And We Are Off – the long haul to Rocky Mountain

We decided at home to post on the blog when we got to Colorado, assuming that we wouldn’t have much to say about the trek across the country. We were wrong. It was a good reminder that the adventure is as much in the journey as the destination.

Day 1 – June 10, 2016

Mileage = 73,277

Shelburne, VT

When Kevin was a kid his family took many road trips in their big green van with a small popup in tow. His mom, Cecelia, started every trip with writing in her journal, and before the van could move she requested the mileage to record. So, to pay tribute to Cecelia we have decided to start each leg of our journey with our current mileage.

3:45 pm and we are off! We pulled out of our driveway to places unknown to us. Thank you Holly, Sean, Anna, and Clara for providing us with a well needed care package of yummy – mostly healthy snacks!

3:54 pm – first stop! Distance traveled = 3.7 miles. Wedding and baby shower for Jenney’s colleagues.

7:30 pm – On the road again and this time we really are off. We cover some distance getting all the way to a Walmart parking lot in Utica, New York.

Day 2 – June 11, 2016

Mileage = 73,482

Utica, NY

We hit the road again Saturday morning at about 8:30 am to continue our trek west.

Sorry… not much to report for today, left New York, entered Pennsylvania, left Pennsylvania entered Ohio, pretty uneventful until “the event”.

The first major “event” of the adventure!

Location = Ohio, interstate 70 Westbound, near the intersection of I-70 and I-75.

Time: approximately 7:00 pm

Mileage: 74,060

Driver: Jenney

Event: Tire blow out! One of our rear dual tires decided to rip itself apart. Of course it was the inside tire (go big or go home! And we ain’t going home!).

Shredded tire Dayton, OH 6/11/2016

Shredded tire Dayton, OH 6/11/2016

So we called our insurance company, I knew there was a reason we got roadside assistance. The estimated time of arrival for service 7:51pm, great, just enough time to fire up the stove and cook dinner; tonight’s meal Gnocchi alla Forrentina with tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese.

The good news is we did bring a spare tire, although we were kinda hoping we wouldn’t need to use it so soon.

At 7:45 Sean, our savior (?), called to inform us he was just 6 minutes away and he will pull up behind me in his gray Ford Taurus with a Disabled driver tag hanging in the window. Huh, we called Sean back just to make sure he understood that we have a 10,000+ lbs motorhome with dual wheels, no jack, and the need to have the tire mount and balanced on the side of the road. Sean was not aware and was not equipped to help… he said we should call progressive back; which we did.

Round two, progressive assured us that this time they would be sending a medium duty service provider that can in fact do the service we needed. With dinner complete and the RV heating up (it is over 94 degrees outside!), we decided to try out some features we having not fully tested. We fired up our generator and turned on the roof AC unit. That worked great. So here we are, waiting for our service, sitting in our cooled off mini-home.

Eating in Dayton OH waiting for tire to get fixed

Eating in Dayton OH waiting for tire to get fixed

Giving up on tow truck and going to bed. Side of the road, Dayton, OH.

Giving up on tow truck and going to bed. Side of the road, Dayton, OH.

Service arrived at 8:40 pm! Yeah. Round two the service provider, a very nice guy in a pickup truck with really cool flashing lights, said he could not help us. So we called progressive back… this time the result is dispatch of a tow truck to haul us to a place that can mount our spare tire. Where else = Walmart. About 6 mile from our location is a Walmart with a tire center that is open tomorrow morning at 8 am. I guess night number two will be another Walmart Parking lot, this time Huber Heights, Ohio.

Ok look, company! Now a truck is broken down behind us, popular spot on the interstate – hey buddy we got here first! He’s more successful and gets back on the road quickly.

Hey wait we were broken down first! Dayton, OH

Hey wait we were broken down first! Dayton, OH

10:15 pm – Tow Truck arrived! Yeah! George, a very nice guy took one look and announced he couldn’t help. Apparently his dispatch told him it was a front tire. With a hook tow it would be riding on the failed rear tire.   George gave us a few numbers to some other places. But one was closed and the other said our tire was too small for them to work on; they only do big semi trucks. Jenney decided to call progressive to handle round four.

At this point we started to consider getting off the main interstate, George suggested we were less than 2 miles from an exit, we might be able to drive really slow on the one good rear tire. However, the three hours of sitting with flashers on killed the driving battery. We still had plenty of power in back and the generator still works fine, but the engine won’t start. Bummer.

Since we now have to wait more, we decide to fire up the generator and turn the roof AC unit on again. Which worked fine for about 2 minutes and then the AC unit stopped working. Bummer. It is hot and humid in here and getting hotter.

At 10:51 pm we heard from our buddy Aaron at progressive that they found someone who says he can help us with a roadside tire change – Alpha Dawg. So we begin wait number four.

12:30 am Helper number four pulls up. Another pick up with cool lights. Hmm… Wiry little guy Rick jumps out and assesses the problem, quickly proclaiming when he hears our plight that he can’t believe the others wouldn’t help us. Back home I would have expected some expletives based on his tone, but he’s a different breed. We get his story of how he is retiring in 2 years with his $3.5 million pension fund and his hobby side business with a buddy training all types of equestrians especially hunter jumper, huh! With maul, crow bar, compressor, and jumping up and down on the tire a few times (best not to watch), voila we have a tire on a rim and back on the motor home.

Changing flat tire at 1am in Dayton, Ohio. 6/12/2016

Changing flat tire at 1am in Dayton, Ohio. 6/12/2016

2:00 am We say goodbye to Rick and head to our resting place where else – a Walmart just outside of Dayton, Ohio. Little known fact, did you realize that every Walmart uses a street sweeper on their parking lot at night?

Day 3 – June 12, 2016

Mileage = 74,070

Huber Heights, OH

More road ahead. First quick course change. Based on our detour in Dayton we decide to head to St. Louis. It’s a 11 hour trip and we can stop and stretch our legs at the Arch. Suffice is to say the road looks a lot the same across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. We look at the Cities and begin to highlight the route in our atlas.

3:30 pm We arrive at the Arch, really know as Jefferson National Expansion Memorial aka Gateway Arch. Our first National Park on the journey, time to purchase our park pass. Up into the Arch! Jenney’s a little nervous in the small enclosed capsule that gets us to the top. It’s hot and small and closed in – obviously time to start the party music to get thing rocking, which does the trick. Party in the capsule while we wait for the 4-minute journey to the top. The elevator is an engineering miracle. Looking down 630 feet to the based which spans 630 feet (yes it is the same height as width), and then out as far as the eye can see first to the east and then to the west; yes the west where we are headed through St. Lois the gateway and for a long time the last city to the frontier.

Back to the bus.

6:17 pm Short detour to Trader Joes to make sure that if we are stranded we can feed a small army. Dining in the parking lot on garlic, wine and parmesan fiddleheads over pasta. Finally, kids melting asleep into their seats we try to claw back some of the time we lost in Ohio hitting the road again for a few hours.

We get out 2 hours before we need to call it a night at 11:45 pm. Walmart again, the quietest night so far, the street sweeper has already been through and there are no cars coming and going.

Day 4 – June 13, 2016

Mileage = 74,576

Boonsville, MO

“Dad are we in the Plains yet?” Into the plains, rolling treed hills turn quickly into grass covered fields topped with hundreds if not thousands of windmills.

Windmills on the Plains.

Windmills on the Plains.

You can see as far as the eye can see, with lots of flowers popping up here and there to color the landscape, flowers we don’t see at home. All is good for hundreds of miles.

Then, blow up number 2, Grinnell, Kansas. Left inner rear tire, Kevin driving this time. We learned from last time, and decided to go the extra quarter of a mile limping on the shoulder to get off the highway. Luck was with us, we pulled into a garage parking lot and when we asked if we could stay until we could get help, he said, “yes, but do you see those open garage doors a little way down the road, that’s tire shop, they should be able to help you”. Long and short, they put a tire on and we are rolling in less than an hour. Unfortunately, we will need to fix a grey water pipe sheered off by spinning rubber from the tire.

Tornado warning started to pour in, so we thought we would race the storms to Denver, dropping the visit to Monument Rock in Kansas. For all, but 15 minutes we were able to stay out of the rain as storms piled in to the south, north and west of us. The lighting was amazing.

As we pulled into Denver, the mountains were just visible, highlighted by the sun and surrounded by dark clouds, simply beautiful. On our way in we discovered limited camping options. Almost all the towns have ordinances forbidding overnight parking, the exception, a Walmart in Aurora, Colorado. We discovered it to be loud and busy, but a safe place to stay. A few trips into the Home Depot next door and we think we have a solution that will work on the pipe. A little reading on the RV forums and Jenney has found the solution for the roof AC. Kevin of course implements it and the AC is back along with the microwave and all things powered by the generator. Tomorrow – the Rocky Mountains at last (after we fix the water pipe).

Day 5 – June 14, 2016

Mileage – 75,264

Aurora, CO

Slower start than we had hoped, but we are on the road at 10:25 am. After using our “call a friend” card to talk with Rees Harris, our back home tire expert we decided to get all of the tires checked and swapped out the truck tire that we added in Kansas. It’s now the spare ‘just in case’. The grey water pipe is also fixed. Hopefully we are pieced back together for a while as we head into the mountains. First stop, visit Corrine Blanchard, the girls do remember her, but one our favorite pictures is of her walking Logan out of the hospital after she was born as we started our journey as parents.