1 April – Day 1 – Departure (Jacksonville, FL to Lake City, FL)
Prior to leaving, my laptop had broken its hinges, and I had sent it back for RMA. I wasn’t sure that it would make it back in time, but, lo and behold, it was supposed to arrive in the morning on 1 April between 9 and 2. That would have been fine, as it allowed us to clean up and finish packing everything up. However, it didn’t show up until 6 pm, at which point we were discussing not leaving that evening. We decided to push, and started to bring the slides in.
As we brought in the slides, we found the front left slide would not go in. After some research, we found that there was a way to push in the slide manually. Meagan and I decided to give it a shot and stay on schedule. I popped the Schwintek motor, disengaged it and pushed in the slide. Had I been a bit more experienced with the procedure, I would have gotten the motor out and figured out which model it was.
On Saturday, I greased the bearings and discovered that one of them had some very dark grease. I came to the conclusion the bearing was running rough. Due to the holiday weekend, I wasn’t able to get parts for it. We made the decision to address the problem in Texas.
All in all, we got to the Lake City campground late that night, around 2230. The kids were exhausted and quickly fell asleep. We were going to be short on sleep and tomorrow we had a full five hours of driving. That’s not much if only adults are in the car, but for us, with all the kids and babies, we’ll be spending at least eight hours on the road.
2 April – Day 2 – Driving (Lake City, FL to Outback Springs RV Resort Bonifay, FL)
We woke up and got ready to get on the road. As we packed up, Garrett had some turkey cold cuts for breakfast before we put him in the truck. As he was sitting in his car seat, the poor little guy threw up all over himself, the car seat, the truck, and various other objects. Meagan cleaned him up and we pressed on. Evan, with his sensitive nose, ended up to riding in the van to get away from the smell. Garrett proceeded to throw up several more times on the trip. He did a good job using towels to mitigate the mess. He even used a metal bowl to catch the puke several times!
We arrived in Bonifay, FL and set up shop. When Meagan went to get Garrett out of the truck, he looked at her sadly and said, “I got puke all over me.” Later, Garrett threw up on our bed, soaking most of the bedding. After consulting our on-call nurse, Alan’s mom Irene, we decided it was time to take Garrett to the ER.
Meagan took Garrett to Northwest Florida Community Hospital which was just a few miles down the road. He had a HR of 135, no fever and normal O2 levels. The doctor thought he was a bit dehydrated, but not dangerously so. Garrett took an oral dissolving Zofran, an anti-nausea medication, and started sipping water. After keeping four ounces of water down, the doctor felt that with the help of more Zofran, Garrett should be able to hold onto his liquids and recover in a few days. With the prescription in hand, Meagan and Garrett drove home and arrived around two in the morning. Our days were already long, but the nights kept getting shorter.
We stayed at the Outback Springs RV Resort, which on one hand was a nice enough park. On the other hand, they put us in a very narrow spot and we did not have a picnic table of our own to use. As we were there for only one night, it was not a big deal, but it was still mildly annoying. One of the key things for happiness in the RV lifestyle is being able to leverage the outdoors for extra space.
3 April – Day 3 – Driving (Bonifay, FL to Pine Crest RV Park, Slidell, LA)
We woke up this morning to a late start. Meagan went to a local pharmacy to get the prescription filled, but they weren’t able to fill it. Walmart was Plan B: she drove back east to Walmart and picked up the Zofran for a cool $41 and change. (/snooty accent “We do not take…Tricare.” Just kidding, the pharmacy ladies were really sweet and hoped Garrett would soon feel better), which contributed a bit to a late start. No more throw up today, but some queasiness among a few people. Alan gave the kids a GoPro to play with, and Evan and Jarek enjoyed taking movies and pictures of various things as we were driving.
When we arrived at the Pine Crest RV Park, we discovered that Gambit had broken out of his soft-sided cat carrier by slashing open the side mesh panel, the jerk. By the time we had arrived, it was too late to run to the store and get a new carrier, so we pushed that errand to the next day.
Alan and the kids put on the Snap Pad Jack Pads on the RV, as Pine Crest gave us a spot with a concrete slab. Alan gave the kids a camera to take some video of the evolution, but they changed the settings on it so it is not usable.
4 April – Day 4 – Driving (Slidell, LA to Boomtown RV Park, Rose City, TX)
We woke up a bit late, due to more adventures in sickness and general exhaustion at this point. Meagan went to a nearby pet store and got a new hard sided cat carrier for Gambit. Let’s see you break out of this one you dirty rotten hairball! As we were about to roll out, Garrett had another poop-splosion which delayed us a bit. After cleaning that up, we (finally!) got on the road.
The drive was pretty smooth overall. However, we encountered some heavy traffic due to rubbernecking on a number of severe accidents on the westbound lanes of I-10. We saw three major accidents on the other side, one near miss on our side where a truck smoked its wheels to avoid hitting the stopped traffic, and one large bang. Alan and Meagan both felt and heard it in their respective cars. Alan thought it was a tire on the RV blowing out, but it was a FedEx truck on the Westbound lanes that blew a tire with an impressive amount of force.
5 April – Day 5 – Driving (Rose City, TX to Redbud Ranch RV Resort, Hutto Tx)
Early on the morning of the 5th, Randal threw up again. A great start to our last travel day to Austin!
This was a long haul north from Rose City. The drive went fairly smoothly, but as the day wore on, Alan noticed that the Transmission Fluid Temp (TFT) kept rising and not holding steady. We stopped at a truck stop for a while to let the truck cool down and took a break. The kids got a nice little treat, and we tried some lamb curry kabob chips, and they did indeed taste like curry kabobs.
About 20 miles out, Alan pulled over on the side of the road in a turn lane, as the TFT had reached 250 F, which is right at the normal limit. After 10 or 20 minutes waiting, the truck had cooled some and Alan was able to limp the rest of the way to the campground in Hutto, TX arriving around 8 pm.
The truck was also not performing well while towing. It seemed to be struggling with the load and the elevation change, which was not all that much – several hundred feet over 250 miles.
However, our trials were not yet done. The very next morning, part of the mechanism that flushes the toilet in the RV broke! A terrible thing to have happen for a family experiencing intestinal distress! We were out seeing family and friends, and came back late and realized that we did not have the campground bathroom code handy – which complicated things further.
Fortunately, Alan was able to fix the stuck slide on the first night. Alan ordered the parts ahead, and they were waiting for us. That was a big morale booster getting our living space back.
Despite all the challenges, we did arrive safely and in time for the eclipse!
To get notifications of posts, please register on the site and you will get notifications of new posts via email.
User registrations have been disabled for the time being until I get the spam registrations figured out. For the time being, please use your patreon account to log in.
You can support us via buymeacoffee or via our patreon.