We took our trailer into an RV repair shop here in Phoenix, where they knew where we are from and our church and pastor, small world. At the repair shop they were able to take the slide (moving wall) of the RV off. Kris and his dad retrieved our things. The girls now have their clothes and spending money and Kris has the laptops too. This RV repair shop recommended taking the travel trailer to another repair shop that can handle this big repair. Kris and his dad transported the trailer to the other repair shop and we are waiting for an estimate now.

While in Phoenix, we’ve been able to visit with Kris’ Aunt Jo and Uncle Guy, Kris’ cousin Nikki, her husband Ben, and their children Furio, Roxy, and Rocco, and my grandparents Ed and Raberta who just moved here.

We’ve found a fun free outing in Glendale, AZ. The Cabellas has a wildlife museum, an aquarium and quite a waterfall display.

We watched some turtle drama in the aquarium. Apparently when turtles are being aggressive there is front paw stamping and “jazz hands”.

When I walked up to the trailer to see what had happened I saw the tire still inflated but missing it’s tread.  The only thing holding the tire together was the steel belts and the tread was wrapped around the inside of the axle.

Because we were on the side of the road – I didn’t have time to fully inspect the trailer, I looked underneath and found some bent metal, broken wires, a hole and some damaged carpet that was inside of the trailer. In all it was bad but looks like it could be fixed.  We got the spare on and it was getting dark. Once we got home we had a chance to get into the trailer to inspect it a bit more and what we found was shocking and sad.

Our trailer has two slide outs on the driver side, one large slide that has the dinette and sofa and the other is the back-bedroom slide.  The tread tore a hole through the floor under the back bedroom and dinette slide. It also tore through the wall separating the main living area from the bedroom. It ripped a hole in the back edge of the dinette slide which meant the tread went through the floor of the trailer and then through another exterior wall since the slide was in its retracted position. There is also plywood debris all through the trailer and black marks on the ceiling from what appears to be small pieces of rubber.  It looks like a tornado ripped through that section of the trailer.

It tore all the control and power wires for the slide motors on the back of the dinette and the front of the bedroom slide. It also ripped out the power wires for the lights going to the dinette slide inside and out. Because of the damage we cannot move the slides and have no access to the back bedroom.  All of the girl’s clothes are back there along with our winter jackets (which we don’t need since its 105+ degrees here now) and our personal laptops.

We will be taking the trailer to a repair shop to see if they can move the slides out enough to access our belongings and take them out of the trailer.  We also are going to have to file an insurance claim and we know because of the extent of the damage we will not be continuing our trip with this trailer. The amount of damage cannot be fixed within a couple of days. (At least that is what I am expecting)

It’s a bit sad and frustrating but once again we will wait and see what God has in store for us.  We still intend to finish our trip, but it may be in a much different way than we have planned.

More updates to come.

It’s been a full week and few days since we left Indiana. From a hot transmission to a tire blow out here is my perspective of the past seven days.

I knew before we left we would have some mechanical issues and tried to prepare for them as best I could without knowing exactly what would happen. And I guess Gods timing for us to leave on Friday was best.  If we had left on Thursday as planned, we would not have been in the right place at the right time to get a new radiator and have it replaced within an hour.

After the radiator replacement (which was somewhat expected since I had recently replaced the water pump. In doing so I fixed the slow leak that had been present for about a year.  Now the system was able to fully pressurize as designed, which stressed the old radiator and poof it cracked) I learned the transmission cooling circuit had been modified causing the transmission to get close to overheating.

Once in Cody WY I found the original transmission cooling system had been replaced with a single oil to air cooler, which is more than enough in flat-cool Indiana, was not enough to cool the load up a steep mountain. I was able to add another cooling loop in the O’Reilly parking lot and the guys in the store were awesome, there were so helpful and friendly. I only ruined one pair of good clothes so far working on the truck.

As Kayla already posted after the transmission issues my parents came to WY to meet us and brought the truck they use to pull their large 5th wheel across the country. They became our support truck. We had a great drive from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon. No issues with the truck or trailer and must have driven over 6 mountain passes over 7000 ft.

On Saturday we left the Grand Canyon in early afternoon to head to my parents’ house in Phoenix. Things were going well, we stopped for dinner about 30 miles north Phoenix. On our way back onto I-17 we started down the on-ramp and at about 50 MPH we felt a short vibration and I looked in the driver side mirror saw pieces of rubber coming from the trailer and knew we had a problem with one of the tires. We were able to stop and replace the tire with a spare and make it the rest of the way home. Unfortunately, when the tire failed it lost its tread and, in the process, slapped the underside of the trailer violently causing some major damage…

Today we are going to the Arches National Park! It’s so hot here!  All of the rocks and dirt are reddish-orangish. The mountains are this red rock and snowy blue mountians are in the back.  It’s really strange.  When we got to The Arches we took  some pictures and I climbed the North Window Arch! It was fun.  I also think I got in someone’s picture (: Then we went to the Upper Delicate Arch.

Waggs is still scared to go up the RV steps (: This morning he tried to get up on my mom and dad’s bed but failed!  He got his front paws on the bed and tried to pull up the rest of his body but fell off the bed, SMACK!!!! It was very funny!

When we were going in to the Arches National Park, I went from Grandma and Grandpa’s truck into our truck.  When I got in, my mom said to see if Waggs would eat his pill from me.  So I brook it in half and put it in my hand and Waggs ate the pill right out of my hand after my mom tried to give it to him multiple times!

I keep seeing “lodge” signs everywhere.  They remind me of my favorite teacher Mrs.Lodge!

Right now on my scratch map, I have scratched out 6 states  IL, IA , MN, SD, WY, and UT. Before lunch me and my grandma had fun riding snails at the park!

Today Grandma and Grandpa meet us in Moose, WY.  They brought their truck that has wifi.  Kami and I like to use the wifi. There were no problems with our truck today.

We also got to go see Grand Tetons National Park.  The mountains were cool and snowy!  I got a National Parks Passport and when we stop at a national park, I go to the visitors center and get a stamp in my passport with the date of when I was there.  This was the best visitors center I’ve been to, because it has the most interactive stuff.  I got my picture with a moose statue there.

While we were on the road we saw a live cattle round up! It was cool! 

We parked in a Walmart parking lot for the night in Evanston, WY.  We also got Wendys Frosties after we got ice cream from the store!

We were able to spend the day in Yellowstone National Park.  Yellowstone Lake greeted us with snowcapped mountains in the distance. The water is so clear and gorgeous blue.  Kiera could resist trying to skip stones in the lake.

We pulled up to Old Faithful just as it finished erupting.  It erupts every 90 minutes plus or minus 10 minutes.  We walked around the visitor center and found good seats for the next eruption.

Old Faithful is constantly puffing out billows of steam.  Kiera had no idea what to expect.  She kept asking, “Is this the eruption?” and “What about that?  Is that it?”  Finally Old Faithful lived up to it’s name.  We saw a massive eruption of gushing hot water and steam that towered over hundreds of people that had gathered.  The steam gathered into an instant cloud.  It carried all the steam and drifted over us and then rained on the onlookers.  People screamed, laughed and ran away from the cloud.

The rangers tell you to expect to drive for 45 minutes in between each natural spring, geyser, etc.  Yep, this place is big!  We drove into the parking area for the Grand Prismatic Spring and had to wait in a line, just to park.  There were people from every country there.  Tour buses are bringing people into the popular attractions, and this was very popular.  Finally, we parked and got in the moving line to see the springs.  There were multiple steaming, bubbling pools of water and minerals with thermoacidophiles, microorganisms that love acid and heat and appear in beautiful colors.  The bottom of these pools are rainbow colored.  It’s gorgeous and stinky!

We then drove to Artist Paint Pots.  I pictured they would look a lot like the Grand Prismatic Spring, but nope.  It was a mile hike uphill and we saw pools of bubbly drywall mud.  I definitely don’t recommend seeing this one.  I guess I should have known when there were no tour buses at that parking lot!

Our last stop that day was at The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  We saw the Upper and Lower Waterfalls.  The Upper Falls drops water from the Yellowstone River 109 feet and the Lower Falls drops the same water again another 308 feet!

We were able to get home before the sunset.  Our campgrounds are right on the Shoshone River.  It’s massive and fast flowing river.  Dinner was at a picnic bench with this mighty river serenading us as we ate.

It’s starting to feel like our trip is becoming a tour of our nation’s mechanics!  We planned a fun day at Yellowstone National Park.  We got all our stuff packed up and into the truck.  And the truck didn’t want to start.  It spewed grey smoke from the exhaust.  Kris played with the wires and hoses under the hood for a while.  After a couple of false starts it turned on.  Kris didn’t trust that the truck would stay on, so we went back to Cody, WY (about 30 minutes from our campground and in the opposite direction of Yellowstone).

We spent the day in Cody.  Kris stayed with the truck and us girls went about town.  We walked to Walmart and used the free wifi, ate our packed lunch (meant for Yellowstone) at some picnic benches at a River Tour business, and then walked to Dairy Queen.  We learned that mini or small blizzards from DQ are more than enough.

Kris heard from the mechanic that a couple of codes needed to be cleared and a relay switch needed to be replaced.  The relay had taken a bath in radiator fluid a couple of days earlier and that is why it needed to be replaced.  O’Reily Auto Parts had the relay switch and Kris laid in the parking lot, under the truck and replaced it.  While under there he saw that the transmission cooling lines were not even running through the radiator.  It was running through some after market tiny transmission cooler.  So he rerouted the cooling lines to go through both the radiator and the transmission cooler. Our transmission cooling lines are now double cooled.  Knowing what we now know, it’s a miracle we even made it up the steep mountain pass without damage on the truck.  God is still good!

We made it back to the campgrounds around 4pm and decided to try to go into Yellowstone for a bit.  Since our trailer is 37 feet long, we are too long to fit into any national park campground.  So we have to stay at campgrounds outside of the national parks we are visiting.  The closest campground we found, that would accept our big trailer was 45 minutes outside of Yellowstone.  We drove 45 minutes to get to the park and found out that Yellowstone is enormous.  43 miles into Yellowstone we realized we need to turn around because the sun is going to set and the wild buffalo, bears, mule deer and wolves would start to appear.  On the way out we stopped at the Sulphur Caldrons, Mud Volcano and Hayden Valley.  Sulphur has a distinct rotten egg smell.  Yellowstone is full of Sulphur at each thermal geyser! Whew!

Kris was offered this Sabbatical as a way for him to rest and relax.  I think he was less stressed when he was working.  He asked his parents to drive with us through the rest of the mountains to Phoneix, AZ.  So they kindly drove up to Wyoming just to drive with us in case we had more mechanical problems.

We drove from Keystone, SD going to Yellowstone in Wyoming today. To get there you must climb a mountain pass that takes you to 9,700 feet above sea level and you climb 4,500 of those feet in 20ish miles at a 10% grade.

Our poor truck was not liking it. It’s a old truck from Indiana and not used to climbing. The transmission temperature was in the yellow zone and moving to the red zone as we climbed. Kris found that if he put it into the low 4×4 and 2nd gear and only went about 5 miles an hour, it kept its temperature down. We had to pull over multiple times to let it cool off. There was snow on the ground so Kris packed snow where the transmission is located in the engine.

After many hours we made it over the pass. And then had to drive another 2 hours to Yellowstone national park. We made it to our campsite at 9:30pm. We had to park our massive rig in the dark, but it worked just fine.

We woke up in Blue Earth, Minnesota today.  It is the home of a 55.5 foot tall statue of the Jolly Green Giant.  So of course, we had to stop to take pictures! Kami just had to look up his skirt!  We learned that the Jolly Green Giant was made out of fiberglass in 1978 and cost $43,000 to build.

Then we went to The Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD. There were really cool pictures made out of corn on both the inside and outside of the building! We took a few pictures then hit the road again.

After Corn Palace we went to Badlands National Park and I got a cool magnet of the sunset on Badlands. The hills where beautiful!  My mom was talking about bison and said they will YEET us if we get too close. She has a picture of a guy getting YEETED by bison! We also saw prairie dogs! Like real prairie dogs!  They where so cute!!!!!! All the way when we where in the car I was listening to Toby Mac, drawing and napping!

We went to Mt. Rushmore. I thought Mt. Rushmore would be cooler. We visited Mt. Rushmore at night, so we went to “the Lighting Ceremony”. All they did was put a spotlight on their faces and talk about liberty and blah blah blah. George Washington’s eye lit up all weird.

When we got out of Badlands I smelled like the wind! So I took a shower in the RV. I almost ran out of water! We are staying in a campground tonight and not on gravel! Kami and Dad came home from the supermarket with ICE CREAM it was very yummy! Waggs still refuses to go up the steps to the travel trailer, but will go down them.

We have gone through 4 states now. I have a scratch map (where you scratch off each state you visit) that Melissa gave to me and we have scratched out 4 states already!

 

It’s the first day of  actual travel on our Rinas Road trip!  We were hoping to leave at 6:30am, but we left at 8:40am.  We were a couple of hours into our drive and we stopped for gas.  There was a faint maple syrup smell, which means anti-freeze problems.  Kris opened the hood and anti-freeze was sprayed all over the inside of the hood and engine.  He found a crack in the radiator.  UGH!  He called a mechanic at Haneghan’s Automotive Service in Galesburg, IL.  They got us fixed up with a new radiator in 1 hour. 

So this has been another lesson in how to be flexible with our plans, expectations and money.  We are thankful this happened in a populated area with a mechanic available and not in the middle of the desert.  God is good. 

We made it to Blue Earth, Minnesota at 11pm and were we tired!  We got permission to pull our trailer into a gravel lot next to the Super 8 Motel after we got kicked out of another parking lot.

States travel through today: 3

Showers taken: 0