the grizwold's summer vacation

greetings from the very hot city of moab, ut. can i just say that i have been anxious for an internet connection since day one! mitch says that i have been twitching for the lack of the means to blog. well, i chose this rv park because they have free wi-fi internet and here i am. i can feel the twitching beginning to subside!

grizwold family vacation?? for those of you familiar with the grizwold family, national lampoon's christmas vacation, will know what i mean. well, things didn't get off to a very good start and on the night of the second day mitch said, "i wonder what will go wrong tomorrow. i'm beginning to feel like the grizwold's."

as you read on my last post, we left a day later than we had originally planned because of all of the house preparations. not only did we leave a day later than planned we also left several hours later than we wanted to. we were supposed to leave at 7 am on tuesday, but ended up pulling out at about 3 pm, only to have wait in line for 45 minutes at the dmv to get the fifth wheel registered. before leaving, however, we discover that the batteries were dead on the fifth wheel. so, after hooking up to the truck, mitch had to manually crank the electric jacks in 103 degree weather. "i'm sure glad i just showered!", he said as he cranked away, while sweat dripped from his head.

after registering the fifth wheel, we headed off to camping world only to miss the off ramp. once there, we purchased 2 new batteries. the girls and i, then, sat on a curb in the hot parking lot (remember 103 degrees) eating melted snacks, while mitch installed the batteries.

with that task completed, we took off in the direction of I-84 right after 5 pm, which, of course, is rush hour, and yes there was an accident which slowed things down considerable. we finally just gave up on our original plan of stopping in pendleton and pulled into an rv park in the dalles at 8 pm. for those of you that don't know where the dalles are in relation to beaverton, it is a whole, whoppin' 90 miles away! we spent the next 2 hours organizing ourselves, since the night before we just put our things in the trailer not having time to organize them. because it had been a record breaking hot day, the trailer was about 95 degrees inside when we got in. after hooking up to the electric and starting the air conditioner it finally cooled off to a comfortable temperature by about 11 pm.

the next morning, after driving about 100 miles, mitch walkie talkied me in the back, "uhh, i'm pulling over. there's something wrong with the brakes." the brake light and the abs light on the dash were both on and the brakes were feeling weird when mitch pushed down on them. so, on our second day we made it to pendleton, or. we called the dodge dealer in pendleton to see if they could take a look at it and the said the soonest they could see us was the next day at 3 pm. ugh!!

with some faith and prayer and a mighty miracle, the next morning at 7 am we pulled out of the rv park in pendleton with both brake and abs lights off and a perfectly functioning truck. that day was extremely long! we had to make up for lost time and by 11:30 that night we pulled into the cherry hill rv resort in kaysville, ut, where we had reservations for wed. and thurs. night (we obviously had to cancel the reservations for wed.). since then, our luck has changed!

our girls have been amazingly good! thanks, in part, to a wonderful little device called a dual screen dvd player that we bought for the drives through idaho, utah, and new mexico where we cannot ride in the fifth wheel. we've enjoyed some miniature golfing, a fun day at the water park, a night at the pool, and good visits with friends in utah. things are looking up!! and tomorrow we arrive at mitch's grandma's cabin in colorado for an extended stay. then on friday, i will pick up my sister in albuquerque to drive her up to stay for 5 days with us at the cabin. oh, i can't wait to be with her again! we plan to go baoting and horseback riding while she is with us! fun times!