Moving (part II)

First of all, HOORAY!!!!  We made it!!!  Secondly, I don’t ever want to make that trip alone again!

We had been planning on leaving early in the morning on Monday, December 9th, but due to a lovely Texas ice storm (click here for details), we had to delay our trip by a few hours.  We went to Panera (once again) to charge up our electronics and get some caffeine in our systems.  When we got back to the RV park, shockingly there wasn’t any electricity (can you feel my sarcasm?).  We were anxious to get on the road and decided to use our MacGyver skills to thaw out the hoses and pipes without electricity.  Thanks to our neighbor who came over to help, we were able to thaw everything out and pack it up fairly quickly.

Thanks, Panera, for providing electricity and caffeine!  Also, we are so American. 

We didn’t actually get going until 5 o’clock, which was poor timing on our part.  Dallas rush hour traffic is a beast.  Dallas rush hour traffic with icy roads is downright miserable.  It was stop-and-go traffic for hours!  We lived on the east side of Dallas and to get to Fort Worth- which is on the west side- would typically take 45 minutes to an hour.  It took us 4 HOURS to get out of the DFW area!!  At one point we were at a dead stop on the highway for an hour.  So, I turned off the car and went to sit with Josh in the RV for awhile.

Traffic= no bueno

He tolerates me. 

Because of our late/slow start, we didn’t get as far as we had hoped the first night.  We finally stopped around 2 a.m. and parked at a truck stop in Abilene, TX for the night.  That’s the nice thing about traveling with an RV-- you have a built-in hotel room.

The second day was honestly pretty brutal.  We were driving through New Mexico, which means nothing but desert.  Literally, all we had to look at for 12 hours was dirt and tumble weeds with the occasional run-down shack or gas station.  We made a quick stop for dinner and a leg stretch, then hit the road again until midnight.

New Mexico. See? Desert, desert, desert.

Before it got too cold in Texas, we bought a portable gas heater, because we figured it would be good to have just in case we lost electricity during the winter at some point.  I’m so glad we did!  It kept us warm during that ice storm in Texas, but it saved us from freezing to death on this trip!  I didn’t know the desert could get so cold, but it was!  We shut that little heater in the bedroom with us at night, and it helped keep it around 50 degrees in there.  When we opened the bedroom door in the morning and looked at the thermostat, it said 15 degrees inside the RV!  Probably the best purchase we’ve made in a long time.

Frost inside is never a good sign.

Day three on the road was much better.  And pretty uneventful, which is always nice whilst moving.  We drove through the rest of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and finally stopped again around midnight in Idaho.  Knowing we were almost to Washington was a really great feeling.

Colorado- close to the New Mexico border

Colorado- close to the New Mexico border

Colorado- getting closer to Utah

Utah

Idaho

Idaho

Our last day was such a relief!  We had been driving for 12+ hours every day and were both sore, stiff, and tired.  We made good time driving through the rest of Idaho, Oregon, and the east part of Washington.

Oregon

A stop along the Oregon Trail

A stop along the Oregon Trail

Welcome to Washington!!!!

Eastern Washington

Eastern Washington

Once we got to Snoqualmie Pass (about an hour away from Tacoma), we hit a snow storm.  Maybe in a few months this won’t be a bit ordeal, but I have never driven in snow by myself before and Josh had never driven an RV towing a car in snow before.  And, we were going up, down, and around this mountain with a pretty good snow storm.  It was stressful.  Mostly because people were sliding off the road while others had to pull off to put chains on their tires, which we didn’t have.  So, thank you everyone who was praying for us.  It was a bit scary, but we made it!

Right as it was starting to snow and we were getting ready to hit Snoqualmie Pass

Once we got through the pass, we were home free!  And utterly exhausted.  We didn’t set anything up once we got to the RV park.  We just parked the RV and went to find dinner- real food, nothing fried, and no sandwiches.  We could barely keep our eyes open during dinner and when we got back, we went straight to bed.

We have only been here for 2 days, and we already love it!  We live in a little town right outside of Tacoma called Sumner.  Everything is nice and green, it’s hilly without all the twists and turns, and it’s small enough to be cute but big enough to have everything we need.  I almost don’t mind the fact that the sun barely comes out during the day and starts to set at 3p.m.  For now, this place is exactly what we needed and it’s good to finally be here.