Day Zero -- Getting started

Travel   From: Merrimack, New Hampshire   To: Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts   Distance: 50 mi (50 km)   Travel time: 1hr 20   Distance since start:50 mi

Tuesday 6/20/2006

My work has certainly been "interesting" to say the least, with the last couple of days being an extended nail biter. It is interesting how times flies, too. We started planning for this trip long before DEC's old UNIX group in Nashua (and all its subsequent incarnations) was shut down by Hewlett-Packard in late December of 2004. Who could have known that not only would I have left HP, joined a new company (PubSub) and then see the virtual demise of it unfold only weeks before the big trip? PubSub has been stuck in a strangle hold by its shareholders over the terms for a merger agreement with another company. This stranglehold has been so devastating that PubSub has run out of cash, with no white knight wanting to step forward given the current share holder's agreement. It is no great surprise that some staff members have found and accepted jobs elsewhere. It had been my hope that all of this would have been taken care of before the trip, but alas, that was not the case. Given that no salaries are being paid right now, I saw no reason to spend long hours at work while not getting completely prepared for the camping trip. So I set aside more time to prepare for the trip instead. However, as of this writing, there is still hope that things can be turned around. I am anxiously waiting to see the coming days unfold.

Only a few weeks earlier, while Lilli was taking our trailer home from a WBCCI rally at Salisbury Beach, the front driver's side tire on the trailer blew out on route 3. Fortunately, she was able to pull over to the side before bad things started to happen. I had just returned with Isabella from a FIRST robotics competition in Atlanta when she called. I turned around and went to Lilli to change the tire. This was the same tire that had shown an inexplicable 15F (10C) elevated temperature during our trip to South Carolina and Florida last summer. When I tightened the lug nuts I noticed that the bearing was shot. And, ironically, this is less than a year since we had all wheel bearings repacked at the new, and since defunct, Airstream dealer in Merrimack. We had this serviced again, but at Campers Inn in Merrimack. They discovered that the bearings on three wheels were shot because the Airstream dealer in Merrimack had forgotten to grease several of the bearings... We were very lucky that this happened only a few logical miles before we were taking the trailer out on the long road-trip to Alaska! In preparation for accidents like this during the Alaska trip, I added one more spare tire and also got SmarTire sensors installed in both.

I spent most of today preparing final things for the trip. Yesterday was really hot. It hit 95F (35C) at the house and there was a period of time during which it was really hard to do any work, inside or outside. We were hoping for some rain, but not much of it came. One of the preparation steps was to turn around the 1964 Airstream we have in the driveway so that it would be easier for Lilli to get it out during the summer. The Suburban, which we have not run for about 6 months, fired up without any hesitation. After a bit of a shuffle, the new Airstream was parked near the garage and I hooked it up to the house so I could run the air conditioning. It was very nice in the trailer.

Our two trucks and trailers but only the young ones can go!

The original plan was to go straight to the Airstream park in Pennsylvania, but when we realized that we could make this a three ocean trip, it seemed like a good idea to start our trip at a campground on the Atlantic Ocean. We've visited Salisbury Beach State Park many times and it is only about 1 hour 20 minutes east of where we live. The kids technically have two more days of school left, one of which got tacked on late this year due to the schools being shut down from major flooding in Merrimack and southern New Hampshire. But it turns out that Isabella's finals are wrapped up on Wednesday, so what we decided was that Lilli would come out with me to Salisbury Beach and that Isabella would take the boys out tomorrow, after school.

No surprise here: Isabella wants to transform herself into a dragon for this trip

We did not leave until 8pm. For some reason we could not get the GPS to work with the map program on the way out. This was especially annoying since it did work during a trip we took two weeks ago to an Airstream rally. That needs to be debugged. Severe thunderstorms were moving eastwards towards the coast as we drove out. The CB weather alarm went off a few times and we listened to the message from the weather service. We could also see big dark clouds and lightning to the north and in front of us. We did not hit much rain. When we got to the campground it was already dark and light rain with large drops. It was a bit tough to park the trailer, but I got help from neighbors. The mosquitoes were out, of course. We ended up on site G43. For dinner, Lilli prepared toasted bagels with smoked salmon, some cream cheese, unions, capers and a bottle of perfectly chilled Veuve Cliquot champagne. Meanwhile, we watched an episode of Monty Pyton. Pew. That is roughing it. Tired we went to bed.

Campground   Name: Salisbury Beach State Park   Our hookups: Water and 20 Amp   WiFi: None detected   GSM service: 1 bar   TV Channels: Plenty (ant)   Cost: $26.75/night including reserve america fee   Reservation mode: Reserve America/web

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