The Beginning of the Drive to LA

Day 5 – 3/17 – Early start to late departure to absolute chaos (Milwaukee WI – Elkhorn WI – Des Moines IA)

We got up kind of early because we were meeting at the office at 6:30 to take the RV to the repair shop at 9am. We set up some last things, Ashley took some photos and videos of me and Gabby and then we went to breakfast at this place very close by. It was really nice in there, all the customers and the lady running everything were all very nice. The lady reminded of my Aunt Renee in a way. We had quiche and some drinks and then we went to the RV repair place to drop off the RV. We went to a few different places in that town, but at one of them Ashley called me to tell us that the repairs weren’t going well because they did something wrong with either the winterizing or the de winterizing. The water lines were frozen so they had to let them defrost toske sure that there weren’t any leaks. They also looked at the generator and a few other things. So me and Gabby drove around the area for awhile, finding random cool buildings and a lake and stuff. Eventually it was done and we were able to leave at 4pm. Our original goal for the first day was to make it to Lincoln NE, but we only made it to Des Moines IA. Not a whole lot happened while we drove through Wisconsin, Illinois, and a lot of Iowa. Eventually there was some snow on the roads in Iowa which was a bit annoying but not too bad. But once we started to get close to Des Moines things started going wrong. We got gas at 9:30 but not before trying and failing to get in another place because we couldn’t figure out the right angle to get into the pump because they were at a weird angle. We went to another gas station which was a lot better, and then we decided to stop at a Loves truck stop to sleep for the night. We were trying to figure out where we should park in the truck area but then I went into the building to ask where we should go and he told me the normal parking area. So we found a road that we thought would’ve gotten us to the parking lot because there was a small car going up that way. But we found very quickly that it was just the maintenance access. The car is attached to the back of the RV with a flat tow and we were told that we really shouldn’t back up the RV with the car on it. So Gabby tried her best to take a wide turn so we could turn around but it was clear that it wasn’t going to work and so she pulled into a maintenance driveway thing to make it as straight as possible so we could get the car off and move it out of the way to back up the RV. This is when we found out the car was dead, which was a big problem. We also put in park accidentally at some point which means we couldn’t move it, so we had to unhook it and figure out a way to jump it. We were looking for a battery jumper kit thing that we were told we had  it eventually we had to call Ashley to figure out where it was. We also checked the truck stop to see if they would have one we could use or buy but they didn’t. So we had to figure out a way to jump it with the RV. This is all while it is 25 degrees out and 11 at night and just getting later as this whole thing takes longer. The car wasn’t completely straight with the camper so one of the pins on the tow was kinda hard to get out by the other one was nearly impossible with just your hands. Ashley had the idea to use the other pin we already got to tap the stuck one out with the hammer, which took awhile but it worked. So we finally had the car off the RV, but now we needed jumper cables which were underneath the trunk with the spare tire. Because the car was dead we couldn’t open the trunk so we put the seats down and got all the equipment out of the trunk area so I could lift up the floor thing and grab the cables. Then I got in the RV and Gabby directed me where to go so we wouldn’t hit anything while I backed up to get the batteries of the two vehicles as close as we could. It was pretty close the first time but not quite and so we did it again and got a lot closer. The battery was very dead so it took awhile to get some charge into the battery. But eventually the car did turn on and we were able to finally get out of that spot. There was also one Love’s employee that kept coming outside to tell us that we had to move in a very annoying kinda mean way. He wouldn’t accept when I told him that we were trying our best to get out of there, but at the same time he didn’t actually do anything so I mostly ignored him. But then another employee came out to throw some trash out and he didn’t care that we were there. I told him that his co worker was giving us problems and he told us not to worry about that guy because he’s and asshole and has short man syndrome. He also offered to help us if we didn’t get it jumped by the time he was off work.

We got it into the spot we were told to go to around 12-12:30am and turned on the generator, it gave us some problems the first time but once we turned on the truck engine it started up. We turned on the heat and lights and stuff and started to get ready for bed. I went into the truck stop to brush my teeth and stuff and when I came back Gabby told me the heat had turned off. We figured out that heat was actually never working at all it was just blowing cool air for like 2 minutes and then stopping. We tried to figure it out but nothing was working and so we found the space heaters that were in the camper. We tried plugging them both in but it was too much for the generator so it just turned itself off. We had to go outside to turn it on again but thankfully it did turn on. We tried the space heaters again and this time it tripped the breaker. So we just did one and decided to both sleep in the small bunk beds to try and stay warmer by being near each other. We got a bunch of blankets each with the space heater near us, and we finally went to bed between 1:30-2am. We were both pretty cold, especially our feet, but we had enough blankets and stuff that we were able to get like 5-6 hours of sleep. We were both feeling pretty overwhelmed at this point with all the stuff that happened this night, but we were able to get through it without losing it which was good.

Day 6 – 3/18 – Drive to Colorado (Des Moines IA – Gypsum CO)

We got up after a cold night and it was pretty cold on the morning. We went into the truck stop to brush our teeth and stuff. Then we made some breakfast and hit the road. Not much really happened as we drove through Iowa and Nebraska besides when we were getting gas a lady asked me about the event because she has MS and I got to tell her about it which was cool. We went through eastern Colorado and it was pretty cool to see the mountains start to become visible on the horizon. The sun started to set as we got closer which made it very beautiful. Gabby drove through the mountains in the dark which definitely wasn’t easy with all the shifting and stuff for going up and down the hills in the mountains. Eventually we made it to a BLM site that Gabby found that was right by the Colorado River. The heat still wasn’t working so it was a bit cold but definitely not as bad as the night before.