Day One--On the road

Jolene, and Jessi. Jessi was just two days old in this picture, Feb 9, 1989

Preamble or Pre-ramble as the case maybe

February 7^th of 1989 saw the birth of our 2^nd daughter, Jessica Mae. Margo and I had planned to take a trip to the Grand Canyon after she was born. We decided that at 9 weeks Jessi would be old enough for her first trip, and the weather would be warm enough to go. So that was what we planned. We had bought a pop up camper with the idea of using it for our vacations for years to come. This would be it’s maiden voyage. The camper would be pulled by our 1974 Chevy Nova. I drove that car back and forth to work. It had a V-8 and was reliable. But it looked like hell. And if having a new baby, a 4 year old,  and a brand new camper wasn’t enough for one trip, we decided that I would have my ( the faint of heart should now stick fingers in their ears and say LaLaLaLaLa) vasectomy right before we leave. I only had two weeks of vacation at that time, and I threw boxes for a living in the warehouse where I worked. I needed to take a week off just to heal. And since I had taken a week off when Jessi was born, I had just the one week left for both healing and vacationing. The doctor said he was OK with it, so with this final piece in place we had done about all we could do to guarantee a lousy time.