Wagon Train

Remember our family friend Harvey? I wrote about him in the blog post Goat Snot and Other Adventures. With a title like that you know you want to read it again, go ahead. I wrote one other post about him too. I must confess, I never did read his book. They are working on a second one. Maybe I'll read them both when the sequel is published.

Anyway, I bring that up because we went to visit him last weekend. He's getting ready for a cross country trip. This is what he'll be driving:



He expects it will take 6 or 7 months to get out west and back. He and his friend Richard will be pulled by 2 mules. The wagon is equipped with 2 beds, a table, windows that open, a rear view mirror (it seems to serve no purpose other than it looks really cool in the "cab" of the wagon) and 2 seats from cars:



Traveling with Harvey and Richard is Harvey's faithful companion Sadie:



They'll have a cell phone with them, but no internet access. Richard plans to journal the trip but Harvey wasn't sure if he would or not. He says it is long, hard days and there is very little time to do it. And apparently when you come to a town, you can't just drive your wagon and mules up to the nearest Starbucks to use their wifi access.

Most of the animals on the farm have been sold pending the trip. The chickens are still there. Violet, who took most of the pictures I'm posting, had a heck of a time getting a chicken to stand still to take its picture. This turned out the best I think.



The cat isn't going. A cat would hate a wagon trip. Harvey offered to let us take the cat. But can you imagine a cat who is used to living on a farm with free range chickens, all the mice you can eat, lots of freedom, would hate living in a house in the suburbs with 3 other lazy housecats. The cat will board with another farm while Harvey's gone I'm sure. Doesn't she look happy on the farm?



A lot of us are hoping Richard finds a way to post his journal during the trip. He's been looking into various technologies, but money is a factor. If he does, I'll post about it here. Maybe they need commercial advertising to subsidize the trip? You know a big corporate logo on the wagon, photo stops along the way, "Harvey and Richard drink Gatorade to stay hydrated on the wagon trip." They'd hate that. We may have to wait to hear their adventures. Just like when the first wagons went West.