The Adventure Begins

Dateline: Antioch, CA Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Welcome family and friends to "Beth and Barry's Excellent Tourbus Adventure." We hope to use this site to keep you all informed about our travels this summer and Beth hopes that it will serve as a trail of breadcrumbs that will allow her body to be recovered when she is left beside the road. Somehow, about a year ago now it sounded like a good idea to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary with a cross-country tour via motorhome. So we're loaded with everything we could possibly require in the next six weeks and set out with great confidence and good humor on our trek.

By Bakersfield a dispute has arisen and Barry has announced there are 4 categories of travel for the lone passenger (guess who?) on this trip. In order of desirability there is "shotgun," "shotgun probation" (which apparently involves a single warning for perceived infractions), "passenger" (which involves being relegated to the couch), and "cargo." Beth is feeling grateful he hasn't yet identified a left behind category.

We leave a little late causing a late arrival at the lovely Shadow Hills RV Park in balmy Indio, California. Arriving late means arriving in the dark which means apparent disturbance to the elderly residents that inevitably make up the primary population of these raisen ranches on wheels. Mind you we are not putting ourselves in this category but I can't tell you how many shirtless, extremely tanned, pot-bellied old men occupy these joints! Anyway, Beth is put almost instantly on "shotgun probation" for this infraction.

After a lovely swim Wednesday morning we are off to our next destination approximately 1 hour below Tucson, Arizona. This particular RV spot appears lovely on first examination, has a nice pool, great laundry, even an astronomer on staff for nighttime sky viewing but is located, quite unfortunately near what is clearly the busiest railroad tracks in the nation! It is okay though, the rig has cruise control and virtually drives itself so I'm sure only minor problems will ensue when Barry falls asleep at the wheel.