Summer Vacation 2024- We are off!
Idaho to Verdi, Nevada (approx. 8 hours of driving)
Today is the day. The day we hit the road. After trying to wrap up work, in the midst of having wrestling twice a week and football the other two weekdays, dance, then football games on Fridays and wrestling tournaments on the weekends, all the end of year school activities, trips, programs, etc…Then topping your basic life chores of laundry, meals, grocery shopping, and everything else that was chaotic and caused more stress than we would have wanted. Honestly, I don’t think there is enough time in a day. How we have made this happen is beyond me- at the end of the day. We did it. We may have stayed up until 1:30am to finish all the last tidbits of everything. But again, we did it. We woke up, got the kids out of bed, had them help take out the last few things out to the motorhome. Fed them a decent fresh breakfast, downed our heavily caffeinated cup of joe, locked up, loaded up and headed out!
Morro Bay, here we come!
But wait, there’s that time lapse of getting there. What does that mean? Well, not even 10 minutes onto the road, the kids are begging for screen time. I refused to fall into that trap. I had them start on Legos that were gifted to them by their grandparents. I also showcased some games that I had purchased for them to occupy themselves before getting trapped in the lovely screen time that will be so heavily addictive that they won’t want to put down. 5-10 minutes later after explaining to them they were not going to spend the next 8 hours on an iPad or watching a movie on their DVD players, they were now suddenly starving. I had stocked our camper with a variety of different kind of snacks. Little did I know our home on wheels just become quick easy access to an unlimited buffet of kids snacks.
Also, little did I think it through when I excitedly showed them all the goodies and telling them to help themselves. Fast forward 10-20 minutes later, I had to stop their enjoyment after looking back and realized they hadn't stopped eating. Of course, they wouldn’t want a meal. Why would they when they know they have a full premium access pass to a full snack bar at their fingertips. To have closed up their unlimited snack buffet, I instantly became very much a weary flight attendant-like mother, getting up and down from my seat assisting my three passengers in all their needs, wants and demands. Oh boy, did 8 hours of motorhome driving sound absolutely terrible in those moments. And this idea of traveling cross country seemingly seemed like an idea from a horror story. No one talks about the tedious car trip struggles with kiddos. The days of just looking out a window and maybe listening to your cd walkman were no longer existent in this young generation. I think at one point, I demanded my children to put everything that was stimulating their brains to look out the window and look at the clouds. Yes, I told them to look at the clouds! I told them to search for shapes, characters, or whatever it was that they wanted. I had the look of confusion, and I was confused why I had even said that exactly. I had to hold back my laughter and go with it. I already said it. I was committed. I didn’t want to fall into a moment of weakness and have them work me into doing something else. When they did agree to attempt it- there were no clouds. Just. MY. Luck.
The pros of traveling in a motorhome.
You don’t have to stop. At all. The times we did were to just pull off the main road. This allowed Blake to sneak away and use the restroom. But otherwise, he drove straight through. Meanwhile, as the co-captain, I was in charge of maintaining our 3 needy passengers and keeping everyone fed and occupied. This idea, I could sit and relax and look at the clouds myself, was completely and utterly nonexistent. Oh the love, the joys of motherhood and the sounds of “mom. Momma. Mommy. Moooommmmm.”
In the midst of all my travel stresses, I have to pause and give it to Blake. He drove this motorhome like a beast. 44ft long for our motorhome and pulling a 24ft trailer. That is a long beast to be traveling at high speeds on busy roads. The stress of that, and then hearing the kids bickering back and forth and me in the background trying to hold the fort down, was probably beautiful music to the ears. But he kept his cool, stayed focused, kept us safe, and got us to where we needed to be.
We decided we were going to stop at an RV park near the border of California and Nevada. Just to get a good stretch, good night rest and allow Blake to get a good break and most importantly, let the kids run!
About 6 miles to our stopping point, a car pulled up to the driver side waving us down. Yelling out his window that we had a flat tire on the trailer we were pulling.
“How in the world do we have a flat?”
We felt NOTHING. Well, I should explain, I felt nothing. At one point, I would literally say about 45 minutes prior, Blake yelped "What was that?” As he felt something but that “feeling” stopped and everything seemed fine. So, we pressed forward up until that moment. Our sticker shock, deer in the head lights went into panic and confusion. Blake manned the motorhome like he had been, as I went straight to my phone attempting to find where the next rest stop would be. As we were stressfully trying to figure out the best place to pull off, I had found on google maps what seemed to be a fairly decent open parking lot. I think we were good. It was the next exit and seemed like a quick easy access. Well, life is about perspective- right?! So is Google Maps. The photo made it look much bigger than it was and seemingly right off the exit. To just pull into somewhere is a little more difficult for 70ft of length. To just pull in and turn around-is everything but simple. Especially with other cars lined up perfectly parked in rows. Little did I know we were going to be going over and through the mountain top of a very nice suburb definitely not made for our size of transportation. Round abouts we had no business in and no pull off areas to just make a quick stop. It was a terrible suggestion I had made. Blake continued driving nervously silent, with the head gesture of disappointment at every stop and turn we had to make. We spent another 30 minutes or so driving on this mountain in hope something would pop up. We happen to pass by a little shopping center on the opposite side of the road that would be a best case option. Not really ideal but would be worth the try, as we saw a few FedEx trucks parked in the open parking lot. Key word, OPEN, as in free of other vehicles. So, around the next round about we went, to head back towards that shopping plaza to see if we could fit in cautiously to check/fix this tire. To our luck as we headed back in that direction, there was a pull out for buses only. Well, we are kind of a bus- we truly had no other option and decided to stop.
Blake, Kaycen and I head out of the motorhome to view this “flat tire.” Let me tell you!
This was no flat tire. This was a demolished rim! The tire was gone! Shredded by the high speeds and ripped completely off.
You can tell it was dangling for a bit, as you can see where the rubber smashed up against the trailer forcefully and because it was super hot, rubber specks ran down the side of the trailer. A rubbery mess it made. Blake and Kaycen quickly start to get things into motion. Thank goodness Blake brought his whole tool box, brand new trailer tires, the jack blocks and jack. We spent more time searching that moutain top looking for a pullout than he did spending time changing that tire. I have to say, first off, we were so lucky and two, thank goodness Blake packed all that he did and is a pro at what he does. We were back on the road and later shaking our heads laughing at what we had just experienced.
In that momement of quick dispair, we were able to quickly turn the worse into a simple little obstacle that we had to work through. Let’s hope that we don’t have anything worse that that. As we find our way back to the freeway, we saw there was an emergency pullout literally one mile from where we had pulled off to adventure our way up a mountain top suburb in sheer panic. That moment when there is nothing to say but shake your head. Hey! I never said I was an expert map reader. As we head our way to the Rv Park, that happened to literally be minutes up the road, we were mind blown of our tire chaos. All the stress we just endured was stripped away from us as we pulled into the RV park. The beauty of the surrounding mountains was absolutely captivating. God is good. Our journey has just begun on this summer adventure.
Those mountains were just calling to be rode by the boys. You bet your bottom dollar, the bikes were pulled out and a little mountain biking was completed, a walk through the RV park to check it all out and maybe also a stop at the coffee/ice cream shop.
BUCKET LIST CHECK OFF
We all have little bucket list items for this trip. Two of them were checked off on this stop. One of the things we want to experience is stopping at local restaurants to try something different and try local foods. Including local ice cream shops. We found this random, in the middle of no where restaurant in Verdi, Nevada that had some decent Mexican dishes. Our bellies were full and happy. The restaurant was vibrant, and the staff was incredible. I swear our children always draw so much attention to other guest or the workers when we go to places. This always allows some great conversations with strangers. This was a great end to our day.
Secondly, that following morning, Kaycen and I took a little trail run to the state line and were able to be in two states at once! That was just a fun, cool little thing to say we did. He was in California AND Nevada at the exact time! Me being in California and him in Nevada, we were able to still give each other a high five. LOL.
LESSON LEARNED
Through the thick and thin of chaos, there is always beauty and usually that silver lining of greatness.