day 1

january 26, 2014

after having to boost the truck off of my mom's car, we finally got on the road around 1 pm. my mom was ever so proud and took a bunch of pictures :) 

the weather in ontario was total crap, snowing and blowing all afternoon. we finally crossed the border into the usa around 6 pm. somehow this cost $5? it was very unclear why, however we were just glad they didn't harass us or demand to search the camper, which would have been a huge pain in the ass. so we paid happily. i got the impression it was for some sort of toll, but there was no previous warning that a toll would be required. 

honey bear took a turn at driving. very helpful, this bear!

upon getting to detroit, we beelined for sushi. i had found a good place that was very well reviewed (fishbone's they serve sushi and just about everything else under the sun) however it was downtown detroit, which posed interesting parking problems. the first place we went they wanted $20 for an hour (!!!), but we found another that let us park for $5. they seemed to take issue with the fact that we are in a large truck with a camper hanging 2 feet off the back. regardless, we found parking and had very good (though fairly expensive) sushi. i also discovered that leather moccasins were not the most practical shoe choice for the stupid slushy northern states. i have a pair of wellies in the camper, but they are sadly inaccessible, and i didn't want to bring actual boots out of a sense of denial that winter is a thing still, despite the fact that clearly we were not going to make it to mexico overnight. 

as i write this, we are in a wal-mart parking lot in oregon, ohio. the running lights on the camper have stopped working, and though we thought it would be an easy fix, it appears to be an issue with the "professionally" installed wiring in the truck. in the mean time, we have stuck two of those little magnetic LED lights into the light housings (glad we invested in those the other day!) so the issue is not too bad. the brake and signal lights still work fine. it's midnight, so we're heading back into wal-mart to buy wine and cheese, and then finding a place to stay the night. 

our first sunset on the road