So You Wanna Go RVing?

Austin and I have been talking a lot lately about just how eventful our family life seems to be. We also seem to be gluttons for punishment so we do things like drive our RV on vacation. I decided this trip will be one that we won’t forget anytime soon but I want to put everything in one place to look back on and I thought you all might as well get a good laugh out of us while I’m at it.

Awhile back we found out that one of my family members would be coming “home” to Kansas from Italy to get ready to start school at K-State in the fall. At the time, he was supposed to be self quarantined for two weeks after he arrived. Austin and I discussed letting him stay in our RV but ultimately decided that we would stay in the RV, camp, and travel for the two weeks and let him stay at our house. We had already booked camping spots at Tuttle Creek for the 4th of July weekend (happy anniversary to me) so we decided to just extend that stay a few more days. From there we were going to come back to Silver Lake, do laundry and stay at my parents’ house for one night so we could repack the camper. Our next stop was going to be Jacksonville, Il for a wedding. Then we decided that if we were going to need to spend a few more days out of our house, we’d just go to Branson while we were at it. Nothing like vacationing during a pandemic!

The night before we left, we discovered that a bottle of laundry detergent had spilled on the carpet of the camper. We busted out the shampooer and spent an hour trying to get all of the suds out! Our camper carpet has probably never been cleaner. In hindsight though, that should have been our first sign that things weren’t going to go as planned.

On July 2nd, we were loaded up and headed to Manhattan. We had a fun and fairly uneventful weekend.

Right before we left for camping, we found out that my cousin no longer needed to self quarantine, he just needed to stay inside for two weeks so he didn’t end up staying at our house. When we finished camping, we went back home for one night. I took the laundry to my parents’ house (because our washer quit on us) and started online grocery orders to restock the camper. Austin was doing a few things to the camper and then was going to bring it to my parents’ house so they could load their stuff into the RV. I mean, what could be better than RVing? RVing with grandparents, in tow. That’s what. While at my parents’ house, Ellie ran down the ramp of their porch while playing broom ball and fell in their driveway. Naturally, she skinned both knees and her face. She looked like my brother on his wedding day. Anyone who went to that wedding, knows what I’m talking about. Austin had a heck of a time with the camper that day (hello, second red flag) and still didn’t have the camper up there at 8 that evening. I still needed to pull more laundry and bedding out of the camper to get washed so we could leave first thing in the morning. I decided that I would run home and grab what I needed and take it back to my parents’ house so I could get it done. As I pulled into Silver Lake, Austin called me and said “I burned myself pretty bad, I need you to come home.” When I pulled into our front yard (because our driveway was full 🙄) I found Austin standing in the driveway with no shirt on spraying himself all over his back and arm with the garden hose. The first things I thought to get him were pain reliever and lavender essential oil. Side note* I’m not claiming that essential oils are a cure all for everything and should replace every single medicine ever made. However, I’ve never had a burn that lavender essential oils didn’t immediately relieve and heal quickly.* I drenched Austin in oil and he asked for a cold shower. His burn didn’t look terrible at first so I got ahold of Dr. Google and asked how to treat a burn. A lot of the advice said petroleum jelly and gauze. We wrapped him up for the night and he slept in the recliner since he couldn’t lay down very well. We now know that petroleum jelly was the wrong thing to do. Regardless, he woke up feeling surprisingly well in the morning. We had already decided that instead of leaving that morning, we would take the day to get everything ready and leave that evening. We spent most of the day running errands and trying to convince Austin that he should go see a doctor. We got everything that we needed to keep him clean and bandaged and we hit the road.

We thought the hardest part was behind us and that Austin resting and staying out of the sun would be our biggest concern on our trip. I was wrong. An hour into our trip, we blew a tire on the RV. (I don’t even know how many red flags there were at this point) Austin changed it in record time and we were back on the road…with no spare. We thought about turning around to grab another one…or three that were in our garage. We decided we were good to go so onward we went. Hindsight really is 20/20, guys.

After about two and a half hours of driving, we decided we’d stop somewhere safe and call it a night. We parked in a Walmart parking lot for the night. For some reason, camping at Walmart has always been on Austin’s bucket list so he couldn’t resist. It wasn’t until we were standing outside of the camper cleaning Austin’s burn that we realized there was a prison across the street from the Walmart we were staying in. Sorry, we didn’t tell you about it sooner, Mom. We didn’t think you’d sleep very well if you knew.

Also, if anyone has any advice on how to wrap shoulders and necks, I’m all ears. This is like the Frankenstein of bandage wrapping.

Everyone got a little bit of sleep and we got back on the road in the morning. Just as we started to feel like we were settling in and ready to travel, we blew another tire on the RV. Did I mention, that our RV tires are a weird size and they’re not easy to find? We had just gone through Chillicothe and were between towns. Austin called around and found a shop only 8 miles from us that had two tires and could bring them to us on a truck. That set us back a few pennies and a few hours. While we were waiting, Austin made some calls and found three more tires that could be ordered and waiting for us in Jacksonville. We finally got back on the road and started truckin’ again. About 30 minutes later, Austin decided to stop and put the extra new tire on to replace one of the old tires just to be safe.

We were finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! We were 30 minutes away from the campgrounds when, you guessed it, we blew another tire! We had the old one that we had just taken off to replace it with until we got the new ones on Monday. I’m sure you’re all thinking that we are idiots for traveling with old tires and we should have known better. You’d be right if these had been old tires. They’re only about 9 months old so this was not an issue that we thought we’d be facing. We honestly thought we’d be more likely to have mechanical issues or something.

By the grace of God, we made it to our destination just in time for everyone to clean up and get to the rehearsal dinner. It felt so good to know the camper would be parked for the weekend but I was still crossing my fingers that everything would work ok in the camper for our stay. Naturally, the water heater wouldn’t work. The same water heater that worked really well last week while we were camping.

Our weekend in Jacksonville was great! the wedding was beautiful and we really enjoyed catching up with friends that we hadn’t seen in a long time.

Monday morning came faster than we thought it would and we packed up camp and headed to the tire shop. We got two new tires put on the RV and got a spare. Five new tires and $$$$ later, we were ready to go to Branson! We were so glad that we finally got our butts in gear last year and got our emergency fund together. While we didn’t want to spend that much money on tires this week, it didn’t ruin our vacation and we had the peace of mind of knowing there was still money for more emergencies because we were still traveling in the RV, after all.

We managed to make it to Missouri around lunch time with no problems at all! We were so excited but no one dared to say anything about it because we didn’t want to jinx ourselves.

Imagine our surprise when we got to our campsite in Branson without one single hiccup! We got to explore the campsite a little bit, Austin peeled off the rest of his dead skin 🤢, we had supper, and got a good nights rest.

Tuesday morning we went to Silver Dollar City and only had one issue. A tire…on the stroller. After we went through the medical check tent, Austin hopped in the car and went back to the campsite to grab our bike tire pump. After the tires were aired up, we were ready for the day. The kids rode all kinds of rides and there were hardly any lines in the park. Austin was pretty miserable when he wasn’t in the shade so we didn’t stay very long.

We ate linner at Billy Gail’s and it was delicious!

We took Austin to Krispy Kreme while the red light was on. I’ve always told him about our family vacations and how we always managed to find a Krispy Kreme that was making fresh donuts so we could get samples. Everytime we’ve ever found one though, the red light hasn’t been on. I got the GoPro out to record Austin’s first fresh Krispy Kreme experience and when we got inside they had a sign that said they weren’t doing samples because of Covid. Poor Austin had to buy his first hot Krispy Kreme.

Wednesday was a day for sleeping in. That’s my kind of day! We had day old Krispy Kremes for breakfast and slowly made our way to Silver Dollar City. Austin stayed at the camper to rest and stay out of the sun. Aka get out of pushing a double stroller up the hill of death at Silver Dollar City. It was a hot day so wearing masks all day was tough. With the help of Dippin’ Dots and frozen lemonade, we made it through the day. We had fun at the park but it wasn’t quite the same without Austin there.

Wednesday night we went to see Noah at the Sight and Sound Theater and it was an incredible production! All three of the shows that I’ve seen there have been good but this one was awesome! The kids really enjoyed the show…except for Emery. Him and I were the first ones in the family room about five minutes into the show. Gran was in a trance and kept yelling “look at those monkeys!”

Thursday morning, Austin was feeling much better and decided to join us for the day. We started at the Tanger outlet. That was a bust. Most of the stores weren’t open yet when we got there and we didn’t want to stand in line to get into them with their limited capacities. We went back to the camper for lunch and then loaded back up for Silver Dollar City.

Our first stop in the park was the leather shop. Austin has spent the last three years wanting a hat from there so he finally got one. He conveniently “forgot” his hat and sunglasses at the camper so he “needed” a new hat. If you’re wondering how many new hats Austin bought himself on this trip, the answer is five.

We had another fun day at the park. We spent most of our time there at the kiddie rides. We were so glad there weren’t any lines to wait in so our kids got to ride everything as much as they wanted to. Luckily, our kids wanted grandma and grandpa to ride a lot of the rides with them so we took turns and still had someone to hang out with Emery. I was really bummed that we didn’t get to ride the new water ride there but the wait time for that one was about an hour every time we walked by it.

Thursday night we went to Mellow Mushroom for some awesome pizza. Ellie got to visit her favorite jewelry store and then we stopped by Andy’s for some dessert.

After ice cream, we took the kids to ride Go Karts for the first time. Gran had a blast and could have done it all night. Ellie was very reluctant to get on with Austin and was done after her first ride. Poor Emery didn’t get to ride but he really enjoyed watching.

Friday morning we packed up camp and we hit the road for home. We made our traditional pit stop at Lambert’s for lunch because there’s no better way to travel than stuffed full of good food!

We failed to get a group picture during this trip but we did get some pictures with the camper at Austin’s request.

I know that this is a trip that we won’t soon forget and I hope that our kids remember all of the fun we had this week. I’m also really hoping that our kids are as tired as I am and they spend the next few days catching up on their sleep like I will be. A mom can dream, right?