We crossed the Michigan state line at around 1:00 am. And as we got closer to our destination a deer started running out into the road. We were in a large RV with the kids asleep on the couch, so my hubby had to make a split second decision. Either try to avoid the deer by swerving, and risk the kids rolling off the couch. Or… speed up and hope that we pass the deer before he gets to our side of the road. He chose option 2. He gunned it, and the deer ended up running right behind us. No deer were injured in the making of this 3 week RV trip.
We pulled into Ishpeming at 3:00 am and were at Country Village RV Park a few minutes later. This would be our “home” the longest of any place on our trip. The Matron of Honor (that’s me) was finally in the same town as the bride (my sister) and was ready to report for Matron of Honor duties. The whole point of this 3 week RV trip was to travel across country to be at my sister’s wedding. I was the Matron of Honor, my kids were part of the flower girl and ring bearer crew, and my hubby walked my mom down the aisle. My brother and his family weren’t able to make the trip, so my hubby stepped in to help.
Bachelorette Day
I got a few hours of sleep, then got ready to be picked up by 9:30 am. The girls had big plans for Bachelorette Day. One of the bridesmaids, Mary (she’s a teacher like my sister), graciously offered her family’s lake house for the day. It was so cute, and literally right on the water. I got to meet my sister’s new sister in laws, Deanna and Leann, and another one of her teacher friends, Madison. It was great seeing some of my sister’s friends that she went to high school and college with too. They, and my cousin, Monica, flew out from California to be here for the big day. Lake day included yummy BBQ, a really cool floating raft that we could all fit in, and an interesting game. Ha!
Night out for dinner…
After lake day we all went “home” to get ready for dinner. My mom and dad had rented a minivan to help us get around without having to load up in the RV to get around town. So, mom was the chauffer getting us to and from where we needed to be. Us girls went out to dinner in Marquette, MI at Sol Azteca and the food was so delicious. What’s better than good food? Is great food with prices to match! We took a few pictures after dinner across the street by Lake Michigan. I have never see a lake that big in my life! It is huge and it looks like it is the ocean.
And that was a wrap for that day! That was our first night that we got to go to bed with the RV already set up, with the slides out. And we got to sleep in a little the next day before we got our nails done.
Tips for Day 8:
Tip 1: If you are near Marquette, MI and you want some delicious Mexican food, you have to check out Sol Azteca!
Tip 2: If you are near Ishpeming, MI and need an RV park, or even want to rent a cabin, definitely go to Country Village RV Park!
We had lofty goals of making it to Ishpeming by the end of the day, but other things took priority. Like a wonderful homemade breakfast by Brittany. She was up late texting me to give me instructions and tell us their home was open for us if we needed to come in in the middle of the night. Their oldest kids are close in age to our kids, so we were really looking forward to hanging out the day we planned to arrive. When that didn’t happen, we were thankful they had time for us in the morning. We didn’t arrive until 1:45 am and Christopher left for work a few hours later.
So… we slept in a little then Brittany invited us in for breakfast. She made homemade waffles with strawberries and freshly whipped cream, along with eggs, and sausage. So yummy, and such a great way to start our day. Their house was beautiful and was over 100 years old. After breakfast their kids caught a firefly to show our kids. We had never seen a real firefly before!
Then we headed onward towards Michigan…
But first… we had to make a quick left and drive into Iowa. We wanted to cross another state off of our list of states that we visited on our road trip. Christopher told us it was just a few blocks away and that he has actually walked there from their house, so we had to take the little detour. We passed an American Legion (one of my clients at work) on our way out of Elmore. After we made our quick stop, and turned around, to head back to the freeway we saw him… The Jolly Green Giant! I had no idea that we would get to see him on our trip. But it was another fun little unplanned stop on our trip. After our little visit with him and Little Green Sprout, we headed on to see Christopher at work.
Christopher works at a gas station with… you guessed it… window washers with long handles! So we got to catch up with him for a little before we moved on toward our next destination.
Just a few more stops before we got to Michigan…
You can’t see a huge Bull on the side of the road and not stop and take a picture. This was right outside of Bennett’s Food Center. The kids were always down for any excuse to get out of their seats and walk around. Then a quick stop at Family Dollar because I didn’t pack enough crayons for each child to have their own box…. ha ha ha!
And we couldn’t pass a Hardee’s in Eau Claire, Wisconsin without stopping to grab some food to see if it tastes like Carls Jr like we have back home. They have packets of Horseradish sauce, which I’m totally into these days… as long as they don’t have high fructose corn syrup, which is hard to find. I think I had some kind of garlic sourdough burger and obviously I had to try the garlic cheese fries too…but don’t worry, I took my Block first!
We missed Michigan by an hour…
Tips for Day 7:
Tip 1: If you are minutes away from another state…. just drive there. Even though we only got to be in the state for a minute or two to make a u-turn in an RV, it was cool to say we visited another state.
Tip 2: Take the time to stop and see the cool things, even if it means you are going to be a little late. I had to be in Michigan by the next morning for my sister’s Bachelorette Party, so I got a little less sleep, but I was fine. I don’t regret a minute of missed sleep because of all the amazing things we got to see on this trip.
As I look back through our memories, I am amazed at how much we would get done in a single day… this was one of those days.
We got the kids dressed while they were still asleep, but Alexandria, our Plexus baby, was like Mommy and was ready to go as soon as her eyes opened. She got to explore our campsite for a few minutes before we left Rapid City South RV Park and headed to our first stop of the day.
Stop #1 – The Dinosaur Museum
I had seen the Dinosaur Museum online and thought the kids would probably love it. They don’t open until 9:00 am and we tried to get our days started as early as possible, so we didn’t add this to the agenda. Our goal was to get as much done as possible, in the time allowed, which was not enough. But, I did want to at least stop by so the kids could see the huge T-Rex out front.
Stop #2 Bear Country USA
Bear Country USA opened at 8:00 am and we were able to drive through in the RV, so it was a fun, comfortable drive, and we got to see tons of animals, right outside our windows!
After the drive through, we go to park, (they had RV parking spots), and walk through a little zoo area.
Then we were off to… Mount Rushmore!
Even though we saw it the night before, but it was even more majestic during the day! If Mount Rushmore is on your list of places to visit someday… you definitely need to make it happen! They had started construction the day before so we didn’t get to get as close as you usually can, but we still enjoyed it. And we will definitely go back!
Next stop…. Crazy Horse Memorial
We got another view of Mount Rushmore on our way to Crazy Horse. Like the Dinosaur Museum, Crazy Horse Memorial looks like a really cool place to visit. But, we didn’t actually have time to actually get out and really check it out. We pulled up to the entry window and found out it was $30 just to get in… so we asked them if we could turn around and leave, They let us pull up to the parking lot to make the big u-turn in the RV. We jumped out of the RV for a quick picture, then jumped back in and kept going on our way to Minnesota.
Dinner on the road…
Every day was a new adventure. This day we had planned to make it to Minnesota in time for dinner. I felt super bad because our friends Christopher and Brittany had prepared enough dinner for our family. Dinner for our family of 5 to join their family of 7 was a big dinner, and there was no way we would make it in time. 🙁 I mean, we could have made it… but we would have had to leave right after Mount Rushmore. And since we don’t get out to South Dakota very often, I thought we should see as much as we could before we pressed on. They have traveled with their kids before, so they understood.
After we passed the Missouri River we stopped for our not as delicious as a home cooked meal fast food dinner. Ryan and I picked up dinner from Taco John’s for us, it wasn’t anything to write home about. Then we made a second stop for old trusty (not saying it’s the healthiest by any means) McDonald’s for the kids. Then we were on our way again.
A beautiful sunset, more bugs, and more lightning storms on the way to Minnesota!
We saw another beautiful sunset, and even saw a sign with Alexandria’s name on it before it got too dark.
There were bugs… lots and lots of bugs. I’m sure you’ll see in plenty of pictures that there are bugs on the windshield. This day seemed to have more than the others. Ryan was always on the hunt for the windows washers with really long handles. Our friend Ashley gave us a tip that we should stop at the Truck Stops to get gas AND long handled window washers. We made a stop at T & C’s Pit Stop in Salem, SD and while Ryan cleaned the windshield, we got to watch this lightning storm from a little closer, but not too close for comfort.
Shortly after our bug cleaning stop we crossed the state line into Minnesota. We still had a ways to go until we made it to our spot for the night, or early morning hours, in Christopher and Brittany’s driveway.
Tips for Day 6:
Tip 1: Plan ahead and make sure you give yourself extra time. Once we were there and saw all the fun things that were available, we wish we would have had more time.
Tip 2: Be prepared to stop and clean your windshields if you are driving through South Dakota during the summer. And don’t forget to use your GasBuddy app to find gas stations with prices listed nearby. This station was not right off the freeway, but they definitely had the long handled window washer, so it was worth the little drive off of our route.
Our first night in a WalMart parking lot was a success! We arrived at 12:36 am, popped out our slides and slept in. When we woke up and got ready to drive away, the parking lot had a lot fewer RVs but the section we were in was still a resting spot to several RVs at almost 10:00 am.
The long journey…
We had a very long, but also very beautiful, drive to Keystone, SD.
Ryan’s friend, Karen, from his Rotary Club knew about our trip and told us to check in with her. They offered to show us around, but since we were on a time crunch… again, we didn’t have time for a tour. But she invited us to stop by their home, in Spearfish, SD for dinner. Another yummy homemade dinner with friends? You don’t have to ask us twice!
We did however have some “detours” on the way… if you can call them that… ha ha!
Karen met us at another Walmart to pick us up and drove us up to the house since the RV would have been a little too large for the neighborhood. Her husband, Jim, went to work grilling on the BBQ, while Karen whipped up the rest of the goodies in the kitchen. Their house was beautiful! And before we left we saw a storm rolling in. Jim told me about an app called MyRadar Weather Radar so we could keep and eye on the storm as it moved. We were following behind it and had quite the lightning show.
The views were amazing!
Check out that sign!
South Dakota!
I had never seen a minimum speed limit sign until I saw this one!
Smile…
Pretend you’re asleep…
Karen and Jim’s back yard.
Tracking the storm ahead of us.
Mount Rushmore at night…
We had heard about the lighting ceremony, but since we were notoriously behind schedule, we didn’t make it in time. We did however make it to our campground without too much rain. When we booked the RV site I found it under the name of Tee Pee Black Hills. But, it had since been renamed Rapid City South RV Park. They have a camera on site, so even if they aren’t on site, they are able to direct you to your spot over video. Once we knew where we’d be settling in for the night, we decided to do something a little crazy…
Tips for Day 5:
Tip 1 Go see Mount Rushmore at night! Go back during the day too, but it looks so beautiful at night and there’s a lot fewer people there are night. We didn’t see the Lighting Ceremony, but I bet it would be pretty awesome to see. Also, since we got there so close to closing, they didn’t charge us to park, and we got front row parking.
Tip 2 plan to spend a few days in Keystone, SD. We planned for less then 24 hours there. We got a ton done, but it was really hard to choose what we would do. There are so many fun things to do if you just look at all the billboards on the way to Mount Rushmore!
So we didn’t actually leave the house until 12:27 am… And you might be wondering how I remember that almost 5 months later… but I have Google Maps to thank for that! If you have your timeline tracking enabled, you can look back to any day and see where you were and what time you were there. So it looks like we drove for 1.5 hours then stopped for a few minutes, I feel like we may have stopped for gas.
We arrived in Idaho at 2:42 am and finally pulled into the Montpelier Creek KOA Journey at 4:07 am. I am pretty sure I nodded off for a couple minutes here and there on our way there. And as soon as we pulled in, found the map with our spot marked out for us, we pulled into our pull through and we went to sleep. I don’t remember if we even hooked up, or if I said we could hook up in the morning so we could dump and fill before we left. I really loved the full hookups and pull through sites, because we didn’t have to find the dump station, or stop along the way to dump and fill up. Not that I was ever the one to do the dumping or filling, but it was convenient to be able to just relax in the RV with the kids while my hubby was outside getting us up and running again.
We woke a few hours later and while Ryan was prepping us for our departure, the kids and I went for a little adventure around the park. We saw the biggest dandelions I had ever seen in my ENTIRE LIFE, and there was a cute little creek that you could sit on a bench and watch. I’m pretty sure the kids told me they thought they saw a piranha in there… They had a swimming pool, which we didn’t use because we had no time to waste, and they had a fun playground that the kids enjoyed for a bit, we went into the little store… but I think we only bought ice (we had an ice maker in the RV but… I didn’t trust drinking water from those fill stations), then the kids played Mega Connect Four for a bit.
So I didn’t take this picture until we were leaving Montpelier… Oops!
We had to hit the road pretty quickly because we had plans to make it all the way to see Old Faithful. So we finally loaded up and hit the road at 12:33 pm.
Except… as soon as we left the campground and turned right on the road to head to Wyoming we were going as slow as a turtle. It may have been a little daring to make our first RV trip a 21 day trip, especially since we had no idea what we were doing. But… we were already on it, so it was going to be a learning experience. Ryan had a hunch that it was going slow because it was a cool morning and maybe the RV just wasn’t warm enough to get up and go. So we pulled over, and after a few minutes we tried again and we were up to speed in a minute or so. Around 15 minutes later… we were in Wyoming! We kinda passed the sign, so I jumped out and ran back to get a picture of it.
We stopped at another Sinclair for gas… and our gas stops suddenly turned into lunch stops. Ryan would get the gas going, then he would usually run inside to use the restroom… I on the other hand would take the opportunity to move around the RV while the RV was not in motion so I wouldn’t get nauseous. The kids could get out of their seats and sit at the table while I got lunch ready for them and sometimes we would be hanging out at the pump for 30 minutes or more.
Then we made a pit stop to take some pictures with this beautiful background and white puffy clouds. Then we drove through Jackson Hole Wyoming, then on to see the Grand Tetons.
Then… we saw where the Buffalo really roam. They weren’t crossing the street, so they didn’t slow down traffic… though I did see the traffic seeming to slow down on Google maps, and I was hoping that the slow down meant we were going to see something really cool. I just had NO idea that we would see hundreds of Buffalo right off the side of the road.
So… we did what any tourist would do… pulled over and took in the amazing sight for a few minutes. But not too many minutes, we still had destination Old Faithful on our mind.
We finally arrived at the entrance to Yellowstone at 5:49 pm and arrived at the parking lot for Old Faithful at 7:00 pm. I knew it “closed” at 8 pm, and I knew it could erupt every 55 minutes… so I was hoping that it would erupt within 55 minutes from the time we arrived and didn’t happen to erupt 1 minute prior to our arrival where we would have missed the last “showing” of the day. I later figured out it was the Visitor Center that closed at 8 pm, and Old Faithful itself did not turn off at 8 pm… duh! It erupted about 10 minutes after we got to the viewing area, and it was an amazing site to see!
What I completely forgot about, until about 30 minutes away from Old Faithful was that I had downloaded an app called Gypsy Guide Yellowstone… I wish I had turned it on sooner. It is like having a personal tour guide on board. That’s actually where I learned about the timing of Old Faithful and where to go. He also mentioned to go into the Old Faithful Inn, he didn’t tell us what we would see, he just told us we wouldn’t want to miss it. I’m pretty sure he was talking about the massive clock… and all the beautiful wood. So after a quick picture, we walked back out to the RV to grab some dinner and head on to our next stop for the night in Cody, Wyoming… at our first Wal Mart! We pulled out of the parking lot at 9:05 pm and it was still daylight… it was so crazy!
But first… we spotted some Elk, so we pulled over and got out of the RV to walk over to get a closer look. Someone stopping to see the Elk told us they had just seen a bear… Oh my goodness, I was walking back to the RV as fast as I could, especially since Ryan was ahead of us with Alexandria, and he had the bear spray and I was trailing behind with Victoria and Bobby as it started getting dark fast.
Sometimes Google Maps didn’t give me what I thought were the very best directions… and the drive from Old Faithful to Cody was one of those times…. we were driving on what seemed to be a dirt road, under construction, in the pitch black of night and I never knew when we would get back to real road. We did see some deer, which was frightening to me since it was so dark, but we saw the most beautiful moonlight reflecting on the lake, and my Google Pixel Night Sight actually makes it look like it was still daylight out, but it was very much night.
Tips for Day 4:
If you don’t have Google Maps…. get it! And turn on your timeline tracking if you ever take a trip and want to remember where you went.
If you are going to visit Yellowstone, get Bear Spray… we didn’t need it, but we had it just in case we did need it.
If you want a tour guide definitely get the GyPSy Guide for Yellowstone, I think they have it for other locations too… so look into it for any travel that you might want to enjoy listening to, rather than trying to read while you are taking in the beauty around you.
If you are driving to Cody, Wyoming for the night… try to leave before nightfall… and hopefully the construction will be done (it may even be done now) so that you don’t have to brave dirt roads in the middle of the night.
Give yourself some time… that’s probably a tip I would add for EVERY SINGLE DAY because I feel like we were so rushed. We didn’t have time to spend time in places because our schedule was packed full, and I don’t regret any of the places we got to see, but I would definitely take a second trip to almost every place because there was so much more we could have done had we had more time.
We got to sleep in, then wake up and had a homemade delicious breakfast with family thanks to Ryan’s sister! She was amazing for driving all the way to Cedar City and back to pick us up for the night the night before, and by the end of the day, she would do the same trip again. Thank you, Jen! You really made an unfortunate situation soo sooo much better!
After breakfast, the kids enjoyed throwing rocks into the pond, playing guitar with Uncle Brian, then Auntie Jen told us about the splash pad, so… we got the kids swimming gear together (that is one of the things I packed when we knew we may be without the RV for the whole weekend) and headed out to the splash pad. There were playgrounds there too! If you are ever in Alpine, Utah and looking for a cool place for the family to hang out, you should check out Alpine Splash Pad. While we were at the splash pad, we got 1 call from Amen diesel saying the replaced the clamps on the hose where the coolant had been shooting out. They were going to take it for a test drive, then let us know if that fixed it. A couple hours later, they told us it was ready.
I had Ryan leave me and the kids at the house, so that he could make the 3 hour drive back to Cedar City with his sis to get the RV, drive it back 3 hours, then pick us up so we could continue on to Idaho. I didn’t think the kids would do well with 10 hours of driving in a day when they could just have a 3.5 hour trip. We had reservations for the night in Montpelier, Idaho, it was the closest place we could find to Yellowstone that had vacancies. Apparently, you need to book in January if you want to stay in Yellowstone, and since I was booking our sites in May and June… I had to take whatever we could get. If we stayed one extra night in Utah, Old Faithful would have been an 8 hour drive away, which easily turns into 10 hours with gas stops… and then we had another almost 3 hour drive to Cody, Wyoming where we planned to stay the next night. So I stayed in Alpine with the kids, did a couple loads of laundry, helped the kids shower, which meant I got completely soaked, but they all got clean, then I turned on The Greatest Showman on the tablet for them to watch while I showered, and they were all asleep before Ryan got back.
I packed up and waited up… he arrived around 11:45 pm, we loaded the kids, laying down, drank our Active, then hit the road. It was really dark… and we were driving through a lot of trees, with those signs that say watch out for wildlife… but thankfully we didn’t have any animals dart out in front of us.
Tips for Day 3:
If you plan to visit Yellowstone in the summer, and want to stay there… make sure you make your reservations really early or you’ll be stuck staying further away. We tried to stay in Alpine, Wyoming, but that was booked too. Montpelier, Idaho has a great KOA and it’s only a couple hours away from Jackson, Wyoming.
Speaking of trip planning… you MUST get the RV Parky App. I originally tried to plan our trip on RoadTrippers, but before we could even start our trip, they started charging and limiting the number of stops you could add to your trip for the free version. However… RV Parky lets you add unlimited stops. And I love that you could add your destination, then search around there for places to stay. The places to stay included reviews, so you could know ahead of time if it was a good option for you. We were in a really big RV, so some of the reviews helped me decide that we likely would have trouble getting in and out. And while I only planned to stay at Walmart 1 time, we ended up staying at at least 3 Walmarts in our 21 days.
Allow for more time. I booked our trip solid. The purpose of the trip was to go to my sister’s wedding in Michigan, and while I planned for about 6 hours of driving a day, it took way longer than that, most days. So, we had to rush to see what we were going to see then keep on moving so we wouldn’t get behind schedule.
Day 2 we got to start our day with a nice hot shower in our friend’s house before we headed on to Utah to visit Ryan’s sister and her family. When we got out to the RV to take off, we realized that the refrigerator had turned off at some point during the night and the food wasn’t as cold as it should have been. Apparently the battery runs out of power, so my aunt, who has her own trailer, and was giving us lessons as we went along, told us we could switch to propane when we dry camped to keep the fridge cold if we weren’t keeping the generator on all night. So… we started doing that (when we remembered).
Speaking of generator, we also learned that you can’t power the generator on with a dead battery, so you had to start the RV first, then power on the generator if you were going to use it while driving. Another thing, you have to have the generator on while driving if you want to run the A/C in the back of the RV. So many things to learn!
So we made our first stop of the day in St George at a Sinclairs (one of those Dinosaur gas stations) to gas up, and made lunch and ate it while we filled up, and I’m sure Ryan cleaned the windshield as well, that was his third job (1 – Driving, 2 – Getting Gas, 3 – Cleaning the windshield). One app we used almost every single day of the trip to find the least expensive gas, that was nearest to us, was Gas Buddy, I HIGHLY recommend you get that for any road trip. We set it to Diesel so that it would only consider gas stations that had diesel, then you could open the station and see what type of amenities they had. Most of the time we just needed gas, but sometimes we needed to dump and fill up with water.
Then we got back on the road and started heading up the grade toward Alpine, Utah when the thermostat got really hot, the little alarm (a different one) made noise and said we were overheating, and the engine slowed way down. We pulled over on the side of the 15 and called AAA. If you don’t have AAA, you should get it, we have the Premier membership, and it allows for one 200 mile tow a year for each cardholder, which has absolutely saved us in our personal cars, like the time we were moving here and Ryan’s car broke down hours from our new home, and we got it towed for Free! So, we found out from our friend Mike that there’s Premier RV for when you are in an RV, and you need to add it on a couple months before you trip, so we did, and it sure came in handy when we broke down on the second day of our trip! Thank you, Mike!!!
While we were hanging out on the side of the freeway for hours, the kids got to play with puzzles, color some of their favorite characters, and just hang out watching movies. We found out most repair shops are closed over the weekend, and since it was almost 5 pm on a Friday we may have to wait until Monday to get a diagnosis.
The first company AAA sent out was Bracken’s Auto Tech. Austin came out in his tow truck with some coolant to see if filling that up would get us up and running again. After he filled up the coolant, we tried driving the RV again, the temp had gone down, but within 30 seconds of driving, the heat went all the way back up and the engine slowed back down. He realized all the coolant shot right out and went onto the ground, so it was going to need more than just a refill. He thought we may have to get an Uber to get me and the kids to wherever the RV would be towed since they don’t usually have room for 2 adults and 3 car seats in a tow truck, but I had a friend in St George, also named Austin who had volunteered to come pick us up if we needed a ride.
Thankfully, next AAA sent out All Ways Towing to get us towed to Amen Diesel (they were actually opened on Saturdays). The driver of the first tow truck was Hunter, he came with an extended cab tow truck to pick us up, and they sent a separate tow truck to pick up the RV. So my friend Austin got to stay at work once he knew we were taken care of. Thank you for the offer, Austin! Hunter knew we were trying to pack some bags in case we would be without the RV for the weekend, and he had fun keeping the kids entertained. Once the RV tow truck arrived and they got it loaded up, Hunter drove us to Denny’s where Ryan unloaded me, the 3 kids, the 2 car seats (1 with a sleeping child) and the bags, while he headed to Amen Diesel to get the 3rd car seat with Hunter.
We spent 3 hours at Denny’s eating dinner and waiting for Ryan’s sister, Jen, to arrive from Alpine to pick us up for the night and drive us back to her house. Everyone at Denny’s was super nice, especially our server, Jake, who was always on top of things and made great recommendations! It made the wait go by much faster.
It was a long day, and we actually ran out of data on our phone one day prior to the start of our unlimited month… Boo… While at a rest stop on the way up to Alpine, Ryan called Verizon to see if they would waive the $15 overage fee, and rather than waive the fee, they told us about an offer we had on our account for being long time customers, where rather than paying the extra $30 for one month of unlimited data, they could offer us unlimited data for $2 extra a month… every month! And they would prorate it to the current month, so not only did they waive the $15 fee, and not bill us $30 extra for July, they billed us $2 for the month for June so we didn’t have an overage, and now we have unlimited data for only $2 a month, rather than $30 a month. So that $45 we would have spent, will not buy us almost 2 years worth of unlimited data. Auntie Jen was singing the Daniel Tiger song about when something seems bad ,turn it around, and find something good, but the kids didn’t hear it. And when we walked out of the rest stop bathroom, Bobby started singing it… so… the break down, and the running out of data, actually turned into something good.
So, it was a long, exhausting day, but… we scored on the Verizon offer, and we got to sleep in a super comfy bed, in a dark dark room, and wake up the next morning to spend time with the family.
Tips for Day 2:
Get AAA if you own a car.
Get AAA Premier RV if you own, or are going to be using an RV.
Get Gas Buddy for any road trip… or even if you just randomly choose where you get your gas in town. We usually go to Costco because it’s generally the cheapest in town. Speaking of Costco, upgrade to the Executive membership if you don’t already have it, it pays for itself. If you don’t make enough back in the rewards to cover the price difference between the regular and executive membership, they’ll refund you the difference!
Verizon is pretty awesome…. sure we didn’t have service in some locations, but overall, we had pretty good service as we went through 16 states. And that unlimited offer came at the perfect time, it even allowed me to jump on a company Zoom and and watch it live, rather than calling in and just listening to it (did you know you can call into zooms when you don’t have data/wifi?)
If you are ever break down in Cedar City, Utah call All Ways Towing or Bracken Auto Tech, they are both awesome! And if you want a place to eat and hang out for a few hours… Denny’s is the place to go!
We woke at 4:00 am to get dressed, and get the last things packed up. I sent my hubby outside as soon as he woke to see if the fridge was cold, and it was! All the praise hands 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼!!! I had planned to leave at 5:00 am, which really meant I wanted to leave by 6:00 am… I gave us an hour buffer… we didn’t end up leaving until 6:30 am and then we had to make a stop (at a Flying J) shortly after we left (probably within 30 minutes) because I was already getting nauseous. I would later discover how cool the RV spot we pulled into was because you could get up, get water, and dump all at the same spot!
Our temporary Superheromobile/home away from home for the next 3 weeks…
So we got the RV home on Wednesday after work and started loading it up! My Grandma Lola, Cousin Joanna, Aunt Virginia, and my Mom (Theresa) all came over to see the RV and help watch the kids while we picked up the RV then proceeded to get it all loaded up. My mom was the trooper staying until at least 10:30 pm and even giving the kids their bath and trying to get them to sleep for us. At 11:00 pm we were done loading for the night, and put everything else that needed to be loaded on the dining room (except all the refrigerated/freezer items since the fridge wasn’t cold yet) table to load it in the morning.
Oh and that reminds me… our neighbors across the way, Dan, Dorothy, and Joe came over to give us a tutorial since they are always going on trips in their RV. We tried to hook up to power at our house, so we could run the A/C and lights while we got loaded, and…. we kept flipping the breaker… so Dan showed us how to use the generator instead to have continuous A/C and lights since we didn’t have a proper outlet to hookup to. He also told us it could take until the morning for the fridge to get cold, and he was right. They also let us borrow their RV DVD since we had never seen it, and they thought it would be fitting for our first RV Trip. We had it playing while we drove into Las Vegas, but I was too busy watching the road to watch the movie, so we still need to watch it.
So at 11:00 pm I started packing my own clothes, I had the rest packed and ready to go, except my clothes and our toiletries, and my hubby had to pack too. After I finished packing, I took a shower at midnight, then made a final list in my Keep Notes (if you haven’t tried that app, let me tell you, it is AMAZING!). I was using OneNote before, until I realized I wasn’t actually logged in with an account that I could see what it was, so I wasn’t able to log into my account from any other devices… so I reluctantly switched to Keep Notes and I am SOOOO Glad I did! Probably my favorite feature is that when you save a link, it shows you the thumbnail, so it’s super easy to see what that link that you saved is going to take you to! The other pretty amazing benefit is that I can access my account from my laptop, and my iPad too…. so I can save notes from anywhere and access them from anywhere too!
After I got into bed at 1:00 am, my hubby still had to take his own shower and give our dog Rinzler (yes, he was named after the character from Tron Legacy) a bath so that he would be nice and clean while he stayed at home during our 3 week road trip. Planned wake up time was 4:00 am… which means I would get 3 whole hours of sleep.
I’ve been in planning mode for the last couple months. And we leave in around 57 hours and I am still trying to book the last couple nights of our trip. Now, it is a 3 week trip, so I still have some time, but I hoped to get everything booked before we left so we’d have a plan. Not that that means anything, since this is our first RV trip, we may find that we can’t do everything as fast as we had anticipated, so… we plan, but know that things may actually change, and we’ll roll with it.
A big bummer was when I was looking into where we could park/drive at Monument Valley and I found out that we can’t actually drive the RV through Monument Valley… To get there and back to the Grand Canyon from Scottsdale, AZ adds about 6 hours to the trip. So rather than drive all the way there to see what we can see before we can go no further, we are going to skip Monument Valley this trip and spend extra time at the Grand Canyon. We had originally planned to stop in Chicago for a night, but the Memorial Day murder rate helped me decide we could skip it this trip, and plan for that when the kids are older. We also planned for a stop in St Louis to see the Arch, but the 2 RV parking areas around there sounded like they weren’t in the best neighborhood, then there was the whole flooding, so… we’ll just pass by the Arch on the freeway… I think… (I haven’t actually solidified the exact routes yet, but we do have apps for that) and keep moving on to our next stop, and plan the actual visit to the Arch for when the kids are older as well. Part of the hesitation for just getting an RV site and Ubering is that we have 3 kids in car seats still, so if we were to Uber, we’d have 3 car seats to contend with wherever we are Ubering to. Thankfully, my parents are renting a minivan for while we are in Michigan for the wedding so that we can get around and leave the seats in the car while we go to the wedding and reception.
Since we will now have over 24 hours at the Grand Canyon, I found out we can take a train ride (https://www.thetrain.com/) to the Grand Canyon, so that saves me from trying to figure out where we should stay and how best to get to and park at the Grand Canyon with an RV, plus it means we can stay put for 2 nights. And, the train actually has an RV parking area so we can pull in for the night, wake up early, head to the train, spend a few hours at the Grand Canyon, then ride the train back to the RV, and wake up early on the 31st for our long drive home. They actually give a AAA discount too, so that’s a perk. However… you do get charged $35 for entry into the Grand Canyon unless you have and NPS Annual Pass.
What’s an NPS Annual Pass??? It’s a pass you can get for $80 that will allow you into all the parks on the list for an entire year. And you can buy it online… however… you can’t print your pass, they have to mail it to you, and since I am just looking into this 2 days before our trip… I don’t think that’s enough time to order our pass and have it arrive. You can pick up a pass from any of the parks though, so I am going to have Ryan try to run out to Lake Kaweah tomorrow to grab a pass, then hope that we can enter our pass online to save the $35 on the train tickets. If you are planning a trip to several parks this year, look into getting the America The Beautiful annual pass to save you some money https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/passes.htm#CP_JUMP_5088574
Here’s the locations you can visit with the pass: https://store.usgs.gov/s3fs-public/PassIssuanceList.pdf
I’m sure I’ll learn more as we go, but for now I need to figure out how we can do a tour of Hoover Dam since… that is actually our first stop on day 1… so I better get to figuring that one out sooner, rather than later. https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/service/DamTour.html Looks like we won’t be taking the tour since you can’t go on the tour if you are under 8, and our kids are only 2.5, 4.5, and 6.5. Guess that will have to wait for another trip as well!
And what time are we actually leaving on Thursday morning? I don’t know yet… depends how late we are up on Wednesday night loading up the RV. I do have boxes all over the house right now with things I have already packed. And I’m praying that the kids aren’t taking things out and leaving them where I can’t see them because I am mentally checking them off the list as I put them into the boxes… Worst case… we can buy what we need on the road, thought I’d rather not spend money on something we already have… but the most important things for me to remember are… my grandma’s China that I am taking across the country for my sister, and our wedding attire… since we kinda need that for the wedding. Everything else… can be replaced… but I’m going to try to remember much as I possibly can so we can limit the amount of stops we have to make to buy what we forgot.
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