Sunday Drive- taking time to explore

I want to be certain after all these posts about fun and positivity that I bring us all back to the reality of camper traveling. So after a lovely week or so in Colorado it was time to head East as we had the all important date set to attend a UGA football game at the end of September. We traveled through New Mexico which was gorgeous but the further from Colorado we got, the more impoverished the communities became and it was evident why New Mexico ranks number 3 for states with the highest poverty rate of nearly 19% of its population. The roads got rougher and trees became more sparse and when we stayed at a KOA in Tucumcari, NM, there were more feral cats present than visitors. However this visit did positively impact our playlist of music as we felt moved by the lyrics of Little Feat “Willin”:

And I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari
Tehachapi to Tonopah
Driven every kind of rig that’s ever been made
Driven the back roads so I wouldn’t get weighed
And if you give me; weed, whites, and wine
And you show me a sign
I’ll be willin’, to be movin

Though we weren’t taking barbiturates or cocaine, we did feel as if we were a rambling rig as we moved on past New Mexico and headed into the big dirty-that is right… Texas. Firstly, the transition between NM and Texas was more than proverbially rough, it was literally rough, as we found out the first night that we stayed in TX. A foot pad from the camper had rattled off and was hopefully along the road somewhere, versus impaled into an unassuming Corolla that accidentally ran over it. A 3 foot gelande bump on the interstate helped to signify that you had entered into the Lone Star state and most likely jarred the pad from its previous location.

After that little setback, and meeting a camp host that had a toupee that resembled a gray squirrel, we thought that we were golden as we scampered out of Texas with one less foot pad and fuel mileage that got destroyed by the constant winds and our desire to escape the state.

As we turned south, the trees got more populous, the temperature rose and our sweating became more profuse. We drove into Louisiana and were looking forward to staying at a campsite that was by a river and off the main road after busting tail and pushing the length of time a toddler can handle traveling across country to the max. As we approached West Monroe, LA we stopped to refuel and I noticed our slides on the camper were out a few inches. Walt attempted to bring them back in and as he went inside, I saw this ominous sight.

The picture doesn’t do it justice, but a whole lotta hydraulic fluid came careening out of Sunday, crushing my hopes for a relaxing end to our long travel day. We tried a few different stores in the small town we were in to help fix it to no avail so we decided to keep heading down the interstate that was getting bumpier by the mile. Eventually we decided to stop and stay at a hotel and deal with it all in the morning. Thankfully the hotel had a pool and Olive was tickled to swim and thought her parents had planned this just for her personal enjoyment.

Thankfully the pool and hotel were next to a John Deere store and Walt was able to get the slide outs fixed and determine the issue. The hydraulic fitting was not crimped properly which caused the hose to come loose and drain the fluid and fortunately was fixed enough for travel for a grand total of 34 dollars. The kind folks of the south nearly made up for the frustration that my Quality Control husband had for the piss poor job that the Quality Control folks did on the camper….almost.

The saddest part of this whole debacle was that I lost my favorite sunglasses, I assume while vomiting from car sickness in the bathroom of a Zaxby’s while they were blaring bad Christian rock music. Welcome to the south y’all.