7/1/2010 5:10 am Leave Irmo headed to Ashville to pick up RV
We got out of the house pretty quickly considering the time and we are traveling with three teenagers. :) It was hard to say goodbye to our babies though. Mattie and Dax were not very happy to be up so early...ohhh, they did not want us to leave them either. We arrived in Ashville about 7:30. We did some breakfast/lunch shopping before our coach arrived. As we were leaving the store, I spotted the RV across the parking lot....I was so excited that I started walking to the coach, to find it leaving the parking lot. Luckily, the family picked me up like a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Imagine Matt, Megan and Micki all in the front seat of our Pacifica...quite a site for our RV owners to see first thing. Luckily, the owner and his son-in-law had a great sense of humor. We unloaded the car and loaded up the Southwind. The coach was very clean and very nicely equipped. We went through our orientation including how to dump the waste using rubber gloves. ;) Personally, I am hoping when the "waste" urge hits the family that there is a bathhouse, rest stop or gas station close by. 
Matt opted to skip the driving lesson, as we were all ready to get on the road. The RV owner, video taped us leaving the parking lot, he looked more excited than we did at that point. Great guy, if you ever need to rent an RV, I will pass his name along to you. :) Anyway, Matt was a little nervous at first but quickly got the hang of driving this thing. We had our first "breaking" moment when traffic came to a dead stop on I-40, in the mountains, near a rock slide. BBBBRRRRREEEEEAAAAAKKKKSSSSS! After that, Matt had it all figured out. :) Then the road narrowed, I could have kissed the truckers next to us at that point with very little neck extension. We were so close to the concrete barriers on one side truckers on the other that we felt like an RV sandwich.
Our first gas stop was successful considering we did not hit anything and we even backed up to the pump. Did you know that the #1 accident in RV's is from hitting something in a gas station?? The friendly RV owner gave us a plethora of facts such as these before we departed. Did you know that most gas station limit the amount of gas you can get at one time?? $75.00 does not fill up the RV. Unfortunatly, the RV has a miles/gallon indicator. It looks like the rate 10-12 MPG was a little optimistic. RIght now we are reading 6.5 MPG after we took 3 miles per hour off our top speed. :( GAS HOG! O' well, this is a once in a lifetime trip, right? "What are we gonna do, turn around?" After that lunch was great...paninis care of the George Foreman is a quick and easy lunch while traveling down the interstate. Zach even liked it. :) Driving through Tennessee was quite boring, now we are in Kentucky, almost to Illinois. We have seen several dams, lots of corn and a lake or two.
Next stop, The Gateway Arch.
PS: I have to admit, I am kinda liking this. Of course, it is day one and the kids are asleep. No, really, I am smiling as we drive in the middle of nowhere and I am actually enjoying myself....whodathunk it?
Day 1 continues way into the morning of Day 2First, let me say, always trust your gut, not your GPS. We could see the Arch, this beautiful and massive structure, we had been watching it for miles. The road split and the GPS said go to the right....so we did. Needless to say, we ended up in the not so fortunate side of town. The roads were narrow and crowded and here we are, cruising in our 32 ft RV. We got some serious looks. Matt began to sweat, the only thing he coulds think of what Chevy Chase and hubcaps. Tammie, if you are reading this, I would NOT reccomend watching any RV movies before you try this...they tend to put a damper on things. :) Finally, we made it into the city. We drove up to Bush Stadium, full of red shirts watching a Cardinals game. We drove around the city several times, looking for the RV parking area that is advertised on the web site for the Arch. We ended up in a dead end so we turned around again. By this time we were all a little flustered. SO flustered, in fact, that we ended up in the left hand lane on a two way road in front of the stadium again. Luckily there were some very nice parking attendants who saw our plight and offered some assistance. When we finally reached The Gateway Arch, it was about 9pm so we just parked, which is not an easy thing to do in a regular parking lot with a baseball game going on, and we hustled to the arch.
As we entered the little, and I mean little, pod thingy that takes you to the top of The Arch, I was a little uneasy. Megan kept saying, "We are all going in the same little thingy?" We got in and the doors closed. Everyone was fine except for me, I had to do some deep breathing in order make it to the top. I could not get out fast enough when the doors opened and I hit my head on the way out...but it was ok, I was out!! What an awesome view!! The night sky lit up beautifully. The stadium was awesome to see all lit up from way up there. We made our way back down, which was a little faster than the way up and we purchased our first magnet of the trip. (we are collecting magnets) As we were leaving, we walked over to the river. The Mississippi is so flooded that the river cruises are not running. Most of the dock was under water. It was sad to see. The river was flowing quite swiftly. We advised Brett not to go swimming. What a massive river, quite a site to see. 
We found a Wal Mart becuase we were really tired. :) Don't worry Cathy, we have pictures. The leveling jacks would not work, so we gave up and went to bed. After, of course, we took a family trip into Wally World to go potty. We were all sleeping soundly when a piercing noise woke me up...me, I mean, only I woke up. I had to shake Matt and the kids started grumbling, "turn it off". After a few minutes of stumbling in the dark, we realized that it was the lp gas detector. We could push the mute button, but it would just go off a few minutes later. We did not smell anything so we figured it was just a faulty battery or something of that nature. We could not get it to stop, so we called the Good Sam Tech support I spoke of earlier in the blog...after all, we paid for it, right? I explained the problem and they got a tech on the line. The first thing he says is, "Well, I hope you are no longer in the RV. You are not still in the RV because that would be very dangerous if there is a true gas leak." Uuummm, yep, we were still in the RV. So, we got out. Imagine this, 5 of us, 4 in the morning, standing/sitting (the kids were on the ground by now) in the Wal Mart in Sullivan, Missouri. The only reason I know the city is becuase it said it on the fire truck that was dispatched to take care of our "gas leak". I never really remembered leaving Illinois to be honest with you. We had to make Matt laugh at our situation....I think he might have been ready to pack up and go home at one point. It was a long day. No gas leak, as we suspected, was present. The firemen of the Sullivan FD were very gracious and shared a laugh with us. Since the alarm had not gone off since we vacated the RV, we decided that the boys must have set it off with their own gasses. :) We did, at that point, contact the friendly RV owner. He was very gracious as well and offerend to buy us breakfast. The alarm has not gone off since then. We were able to get some sleep and now we are on the road again. WHAT A FIRST NIGHT! We will download pictures very soon.
Next stop, Branson, MO to spend some time with old friends. Can't wait to catch up!!
