Road trip!

This will be the last time you hear from us until Monday evening. I think that for the next couple of weeks we're going to try and post the blog in the evening rather than in the morning so that we can get an early start each day.

And we will be getting an early start. We're planning on heading out of here at 6:00am Monday morning. The little blue car is ready to go, all cleaned up and all the little things fixed that I wanted to get done. All we need is to get some new tires somewhere in the U.S. along the way.

Here's our approximate route. We've done this drive quite a few times in the motorhome, and we try and do it slightly different each time. But with the motorhome, we try and avoid the cities, sticking mainly to the secondary roads. So we've never been into many of the cities. This time, with the little blue car, we're doing city tours and a lot of Interstate highway driving.

3,800 kms (2,350 miles) to the Mexico border.

The plan is to reach the border around Nov 1, give or take a day or two either way. 

Went to the bank yesterday and got spare debit cards for each one of us. We've heard stories of some Mexican ATM machines eating them for lunch, and although it's never happened to us we wanted to be a little more prepared. Originally, the teller said they couldn't do it, citing "fraud" concerns, but I pressed the issue. Then, she said she didn't think the system would allow her to do it. She went and checked with someone else, and then tried it and it worked. She said she learned something new! So now we don't have to worry as much about not being able to get cash in Mexico. 

So, we're excited to get on a road trip! We're going to be doing city tours of Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Oklahoma City, three cities we have never visited before.

For today, we're visiting family and friends in Ottawa, then getting a good night's sleep for a long drive tomorrow.