Loading up and Heading Out … An Earthquake on Wheels

Loading up and heading out is no easy task. Besides all the work to be done in the camper, my dear husband has to load all of our “toys” onto the flat bed.  It is like a puzzle to put each piece into place and then hook everything securely. 


We have a Kawasaki Mule that sits on the front of the flatbed along with 2 more ATVs, 2 kayaks, bikes, and gear.

We used to have even more “toys”. This part of our trip we left 2 more ATVs behind, 2 kayaks, and most of the bikes.  It was hard to put them in storage and we do miss them terribly. Yet, we find we CAN live without them and it does make it easier to load that flat bed without all of them along.



When traveling my husband likes to say, “Our home goes through a 9.0 earthquake going down the road.” I remember when we lived in California when in the Navy. We learned quickly to keep glass dishes in lower cabinets and not on higher shelves. During one unusually large earthquake all of my wedding present glassware that I kept stored on the top of the fridge came crashing down in the violent shaking.  Now, I can take that knowledge and use it in my constant earthquake in our camper.



Hours are spent getting items secure and locked down. Everything has a place and must be there or it will be everywhere.
It is always scary to open the camper doors after a bumpy ride down some worn out highway. I remember following Shae down a road in Arizona.  It had huge dips in it for miles. I knew that when we opened the doors there would be stuff everywhere. Well, there was. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be but it was still a terrible mess.
The hardest part of leaving an area is saying good bye to friends and family. We had a great stay with my mother and Tom in Missouri. Even though we were only moving to a campground an hour away, my mother stood on her porch and cried. She hated that we had to go and is still counting the days until our return.