a big one. I figured it was t-i-m-e (and long overdue) to get back some of the vigor of my youth and my natural sense of adventure that I had stuffed away in deference to climbing the corporate ladder.

So I called my long time girlfriend from MN - who is a dormant party animal as well - and we both decided to go "on the road" for a "great outdoors adventure" along the remnants of Route 66! What fun this would be! We had not been on a trip together since…. maybe 1980….??

It was November, the day before Thanksgiving. We would spend 10 days rolling around the area and hoping to finally see the Grand Canyon….in a 29 foot RV!

Our starting point was Albuquerque. I flew in from Florida. She flew in from MN - with her brave college-age daughter who had the poor luck to be reliving the youthful exploits of a couple of "grandmas" traveling in an RV with a non-winterized, fussy, spoiled Florida toy poodle named Coco Chic....

While not matronly and certainly not "old" in our minds, we set out on this great adventure to just let the spirit move us.... After all, we lived through the 60's and of course being former flower children, 10 days hanging out on Route 66 seemed like it could be fun!

So let me set the stage more clearly so you can visualize the novelty of the situation:

1. A rented 29' RV being driven by 2 women who NEVER drove anything bigger than a station wagon or SUV, and who regularly bump into curbs and other minor obstacles in compact cars…not being so adept at driving…and being short so the view out the window has always had some “limitations”… or so that’s the excuse we employ…. The rental guy convinced us it is just like driving a car. Yeah…right..

2. Both of us 60-ish women are vertically challenged. And we talk when we drive.

3. A spoiled, manicured Florida toy poodle accompanied us and would not pee anywhere unless it was manicured grass and the temperature was above 70.  This became a constant issue and challenge throughout the 10 day trip since the natural terraine is rocks, gravel and dirt. We often set out to "find a lawn" and found ourselves stalking neighborhoods and commercial buildings along the way just to accommodate our (ok ..my) pet!  Insurance agencies seemed the best bet for pooping stations! They always had the nicest grass in the middle of desert and desolation! 

4. The trip was in late NOVEMBER...in an RV....in the mountains....staying in RV parks for the first time ever by either party...dealing with camping in winter conditions.  We did not consider this at all when making our plans to be there for my Nov 30th big birthday! 

5. Forget the size factor on this gigantic vehicle!  RV details in general were completely foreign to us.  Neither of us had any idea how to work a generator or how to discern white water, gray water, black water (RV terms). We got a 5 min lesson from the rental guy….Let's see, do we turn on the lights first or start the generator, and what about how the water and the pump works for both toilets and sinks?  More than once we drained the battery by mistake... and had to start the motor to get the battery going so the generator could start so the heat and water and TV and DVD would work.  But once all were working we were in literal RV HEAVEN.  We had movies, iPods, extra speakers and all the accoutrements of a luxury vacation in a rolling hotel room. This RV truly had all the amenities of home - albeit on a small scale.  After a few days in our mobile hotel room, we found that we could actually live in Wal-Mart parking lots - for days if necessary!  We were eating Wal-Mart deli food and watching movies among the other shoppers in the parking lot.   Is it the 60’s again?  Oh dear.

6. Neither of us considered the challenges of size (the vehicle), the weather (dah, winter!), the terrain (dah, mountains) or culture (hello? RV park clientele...).  We also did not consider the challenges of sharing narrow fast-moving highway lanes with the big trucks during rainy, snowy, windy conditions….on our way to the Grand Canyon…

So the trip begins…unaware of what lies before us but full of hope, expectation and excitement and the prospect of hitting the open road in the Great American Southwest!

We certainly did not expect a "Griswold" experience but found it was getting more "Griswold" every day into the adventure!

HEY, I live in Boca! ...where we manicure everything - twice daily....  And the concept of an RV adventure is met with "say WHAT"?   "Reeeally?"....   Needless to say, I have few locals endorsing this concept of "fun" and adventure!  After all, it’s not a yacht or a cruise, or a trip to an exotic island, or jetting to off to Paris or Tahiti, but it’s my birthday, my way. Shared with a great friend who has a wonderful sense of adventure and was kind enough to indulge me on this wild excursion!