RV trip
The fact that you are reading this column means that I was alive to write it, which means that my family and I survived our spring break RV “experiment” down to Moab, Utah. Would we do it again? Absolutely. Was it without mishap? Absolutely not.
We started out strong in the mishap department, before we’d even pulled the motorhome out of our driveway. Mere minutes before I was about to decree us Finally Ready to Leave, a child (who shall remain nameless) slipped as he was reaching for a high shelf and broke the head off the kitchen faucet. He felt terrible, of course, but Logan and I gathered all our parental patience and assured him that we would head to an RV store on our way out of town and get it fixed in no time. In true parenting fashion, we had no idea if that was actually true, but we carried on anyway.
Everyone found a seat, Logan fired up the engine, and we started off on our lumbering journey. It took about 25 seconds for everyone to come to the same conclusion: riding in a motorhome is kind of alarming. It’s bouncy, it’s loud, it barely fits within the lines on the road, and it seems like one solid pot hole could split the whole thing apart in an instant. It’s what I imagine it feels like to sit inside a very well-upholstered airplane propeller.
Fifteen minutes into the drive, while Logan was inside Camping World looking for a kitchen faucet, a few of my kids decided that the situation merited a writing of their wills. They pulled out the paper and markers they had brought along for the drive and got to work. Eleven-year-old Emmett’s will was particularly inspiring: “I hereby bequeath my possessions to the following: my family can fight to the death for all of my money and toys, but if they all die with me then they go to my cousins.” The RV made an impression, I tell you.
Nine hours later, we made it alive to Idaho Falls, where we spent the 27-degree-night in the parking lot of a rest stop, waking up every now and then to the sound of semi trucks screaming past us on the freeway.
The next morning, we got ready to start on the final leg of our journey to warm and sunny Moab (which, it turns out, was going to be cold and sunny Moab for that week only!) I grabbed the book I was reading, a juicy whodunnit, and started to settle into the passenger seat when Logan looked over at me.
“Do you want to drive?” he asked. The blood of everyone in the RV ran cold, especially mine.
“Why would you think I want to drive???” I wanted to scream. “Just because I kept offering yesterday doesn’t mean I actually think I can guide this giant beast down the freeway!”
But since he had driven nine hours through snowstorms and winding mountain passes the day before, I figured I owed him some down time. I reluctantly put down my book and traded him places at the wheel.
After a three-minute crash course in RV Driving 101, I merged us onto the freeway and all was well for a solid ten minutes. And then a snowstorm hit. Visibility was low, traffic slowed way down, and my main focus in life became keeping us in our lane on the freeway. The kids were definitely glad they had taken the time to get their affairs in order.
“Feeling relaxed?” I managed to quip to Logan, not daring to take my eyes off the blustery freeway. He was most definitely not. Twenty minutes later, we came to an exit and Logan asked if I’d like him to take over, which of course I did.
“Do you ever just wish you’d booked a flight to Hawaii?” I asked the kids a few hours and one or two more mishaps later. They stared at me, wide-eyed, nodding their heads, yes. And still, we trucked along.
Eventually, we made it to Moab. Over the next couple days, we drove UTVs through the rocky backcountry, visited a dinosaur museum, bought souvenirs on Main Street, went swimming in the RV park pool, and explored breathtaking Arches National Park, which eight-year-old Hyrum proclaimed to be “QUITE a handful.” The terror of the drive was all but forgotten, the whole trip worth it, 100 percent.
And at no time did we have to fight to the death, which was a relief. That would have been one mishap too many.