Go Big or Go Home

Mya's usual spot - the couch. Jade is navigating with Jeff.

(I’m typing this in Word as we drive down one of the worst highways in the US, highway 69, through Eufaula, Ok.  It’s so bumpy my hands keep bouncing and hitting the wrong keys and the cursor keeps jumping around! Going to need to do some serious editing before I post this.)  We left the house at 10 a.m. yesterday and we weren’t a mile from home when one of the outside bin doors flew open.  Luckily nothing fell out but we had to pull over and spend about 30 minutes trying to fix the latch.  Thank goodness Jeff is so handy at fixing things. He was nervous leaving on such a long trip without having taken out the rig on any short trial runs to see what issues we’d encounter. Go big or Go home as they say – lol!  The trip from home up into OK is so tedious because of the traffic.  We did just over 360 miles and didn’t get to our stopping place for the night until almost 7 p.m.  Going through the Dallas area stinks.  Every road is under construction and the traffic is hideous.  Just like last year! We are so happy when we get through that area. 

Train tracks over the Red River in OK

Lots of water everywhere!

We’ve found an awesome RV park to stay at that’s about at the ½ way point between home and our “2^nd home” in Arkansas. We stayed there on our homeward trip last fall.  It’s called RiverView RV and Recreational Park and it’s right on the Red River that creates the boundary between Oklahoma and Texas.  As in all of Texas the river is full to overflowing.  All the water bodies look like that.  The campground is so pretty and well-maintained, we’d like to keep it as our ½ way point but, ugh, the traffic around Dallas. Oh, and it’s next to the train tracks!  Go figure.  Lots of RV parks are next to the train tracks.  Probably cheap acreage. I think a train went by every 20 minutes last night. I was too tired to really care though. It’s kind of soothing in a lonesome, vagabond-ish kind of way.

The new RV is great.  A few things to get used to but overall we like it. Still trying to figure out how everything works and what all the buttons are for.  Jeff says driving it is way nicer than the gas rig. And it was so nice to be able to pull into one of those big truck stop gas stations and not have to try to maneuver in a regular gas station area.  That was always so nerve wracking especially since we also tow the car.  It was a breeze filling up. I still have to work up the courage to drive it.  Maybe later?!?!

The "hallway" when all the
slides are in.  Squishyyyy.

(Just stopped for lunch – one of the downsides of this rig is when all the slides are in it’s a “one fanny kitchen” and the walkway next to the bathroom is squishyyyyy. We’ll know we’ve gained weight when we can’t get to the bathroom with all the slides in – lol! ) Traveling like this sure teaches us patience.  One bathroom for 4 people, smaller kitchen, really no privacy at all, ever.  I know some people that think what we do would be a living hell! This is our 4^th summer doing this. The girls are 13 and 15. I’m hoping all goes well and we don’t kill each other. And on top of that, we have Otis (the dog) with us this year.  He’s a good traveler but he is one curious pooch.  We take him out of the rig and he is just dying to sniff every new smell.  We are teaching him new behaviors like not charging out the door when it’s opened, and sitting and waiting when we open it up to come back inside.  Overall, he’s a good traveler. He’s getting the hang of it already. The girls are thinking of doing a blog from Otis’s point of view –“Dog with a Blog”. It would be hysterical, I’m sure.

Otis, stressing out.  Hey, that's my chair.

We should arrive at our spot in Arkansas around 3 today.  Much better getting an early start.  Today is Jeff’s birthday. His carrot cake made an inauspicious dive out of the refrigerator onto the floor yesterday. Just another detail to remember when you are traveling in an RV.  Do NOT open the refrigerator door quickly. You have no idea what’s shifted inside on the bumpy roads.  It lost a bit of its walnut edging and one small corner but we were able to salvage the rest.  Happy Birthday Dear!