Drifus' Travels – Well he thought he would

Well the alarm goes off and eventually I get up and break camp and get on the road by 4:30 am. At about 7am I stop at McD’s for breakfast and next door for gas and off I go again. At about 11am I start to get tired, mmm I wonder why? I pull over at a rest area and try to take a small nap. Well after 5 or so minutes I become angered by the fact that the blower motor to the van has rarely worked since I left for vacation and now it is hot outside. I begin to pound on the dash and it begins to come apart. I push the buttons back into the dash and now my adrenaline is up and I am ready to drive again, so much for a nap. I am about an hour from home and there is a traffic jam near Olathe, KS, dam foiled again I say. Up comes the laptop screen and I check to see when I can get off the highway and take side streets home. Finally I find one and off the highway I go and now the back roads are my best friends. Well I am finally home and surprise Beth and she is overwhelmed to finally see me in person and not on a computer screen. 5164 miles have been covered. Trip totals and pics to come soon watch link. Thanks to everyone that made this possible. My job, Dell, Goodyear, RedLine Oil, Mobile 1, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2005, Verizon Wireless, LG Cell Phone, StarCraft Campers, Reece Hitches, Chevy, the USA, Mother Nature, freedom, the people of the National Park Service. No thanks to those who tried to ruin my trip. Timberlake Apartments of Kansas City, MO, greedy Oil companies, inconsiderate neighbors who believe the “me” generation is real.

Well I am up at about 5:30am my time. It’s time to go home and deal with the apartment complex and also I am ready to go home and get moved in myself. Beth has had 3 weeks at home setting things up and they look good (per the webcam). I need to get home so I can catch up on my mail, setup my home office etc. I figure to heck with all reservations and the continental divide and petrified Forrest, they will be there when I get back out west. So my plan is to drive until dark, I get tired or to Amarillo, TX. Yes I am in Arizona. Well the drive is going well until I get about 25 miles from Amarillo and notice that I am low on fuel. I take the first exit I see that looks to have a station. I drive through the first station and no one is around. I get to the second and it looks like they have done business recently. I get out and then see a small sign about being closed and then another sign about when they would be open. Bummed and stressed a little I get back in the van and start the engine, and then I see the orange glow “Low Fuel”. Ok, now I am really stressed, I know I have my Good Sam ERS card but still this will take time to get fuel to me and I am still psyched about being home. Well I get back on the highway and look at the next exit, no gas stations. So I go on and finally a few miles later a Shell station. I pull in and then look up and the real irony is the name of the street the station is cornered on is my last name, creepy. Well I get gas and some ice and some drinks and off I go. Well I make it to Amarillo and decide to continue since it’s not dark and I still feel good. I go about another 50 miles and call it quits. Like the gas station exercise, first stop mentioning camping, no pun intended looks like a scene from Texas Chainsaw massacre. Not a single camper on the grounds, so back on the highway and I don’t see a sign for miles. Finally a sign mentioning camping and I pull off to check it out. Well it’s less scary and they are about 10 RV’ers parked there, excellent and I check in. Well I set up camp and shower and get a snack and then try to sleep. I am angered by the apartment complex and how they have treated Beth that it becomes all I think of. After a few hours of tossing and turning I set the alarm for 3:45 am. Yes I figure a few hours of sleep and I can make the last 560 miles to get home. Heck I just finished 775 miles to get here.

Well I got up about 5:30am and skipped a shower, broke camp and headed out. I made good time until I got to LA but that is to be expected, traffic never moved so slow. Once I got out of LA I stopped at IHOP for breakfast and had the usual, International Passport w/ a large chocolate milk, $10.00 later I was out the door and on my way again. Well like any place out west I had to climb hills to get to Grand Canyon, the drive was very beautiful and I took a few pics of things I saw. I made it to the KOA / Grand Canyon at about 5:30 pm I guess it wasn’t bad for 500 miles of driving in the mountains. I am hoping that the next few days going home are flatter so I can make good time. I plan to cover 700 miles each day if I can to get home by Monday and surprise Bethy who thinks Ill be home almost a week from today. Well after I checked in I set up camp and headed to the Grand Canyon. It’s about a 50 mile drive from the KOA but the road is nice and it looks as if they are going to widen it. I made it to the southern rim and took some pics and some small movies with my camera and then drove around a bit and then left. I will come back with Beth and we can spend a few days here I know she will love it. After leaving the canyon I headed to the IMAX Theater and purchased a ticket, you get a 6% discount from KOA when you stay there, so my $10.00 admission was $9.49, not much savings but I can tell you that you must see the show I think it’s worth $12.00. During the time I was waiting to get into the auditorium I made it across the street to McD’s and had dinner. Not my idea but I had to go since about 20 years ago my parents and brother made the trip to the Grand Canyon and it cost them $20.00 back then, seems to me the prices haven’t changed. Well back to seeing the movie, after it let out I purchased some souvenirs and headed back to the KOA. Just as I was on the edge of town a 8ft elk was greeting people as they left, ok he wasn’t greeting them but it was a reminder that elk roam freely here and can kill a car. So I as I got farther out of town I saw another one. I decided that being the lead car is not what I want to do. I found a place to pull over and let 8 cars pass me by. This provided plenty of buffer for an accident and I could return to the KOA unharmed, after all I had issues back home that needed to be taken care of. Well Beth called me before I went in to the IMAX I tried to answer it but I lost a signal, so now was a better time and I had a better signal. I called her and she was crying and very upset, again the lousy neighbors were at it again, loud music and not home. I am looking forward to this as I will definitely be the thorn in Goliath s paw and even though I am named Dave I will not let it be pulled out until satisfaction is met. Well I am back at the KOA and again the van is lined up and ready to go in the morning.

Well again I tried to sleep in since I did need to be at grandmas until 12:30 since see had a meeting to go to. I got a few things ready in the RV to hit the road early on the 23rd (I hope). I turned on the gas to the water heater and the light did not come on. I untied the LP tanks and one felt heavier than the other. So I was able to deduce that one was empty and one was full. Being the good boy scout I usually am I removed both and headed to the RV office and asked to have them filled. Well he was able to fill one but not the other. So 3lbs of LP later and $8.81 poorer I headed back to the RV. I hooked up the tanks and cabled them down and tried the switch again and nothing. Well I left it on and headed out to the heater cover and looked at everything and it looked ok. I then decided to get a hammer and tap the solenoid and viola the heater began to run. SO I took a shower and then headed out for lunch at Subway and then to grandmas. When I entered Subway I heard another Astro van attempting to start. I stopped by and asked it they needed a jump start. They said yes so I obliged. I hooked up the cables and it started immediately. I told them that they may have a dead cell in the battery and a new one would be a good idea, they thank me and off I went. I went to Subway and ordered lunch, the usual, Steak & Cheese on wheat with x-lettuce, pickles, green peppers, banana pepper rings, parmesan cheese, oregano and southwest sauce, 3 macadamia nut cookies and 2 bottles of chocolate milk. I headed off to grandmas lunch in tow and arrived in a few minutes. She answered the door and noticed my lunch and said that she was going to fix me something. I told her that I knew that after she got back from her meeting that she would be taking a nap so I thought it easier that I bring my lunch. She eventually thought it was nice of me but really wanted to fix me something. Well she went to her room and I went upstairs to finish my work on Alan’s computer. Well I got the Wifi working; he just needs an extension cable for the antenna. Eventually Alan came home and came up to check on my progress. I was getting closer but Microsoft has so many updates and under dial-up it will take forever. Now it was dinner time, grandma had prepared a stew with onions, carrots, squash, celery and green peppers and on the side was half a cantaloupe. As usual another great meal from grandma, I am going to miss them. Well it was back to the computer for me to check on things, progress was still being made but it was a long way to go. Well I went back downstairs to sit and chat a while and then I announced that I needed to go since I was going to get up early so I could make good time to the Grand Canyon. We hugged and kissed and off I went. I got back to the RV Park and lined the van up with the RV so I could attach quickly, dismantle camp and head out. An odd thing happened when I got back to camp a jet was making interesting designs in the air, I think it’s called water vapor either way I got some pics of it to check later and post if they are good.

Well I slept in since grandma and Alan would not be back from shopping until noon. I called to confirm that I could take them up on their previous offer of doing laundry at their house. Well it was ok so I headed over around noon. I arrived and had a roast beef sandwich with grapes and pickles on the side. Alan and I then headed over to Chucks house to get some aluminum that could be used for the Sonex. Chuck showed us his small machine shop in his garage. For a guy in his 70′s he had a nice setup and could make about anything. After that we then headed back home. I remembered that Alan wanted to remove the luggage racks from his car. I reminded him when we got home and we removed them. Next was back to work on the computer which has been a multi-day event. I was also kind of fun since his uses dial-up, while it’s painful to watch a download take 3 hours that I could do back home in 10 minutes, it helps me appreciate what I have and am willing to pay for. Well we had dinner and watched the news about a plane making a difficult landing due to the front landing gear ended up in a precarious position. Well the pilot made a spectacular landing and everyone was safe. Also during this time I finished my laundry, now I have enough until I get home. Well we finished dinner and watched The Terminal with Tom Hanks, I enjoyed at least as much as the first time I saw it. After that I returned back to my RV and watched some TV and went to bed.