Traveling fro HOT Chadwick Missouri to the Low Temps of Salida, Colorado - on the road again!

After a wonderful and exhausting spring in Chadwick, MO it was time to head back out on the road. It was great to run the off roading campground there where we have so many wonderful friends and family. But, with the heat indexes reaching around 100 degrees every day, we knew we were about a month later leaving than we normally like.


Often times weather does dictate our travels. We've learned to leave Missouri no later than the 3rd week of June if we don't want to deal with the horrible temps in western Kansas and eastern Colorado.  But this year we broke our own rule and stayed a month longer. Our daughter has moved to the Springfield area and is on her own now. Staying near her for the extra month was well worth the heat.


We left Sunday, July 12th and had a rough first day of travel. Many of you know that we take two vehicles - 


We brought the blue Raptor 80 ATV along for this part of our trip. We like to off road in Colorado and Utah and Gabriel is old enough to do so.  But, the flat bed that I pulled did not handle the lay out of the UTV and ATVs well. As I drove down I-44, it felt like the trailer was sloshy in the back and seemed to pull the van instead of the van pull the trailer. I got on the walkie talkie and told my husband how it felt. So, while we took a break at Precious Moments in Carthage, MO - he added two spare tires to the tongue to add weight to the front.  I got back in and it road a lot better. 

That night my hubby changed the trailer around again by putting our Raptor 80 on the tongue of the flat bed. Once he did that , it drove great. 

We spent our first night at the same place we always do when we travel across Kansas on Hwy 50 - Oasis RV Park. Great place to stop for the night.

Day Two - We left as early as possible because Shae (my husband), found a cracked rim on one camper tire. So, we found a Walmart in Pratt, KS where we waited over two hours for service. Temps were 105 degrees when my hubby got the new tires and installed them on our camper. We spent hours wandering Walmart and he spent hours sweating outside.

We parked for the night at the Sportsman's RV Park in Lamar, CO. It is a nice place to stop for the night and jump in the pool to cool off. 

Day Three - From Lamar we made the trip all the way to Howard, CO. It is a wonderful campground - Bandera's Bunkhouse  RV Park, Motel, and Horse Camp.  It is right on the Arkansas River, which I can hear from in my camper. It sounds beautiful. 

From our base at Bandera's Bunkhouse RV Park we had many adventures....

those are coming!

Everything Got Trashed While Traveling to Texas

One of the problems with taking your home down the road, is that sometimes the bumps and dips completely turn the contents upside down.

Such was the case last week when we traveled from Missouri to Texas.  It was the worst it has ever been.  

What happened?  I don't remember any huge bumps!

Items from my desk slid off the end as well as the things underneath it getting thrown in front of it.

Our camper must have tipped far to the right, everything on the left had shifted that direction.

I drive a 15 passenger van that tows our UTV, ATVs, kayaks, bikes and other items.  I didn't go in a ditch, curb, or huge bump to the right!  But, when towing a 42' camper, it might hit things that my smaller 16' flat bed does not.

Our school book shelf completely tipped over and broke apart.  That has never happened before!

Even toy shelves on the back wall flew forward and spilled Josie's toys!

It was awful. Like I don't have enough to do!

Taking a camper down the road is liking having your home in a 5 hour long earthquake.  Even with everything hooked, taped, and stored - there are times when it is gonna fall apart and fall over.

Such was the case this past week....

More New Tires! That Makes 25 this year!

Wow!  More tires!  

You can’t be serious!  

Last August, we were travelling from Montrose,  Colorado to Marysvale,  Utah when we blew two tires on the camper.

Read these two previous post to hear about that!

Though we bought 19 tires last August, that did not include our Dodge Dually.  We drove all the way from Virgin, Utah to a campground near Branson, Missouri with only one cracked rim on the camper, which is quite common for us.  That happened somewhere between Grants, New Mexico and Amarillo, Texas.  My husband was doing his normal check of the tires, rims, and motors before we would head out the next day when he came across the crack in the camper rim.  He found a local tire place that got us one pretty quick and we got it put on and left the next day.

But, back to the current wheel problem.

 Thankfully, my husband is very meticulous when it comes to motors, campers, vehicles, and basically anything you would consider “a guy’s job”.  A couple of days ago he came in and broke the bad news, “Honey, we have to buy tires for the truck.”  Oh no, I thought.  Seriously?  We just bought 19 tires last fall and now we have to buy six more!  Plus, the truck tires cost more than the other ones. 

Shae was looking over all of our machines, motors, tires, and equipment – on an almost daily inspection – when he spotted the bulge in the back outside tire of our dually.  He told me how thankful he was that we had made it to Missouri without it busting.  So since my oldest son needs our van for his new job, I asked my husband to get new tires quick, which he had already planned on doing.

Today we made the 40 minute trip to Walmart to get the new tires on.  We have always used locally owned tire shops but this time we thought we would go with a nationally owned shop in case we have problems down the road.  When we go to a local shop in a particular town we can almost guarantee that we will not be going back to that town again.  If the shop does bad work, we can’t just bring it back and say, “Fix It!”  We might be 1000 miles away before we catch their mistake!  Believe me, this has happened to us.

After we arrived at Walmart, my husband glanced at the tire with the bulge in it and the bulge had tripled its size in just a short drive!  The Lord really protected us, as usual!

He decided on a NITTO Dura Grapplor tire.  We hope it will do good for us.

Tires are definitely something we have to budget for.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Nitto-205-130/19473690  These are the tires that Shae decided on.

The rim was welded back at one time.  Now, we just replace them.

Shae checks our tires often which has saved many a problems on the road.

Sometimes we get the same rim and other times we do not.

A New Trick for Items Sliding While Moving a Camper

It is always great to get to talk with other RVers.  Some have been traveling for over 10 years and have a wealth of experience.

We were doing some volunteer work at Lake View Conference Center in Texas.  There were some other volunteers there that we had done  V-work with in Arizona last year.

Janna invited me over for a ladies coffee and snacks.  As I walked into her camper I felt like I had entered an extremely high class home.  The curtains, couches, table,  and kitchen were stunning.  I loved just being in there!

I visited with her for a few minutes, enjoying her homemade muffins.  That is when she mentioned how she traveled with all of her tea pots and expensive glass wear.

She buys the Duck Easy Liner shelf liner.  I have a link for you so you can see what I bought.
I bought the kind that was not the smooth top.  Janna cuts it up into just the right size pieces for what ever she places it under.  The day before they travel, she takes out the pieces of cut liner and puts it under her tea pot, cups, decorations on her coffee table, and other fragile pieces.  She does wrap her extremely fragile tea pot in bubble wrap and puts it in her sink, though.

So, I thought I would give it a try.  We put it across my entire dresser.  My laptop, printer, and other items sit on it.  It seems to keep it from sliding.  We had a terribly bumpy ride through Oklahoma since then and everything was fine.  I do not keep anything near the edge of the dresser, just in case.  Also, our bed slides up to the dresser, so I am hoping that if there was a problem while traveling, any of the items on my dresser would at least fall onto the bed.

It also works great on book shelves, under toys, and under the basket on my washer/dryer that hold laundry soap.  I do have a hook to help hold that shelf, though.