Best Laid Plans
Stephanie
Whitson
©
Copyright 2020 by Stephanie Whitson
|
Photo by Isaac Moore on Unsplash |
Stephanie and her
family went on their first road trip in their new RV and learned
they did not know everything about how best to travel. This is a
story full of surprises guaranteed to make you chuckle.
The
idea was simple. Pack up our RV and boondock across California and
Nevada, continue through until we arrive in Louisiana. We wanted to
save money and figured dry camping was the best way to do it, while
still being able to travel. As with any best-laid plans, there will
always be hiccups. Be prepared to be entertained as you read about
our adventures into the land of boondocking. The idea was simple:
open up the app and pick a site that has reviews. Well, we had
planned on staying near Mt. Shasta, but we realized we weren't sure
of cell coverage so we continued onward.
We
used the same app to find a place called Guzman Campground in
California and it was a nice enough camp area. There was a picnic
table, fire pit, and even a river running right through the camp.
This was called Guzman Campground in California, but we made the
decision to move on because if any other campers would come down we
would not have been able to get back out. Our next stop was in an OHV
area. We found it using the same app as the other site. After finding
a spot that had a bathroom and plenty of space, we unhooked the
trailer from the truck and set out to level the trailer. We found we
did not have enough leveler blocks to make the trailer level. At one
point we had the front half extended all the way and it still wasn’t
level. We decided it wouldn't work for us, as we wanted to be able to
stay in one spot for at least a week. We spent another hour hooking
the trailer back up and headed out on the road once again. At this
point, we were running out of daylight and running low on gas. So, we
decided to move on and the next area we would make work for us. So,
again we used the app and found free camping on Fish and Wildlife
land in Nevada. We finally found our spot! Flat and level! The only
downside was the ridiculous cell coverage out there!
Now,
here comes the fun part! While we were camping out in this beautiful
area, we lost the ability to use our lights, a/c, and even the
outlets. After doing some guess and checking along with some trial
and error we figured it out. Our trailer was not charging while we
were towing it behind us, so we used our truck batteries to charge
the RV. It was not the news we wanted to find out. We were in the
desert in the early summer and it was already in the mid-80s. When we
had set up the trailer at this spot, we discovered one of our
stabilizers was horribly broken. Instead of it facing the ground, it
was now sitting perpendicular to the ground with a couple of bolts
broken off. I think it was broken when we had been exploring the
desert roads looking for a place to park.
My
husband, Jesse had wandered down the road to try to get cell coverage
and he managed to find some volunteers who work for the Nevada Fish
and Wildlife. They ended up helping him out with a landline. After
several days of playing phone tag, Jesse finally got a hold of Blue
Dog RV in Las Vegas. During several phone calls between the Las Vegas
dealership and our hometown one, we discovered there was nothing
actually wrong with the batteries, except our truck doesn't have
enough power to charge the batteries. One of the volunteers helped us
out with charging our batteries on a charging station there and also
lent us a generator to use while we stayed. The volunteers allowed us
to stay longer than the time allowed due to our circumstances and
after 11 days we finally were able to be on our way.
The
day before we left, there was a cold spell coming through which
caused the temperature to drop to the mid-50s, so I was happy to
finally be able to head towards Las Vegas for our appointment. Even
though our appointment wasn’t for several more weeks, I was
looking forward to getting out of the cold temps and discovering a
new place I had never seen.
We
pulled out the same app and found a station to dump and fill our
tanks. Once we did that, our next goal was to locate a place near Las
Vegas to wait it out until our appointment time. Again, the plan was
to choose a location using the app and stay out for two weeks. We
drove straight through from Reno to Las Vegas, with the plan to make
one stop midway through for lunch, which we did at a truck stop. We
took a few more hours to reach the outskirts of Las Vegas and it was
at this point, we had to admit our so-called easy plan was not in our
cards. There was a lot of traffic and at one point we had slowed down
to a mere 7 miles per hour. The traffic was going at such a slow
pace, we were afraid we might run out of gas at one point. But, let’s
go back to the beginning of the slow traffic outside of Las Vegas. We
kept on seeing signs directing traffic to a certain lane if you were
there for an EDM event. We had no idea what the signs were referring
to since we definitely were not from the area. We figured we might as
well keep going towards our destination we had picked out on the map.
We had made it through Las Vegas and finally coming out on the other
side near the Air Force Base when the accident happened. We were in
the very left-hand lane and to our right was another lane of traffic.
Mind you, we were crawling along at a snail’s pace of maybe 8
miles per hour. There was a small Toyota Camry being driven by a
young-looking girl. She was getting pretty close to our GMC Truck and
37-foot trailer that my husband actually honked his horn at her,
which is saying a lot since in 5 years that was the first time I can
recall him using the horn. The young driver had the audacity to put
up her left hand to shield her face from us as she tried to cut us
off. I say tried because her maneuver only accomplished her driver’s
side mirror being broken off as well as part of the front bumper. We
did the only thing we could do and it was to stop where we were and
get out to exchange information with the other driver. My husband had
the good fortune to record all the damage and where we were parked
and he also took a picture of her license and insurance card. We had
called Highway patrol to report the accident, but after about 20
minutes the young-girl driver took off to make it to the event. We
had no choice but to stay put since the long line of traffic was not
letting us pull out into traffic. Our gas gauge was reading super low
because it had taken us nearly 4 hours to go from one side of Las
Vegas to another. Eventually, as it neared 9 pm, a highway patrolman
arrived. He only happened to come by because of reports of a large
vehicle impeding traffic, which was out vehicle, but he wasn’t
there for the accident. We told him about the accident and what
happened and we were reassured we would not be in trouble for
impeding traffic. The patrolman was nice enough to tell us where to
go to park the trailer overnight since the area we were headed
towards was the site of the event everyone was heading towards. He
was also nice enough to direct traffic so we could actually leave the
scene.
Picture
driving for close to 9 hours with 4 of those hours being stuck in
traffic, only to find out we were headed towards a location not
available to use. Needless to say, we were beyond tired and our
patience with each other was running thin. I pulled open my trusty
phone and located the place we were directed by the patrolman. We
pulled into the parking lot, set the trailer up for sleeping and
everyone was out within minutes. Finally, we were able to get a good
night’s rest.
But
our story does not end there, instead, I was woken up by a knock on
our trailer door. I grabbed my phone and saw it had only been an hour
since we parked. I jumped out of bed and went to open the door, with
a horrible feeling in my stomach. I took a deep breath and prepared
myself.
“You
can’t stay here,” a security person said.
“We
were in an accident and a highway patrolman told us we could park
here tonight,” I said.
“We
used to allow it, but not anymore,” another security person
said.
“Alright,
let me wake up our kids and we will leave. Do you have any
suggestions about where we could go?” I asked.
“I’m
thinking some of the hotel-casinos should be available,” they
said.
“Thanks,”
I said.
I
went back inside and told my husband what happened, so we woke up the
kids and left the parking lot. Our next destination was a
hotel-casino and of course, we came across another problem. This time
the problem was a security patrol for the casino told us we could not
park there unless we were also staying at the hotel. He did give us
two suggestions of where we could park for the night. We tried the
first suggestion, which was a street on the side of the hotel which
was not their property, but there was no space for the long trailer
we were towing. So, we went to the second location which was on the
other side of the hotel-casino and it was a parking lot for long-haul
truck drivers. We located a space between two trucks and made up the
dinette and recliners into sleeping spaces for the kids, so we would
not have to hassle with trying to make room for the slide-out. We
managed to get the kids settled and in their beds somewhere around
midnight and I set my alarm for 5 am in order to leave very early in
the morning.
We
woke the kids up very early and headed out on the road again. This
time, we went to a park close-by so the kids would have a chance to
run around and I would have time to make them some pancakes in the
trailer. While the kids were running around and playing on the
playground equipment, my husband and I sat down to discuss our plans.
Which if you have been paying attention never seem to go according to
plan.
The
desert weather started to warm up rather quickly and we just wanted
to find a spot to park and stay because at this point we were tired
of driving around all day. Plus, we were running very low on gas. I
pulled out my trusty phone and opened the app we had been using to
find places. After consulting the app and the map on my phone, we
found a nearby free camping area, so we piled back into the truck and
headed towards yet another new spot. We had agreed that however the
area looked, we were going to make it work. We found the area rather
easily and after exploring the area for about 15 to 20 minutes we
found an area that would fit our long trailer. The area we had chosen
was the National Desert Wildlife Area and it was beautiful! The area
had large open spaces all around for the kids to explore and there
were plenty of desert lizards for them to chase. The best part about
this area was the visitors center, which had public bathrooms,
filtered water stations and even a junior ranger program for the kids
to complete. The visitors center even had paved trails and plenty of
wildlife to find.
It
was during this particular stay we found us yet another problem. The
batteries on the Rv were running low after a few days and we had no
idea why it was happening. According to the service departments, we
had consulted, our batteries were new and there was no reason why
they shouldn’t be charging the batteries. There was another RV
parked at another spot within viewing distance who was using a
generator the night before, so I made my husband go down to talk to
them about borrowing their generator. During our travels, we had come
across many fulltime RVers who were always so friendly and helpful,
so I didn’t think it was weird to go ask. After about 20
minutes my husband came back from their campsite with the guy who was
camping along with the generator. It was fortunate I had convinced my
husband to go ask because he had a Chevy Silverado, which the engine
is built similarly to a GMC Sierra. They were talking about their
trucks and it was found our fuse in the truck which allows it to
charge the RV while it is being towed was a 30 amp and it was blown.
We were not surprised it was blown since our trailer was a 50 amp
trailer. The helpful neighbor also told us about a local car part
store where we would be able to get a new fuse for the truck. We used
his generator for the night, gave it back to him the next day, and
headed towards the car part store. Luckily, the store had exactly
what we needed, but unluckily we were running low on gas and we had
run out of money.
So,
for the next 12 days, we were stuck at the campground. During the
course of 12 days, we had run out of room for the black tank to hold
any more liquids from the bathroom, we also had run out of the water
to drink. So, at the 8-day mark, we resorted to walking down to the
freshwater refill stations at the visitor center to refill out gallon
water jugs. We had to do this 2 to 3 times a day in order to have
enough water for 5 people in the hot desert air. Typically, you are
only allowed to park in the same spot for 8 days, but the park ranger
understood we were waiting for money to come so we could leave again.
Our truck battery had died because we had drained it before the nice
people down the road had lent us their generator and the nice park
ranger charged it for us even though there was a rule against it.
Our
next stop was an outdoor monument which consisted of seven painted
boulder totems 35 feet tall. They were in all kinds of bright colors
and we were able to get some amazing photos. When we arrived, there
were a handful of people at the monument, but when we left 30 minutes
later it was very crowded. We pulled out the trusty app once more and
located an area where there would be space for our large trailer. We
headed towards the Lake Mead area on the Las Vegas side. We spent an
hour or two driving around to find a level enough spot for our
trailer. We finally found an area that would work, but we found yet
another problem with the trailer.
Our
7 pin plug that went from the truck to the trailer had been shredded.
The cord was so long we had to wrap it a few times before plugging it
in, but my husband who was in charge of the cord forgot to wrap it
causing it to get shredded. Luck was on our side this time because he
was able to use his construction and electrical knowledge to splice
all the wires back together. We had every intention of staying for at
least a week, but we ended up leaving after 3 days. What was wrong
with this location, you may wonder. One word: Flies! There were so
many flies in the area we killed dozens every day and it got so bad I
had to sleep with a blanket over my face in order to sleep. That was
the final straw and we left.
Next,
came our appointment for our RV we had been hanging around Las Vegas
for, and luckily they did not mind we were almost 20 minutes late for
our appointment. We explained to them what was going on with the
stabilizer and they pointed out the broken light on the RV which we
had not seen but figured it happened when the young girl ran into our
trailer. We left the RV at the dealership and went to get something
to eat at a buffet. We took our time eating as it was air-conditioned
and it was nice to just sit and enjoy the cool air. We spent some
time after eating at a local park, which happened to be across from
the RV dealership service department. We wasted another couple hours
at the park before deciding to head across the street to check on the
progress. We were told they would order the needed part and we have
to come back to the location to get it replaced. My husband and I
both thought it was odd they couldn’t ship it elsewhere.
Actually, let me back up a minute and say they could ship it
elsewhere, but they would have to charge us a freight shipping fee.
We decided to come back once the part was in, in order to save money
because this trip was starting to get expensive.
Our
first stop out of Las Vegas was to do some grocery shopping before
hedging to a fill station to get some water on board. We finally were
able to leave Las Vegas and continued on with our trip. Once we left
the area, we knew we needed to purchase a generator, and the trusty
app located a nearby store that had generators on sale and allowed
overnight parking. If you have never been to a Cabela’s you
definitely should as it had everything any outdoor person would need
and lots of things you might not need but would appreciate. In this
particular Cabela’s there was a giant fish tank and all sorts
of lifelike animal statues. It was at this store we were able to
purchase a generator at a lower cost than if we had purchased it from
our home state, which was surprising because our home state has no
sales tax. We were able to spend the night in the parking lot as most
Cabelas allow overnight parking for their customers. We spent the
night at Cabela’s the next morning and headed towards the Grand
Canyon as it was next on our bucket list.
There
weren’t any more mishaps with the trailer or our travels until
we had left the state of Arizona. We were headed towards Louisiana in
order to visit friends, but first, we needed to get across New Mexico
and Texas. We had checked out the route and saw there were plenty of
rest areas on the highway we were traveling. But, we kept on coming
upon closed rest areas, so when we finally got to a rest area it was
very late. We had run out of drinking water to drink, so while I took
one of the children with me to use the restroom, my husband filled up
one of the empty jugs with water in the dark. No big deal, right?
Wrong! When I got back in the trailer, he told me he tried the water,
but it tasted weird to him. I looked for the jug and my mouth dropped
open. It was the dirtiest water I had seen on our trip. It was so
dirty, it looked like river water. Luckily, he was the only one who
had tasted it, so he was the only one who had a stomach ache.
The
next morning, we left the only rest area we were able to find on the
way through New Mexico and stopped at a visitor center on the other
side of the border, near Amarillo, Texas. The visitor center had
overnight parking available, so we planned on staying there. We had
access to clean water, clean bathrooms, and all kinds of travel maps
inside. We consulted the visitor maps and the trusty app on my phone
finding a new location we could camp at for free.
We
went to Lake Meredith, which was about 35 -40 minutes outside of
Amarillo and it was also the only National land in Texas available to
camp for free. Lake Meredith had some full hook up spots for RVs, but
those were paid to camp spots. There were many more areas around the
lake available to camp for free, which we definitely put to good use.
Our stay at Lake Meredith was great. The view was amazing and there
was also a public shower which was pretty clean. Well, if you ignored
the Texas-sized bugs that found their way into some of the bathrooms,
I couldn’t complain.
It
was getting to be near the end of our allotted 2 week stay when the
Texas winds got to be too much for even my husband. Up until this
point, the winds would keep me awake throughout the night from the
rocking trailer, but it was day 12 when the winds and rain rocked the
trailer around so much, it actually woke him up. I had suggested we
leave the area before the winds got any worse, but he wanted to stay
one more night, so we did. That night was the windiest and noisiest
nice of our stay at the lake. My husband had to keep on going outside
to adjust the stabilizers and he was blown over a few times.
The
next morning we packed up the trailer and got it hooked up to the
truck. Everything was going great. We had the cat in the truck, all
the RV gear packed up and I loaded the kids into the truck. The kids
were climbing into the backseat and I heard the window cracking like
frozen lakes cracking ice. I instantly yelled at the kids to get out
and miraculously they listened without asking questions or
complaining. My husband came over to see what was the matter and
that’s when I noticed how badly the back window had cracked.
The entire window was cracking and after some investigation, we
discovered the culprit. The wind storm had lifted the hardtop cover
off its hinges and had cracked the back window. Seeing as it was not
going to stay together and it was also summer in the southwest, we
made a decision to break it out the rest of the way and worry about
replacing it at a later time. We left the lake area, stopping at the
nearby ranger station in order to let them know about the broken
glass, but we also had another reason to stop. Leaving the lake area,
we found we had a low tire and the ranger was able to help us with
filling up our tire.
We
had already picked out the next few locations we would be staying at
on our way towards Louisiana. Our next stop was a city park in
Borger, TX and as luck would have it there was a park across the
street with a splash pad. In the state of Texas, there are no
national forests or public lands but there are city parks all over
which are free to stay at for 24 - 72 hours. It was lucky we were
able to find a park nearby because the low tire we had filled before
leaving was not completely flat. Up until this point, I had never
changed a tire or done any work on a vehicle. My husband and I had a
difficult time removing the spare tire which was located under the
truck. I believe it took us nearly 30 minutes to remove it and that
was only because we were able to read the badly written instructions
in the owner's manual. I don’t even want to think about how
long it would have taken if we hadn’t located it. The thing
which took the longest was piecing together the jack. I had always
thought vehicle jacks were all one piece, but we found the jack was
in 4 different pieces under the back seat. Once we managed to lift
the backseat up and piece the jack together, the sun was starting to
set. Somehow the kids were behaving and did a good job making sure we
were hydrated while working in the hot desert air.
By
this point, my middle daughter had decided she didn’t want to
see San Antonio as she wanted and we decided we did not want to drive
across the hot state of Texas. We stayed at the free RV park for 2
days before leaving once again. We were tired of the heat and made
the decision to head towards Colorado as it would be cooler in
temperature. Plus, we could still make it to see Mt. Rushmore before
heading home for some appointments.
We
made it into Trinidad, Colorado staying the night at a parking lot
for a big grocery store while we figured out our next plan. I wanted
to drive up I-25 North through Colorado jumping from one rest stop to
another, but my dear sweet husband did not want to drive on a major
highway. We ended driving on a byway called Highway of Legends which
drained our gas tank because it was all uphill into the mountains. We
were running low on gas, but there wasn’t any place for us to
turn around, we had no choice but to keep going. We were fortunate
enough to finally find a parking area where some Recreation
Volunteers were working. We ended up waiting a couple of hours while
he finished some work before bringing us some gas. Next, he had us
follow him as he drove us down the mountain and onto another side
road.. He was leading us into the free camping area of the mountain
range we were driving through when we ran out of gas. We had no idea
where he was taking us, as we did not know the area at all.
Eventually, he stopped leading us into the mountains and he found us
an area big enough for our trailer.
The
area was beautiful! There was a river running next to the camp and
there were many birds and butterflies flying around. There was a
problem with our beautiful campsite because that was just how our
trip had gone and why stop the lucky streak. The area had next to no
cell coverage. In fact, my littlest one and I walked down the
mountain road to find cell coverage. We ended up making some
landmarks with stones and sticks to let my husband know the good
area. We really needed to have cell coverage so we would know when
our bank account had money again. The other problem with our campsite
was the elevation. We were so high up it felt as though my head was
being crushed. I had headaches every day and when I would go on a
walk down the road to check on our bank account, I felt as though I
had run a race, but I had only walked a mile down and up.
Our
luck got even better when we ran out of water to flush the toilet
with, so we ended up having to use the outdoors.
Everyone managed to
deal with this except for the child who was deathly afraid of
anything flying. When she would go outside to relieve herself she
would scream. It got to a point where she had to be covered up with a
blanket and I had to sing to her so she wouldn’t hear the
insects. Our drinking water had run out and we almost decided to drag
the trailer down the mountain just so we could find water, but I was
able to flag down a truck that happened to be a park host. He was the
park camp host which happened to be 1 mile further up the mountain
and he told us we could use the well water pump at the campground. We
loaded all the empty water containers along with the kids into the
truck, filled up all the containers, and drove back down to our
campsite. I had never been so happy to have water before in my life.
My
husband would walk down the mountain to find good cell coverage using
the landmarks I had made. He would use the time to download new books
to read on his phone and also to check in with ○his dad. It was
during one of these walks, he managed to get a hold of our hometown
dealer where we purchased our trailer from. It was during this
conversation he made an appointment to get our trailer fixed. We were
tired of waiting for the Las Vegas location to call us about our part
and it turned out they could have shipped the part anywhere. Our
appointment was not for several weeks, so we knew we had time to take
our time driving back home.
We
were also lucky enough to be caught up on the mountain with a
rainstorm lasting for days. On a walk to check our phones for
messages, we discovered there were flash flood warnings for the
mountain, so we made the decision to get off the mountain as soon as
possible. So the morning of July 2rd we left our campsite from high
up in the mountains, or actually I should say we tried. There wasn’t
any flooding, but we discovered our truck battery had died from the
door not being closed all the way.
We
managed to flag down another truck on the mountain road. While we got
the truck and trailer ready to leave, our kids were in charge of
flagging down help. It didn't take very long before help arrived and
our truck was charged enough to start once again. Finally, we were on
our way off the mountain.
But
wait! As we were leaving we found our second flat tire of the trip.
This time, it was one of the RV tires and by flat, I mean completely
flat. We drove the trailer down the mountain until we were able to
find space on a level road in order to change the tire. This time we
were able to get it changed in much less time than the truck flat
tire. We used the stabilizer jack to lift the tire off the ground,
swapped out tires and we were on our way in about 20 minutes.
We
finally arrived at the Trinidad grocery store where we had parked
overnight when we had first arrived, but to our dismay, the money we
were hoping to be there was not. We didn’t stress too much
though because the next day was July 3rd and my husband always got
paid between the 1st and the 5th. Plus, with the day after being a
holiday, we were pretty sure there would be money soon. So, we spent
some time in the grocery store and was able to get a couple of items
for food. We also decided we were tired of traveling and decided to
head home in time for the holiday..
I
had set my alarm for 5:30 am, in order to wake up my husband so he
could check the bank account. We were thrilled when at 5:45 am there
was notification the money had been deposited into his account. I
grabbed his card, told him he was in charge of getting the kids up
and I ran into the store to get bagels for breakfast. We were not
able to take off as soon as I would have liked because we needed to
get the tires fixed for the truck. So, after we got that done and we
filled up the gas tank, it was closer to 9 am when we finally left
Trinidad.
We
were driving North on I-25 through Colorado and discussing where
would be a good area to view the Fourth of July Fireworks from. We
were partway through Colorado when I asked my husband if he would be
able to drive all the way home. I had to rephrase what I meant which
was if he could drive all the way home by July 4th fireworks at home.
I pulled up the map on my phone and he told me we could make it with
lots of driving. The next part was to convince the children. It hard
as I thought it would be because they were over driving and wanted to
be back home.
The
first leg of the trip home went alright. The back window was still
gone, so there was a lot of wind coming into the truck and at one
point our middle child started crying because she was tired of being
in the truck. Once we got her calmed back down, she was fine for the
rest of the trip. We drove into Wyoming and made a stop at another
visitor center. This one had a miniature museum complete with a
skeleton of a Wooly Mammoth which the kids enjoyed. We only stayed at
the visitor center long enough to ask which route was best to get
back into Oregon and have time to stretch our legs before getting
back on the road.
Our
next stop was another grocery store parking lot in Rock Springs,
Wyoming which allowed overnight RV parking. We picked up some food
for dinner from inside the store and promptly crashed. We set our
alarms for 5 am since the next day was a holiday and we wanted to get
on the road early. After grabbing breakfast and loading everyone back
into the truck, we were back on the road by 6:30 am.
We
drove across the Wyoming-Idaho border without any issues and
continued into Oregon without any issues. We pulled into a rest stop
on the side of the road, so we could all get out and stretch our legs
before making the final stretch home. All we needed to do was drive
across most of Oregon and we would be back home. There were no more
exits to take, it was just a straight shot on Highway 20 straight
into Bend. But, alas! There had to be one more kink in our great
plan.
Pop!
What was that sound and where did it come from? Oh, great another
flat tire on our truck, but this time it was the other side. We were
near nothing and so we had no choice but to pull over and swap it
out. We were very thankful we had made time to get the other flat
fixed before traveling home. Once we got it fixed we pulled into the
small town of Burns where we managed to park the trailer and find
another grocery store to get some early dinner. By this point, we
were only a 3-4 hour drive from Bend. We almost decided to stay the
night in Burns, but seeing as we were so close to our final
destination we powered through.
We
pulled into Bend at exactly 9 pm, which gave us an hour before the
fireworks display happened. We were finally home.
Sephanie is an
Oregonian with a passion for writing stories both real and made-up.
She recently adopted the RV lifestyle and has learned a lot
about what it means and what family really means. She is a stay at
home mom of three children who she also homeschools. She has not had
anything published but is currently working on writing her first
book.
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