What works, and what doesn't.

Sunrise over Escalante

We left La Mirada June 10th for 18 days of Utah fun.  This is the longest shakedown yet, and the last, as the house sold the first weekend it was on the market. First, what works: the bus.  Mechanically it hasn't missed a beat, there was a little scare with the starting battery the day we left, but other than that, perfect.  When moving between Escalante and Moab, UT we towed our motorcycle trailer over a 9600 ft pass, there was copious black smoke at the top but we made it with flying colors. Bring on the Rockies! Air conditioning! We haven't been under 100 degrees once since the 10th.  As long as we have a 50 amp service we can run fore and aft ac, no problem maintaining 70 degrees.  The cooking area is cramped, and while my in-laws were with us it was difficult to cook for 4 people.  I'm 6' 2" and the overhead cabinets... aren't. I may have to start wearing a helmet while I cook.  The motorcycle trailer balances well behind the bus and I can load the bikes by myself.  The camera gear is kind of a mixed bag, the 360 camera works well with a little vibration problem, I may have to move it to a helmet mount, ugh.  The 4k camera is way too heavy for the mount but takes such nice video I may recruit Shawna to ride on the back and shoot, or find a professional vibration reducing mount.  More on that later.  Not so good: the pets.  As it stands Stewie was AWOL on the day of departure, as tomcats often are. He has since reappeared  and is being watched by the neighbors.  Starfish just had her 12th birthday and is adapting pretty well except for a little carsickness. Our dog Chloe is also doing well, however she is stuck to staying within walking distance of the bus as we have no car, I'm worried should we ever need a vet in a hurry.  I've been thinking about modifying a pet crate to attach to my luggage rack.  We have way more storage than we need, and can probably lighten the load a bit as we find out what we really use.  Shawna's workstation continues to be a problem, she is working from the dinette, fairly uncomfortable after a short period of time. Internet hasn't been much of a problem, however forget Sprint, at least in southern Utah. The park in Escalante had excellent WiFi early in the morning or late at night.  The park in Moab has terrible WiFi all the time, but we are able to tether to our phones on ATT's network. We purchased a WeBoost DriveX OTR that I will install when we get back to the house.  The bikes are running well, I had an idling issue (possibly some bad gas) that seems to have worked itself out.  We leave for La Mirada Tuesday with about 20 days 'til the close of escrow; busy-busy.