6/2/17 The first leg of the trip starts on the sixteenth of June. A solo drive cross country to Washington state. This will hopefully go smoothly but knowing the first couple days will be the rough part. Day one is a rural start from Buckland, Massachusetts... not near a major road so getting to the main route I-90 will take about an hour and forty-five minutes.  If the scales are open in New York I will stop and have the loaded truck/camper weighed which includes the front and rear axle loads, very important information to have.  The rear seats of the crew cabin were removed and a platform put in reducing weigh and allowing all of the gear and food etc to go more towards the front helping to distribute the load off the rear axle. No matter how you look at it getting 'out' of the northeast is a pain. Not so much in the first part but as one gets to western New York State it builds up. The goal is to get to Cleveland, Ohio or maybe Toledo (doubtful). Google maps is great in many ways but they ought to have a "reality" button. They say 10 hours....ya right. I am planning on 12 to get to Cleveland.  I know nuts... but hey it's like just get me past Chicago asap. The first night is a "Service Plaza" on I-90 that allows and has space for RV sleeping. That with bathrooms and food is all I need...that and ear plugs and eye-mask to get sleep. Up and out the next day for the kicker...It is a Saturday but still the road work and who knows what ball game will determine how it goes. I hope to get to Madison, Wis. for night two. There is another pull off for trucks right before the Wisconsin River.

From here on it is real traveling... wide open spaces across into South Dakota to the Grasslands. I intend to wander off in such and get a quiet night in open country.  Fourth night, Montana near Custer State Park rustic sights. On to Idaho or eastern Washington for the fifth night maybe near Frenchman's Coulee. If all goes well, the next day on to Bellevue WA for an oil change. BTW the pink marker is the route east to west, the blue is part of the return trip two months from now.