Today was the big day! We woke up early and started cleaning (after coffee), checking all of the cabinets and closets for anything we may have missed. Dusting, sweeping & mopping took a couple hours for us to finish but when we finished, the house looked fabulous. The perplexing part of selling the house was that on this day that we are leaving, with the projects finished and all the patching/painting done, the house looked the best that it ever has. Why do we do that for someone else but not for ourselves to live in?
Once the house was done, we took a break as a family to walk through the house and property and just soak in all of the memories. It it hard to be present while going through all the work of selling the home, but we did our best to take this moment to really take a last look.
Although everything was essentially was packed, there seemed to be a great deal of last minute loading of stuff - cleaning supplies, dog food, tools, etc. This took longer than we anticipated but when we got finished, we pulled the RV & Suburban out to see how the trailers sat. We had to do some last minute hitch adjustments, but then we were ready to head out (only ~2 hours later than we'd hoped). Here is the procession as we pulled out of the driveway:
It was surreal that these were the last moments at the Lake House, but we all had turned our sights on the journey ahead, anxious with the anticipation about how the coming week of nonstop driving would go. How would the bus hold up? Was it loaded to heavy? Were the trailers too heavy for the tow vehicles? Would we stick to our schedule? Where would we stay? With everything/everyone loaded and the trailers locked, we headed out of Maple Valley on our epic road trip!
We all settled in to our place in the caravan - bus first (Don), then RV (Tammy), then Suburban (Grace) with the Jeep (Allyson & Emma) bringing up the rear and acting as scout. Going over Tiger Mt. and then Snoqualmie Pass demonstrated just how patient we'd all have to be with the bus, as it hit a top speed of ~25mph when there was any grade - ouch. We drove for a couple hours, then took a rest stop break to eat, get drinks and feed/water/walk the animals. This would become our routine in the coming days, stopping for fuel also a couple times per day. Our stretch goal for Day 1 was to make Missoula, MT but with our later start and slower pace, we made it just to the Walmart in Smelterville, ID.
The first couple fuel stops were somewhat chaotic, both because we had so many long vehicles to get into the station and because we were still figuring out how to put diesel in the bus. We were thankful for having done the trip out with the bus to the North Bend truck stop earlier, as it taught us the important lesson about how to operate pumps on the passenger side. After a wrong turn down a dead end that caused us all to turn around (and the subsequent blocking of the road while we figured it out), we decided that we'd try to stop at truck stops instead of smaller stations going forward. We found that Pilot, was our favorite go-to station for the easy access, good prices and selection in their store for snacks/drinks.
Staying in Walmart parking lots turned out to be a great deal for us. Besides being free lodging, it gave us an easy way to get dinner and groceries, plus get a little air conditioning. The sleeping arrangement in the RV took some time to configure, since the RV was good for 2 adults and 3 kids, but a little tight for 5 adults along with animals. By the third night, we'd figured out a routine and a configuration that (mostly) satisfied everyone by purchasing a small inflatable bed to put on the floor. It won't rank as the favorite travel accommodations in our family album, but did the trick for this adventure.
On Day 2 we got an earlier start with our destination adjusted from Sheridan, WY to Wall, SD due to our recalibrated progress. We headed for Wall and planned to stay in the Wall Drugs parking lot, where they encourage RVers to spend time. It was a long day of driving (Tammy had happy companions) but it went without issues and we'd largely figured out our refueling process now. The routine of stopping at highway rest stops to stretch our legs and walk the dogs also became a part of our cadence. This let us also chat about how long to our next stop, how the fuel levels were, etc. (and get a pic or two).
We got into Wall Drugs at nearly 7:30p so had enough time to see a little bit on the spectacle there (Grace, Emma and us had visited here a couple years earlier, but it was all new for Allyson). To introduce ourselves to the town, Tammy accidentally dialed 911 and then was physically tracked down by a local police officer to ensure she was safe (for some reason they were very suspicious of Don). We had dinner at a newer upscale Mexican restaurant in town and saw an amazing sunset as we walked back to the RV.
In the morning of Day 3 we woke early and got breakfast at Wall Drugs (you'll have to see it to believe it), then walked through the stores for an hour so Allyson could take in the wonder of the six foot rabbit :-). We fueled up Wall, then got on the road with our target being Sioux City, SD. Traveling through South Dakota was greener than we expected and the drive was easy and through lots of sparsely populated areas. We found out why at one point, when the sky opened up and dumped a huge amount of rain on us for 5-10 minutes, then cleared up again. This is also when we learned that the bus had a leak in the windshield when driving, as rain came down the inside of the windshield.
Each day we've encountered several passes and today was no different. When we see the "Chain Up" areas, we took a deep breath because it meant a long crawl up the hill with the bus struggling, then a stressful downgrade with concern about the brakes heating too much. We fortunately never had a real issue, but the bus transmission got pretty hot going uphill so concerned us every time. We took our time and sometimes stopped at the summit to regroup, however in retrospect it was the anticipation of issues that was the real stress.
We pulled into Sioux City around 7:00p and learned right away that Sioux City is actually in three states - South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. When we got to the Walmart we decided to go see the three-state-city and also look for a hotel that we could let the girls stay in for the night and get a shower for everyone. Surprisingly, there we no (reasonably priced) rooms in town, perhaps due to the town festival that was going on? We were all looking forward to the shower and the extra room, but settled for shopping in Walmart's air conditioning and staying in the RV again. We still enjoyed the evening and we treated to another beautiful sunset.
On the road again early on Day 4, we felt liked we'd made up some time from the first couple low-mileage days and aimed to make it to Columbia, MO. Our route took us through Kansas City, MO where we stressfully navigated our convoy through the streets in downtown to find the famous Arthur Bryant's BBQ. We parked on a nearby dead end street and walked to the restaurant, then came back to the RV with WAY too much food because it all looked so delicious. After a picnic in the grass by the curb, we got back on the road to finish that day's drive.
Pulling out of Kansas City, we realized that the turn signals on the bus weren't working. After driving for a few miles we pulled into a highway parking area to troubleshoot. Don and Allyson gave it a quick once-over and found that a fuse case for the turn signals had cracked. After a little electrical tape, everything was working again and we were back on the road. We arrived in Columbia, MO a bit earlier than the previous evenings, browsed the Walmart for snacks and ate leftover BBQ from lunch. Everything was pretty routine in getting settled for bed and we had a really quiet parking lot this time.
Day 6 had us within range to make it to our new rental house by the end of the day if everything went right. We were on the road by 9:00a, crossing through St. Louis soon after we started to drive. While we could see the arch, we didn't want to take our caravan through downtown and the weather was terrible, raining so hard that we couldn't see the traffic in front of us. Once we got through downtown St. Louis, the rain tapered off and we drove south through Missouri and into Kentucky. The landscape continued to be much more lush than we'd expected and the driving was fairly easy. As we approached the Tennessee state line, there was a considerable amount of traffic on the highway, so we opted to take a break at a Walmart, then follow the back road into Tennessee. This choice was a bit more harrowing than anticipated, as the back roads here had no shoulder, were very narrow and had really deep ditches - we could imagine the bus wheel getting off the pavement and ending up laying on our side in a field.
Driving the bus on these was nerve-wracking, but we made it through without any calamities. We found our way past the traffic and back to the highway, then crossed into Tennessee - our new home state!
We were excited to be so close to finishing our trek and happy that it had gone without issue. We drove the last 30 minutes to Pleasant View, then as we came into town, realized that Google Maps didn't have the house located accurately. Our whole procession drove through town, then turned around on a very sharp corner once we'd realized the correct house location. We barely were able to make the turn without stopping traffic, then found the right road to turn into our neighborhood.
When we entered the neighborhood, it wasn't what we expected and looked like we may have gotten into an area that the bus may not fit. After a brief pause to consider our choices, we carried forward and there was just enough room.
As we came to the rental house driveway, we're certain that the neighbors believed that the circus had come to town. Don had to make a careful turn around the mailbox into the driveway, but was able to do it on the first try - and just like that, we were at our new home!
The first night there we all sat on the back porch relaxing and talking about our adventure across the country. It was warm but not hot, the sounds of the chirping bugs filled the air and Tammy got to check off her bucket list "see fireflies" (or what others call "lightin' bugs" ). It was a special way to celebrate a new chapter!
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