I hope the rest of our journey goes off smoother than the departure. Mark and I had said we'd like to be on the road by 4 pm. We were only going to West Lafayette, Indiana, where we were staying with our friends, the Sherwins, and picking up their oldest daughter, Krystal (16) who is Emily's best friend since kindergarten. Krystal is taking the Land Ark Voyage with us, and then spending the month in Arizona with us. The Sherwins are only about 4½ hours from us, so even if we left at 4 pm, we'd still get in West Lafayette before 9 pm.
That didn't exactly work out as planned. We finally got on the road at 1:00 am. There's just so much you do when you're leaving a house forever, especially one you want to sell ASAP, so it needs to look good. Unplanned work (like needing to paint Rosie's entire bedroom when we hadn't planned on it), going through every nook and cranny of a house to both look for stuff we might have left behind, and to clean, well, takes time.
And so does saying goodbye. It was a very sad night for the older two. Emily's boyfriend, Nathan, spent the day with Emily, and helped us with stuff around the house. Nathan's a good kid - I like him. And he and Emily have been dating for a year. So it was a very tearful goodbye, that wasn't really "goodbye" but rather, "till I see you again."
Rosie hasn't had a boyfriend for 4 months, but has been spending every possible moment these last few weeks with her friends. And in doing so, she kind of fell for another guy. Sigh. I told her now wasn't the best time to start a new relationship, but these things happen. So I have two very sad daughters on my hands. And one daughter very excited about the move. They say two out of three ain't bad, but I only have one out of three. But if you count me and Mark, then it's 3 out of 5 excited about moving.
So, we saddled up, loaded the kids and animals, and took off. I hadn't driven the RV yet, so since it was so late, Mark said he'd drive. But after putting in 17 straight hours on the house, driving through the night was not easy. He started to feel like he was falling asleep at the wheel, so we pulled over into a truck repair shop that was closed for the night, and Mark took a 30-minute power nap.
While he slept in the upper bunk, I just stayed in the passenger seat and dozed. I woke once to the sound of the dog drinking water. "Oh, she must be thirsty," I thought as she lapped away. Then it dawned on me that I had emptied the water bowl while we were driving so it wouldn't slosh everywhere, and I hadn't refilled it. I groggily thought to myself, "So where is she getting the water?"
I turned back to look, and she had nosed the top off the small traveling fish tank and was happily drinking the water from the tank! It was too dark to tell if she had lapped up the fish or not, and I was too tired to look carefully. So I just replaced the lid on the tank and hoped for the best. Eight animals or nine animals -- who would notice if we were one down, right?
Mark's power nap refreshed him enough to finish the drive. We finally arrived at the Sherwins at 6:30 am, said some brief hellos, then crashed. We slept until 10:30 am, and after a hot shower, coffee, and chili (it was lunch time by then!) I almost felt human again. And ready to take on Day 2 in the Land Ark. We pulled out of the Sherwins', now with four kids instead of three, and with all nine animals (yes, the fish was still there) at 1:11 pm, headed for Joplin, MO (586 miles away), in Day 2 of the Voyage of the Land Ark.
2 comments:
Glad the fishie is ok!
I do hope the big girls settle in quickly, and that the transition ends up being a happy one for them.
Do take care, and happy driving!
Well, the REAL reason we had to get on the road, even at 1 AM, is that we were afraid the City of East Lansing would find some issue with us parking that RV in the driveway for two consecutive nights. If there's not a law against it, they're probably at least contemplating one.
Anyhow, it seemed impossible that we were STARTING the trip so late, but we did it anyway. The girls settled in to their bunks and were all asleep before we got out of Lansing. Kathleen and I sat up front trying to stay awake.
One up side to driving the RV after dark is that you can see the headlights of any vehicle in your blind spot, so that was actually easier.
On the other hand, I didn't have my door entirely closed when we started out, and when I opened it to try to slam it all the way shut, something about the aerodynamics of the vehicle nearly ripped it out of my hand, preventing me from slamming or even closing it. So I had to pull over to get it done.
We made it about 75% of the way to West Lafayette when I finally had to pull over--the edges of my vision seemed like they were vibrating, and that's never a good thing, much less when you're behind the wheel of an unfamiliar and very large vehicle.
But the nap I took was enough to get us the rest of the way.
I was a little surprised to realize that Major was FOLLOWING us for the last few miles before we arrived at the Sherwin house, though. I suppose his excuse that he'd gone in to work early was reasonable, but I think he was just out there playing guardian angel...
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