Westward Sprint

 



In April of 2021, having sold everything we owned except what would fit in our RV and pickup truck, Betty and I hit the road in a mad sprint from Delaware to Colorado. 

We were in a hurry because we had Betty's 87 year old mother, Marie, with us and we just couldn't see tying her to the roof like Aunt Edna in National Lampoon"s Vacation. I kid of course. 

The actuality was we had a firm start date for a work camping gig in Colorado. Marie was traveling with us because she was leaving Delaware to live with another of her daughters in Lenexa, Kansas and was curious what living in an RV was going to be like for Betty and I. 

I suspect that Marie probably wishes she had left that particular bit of curiosity unexplored. Marie has an internal body temperature of slightly above 0 degrees Celsius. During the day she sat in the back seat of the truck wrapped in a blanket from ankles to chin. In the evening she sat on the couch wrapped in a different blanket, and at night lay in bed under multiple blankets. She could ill afford to lose any weight but I'm pretty sure she must have burned seven pounds with all the shivering.

We drove full days, set up the RV for the night, woke for a quick breakfast, packed everything away and drove again. It was a tiring pace. I was glad that we had allowed for a couple of two night stays as it proved to be needed recuperation time.

At one point our RV--specific GPS led us astray and I got to figure out how to do a three-point turn with a combined fifty-three foot vehicle in the driveway to a school. I have always said that I learn better by doing rather than reading, but that was one time I would have preferred to stick to the books. It was actually more like a twenty-three point turn but by golly if I didn't get turned around

Finally we arrived in Lenexa to discover that our "campground" was actually a parking lot IN Lenexa. No pressure at all navigating that same fifty-three foot vehicle through city streets and turning into a driveway roughly wide enough for a bread truck.

We were relieved to transfer ownership of Betty's mother to Betty's sister, and after a few brief visits with extended family we were back on the road with our eyes on Colorado.