Our plan…10 states in 12 days…Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, back to Florida. Almost worked, it really took us 14 days.
We pulled out of St. Petersburg, FL the evening of June 14th. Our plan was to move my daughter, Megan, to Missouri while at the same time taking care of some business for the company I work for. Oh what an adventure it was.
On our way to Missouri, I needed to stop by Decatur, AL for work. I was hoping to get to Decatur by noon or so, but we ended up stopping at a rest area just south of town. We were all miserable because the air in the coach wasn’t working and the heat was getting to us. We just couldn’t figure out what was going on. At the rest area, we kept inspecting the generator. Finally, we discovered that the breaker on the generator was in the off position. Once we pushed that button, we were set. Ahhh…air conditioning!!!! We hung out at the rest area for about 45 minutes. I had to cool off and clean up before I could even begin to think about seeing my employees.
We made it to Decatur and parked in their WalMart parking lot. Robert, Megan, and the little doggies hung out in the coach enjoying and appreciating air conditioning. About 6:30 that evening I was done at the office and we were ready to hit the road again.
We stopped at about 11:30 that night to rest near Jackson, TN. Neither one of us was in any condition to drive any further. It is so nice to be able to stop pretty much anywhere and sleep comfortably in your vehicle. We finally made it to Springfield, MO at about noon on June 16th.
We had a nice visit for a day with family in Springfield and then we were off again, toward Louisville, CO. We tried to stay as long as we could with family, so we left out Saturday evening. We needed to get there by Monday so that I could spend three days in the office there, before heading back home to FL. Storms were rolling in and we wanted to get ahead of them. After we fueled up and as we were heading out of town, the tornado sirens blared. We were a little north of town when we decided to pull over. We cranked on our weather radio and I geared up my computer to look at the radar. It was best to hang tight and rest. After a couple of hours, the radar kept showing strong storms and tornadic activity on our planned route of Hwy 13 and Hwy 7 toward Kansas City. The radar was clear, however, on I44 to Hwy 71 toward KC. We decided to backtrack a bit and take the I44, Hwy 71 route. It was a bit longer, but at least we were moving. Other than some heavy rain when we were parked, listening to the weather radio, we avoided the worst of the storms. The weather radio is nice, but we love having Internet on the go. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Any time there is a storm going on, Robert and I seem obsessed in tracking the radar.
Things were going well, until we went through construction in KS. Just on the west-side of Topeka on I70, as we were paying our toll, Robert heard a strange noise. He kept the window open as we traveled and kept hearing something we’ve never heard before. At the first opportunity, we stopped at a rest area, and low and behold…a FLAT! It was Sunday morning in the middle of Kansas!! Who would be available to help us, and I really needed to get to the CO office by Monday morning.
Just a few days before, I told Robert that I hope that we wouldn’t need our road side assistance info, because I thought I left it at home. It’s Murphy’s Law, isn’t it? After digging through our stuff, we managed to find enough information to call our roadside assistance company. I tried not to be too anxious about being stranded. The rest area was very nice, so I took the dogs for a long walk.
We were so lucky, because we only had to wait about an hour and a half before help arrived with a new tire. He did what he had to do, and we were off again. It was amazing, we made it to our campground at Chatfield State Park just after dark that evening. I was able to get to do what I needed at the office within the time frame I allotted.
In retrospect, I’m proud of myself for not getting too anxious or frantic when our timing wasn’t just perfect. I really thought I would have been more stressed. I know that driving a 38′ coach has a much different pace than driving our car, and overall I think we did a fine job getting to where we needed to be in Colorado. Being in an RV seems to change your mindset a bit. Robert and I took everything in stride. We didn’t get stressed and take it out on each other. It was a very good experience and we had learned so much. We are anxious to learn more and keep up the traveling. That first trip has also taught me so much on how to work on the road. I’ve worked so long in an office around people, that I have to change my mindset in working on the go and from our RV home.
The trip back to FL was a long one, but fairly uneventful…just HOT! In fact, we learned about the engine alarms and coolant. Total miles…4,700. We’ll chalk this maiden voyage up as a success…when’s the next trip?