Nothing is ever easy.

My friend Martha says I've used up all my sympathy points, but -- because I brag about the fun parts -- I ought to be honest about the difficulties of this trip, too. Don't you think so?

No one should be surprised that getting ready to leave was exhausting. I have no one to blame but myself for that. I've been collecting things (books, wine and other fun stuff) forever. And I put off the inevitable for too long. Packing (and tossing out and giving away) took waaaaaaay too long.

As mentioned before, we had our RV fixed up. You kind of hope after all that time and money everything would be perfect.

Yesterday, we were ready to go at 10 a.m. That's only an hour late, which is pretty good for us. (Don't remind me. I know we had an extra 24 hours.) When Ross tried to start the engine, it wouldn't go. Dead battery. I guess neither of us heard we were supposed to turn off the inverter when not plugged into "shore power." (D'oh!) We had to call AAA, so we didn't leave until noon.

Lesson learned.

Last night, we pulled into our RV park, unhitched Jane (Jane Honda. Get it?), and settled in. After a couple of hours of sitting around, playing on the computer, watching TV . . . the lights started to fade and the heat went off. The outlets weren't affected, though. Weird, huh?

So, today, Ross had to call a guy to come out and see if he could see what was wrong. That meant Ross didn't come with the rest of us this morning and left after lunch to come back to meet the guy. So, he missed out on some of the fun. Plus, the guy was just as confused as we were. So it's still not fixed.

It's not huge -- since, we still have computer access and we have lanterns. But it's another awkward thing to deal with.

We're figuring it out as we go along. Sometimes stuff catches us by surprise.