Wednesday, June 28

We are busting out of this joint!!!

Today's the day.  Daisy is on her way home and now so are we!!!

We had a lot of stuff to figure out how to load up.  Luckily, we had thought enough to pack a few empty bags for carrying stuff in that we were able to each have a bag to use as an overnight bag and everything else went in boxes and got packed into the van.  If you have never seen Walter's packing jobs, you should really ask him about it, he is amazing.  I think it is like a game of Tetris to him!

So the van is loaded and we are headed out.  As we started across Arkansas, we stopped at the Welcome Center (a family requirement) and Abram spotted a cavern that he thought looked really interesting.  Lucky for him, I took a picture of the name and information.  Blanchard Springs Caverns in the Ozarks National Forest would be our first stop.  We drove for about 4 hours and got there about 15 minutes before the Dripstone Tour started.  We crammed in some lunch, grabbed a sweatshirt, and rushed to the doors.

Walking into that cave was unlike anything, any of us had ever done before.  It was amazing.  We took lots of pictures but they don't do it justice.  Katie kept saying, it's like a movie.  Abram was mesmerized and just kept looking around.  Walter was speechless for a little while and then he started to make BatMan jokes.  Here are some of the pictures, again, they don't do it justice:

After we left the caves, we picked a big city about 3 hours away and started driving.  We ended up in Jonesboro, Arkansas for the night.  After driving, we began to see a trend in Arkansas.  It was not as bad as we first thought and you could see for a long way.  There were still trees and it was still green but it was really flat for a long time before a mountain jumped up.

Saturday, June 24

After a good night's sleep at the Holiday Inn Express in Van Buren, Arkansas. We all woke up ready to accept the new challenges that had been thrown at us.
We all slept in, had a good breakfast, and watched a little television.  Abram recorded his video for the day (for those of you waiting for those, we are trying to get all the technology to work...don't give up on him yet)

We then decided we needed to head back over to Daisy to see what the mechanics were saying and to get some more stuff off of her.  We got to the garage and nobody was working on her...nobody was even at the garage.  So we loaded up what we could fit into our little Corolla (Walter is an amazing packer) and headed back to the hotel.

Did I mention that we are staying in Arkansas and Daisy is in a garage in Oklahoma??  

Oklahoma border

Arkansas border

We decided we would find a company to tow Daisy back home for us and then we would rent a van to get ourselves and as much stuff home as possible.  We will keep you updated on how that all works out.

Lucky for us, the hotel as a pool and a free breakfast.  After some swimming and some more hanging out, we called it another day.

Friday, June 23

This is the face of the day!!!
We woke up in Sallisaw, Oklahoma at Walmart, ready to make a decision about which way to go...do we try to make it to Arizona or do we turn around and head home?????

We had decided to head home and try to salvage the rest of the summer instead of wasting another 3 weeks fixing Daisy.  Tried to start her up and head out but she wouldn't start at all!!!!

So began the vacations you see on movies.  We had to call another tow, just to get her to a garage, then we had to figure out how to transport everybody, then we had to figure out where to stay for the night.  Oh so many stories....let's just say some more time in Walmart, a tow truck ride for all of us, a bus ride across state lines, and an Enterprise rent a car later we were in a hotel room for a good night's sleep.  This adventure all started about 9:30 in the morning and it was about 7:00 before we started looking for dinner options close to the hotel.  The stories can't be told online, true justice can only be done in person, so next time you see one of us ask about Sallisaw, Oklahoma!!!

Thursday, June 22

Wednesday night our exciting adventure began to take a turn.  We had reservations for a State Park about half way across Arkansas because we felt like that was a comfortable distance.  We would have time to get to the campground, get set up, make some dinner and get a good night's rest before continuing on to our destination.
Not too long after our stop at the welcome center, we stopped for gas.  When Daisy cranked back up, she sounded a little different but nothing major just a little louder.  We thought it was just the gas we had put in her and she would be fine once we ran it through.  We continued on our journey because it was just noise and she seemed to be running fine.
As we got closer to our destination, we got a little bit more nervous.  We decided we would park and find a mechanic to check her out the next morning.  We put in the address we had for the campground and pulled in...only to finally figure out it was the wrong side of the lake for our reserved site, at about 9:30pm.
We figured out the address for the other side of the lake and took off.  Daisy was really not happy about all the starting and stopping that she was having to do.  As we pulled up the road, we thought we were supposed to take, there was a gate closed and locked.  Enter the first angel of our trip...a state ranger just happened to be locking the gate and asked us what we were doing there. We told her we were lost and just trying to find our campsite.  She graciously said, she would get us where we needed to be to follow her.  20 minutes later, we pulled into the campground on the right side of the lake. We found our campsite but someone was already parked there, so we backed into the closest site we could find and Daisy shut down.

We woke up Thursday morning knowing we were going to have to find a mechanic.  So we enjoyed the campground for a few minutes (aka-took a shower) and then started looking for a mechanic.

Enter Angel #2-this time her name was Kim and she was the campground host.  She was walking around checking campsites, so we stopped her and told her we got in late and someone was in our campsite so we pulled in.  After a series of questions and conversations, we realized we were in the wrong campground!!!!  The Welcome Center had called and made the reservations for us and I thought she made them for Lake Dardanelle but she had made them for Petite Jean State Park.

My big rock for the day...get out of the campsite and back on the road.

 Kim was not stressed, she said not to worry about it just take care of it on your way out.  No problem!!  We also told her we were having engine problems and she gave us the name of a mechanic who would come to us.  A quick phone call and 15 minutes later...enter Angel #3.  His name was Koty.  He quickly realized we needed a new distrubtor cap and off he went to find one.  He called back about 20 minutes later to tell us that there was one piece that would fit in the country and it just happened to be in Little Rock about an hour away.  It would be to us by about 6:30.  Problem #1-we had to be out of the campsite by 3:00, it was reserved for someone else and the campground was full for the night.  Luckily we had AAA, so another phone call and some explaining later, a tow truck was on the way to tow us to Walmart.  Problem #2-only one person could ride in the tow truck.  Reenter Angel #2-Kim, she just happened to be headed into town and was willing to give us a ride to Walmart.  So the kids and I loaded up and headed to Walmart.  Walter waited with the bus.
We spent some time wandering around Walmart and then Koyt showed up with the part.  He got it replaced and did some more tweaking and we were back on the road.  We still aren't 100% sure if she is going to make it but we are going to try just a few hours and see what happens.

Wednesday, June 21

We made it to Nashville, Tennessee last night.  We got to visit with Walter's nephew, Wayne, who is in school at Blackbird Academy.  He helped us get set up in our first Walmart parking lot.  It was actually really quiet.  We all had a good night's sleep and woke up ready to go.  We also learned a few things about camping at Walmart...one being, look around to notice the traffic pattern before you park...aka-don't park next to the parking lot exit, another being look at the lamp posts-park close enough for light but not so close that the light shines right into the window.  After a quick breakfast of cereal, we hit the road again.  A couple hours into our day, we made a stop at Natchez Trail State Park.  We thought it was a different park with cool trails...but we were confused.  It did have a nice picnic area and a neat visitors center.

We made it through the rest of Tennessee and into Arkansas.

By into Arkansas, I mean crossing the Mighty Mississippi.  For those of you who know Walter, know that I was driving.  He did a great job!!  We stopped at the Arkansas rest area.  The nice lady at the desk helped us get reservations for a State Park about half way through Arkansas...our first real camping experience on Daisy (the name of our bus...I'll give you a guided tour at some point).  No real excitement up until this point.  Everything was rolling right along!!

Tuesday, June 20

I promised you more information and here it is...
We have been working since November on an old school bus.  We found a 1984 International school bus that had started being converted to a skoolie (in case you don't know, that a school bus RV).  We (mostly Walter) have planned, replanned, schemed, reschemed, and built and rebuilt.  It has been a challenge and definitely a learning curve.  After Walter finished his build, I took over with the touches to make it livable...curtains, cushions, paint...you know all the girly stuff that I could do. Then we loaded her up and set off.  Our plan is to head to Arizona to see my brother and then head up to the Grand Canyon and then Yosemite and then see what happens from there.  We don't have to be home until July 16th.  So we are off on a grand adventure.

A New Adventure...Summer 2017

A teaser...

Post coming soon...just making sure this still works.