Finally leaving our house!
They say a journey of a million miles begins with a single step. I believe our journey was set in motion with a dream and the subsequent purchase of our camper. And though not a million miles, this adventure of ours officially began when we took that first drive down our little mountain in East Tennessee and headed off into the unknown.
On the sixth of September, we finally rolled out of our driveway. While we had a basic route mapped out, we only had one official campground reservation. We were banking on the fact that summer vacation was over and schools were in back session.
First stop: Lookout Valley to return car parts and Sonic for lunch
Not having reservations turned out to be both good and bad. It meant that we spent some days desperately searching for a place to camp, specifically in southern Utah, but it also gave us flexibility to adjust our trip as needed.
Second stop: Nickajack Rest Stop where Sophie jumps out of the truck to explore.
The first three nights of the trip were travel days which allowed us to work out kinks and get our bearings while on the road.
Third stop: Hollywood, AL to see the first house Jack lived in.
When we bought our camper, we naively thought we would have at least one weekend (or day even) to test out the camper and allow me an opportunity to practice driving while towing a camper – something I had never done before.
Huntsville, AL for a gas stop and I get to drive through my first city.
First meal in the camper while camping at Pickwick Landing.
And so we set off on this long journey with the hope that I would learn as we went. Sometimes you just need to be tossed in the deep end to see if you will sink or swim...
Though exhausted from all of the work he had been doing over the course of the previous 30+ days to get us ready to leave, we decided that Daniel needed to take the wheel first to get us off of our mountain. We live on a small mountain with winding roads, which were being fixed last summer. At the time of our departure, a section of the construction was one lane and neither of us thought this was a good place for me to begin learning how to pull a camper (see video above)!
We made it off the mountain and headed across Chattanooga to Lookout Valley where Daniel needed to stop to make a return at a car parts store. While stopped, the kids informed us that they were starving. We had not even left the Chattanooga area yet! So after the returns were made we stopped at Sonic and grabbed our first meal of the trip. To go.
We got back in the car and onto I-24 and the kids immediately had to go to the bathroom. The miles in front of us were beginning to look really long...
We stopped at the next rest area next to Nickajack Lake. For some reason, Daniel opened our back hatch to check on something before taking Jack to the bathroom. I hopped out as well and realized that Sophie (our dog) was not in the car. Did we leave her behind? Where was she? I started to panic as I realized she might have hopped out and wandered off. I called her name and she suddenly appeared. She had taken the opportunity to go exploring. Was the whole trip going to be this chaotic?
Making my morning smoothie.
Since we were stopped, we agreed that I should go ahead and take my turn at the wheel. Daniel was clearly exhausted and I was going to have to learn sometime. No time like the present?
Isaac had lots of time to practice riding his bike on this trip. By the end, he was cruising around campgrounds like a little pro.
These guys had lots of time to hang out in their hammocks.
We needed to stop in Pickwick because it was close to where we had purchased our camper, and the previous owners had forgotten to give us some parts we needed related to the awning.
Screws should not turn like this!
So leaving Nickajack, I got in the driver's seat for the first time. In Hollywood, AL (about an hour south of Chattanooga), we made one more quick detour to show the boys the house we lived in until Jack was 18 months old. Of course, Jack didn't remember.
First Repair of the Trip: Attaching the Missing Camper Awning Parts
This also gave me a chance to turn around in a cul-de-sac with Daniel spotting me. If you need to work on communication in your marriage, learn how to help you spouse back up a camper. You will either become master communicators or need some counseling. Maybe both. Thankfully we figured it out. Mostly anyway.
Day 2: On the road again. Prepping snacks for the car ahead of time proved to be invaluable.
The first big city I drove through was Huntsville, AL and though a little terrifying to drive with several lanes of traffic, I began to get the hang of things.
Best things to do in the car on travel days:
Watch movies. Snack. Sleep.
Watch movies. Snack. Sleep.
We arrived in Pickwick just before supper. We had the campground almost to ourselves. It was clean and the people who were there were friendly. The kids had room to roam around, riding their bikes, playing on the playground, and setting up their hammocks.
Crossing the Mississippi River into Arkansas, where we learned first hand about porpoising.
Our first day of traveling was a success, and we had crossed into another state before stopping for the night (Mississippi).
View of Memphis from I-55.
On day two we decided we wouldn't be able to stop to see my parents in Searcy, AR. This was a really hard decision, but it was slightly out of the way and the Pickwick Landing stop made a stop in Searcy, AR somewhat impractical. We knew we would see my folks at the end of the month at my cousin's wedding, and while we hated to mark them off the list (sorry mom and dad!), the five-day delay in our trip meant things were going to be cut.
Sleeping as we get closer to our second overnight stop of the trip: Gore Landing.
We got a bit of a late start while trying to get our missing awning pieces reattached and letting the kids burn extra energy. Even though we had to skip on seeing my parents, we were still hoping to get to Enid, OK that night to see one of my college roommates and her family.
On the way in to Arkansas, we drove through back roads in northern Mississippi (I was still driving) before getting lost in Memphis for a minute, and crossing the mighty Mississippi on the I-55 bridge. This turned out to be a scary portion of the trip as we were still getting comfortable with towing the camper and getting the weight in the vehicles distributed correctly.
Thankful to be asleep in his bunk instead of the car!
As I drove across the concrete bridge, the expansion joints in the concrete began to make us jolt in a rhythmic way. Have you ever watched a dolphin (porpoise) jump in and out of the water? If you have, you can envision what was happening to our tow vehicle and camper. We later learned that this is called porpoising and our vehicles were doing it, right above the Mississippi River. Daniel instructed me to slow down and I stopped as soon as I was able.
We tried to drive under this roof structure in the middle of the night. We were about 6 inches too tall. Thankfully we realized before we broke something!
Daniel did some research and adjusted our weight distributing hitch and moved some heavy items to the back of the camper. This helped tremendously. For the time being.
Morning coffee at Gore Landing, OK
I lived in Arkansas for quite awhile and the concrete roads always lulled me to sleep when I was younger. They haven't changed much. We stopped in North Little Rock to grab dinner at a Chick-fil-A. I hadn't realized where we were at first and then looked around and realized we were next to McCain Mall where I hung out a lot as a teenager (back when I actually went to malls!).
One of the things we love about our camper is that the kids have their own room. When they wake up in the morning, they would play Legos until we got up!
We realized that we weren't going to make it to Enid that night, but I was determined to get us as far down the road as possible. We used an app called All Stays to help us to find places to camp on the fly. This app really made a lot of this trip possible and we would definitely recommend it for anyone traveling. It has an option for campgrounds as well as hotels, and also provides neccesary info on upcomging towns, gas stations, Walmarts, rest areas, etc.
Traveling with kids means finding stuffed animals strategically placed in the windows.
1) Oklahoma proved to have worse roads than Arkansas. I did not expect that!
2) Driving at night felt safer to me because there were less people on the roads.
3) However, there were a lot of semis.
Before Daniel and the boys fell asleep, we were able to figure out several places where we could possibly stay. We learned that if we had a range of 3 possible camping spots in the next 60-90 miles, we could stop when we felt the need or push forward if we felt like we were still good to drive.
We finally stopped when a semi passed really close to us and woke Daniel up from a dead sleep. The experience was too close for comfort , and since I was still new to hauling a camper, we decided to stop for the night.
Leaving Gore Landing. Next stop: Enid, OK.
For our second night on the road we camped in a City Park in Gore, Oklahoma. We found a free campsite by the river but it was midnight and it was unclear whether travel trailers could camp at that location. We ended up turning around to find a different place to stop, which involved trying to drive through the parking lot of a retirement home. Unfortunately we incorrectly judged the height of the pull through roof and Daniel ended up having to back the trailer up (see photo of building above).
Speed
limits in Oklahoma went up to 75mph. Though the bad roads made it
questionable to drive these speeds. What am I saying? Pulling a camper is
not really conducive to these speeds!
This brought an employee out to talk to us (by now it was close to 1am). The employee was nice and helped as an extra spotter, and also told us the location of another City Park where we could safely camp. And so Day 2 of our trip ended with two more states under our belts: Arkansas and Oklahoma.
Quote from Isaac: I want my binoculators! This is his phrase for when he wants his binoculars. To this day, we all call them binoculators :)
Stay tuned for the next leg of our trip.
Trip Stats
Camping Locations: Pickwick Landing State Park in Tenn., Gore Landing City Park in Okla.,
States Covered: TN > GA > AL > MS > TN > MS > TN > AR > OK
Daily Miles Traveled: 227 miles ⎮ 445 mile
TOTAL Miles Traveled: 672 miles
Days on the Road: 3
From my Instagram Diary (the day of):
Utah Road Trip Diaries: Day 1 was a short leg for us, with a chance to get comfortable with towing our trailer and officially testing out the camper (we meant to do this sooner but ran out of time). I did most of the driving today and even managed to maneuver several big U-turns in Alabama. One highlight was driving by our old house in Hollywood, AL (the first place Jack lived but he didn’t remember). Most of the drive here, Isaac insisted we go home. Trying to convince him that we were towing our home for the month was not readily accepted. We have driven through 3 states already: TN, AL and MS and are now back in Tennessee at Pickwick Landing. We decided to land here because the people we bought the camper from us forgot to give us some accessories. So here we are. The boys and I are at camp and Daniel is getting the goods. The boys insisted we camp by the playground but haven’t played there much. Dinner was a paleo version of a Low Country Boil. Not bad for camper cooking. Tomorrow we plan to make it to OK to see old college friends.
and
Utah Road Trip Diaries: Day 2 was a rough one for us. Daniel ended up staying up the night before catching up on his 200+ work emails and didn’t get to bed until the wee hours of the morning. We took or time getting going, thankfully the kids have their own room and played legos quietly while we slept. After breakfast, our first order of business was attaching the awning with the parts Daniel had picked up the night before. This involved removing screws that had been bent. We were on the road by noon and took back roads to Memphis. Crossing the Mississippi River, I learned what “porpoising” means: it’s when your vehicle bounces up and down from front to back. We spent the day crossing Arkansas. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop and see my folks, but we will see them at the end of the month. At a gas stop, we misplaced the camper keys and spent a decent amount of time searching for them. We also noticed that the handle on our bathroom door was loose. An hour later we stopped for dinner and discovered that the fridge hadn’t been fully shut (rookie mistake). The door had flung open and spilled food all over the floor. Amazingly it didn’t completely destroy food or the floor but was a mess to clean. I drove most of the day, including late at night so we could get into Oklahoma. The roads here are rough. When we arrived at our campsite at a city park in Gore, OK, we found the bathroom handle had completely come off and a screw had worked itself loose from the bunk bed. It was a long day, not without frustration. Hopefully we will find our groove and have better days ahead.
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