The Trip

Sorry for the delay in updating, folks. We left NC last Monday and it's been a whirlwind since.

I'm taking time to update you on the trip today, and then I'll get caught up in the next post about arriving in AZ.

The trip is approximately 2,200 miles, or 33 hours, without stops for gasoline or bathroom breaks and without delays for construction or automobile malfunctions. The Babaloo thought we could make it a two-day trip. I planned on three. It took three and a half.

Monday morning, I tossed one last load of clothes in the dryer, guzzled my coffee, and we loaded the mattresses into the Prowler. Then I headed over to Time Warner to turn in our modem. While I was gone, the family carried the last items to load into the car so when I returned, everything was on the sidewalk, ready to go. We made use of the bathroom one last time, and then headed down to turn in our apartment and mailbox keys. The leasing office wasn't open yet, so there was a short delay while I drove around the complex looking for the morning maintenance man who advised me to drop them in the office drop-box, which I did. Then we hit the road before 10am.

It wasn't too long before we realized the truck wasn't going to get the 10mpg we had estimated, especially climbing the Appalachians. I think, during the entire trip, we fluctuated between 6mpg and 9mpg. As a result, I only fueled up every 2-3 times the Babaloo did.

Western NC

Tennessee is very pretty. It has more trees than North Carolina, and almost every vehicle I saw on the interstate was less than two years old.

Tennessee

We considered stopping at an independent campground in Dickson, TN, but when we arrived no one was around to answer the door or phone, so we agreed to push for West Memphis. We did rest for a bit nearby. We busted out the camp chairs and I drove a block away to grab dinner from Arby's. While the kids finished eating, I called ahead to the KOA in West Memphis to confirm they had room for us, and to get info about paying for a site after-hours. I also mentioned during this fuel-up that the Babaloo was throwing quite a few bits of tire at my windshield and asked whether he was just running over a lot of trash. He checked the tires on the truck and trailer, but it was pretty dark and he couldn't see any problems.

We pulled into the KOA around 11pm. It had nice bathrooms and plenty of space, and we were able to pick a pull-through site with water and electricity, and no trees overhead. When we woke in the morning, we pulled out the camp chairs and made coffee using our hot plate, kettle, and coffee press. I had somehow managed to forget about holding out shampoo for the trip. The bald guy in the site next to us happened to have a brand-new bottle of strawberry VO5 and refused to accept any sort of payment when he gave it to us. "I haven't needed shampoo since 1972!" He was headed the opposite direction, from CA, without a specific destination other than Graceland en route.

It was while we were sitting in our camp chairs, drinking our coffee, that the Babaloo was at the right level and angle to look over and notice that the inner passenger rear tire on the truck was shredded. This is why bits of tire kept hitting me every time we went up a hill. The Babaloo and I debated whether to change it ourselves using the spare, but the spare was packed nicely in the bed of the truck and we really wanted to hold it in reserve in case another tire went out 100 miles from nowhere. Plus, it was starting to rain. The lady at the KOA office gave us the number of a local RV repair shop. I was able to call and locate them, and give them detailed info on the size tire we needed replaced. We limped the rig up the service road a couple of miles, dropped the trailer, and left them the truck with the keys while we went to breakfast.

Fast, cheap, good, and friendly.

As a result, we didn't get on the road until almost noon. The details of the second day are kind of blurry at this point. I am thankful that most of it was overcast. We hit a bit of rain, but not much, and the sun wasn't shining in my eyes while I was driving in the afternoon.

Arkansas: fewer trees, more sky

We ate dinner at a Denny's on I-40 that had free WiFi, so I was able to bust out the Kindle and pull contact info for a KOA in Oklahoma, about 50 miles from the Texas border. I called and made a reservation for a pull-through site. We pulled in around 11pm, about two hours after my contact lenses had started to dry out. Also, construction on I-40 in Oklahoma City is insane; the interstate there is terrible and they have about ten miles of narrow shoulders with cement barricades followed by ten miles of the slow lane (our designated lane most of the trip) consisting of half-pavement, half-shoulder. Know how driving on the shoulder causes a car to thump-thump-thump? Ten miles of that. Behind a swaying trailer and transfer trucks blowing by in the left lane. At night, with awful night vision. I told the Babaloo I couldn't push that hard for a third day. 

The KOA manager had left a map and WiFi password at the night check-in with our site number, but had neglected to leave an access code for the electronic locks on the bathrooms. Thankfully, a nice lady with beautiful braids was in the restroom and opened the door. When I showed her our reservation sheet, she told us the code so we could get in on our own in the morning.

The second night in the Prowler was kind of rough. The air conditioner had blown directly on our kid in the upper bunk the first night, so the second night, three of us slept sideways on our queen mattress. This meant the Babaloo had to wake me up to let him out in the morning at 5am to use the bathroom. I reiterated that I was not up for pushing hard the third day, and that I'd really like to find a hotel where we could all stretch out and have a personal bathroom for a change.

Our coffee companion at the OK KOA

Also, driving monotony set in the third day. Oklahoma and Texas are very flat, and unless you're the lead dog, the view never changes. It was at our first fuel stop in Texas that I just had to sit for a moment and lean my head on the steering wheel, chomp some Rolaids, and wait for vertigo to pass.

So, even though it involved a bit of a climb again, I was happy when we made it to Sky City, NM. The weather up there was absolutely gorgeous.

The Babaloo kept trying to convince me that we'd gained hours by traveling westward. We had agreed to stop at 9pm the third day, which meant we actually checked into a Best Western at 8pm just east of Flagstaff. I guess it was fortuitous that the Babaloo wasn't interested in pushing the rig up into the mountains so late in the day. The hotel was lovely. The Babaloo drove the car to a nearby Taco Bell to grab dinner. I was frustrated that (like every Taco Bell ever) they forgot to give me a spork and the Babaloo thought I was blaming him when I was just tired and snippy and not faulting him in the least. After I ate and slept on a wide, flat surface and showered and moisturized and ate again (their complimentary breakfast was pretty comprehensive), I was a new woman.

State line!

Flagstaff is nice. I could live there. But it's rather expensive, I think. And the Babaloo doesn't do snow. I could totally live there, though.

The fourth day, the Babaloo's driving became more difficult to read. I couldn't tell when he wanted to change lanes (my job for the trip was to clear the passing lane for him to get over & back) and he frequently left his turn signal on for several miles. I'm sure I looked like a moron, jumping back and forth from lane to lane and almost missing entrance ramps because I was still clearing the left lane when he turned right. It didn't help that you cannot see road signs from behind a Prowler. I confess I yelled a few times in exasperation.

I was happy, though, when we started seeing mountains. We saw and traveled through several before we reached our destination late Thursday morning.

I'll post later about arriving in town and securing living arrangements. For now, I'll leave you with the view from my front yard at night.