Matt said we were leaving Branson at 6am and he meant it. He was up at 5:20 in the shower and we pulled out about 5:55am. We felt pretty good that we did not forget to do anything important was we pulled away. So far, we have lost 2 glasses when they fell out of the same cabinet on two separate occasions and the coffee maker has fallen over twice, spilling water everywhere. Other than that, we have done pretty good. The kids slept until we got to the Oklahoma Welcome Center. The ladies there were very helpful and suggested we try a restaurant for breakfast that was on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. We were so excited until we noticed that they did not open until 11am. :( BUT they also suggested we stop at Pops on Route 66. So we did and it was soo cool. We would have never stopped just looking at the place. It just looked like a gas station. But it was so much more. They had over 500 different flavors of soda "pop". It was set up like a diner and we ate lunch outside, as we drank our creation colas. Raspberry Dr. Pepper is pretty good. Zach had lime coke and Brett tried caramel coke but it was not very good. Megan called it barf on a stick. Lunch was great. We bought some bottles of soda to go, our favorite purchase was Doggy Drool. We will have to let you know how it is later.
Before we made it to Pops, we stopped at the Round Red Barn. It was created in the 1800's and was massive and very cool to see. They had a little museum and gift shop so we had to get a red round barn magnet for our collection. What a neat historical landmark. The care and detail that went into that barn is quite amazing for that time period.
We got back on the road and it started to storm. It's a good thing Matt is much more comfortable driving the RV now. The rain did not last that long, but when it stopped, the windshield wipers would not. We pushed every lever and button we could, they would not turn off for some reason. Matt stopped on the Interstate...quick briskly, I might add, to turn off the engine to see if that would help. (this is coffee pot spill #2) Nothing seemed to work. As we got back on the interstate, Megan noticed something dragging behind the RV in the back camera. We stopped again to find a large PVC tube that had been bunged to the mud flap dragging the ground. Thankfully she noticed this...that could have been bad. But the windshield wipers were still going strong. This went on for about 30 minutes with no rain at all. As I was about call Tech support one more time, Matt turned off the radio. As the radio stopped, so did the wipers...it was the strangest thing I have ever seen. That was a relief...who knows what will happen the next time it rains. :) We are headed west, probably spending the night in New Mexico tonight...almost to Texas now. We stopped for dinner at The Big Texan. Home of the free 72 ounce steak, if you can eat it in an hour. What a fun place...tourist stop with great food. There were about 6 men trying to complete the challenge but we think only one did it..the others gave up or ran out of time. 72 ounces is a lot of steak!! We all had steak for dinner and it was really good. All of the waiters were dressed in cowboys outfits. Megan asked if they all dressed that way all the time or if it was just an outfit for work. We are not in SC anymore. :)
Pictures are posted on Fb if you are interested. I have decided to just post pics there, it is a long process to get them on the blog and it takes a long time for them to load so just go to FB to see the pics. :)
We stopped about midnight, just as we got into New Mexico. We got up about 7am and headed out on the road again. We have been driving all day. It is now almost 3 and we still have 2 more hours to the Grand Canyon. We did stop to get groceries today so that took some time. Nothing interesting happened except for the fact that the temp. gauge says the RV is over heating. I think we have a "bug" in our instrument panel. It is not hot even though it says it is. Just like the windshield wipers said off when they were still on. :) We are sort of sad that we have not seen any animals other than cows. We were hoping for a roadrunner at least. We did see a couple of dust funnel clouds though. We are all ready to get somewhere....soon. We are getting a little RV crazy.
We arrived at the Grand Canyon much later than expected. When we pulled into the camp ground we found out there were no showers at our campground....great, just great! We all showered in the little shower on the RV and we were off to sight see. Luckily there was a bus that took us from the campground to different locations in the park. The first place we visited was Yavapai Point just as the sun was setting. It was beautiful and we got some wonderful pictures. The kids were in awe of the canyon. We had a great time going from one area to the next taking pictures of everything. When the sun went down, it was dark and quite chilly. We got back on the bus and headed to Angel Lodge for dinner. I had to use the restroom so Megan and I walked out of the lodge to the "trailers" out back. There was literally 6 inches of space from the stall door to the front of the toilet. Talk about close quarters? Not the easiest circumstances in which to relieve ones bladder. We had a good meal but our waiter was kind of rude. The kids loved the water guy. There was one server that just took care of our drinks and we always had a full glass. We colored the children's menu while we waited for our food. We took the bus back to the RV and went to sleep for the night. We got up early and headed to another part of the Canyon for a bit. There was a tall monument erected at this spot on the rim of the canyon. We had the kids climb up so we could get a picture. As Megan sat down, he flip flop flew off her foot. Luckily, she was not sitting on the edge of the canyon, or she would be down one rainbow. It was funny though because the picture looks like her feet are dangling over the side of the canyon. We had fun throwing her shoe up to her and she could not catch it. We enjoyed some time climbing rocks and taking pictures. At one point, we were heading out to a rock on the side of the canyon for a picture. Zach grabbed my hand so tightly. I think he was worried I was going to fall off. :) It was a little scary at times. Brett was like a monkey, jumping from rock to rock, scared us half to death. We boarded the bus and we did a little shopping in the gift shop and made our way back to the RV to pack up and head to Vegas. This RV is definitely better than tent camping...all we have to do is push in the slides, disconnect our hoses and away we go!!
Our ride from the Grand Canyon to Vegas seemed like an eternity. Lots of mountains and desert...still have not seen any animals, even though some of the critters that have made a mess of our windshield may qualify as mammals. We did have a mishap or two to report though.
We have been putting gas in the RV at a little under a half a tank. We were trying to get down the road, so we started to get off the exit to fill up with a quarter of a tank of gas registered on the gauge. (remember, I said we had a bug?) As we got to the end of the off ramp, the RV started sputtering. The gauge was still registering hot. We were able to get it into the turning lane right in front of the gas station. We were hoping that it was only out of gas at that point. It was a little stressful...here is a 32 ft. RV in the middle of the road. I went into the gas station to buy a gas can. There was one on the RV when we picked it up, but the owner took it out as to "give us more room". Thanks, Wes!! Luckily, it was only out of gas and we were able to get it into the station to fill it up. It took about $180.00 to fill it up. But the good news was when we cranked it again, the temperature was normal again....those darn bugs. :) Needless to say, we will stop when it hits 1/2 tank from now on.
