"The Journal" of our 10 Day Trip to Flovilla - Part 1

Since we are taking ten days to cross the country from Sun City to Flovilla, Georgia we decided to post traveling journals every few days for those readers who want to keep up with our progress. This first journal entry covers our first three days and is without pictures. Pushing on at 300-350 miles a day leaves little time to sightsee and picture take for now.

Forward to the Journal:

Difficult to leave- It was an interesting pre-trip time for this leg of our Great Adventure. Still being excited at the endless adventures that await us this summer, nonetheless we had a difficult time getting ready to leave. Leaving friends, neighbors, a very comfortable home and community and a fantastic church caused us to procrastinate a bit in getting prepared to take off.  (The added fact that the area of the country we are heading to has experienced an unusual amount of larger than normal tornado activity probably contributed to our feet-dragging. This is where the “Faith” that we wrote about in the last update MUST come to the forefront of our minds. It is God…not us that controls the weather.)

April was a whirlwind of activity with friends, and we put off thinking seriously about preparing for the trip. Finally Jim brought the rig to the house on the Saturday morning before our Tuesday departure date, but only after we had attended our neighborhood monthly block breakfast – the last for us until we return in October. We are so blessed to live on this particular street in Sun City. We are surrounded by many warm and loving neighbors who are steadily becoming friends. The remainder of the day was spent trying to focus on what needed to be packed. Then, after a wonderful Easter Sunday church service we headed home to continue the packing chore. But we took a break Sunday evening to go to the last free open air concert for us for this season at the Sun Bowl just down the street. (They have them every Sunday night from October thru December and again from February through May. A variety of top entertainers are brought in. It’s a great way to spend a relaxing evening with some of our church friends. This one was a marimba/marange group from Cal State Northridge. Lots of great music with a whole lot of energy!!)) After the concert we and four other couples went out for ice cream and our final good-byes. One couple will be heading back to Washington State for the summer, one to Denver, while the other two live full time in Sun City. However one of them has a summer condo near Flagstaff where they can get away in the roaring heat of the Phoenix summer, and the other couple will be doing some travels of their own to the east coast. Knowing we were all going our separate ways made the goodbyes even more bitter sweet. Again, we have been so incredibly blessed to form such friendships in such a short time with these wonderful Christians. Even though we know we will meet lots of great people while on the road, we will miss the camaraderie of these folks. It amazes us how deep these friendship bonds have become in the short seven months we have lived in Sun City!

At last, on Monday (the day before “blast off”) we got serious and spent at least 14 hours straight packing the rig and getting the house prepared for the summer. We were exhausted by day’s end. We must try harder to focus on the tasks at hand next summer! (Will somebody remind me of that then??)

Day One- 6am Tuesday morning we were up and finishing the final tasks. (Remember from last year- one being to put saran wrap over the toilets?) By 8am with toilets tightly wrapped and a final prayer said, we were on the road heading to Deming, New Mexico. The trip was fairly uneventful, except for the first fill up outside of Wilcox, Arizona (242 miles from home) when I had to calm myself as we pulled up to the pump to be greeted by a price tag of $4.16/gal. Added to that, we had been bucking a severe head wind several miles west of Wilcox that caused our gas consumption to be less than efficient. The winds continued all the way to Deming (as I kept eying the gas gage) and we encountered a “delightful” New Mexico wind and dust storm all the way to the RV park. With temperatures in the 80’s, the winds were gusting to well over 60 mph and the dust was so heavy at times it was hard to see the road. As we set up the rig, it was swaying like a baby’s cradle caught in a stiff breeze. At last, around 8pm the winds subsided and the air cleared and the temperatures cooled down. Sleep should come easy now.

Day Two Wednesday – Didn’t sleep as well as expected….too much on my mind! On the road from Deming at 8:30am heading to Balmorhea, Texas (pronounced Bal-more-ray’). A pretty name for a drab place. No longer windy, the weather was clear and mild, in the high 70’s to low 80’s. Easy driving the 305 miles all on I-10. Before reaching the Texas border, we passed thru Las Cruces, New Mexico. Surprisingly, it’s a lot greener than any of the rest of New Mexico that we have seen on this trip. Lots of Pecan orchards and some hay farms. Upon entering Texas, the only really big town we passed through was El Paso. It is NOT green or pretty and it spreads out for miles along I-10. It borders the Rio Grande with Juarez Mexico just on the other side of the river. As we drove along the freeway through El Paso, we could see parts of Juarez. What a contrast….poverty and dirty old run-down neighborhoods on one side of the river….big newer commercial buildings, businesses and large new homes on the other side. 

After El Paso, the drive was along a whole lot of wide open spaces. West Texas is dry and brown with a lot of nothing to look at. Not my idea of a place to return for an extended vacation. We dedicated our entry into Texas by playing Waylon Jennings and Willy Nelson music! After six plus boring hours of driving we reached Balmorhea. The campground we stayed at was a “no frills” park just off the freeway outside of town, but the spaces were large and level and the full hookups were just fine (especially since we only paid $10 for the night on a Passport America rate.) The other plus for the day was the fact that we were not bucking head winds as we did the day before, so our gas mileage increased from 10.35 to 11.5 mpg. The gas prices are still over $4/gallon. We will be getting an early start tomorrow. We have 350+ miles to cover to our next stop in Ranger, Texas. 

The high spot of day two actually occurred on the freeway coming through El Paso. A young man in an older sports utility vehicle passed us and gave us a big smile, a wave and a “thumbs up”. He had seen the MMAP logos on our rig and was telling us he appreciated what we were doing! I waved back and gave him the sign for thank you. That was encouraging!

Day Three Thursday – Got an early start and as we left the RV Park in Balmorhea, we both agreed it was going to be a long boring day driving through West Texas. Well, that was partly true. The weather was clear, warm and windless and for the first 200 miles of the 350 mile trip not much happened. We marveled at all of the falling down and abandoned farm houses and barns along the way and wondered how the countless oil wells dotting the landscape worked and if the people in the area were mostly supported by the oil or by nothing at all. (All of these questions deserve a Google search at a later time.) But for the most part the tedious drive was made bearable by listening to the local country western radio stations. 

Around noon we decided a stop at the next rest area for lunch and a stretch was a good idea. That put us about 150 miles west of our destination. As is our practice, while I started lunch, Jim walked around the rig checking for any problems. So glad he did, because before the sandwiches were made he informed me, “I think we have a problem.” Hmmm…what could that be? It appeared the right front tire on the trailer was losing its side wall and looked like it could blow out at any time. (For our long-time readers, you will remember this same thing happened in January 2010 on our way from Washington to Arizona. Same tire! This was the one we replaced at that time with the spare tire and subsequently bought a brand new tire for the spare.) So, “no problem” we reasoned. We had a brand new spare tire, so all we had to do was call AAA Roadside Service to change out the defective tire with the spare and then we could buy another new tire down the road in a day or two. And again we thanked God we found the problem while safely parked in the rest area and not during a dangerous blow out while traveling down the interstate at 60+ mph. AAA was called and said they could be out to help within the hour. So back to the sandwich making….or so I thought. Jim, ever thorough, decided to give the other tires a closer look. Ooops….the left rear was showing a significant bulge in its sidewall as well. Not good! What to do, what to do? Having no second new tire to replace it, we decided AAA service would do us no good. So we canceled them and started calling tire shops in the area east of us going toward our destination. The closest one in that direction was 50 miles away and could offer us two new trailer tires. But should we chance a 50 mile drive with two very bad tires? Not a wise idea. Then Jim remembered seeing a tire dealer along the interstate approximately 10 miles back where we had come from. A quick call determined that they had three new tires available for us, so we gobbled down the hastily made sandwiches, said a prayer and gingerly headed back west. I think I held my breath the entire 10 miles, but we got to the dealer all in one piece and had them install all three new tires as well as replacing the fourth tire with the new spare and using the best one of the old tires for a spare. 600+ dollars and two hours later we were back on the road with a full set of new tires. We arrived at the RV park in Ranger by 5pm, wearier than we had anticipated when the day began – but safe yet again by the protective hand of God. This is definitely turning out to be the trip of Faith!

The interesting thing is that we had discussed the shape of the tires before we left Sun City (since they were all the original ones when we purchased the rig in 2006). We looked them all over very carefully before leaving home and decided they looked good enough to make this trip, but knew that we would have to start setting aside some cash in the fall to replace all four when we returned. So, although the added cost for the three tires was an unexpected expense on an already tight summer budget, we thanked God for the fact we had a credit card that had a zero balance to charge the tires to. (The operative word of course is “had”….but we will just have to cut other expenses on the trip and convince ourselves that the price we paid would have been what we would have paid this fall when we returned to Arizona. You can’t change what is…so just make the best of it. You know how that saying goes – when you get handed a load of lemons, don’t dwell on how sour life is. Just make lemonade and enjoy it!)