The End

Today is March 30, 2015. It marks two important events in our life. This is the last day of our RV trip, as well as Matt and my 19th wedding anniversary. Both make us reflect on what a journey each has been.  We have enjoyed the highs and have endured the lows, and wouldn't change a thing. I feel incredibly blessed to have taken this 5 1/2 months with our family, in our 40 foot RV, learning to bump into each other with a little more kindness then we started.  Our perspectives have changed and our fears have decreased. I think we could do just about anything. Hopefully our kids have a new appreciation for the beautiful America that they are blessed to live in.  When we arrive home, there will be a flurry of unpacking, cleaning and then getting big Mama up for sale. What mixed feelings we have.  It's the end of this journey but because of this amazing experience, I KNOW there will be many more crazy dreams ahead for this crew of five.

This last morning, the kids were sound asleep. I had to capture this quiet comfortable moment.

The road home with surprises

We traveled north from the Grand Canyon, up through northern Arizona and Utah. The landscape year continues to amaze us. We wish that we would've had several more days to spend there. Page, Arizona had a spectacular Walmart we boondocked at that was definitely in the best setting we have ever seen. Matt was able to take a phenomenal bike ride around the rim of this beautiful city. He wanted us to experience the beauty and so we all took a hike looking over at Lake Powell.

Onward we went to St. George, Utah where Aspen Carroll had invited us to stay at her family's home. St. George turns out to be another phenomenal Mountain Bike area with spectacular scenery. Again, we wish we had more than just a day. The kids enjoyed a homemade 450 foot zip line and swimming in her aunts pool.

We started our trip in Salt Lake City with my brother, Ryan and his wife Shauna.  And we ended our journey at their house in Salt Lake City again. They always treat us to a great feast and the cousins have a wonderful time playing together.

Family fun in Arizona

We had a great time at both grandma and cool and aunt Teresa's pool. Each day the kids had a blast playing with all their cousins.

After a few days of family fun, we continued on to Williams, Arizona to see the Grand Canyon. We had a few more mechanical issues, but had a great mechanic in Flagstaff that helped us out. The RV is now running beautifully.

Once in Williams, Debbie surprised us with a first-class train tickets to take up to the Grand Canyon. What a fantastic experience that was! The kids loved that we had the whole car to ourselves with food and drink the entire way.

That night, we met up with another family right across from us in the campground. They turned out to be a homeschool family that was traveling with four kids in a 32 foot RV. We had an instant connection, and our two youngest, the girls became fast friends. Their three boys were wonderful too and we were able to connect with them, swim, share a campfire, and many travel stories. What a blessing this trip has been for meeting up with these families that are so similar to ours and yet come from all over the United States. We only knew them for one night, but felt a strong connection and exchanged contact information for the future.

Back on the road again

A lot happened from the time we left Texas, had the RV towed in New Mexico and left it in Las Vegas for the winter. We returned home, where our kids were extremely happy to see friends and family again.

This is our beautiful niece, Samantha. We got to meet up with she and her husband in Las Vegas.

A photo with our Besties in Boise. 

 We spent a good month skiing on our beloved mountain, Bogus Basin. 

And then the weather changed, we bought a house, moved in, and two weeks later, we were on the road again. This time we were headed to Arizona to celebrate Papa Eds 80th birthday.

Boulder city, Nevada turned out to be a gem. We toured the Hoover dam, but enjoyed the small town very much. The kids had a nice bike track trail to practice jumping.

We traveled from Boulder city on to Phoenix. We stayed at Lost Dutchman state park, which turned out to be one of our favorite parks. We had the most beautiful rainbow the night we arrived and met back up with our friend Debbie.  What a great reunion that was!

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The RV gets towed

Well, we knew it might happen. A day when we had some big breakdown. Day 154, New Years Eve was the day. We had camped at a cool state park called City of Rocks SP in New Mexico. 

It's one of six places in the world where past volcanic rocks have left groupings like this that look like a city (I thought it was a far stretch, but I also have a lame imagination). It was a striking contrast to the desert. 

Kids loved climbing and exploring even in  freezing temperatures. That night, the temp dropped to 22 degrees. When we tried to start the RVthe following morning, she did not comply. After an hour of block heating, she finally rumbled into gear. As we took off, she died. We thought that it might be because of the cold, but she continued to loose power and threaten to shut down. We limped her into the nearest small town of Deming, NM luckily right into a truck repair shop. The young mechanic changed the oil (our oil pressure was super low). 

Tanner watched the whole process with our bed upright in the back to expose the engine. This kid is going to be an awesome fix it husband someday. 

The mechanic told Matt that he saw several gaskets out of place and misfiring. He muttered, "you may want to sell this thing fast!"  Not what we want to hear. 

Now, remember its NYE, and everyone is getting off work early and no one is working New Year's Day. We hoped the new oil might be a fix enough to drive into Arizona where we planned New Years celebration with Grandma and PaoavEd.  We took the RV for a test run down the road. It died on us twice. We knew that we were out of luck.  As we pulled back into the truck repair shop, the RV died once again. Luckily, we have good Sam's membership which gives us towing for free if our RV is non-drivable. We called them and they set up a tow truck to arrive from Las Cruces, New Mexico, which was 60 miles south.

So we hurried and packed some bags and decided that the tow truck would take the RV back to Las Cruces and we would head on to Arizona in the car. About two hours later, we got a phone call where we learned that the RV would have to spend the night in Walmart in Las Cruces because the diesel mechanic there had left for the night and locked the gates. We were uncomfortable with this thought and so we decided to stay with the RV.  By now we had been in a broken down RV all day long. I was proud of the kids though.  Stray dogs and toys helped to entertain them well.  

The tow truck driver finally arrived at about 5 o'clock that night. He looked to be about 14 years old to me. He told Matt that towing an RV is his worst nightmare.  Nothing like putting our mind at ease after an already stressful day. It  took him almost 2 hours to disable the driveline and get the heavy RV hooked up to his semi truck.

After seeing the age of this driver and his inexperience, Matt quickly got out the manual for towing the RV and helped the young man throughout the process. They were both frozen to the bone by the time they were done. And it was dark. We drove south to Las Cruces and arrived in the Walmart parking lot to spend one more night there. The driver jacked the RV up on blocks to make it easier to for him to pick it back up on Friday. So we slept in a slightly elevated RV that night.

Seeing that it was New Year's Eve, we went into Walmart and let the kids pick out some snacks. We were all so exhausted that we only lasted until about 10:30 PM, and then fell fast asleep. 

However, the next day the kids loaded up on Nerf guns using Christmas gift cards that were burning a hole in their pockets.  We all had great Nerf gun fights in the parking lot.

Turns out, Walmarts pretty dead on New Year's Day at 8 AM in the morning.

Because we had limited water at the state park, and I had chosen not to require showers before we left TX. It had been about four days since any of us had showered. We appeared to be a homeless family as we walked the aisles of Walmart with our scrubby, greasy hair.  Elise found a Christmas dress on sale for two dollars. She was so excited to wear it, she put it on, dirt and all with her tennis shoes. I had to capture a picture.

We knew we needed showers and a good nights rest, so I booked us a room at the Sleep Inn. We seriously stunk so bad that the room was unbearable to stay in until everyone had showers.  I'm still in awe at the stench that can be emitted from a preteen boys tennis shoes. 

On a positive note, Matt found an Albertson's here in Las Cruces on "Idaho" street. He went out and grabbed us some dinner and even found a dozen freshly made donuts. Happy New Year's day to us!

Gas prices are a surprising low as well.

All in all, not a bad diversion. At least we hope not. Tomorrow we'll hear the damage and face the music. Like my dad always reminds me, "it's just a dot in the big picture of life". Love a wise father.