9:55 AM Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Start to finish, from beginning to end it took us 2 hrs. and 20 minutes to drive less than a mile to fill up our propane tank. Of course, it's only the second time we've moved the motorhome since we've been living in her full time. Phil and I thought that was pretty good considering how inexperienced we are at all the things that must be done. For example ... outside, the black and gray water tanks must be dumped; all the cords, cables and hoses must be unhooked; the awnings must be rolled up; the engine must be started and the slide retracted after cleaning the debri off the awning that covers it; the jacks must be raised and the jack stand pads stowed and all the basement "pods" must be locked. Inside, everything on any flat surface must be stowed where it can't slide around or fall and break and for us that means the dinette seats and under the table are stuffed full; the bathroom counters are cleared off and the bedroom nightstands are pretty well stabilized (it worked great) with nonstick rubberized shelf liner; coffee pot and miscellaneous kitchen stuff went in the sink; driver and copilot seats were turned back to facing forward after stowing the printer and computer stuff that we set up on the passenger seat while we're parked; flat screen computer monitor is unhooked and stowed in the swivel recliner wrapped in an afghan and I stuffed my big purse between the computer tower and table leg on the floor to slow it down should it decide to take a walk; privacy drapes must be opened and fastened back behind the seats; refrigerator and freezer doors must be tightly closed; area rugs must be taken up in the living room, shaken and stowed before the slide comes in; I have to remove the padded headboard I made for our bed, raise the blinds and make sure the driver can see out the back window and probably some other things that I've forgotten already. Then, of course, the whole scenario is reversed once we're back at our parking spot. So far, we haven't created a checklist but I plan to put that together for us before we head south. Here are a few pictures I took during the whole process.