We drove our coach 314 miles, about five hours of driving, from College Park, Maryland to Beaver, West Virginia. The beginning of our westward migration, heading towards our home base in Washington state.
Here’s a map showing our route, heading west:
An interactive map:
Toading up:
I-495:
Welcome to Virginia:
Paladin in his high place:
I-64:
I-66:
Fuel stop:
Tiffin Phaeton motorhome:
Apples on water tower:
We were going to park and have lunch at the fuel stop, but there wasn’t any parking that would work for us, so we continued on. There wasn’t any room at the next rest area either:
So I made lunch on the road:
A later rest area:
I-64:
Welcome to West Virginia:
Of course, we had to play John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” while entering the state:
While in Red Bay earlier in 2024, we had Cody Poores of Cody’s Custom Cabinets build a custom desk for us, based on my design. We wanted a built-in desk that matched the existing cabinetry, didn’t take up too much space on travel days, but expanded when in use. Plus included a space for Paladin’s litter box. Here’s my design:
A timelapse video of drawing the design using Linea Sketch on my iPad Pro with Pencil:
The empty space after removing the IKEA cabinet; the main TV is on a televator, inside that cabinet below the window:
A nice thing about Cody’s service is that he comes to you at your campsite in Red Bay. Here’s the new desk arriving at the end of the week:
Being brought inside:
My design included a TV lift for the computer monitor. We supplied the lift mechanism. Here it’s being mounted:
Back of the new cabinet, with the monitor lift area and cupboards on the left, drawers in the middle, and the cat litter area on the right:
The desk in place, without desktops (and with the main TV raised):
A closer look at the cupboard and monitor lift area without the desktops:
The right-hand pull-out desktop installed:
The left desktop also in place:
The new computer monitor (Apple Studio Display) raised, still wrapped:
The completed desk with the coach slide-outs in for travel:
We store the desk chair by the dining table for travel, and stack the dining chairs:
Looking down the back at the monitor lift and cables:
A couple of grommets for wires:
Wires behind the drawers between the two grommets:
A side view of the monitor lift:
Cupboards:
Cat litter bin and litter box on a drawer slide, so it can be easily pulled out for cleaning:
Jenn’s typical work setup:
When work is done, the monitor can be lowered and desktop closed, and the main TV raised:
There are a couple of Velcro patches inside the desk, and corresponding patches on Jenn’s work and personal laptops, so they can be stored on travel days without sliding around:
We visited Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland, where “23,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing after twelve hours of savage combat on September 17, 1862”.
