Portland, Oregon

Over the past few months, I've felt so overwhelmed with stories from our USA adventuring that I simply haven't documented anything.

It all started with the 4 months we spent with my family in Ann Arbor, Michigan. During this time we visited Scott's family including 3 visits to his brother, Skip, in Indiana and 1 visit to Shane, in Kentucky. Yep, I have a relative in Kentucky! Similarly, I'm sure he says, "Yep, I have a relative that lives in a truck".

We reluctantly left my parents, sister, and our most epic workshop in Ann Arbor to start our drive west. Thank you, Dad, for letting us invade your man-space for nearly 4 months!

The truck, the workshop, and our kitty saying goodbye to us.

You might be asking why we started driving west when our ultimate goal is to head south into Baja, Mexico and beyond. We lived in the Portland, Oregon area from 1995-2008 (I actually didn't arrive until 1997). We would never pass up the opportunity to visit dear friends and as a bonus, sample lots of awesome beers and have endless opportunities to see live music.

Some of my lovely lady-friends (where is Nooby?)

We've been in Portland for 9 days and have spent nearly EVERY day/night enjoying our friends' company. A day hasn't gone by when we didn't say, "Damn, I freakin' love Portland". Our livers seem to be holding up too!

My friend Dan put together a great blog post about his weekend seeing old friends (us included!) and seeing live music last weekend during Musicfest Northwest. The way he described his weekend is how I would describe the entire week for me (except for the "winter" part):

Occasionally a Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday can be so filled with people, places, adventures, and things I love, there is little time to muddle my brain with the guilt, doubt, and mundane details that normally take priority. On those very rare weekends we eat, drink, and pursue fun with such fervor that it's as if there is no tomorrow, no Monday, and certainly no one ominously reminding you that, as in the current epic novel I'm reading... "Winter is coming".

A great development since we've been in Portland is that one of our friends, Holly, offerred up her condo and her car while she is gone! We have to move out of her place in 6 days but we can use her car during the duration of our stay in Portland. El Tigre is taking a hiatus while we are driving around Portland running errands. Any ideas for a unique and thoughtful thank-you gift?

Holly's loft that we are calling home

We are currently working through a very large to-do list. Most of this falls in Scott's lap which presents an interesting dilemma for me -- do I try to help or just stay out of his way? It turns out my role falls somewhere in between...

Quick Update on our Progress

I've started many blog posts over the past couple of months and then just never finished them.  I had ambitions of doing something more than just an "update" post - maybe something about what it's been like to spend the past 4 months in Ann Arbor with my parents and sister.  I hope I can write a blog post about that soon (sneak peek: it's been nice sprinkled with lots of truck-stress).

Mom, Dad, and Oscie have put up with us for the past 4 months!

In the meantime, here's a little update.  We have been madly working on the truck to upgrade lots of components, both inside and out.  You know how this goes -- once you decide to fix/change one thing, it's a cascade of 5 more things. As I write this, Scott is working on both the plumbing and the electrical system.  The beginning stages of our work had us researching and purchasing lots of things online.  The credit card was smoking.  That was the easy part.  The hard part is installing everything (Scott has done 99% of it).  I hope to also write a blog post about the upgrades and include some pictures of the truck.  At the moment, it is not picture-worthy.

Yep, that's Scott underneath the truck in a white bunny suit in 95 degree heat

The latest plan is that we will drive out of here next Friday and head to Lexington, KY to visit's Scott's bro.  After a quick weekend visit, we will take El Tigre across the country for our next stop in Portland, Oregon.   I expect that we will be in the Portland vicinity for the month of September.  We have many friends in the Portland area that we can't wait to visit.  We are also excited to slow things down a little and do some adventuring in the northwest.  We probably won't slow down too much, since we have lists and lists of things to do/buy before we cross the border to start the Pan-American journey.

Great Faces, Great Places

El Tigre is now officially a South Dakota resident.  We paid sales tax and got it titled and registered, all for a few hundred dollars.  The "Great Faces, Great Places" state makes if very easy for full-time RVers to give them money.  Admittedly, we slipped a few notches down the cool factor scale by getting rid of the old Colorado plates.

South Dakota license plate:  "Great Faces, Great Places"

After we picked the truck up in Pagosa Springs, and visited our friends in Denver, we drove to Scott's brother's house (Skip and Amy) in Indiana.  Here, we started the laborious process of making El Tigre "our home".  Skip spent countless hours refacing our kitchen cabinets and making new drawers and doors.

Skip and Scott burning the midnight oil in Skip's workshop

Along with all the interior work, Scott ordered $1500 in auto parts that were delivered to my parent's house.  He's working on making El Tigre a lean, mean, cool machine.  He's also becoming an expert on the mechanics of the GM 6.5 L diesel engine -- at least I hope so, as the drive shaft, radiator, water pump, oil cooler, and fan clutch, all of which are sitting in my Dad's barn, probably need to go back in.

One of many auto part deliveries

Van Update. It's not a Van!

So much has happened since we last checked into the blog.  So much, and yet, so little...  The exciting news is that we did in fact find our 4x4, diesel, Pan-American dream mobile on eBay, and the transaction went better than anyone could ever dream.  It is a a Provan Tiger Camper built on a 1994 Chevrolet K2500 Silverado Truck.

 

When we flew to pick up the truck, Gary, the previous owner, drove over an hour to pick us up at the Durango airport. Then, he drove us back to his home, where we were greeted with the sight of our new (old) truck and the high-altitude beauty of Pagosa Springs, Colorado.  Gary and his wife opened their home to us for the next couple of days while we got the truck ready to drive back to Michigan.  Kelly fed us salmon, asparagus, and roasted potatoes for dinner with homemade raspberry pie for dessert!  If we ever sell the truck, I hope we can make the buying experience for the next person as pleasant as they made it for us.

Scott, Gary, and Kelly pre-yumfest

People have asked why we wanted a 4x4 or a diesel.  The reason we wanted the 4wd is a little more obvious. We plan on driving it from here to the tip of South America.  There will be roads and beaches that would be off-limits for a traditional 2wd van.  As for the diesel question, diesel fuel is a bit easier to come by south of the border, the engine has a longer life, and it gets better gas diesel mileage.

It's been 3 weeks, but we still can't stop calling our new truck "the van".  Every vehicle we've ever traveled in has been a van...Toyota LE, Toyota Previa, Ford E350, Toyota Hiace, and a Ford Transit.  We've never been the type to name our vehicles, so it's been hard not to call it "the van". We're still trying to get used to calling it "the truck" or "the camper", but it's definitely NOT A VAN!