Six days across America

Monday morning we finished packing the minivan early and saying our goodbyes to our Glendale, AZ home. At four years, it was the longest Becky and I lived in one house together. The van once again showed how it was the ultimate vehicle when it comes to functionality. We had our luggage and camping gear packed into the Thule luggage carrier on the roof as well as stacked in the back with the third row folded down. This left just enough room for Cedar and Artemis our Golden Retrievers to curl up behind the boys' captain chairs in the middle row.

We also had the bike carrier in the 2" trailer hitch in back with all four mountain bikes aerodynamically positioned behind the van (LOL). Finally, our alternator had to really work this trip. We had the GPS, satellite radio, Xbox, dual screen DVD player and multiple rechargers (phones, Nintendo DS, iPod, etc.) all hooked up. As a bit of foreshadowing, the Xbox failed from the moment we tried to turn it on. We thought it died, but only upon arriving in Connecticut did we find out that the van couldn't provide sufficient power for it with everything else draining amps.

The trip started fine with a nice drive from Phoenix to the Grand Canyon. The boys got a bit restless as I kept wanting to jump out of the car for another photo opportunity. They and Becky had already seen it, and the former weren't overly impressed. The dogs and I had fun running around the vistas for a couple shots before jumping back into the running car (turning off the motor makes for a serious interuption to the movie watchers in back). We only needed to give the dogs one dramamine (Artemis) along the way. They were otherwise troopers.

A late start and my sight seeing put us in Durango just past dark. We managed to put up the tent (18' x 10') in the dark without getting into too many arguments or creating too many comparisons to the Waldos for the spectators who were for the most part all comfy in their campers.

The night ended up being very cold but all six of us slept fairly well the first night on the road. We peed close to the tent, stayed bundled up and only ran around when Cedar threw up near the head of Becky's sleeping bag in the middle of the night. We're assuming it was from the stress since he's been through this before and was fine from that point on.

Anyway, the morning was very cold, and it took us quite a while to take down the tent, find breakfast and hit the road. Once we did though, the spectacular Colorado mountains entertained Becky and I. The boys were in non-stop movie watching mode and only occassionally looked up to humor me with a; "oh, yeah, cool Dad." The highlight of the day was Ouray, known as the "Switzerland of America". It is a small city in a bowl of huge, rugged mountains surrounding it. It was one of my favorite landscapes in the whole country. Unfortuantely road construction severly slowed our progress North and East towards Boulder. In the end, we had to forego some of the scenery and take the main freeway going into Denver from Grand Junction. First, this made us appreciate not Matching into the family residency in Grand Junction. Second, we still got to see some great sights along the interstate. The canyons, Vail and the twisty roads around the Rockies kept me entertained in the driver's seat al day.

We finally made it to the Rocky Moutain National Park close to dark. Our site was right on Granby lake and the wind was blowing pretty hard. We frantically put up the tent before bundling up for a glass of wine under stars. The sky looked clear and the stars were beautiful, but Becky noticed some forboding stars on the horizon and jokingly mentioned how it would be funny if they were snow clouds even though it was warmer than Durango.

As fate would have it, we woke up earlier for our longest drive of the trip to light snowfall. In record time we packed the tent and hit road. Our GPS kept telling us to turn back towards the Interstate (I-70) and Denver, but I wanted to take the scenic shortcut over the Rocky Mountain pass taking us just North of Boulder with a straight shot to Highway I-80 and Nebraska. The Ranger at the park took our $20 and assured us that the there may be some winds on top of the mountain, but the pass was clear - and heck, it was June!

With a couple miles, the snowfall became a storm and visibility dropped to about 20 feet. About this time, we realized that the van's heater was broken. After all, it had probably been years since it had been used, the Fry's guys who installed our satellite radio looked pretty amareur. So in sandals, freezing temperatures and the air conditioner on to defog the windshield, we raced to the top of the pass only to find it had just closed!!

The only bright spot in our two hour frigid detour was seeing a whole herd of deer running down the mountain to escape the same snow storm. The three big buck, 7-8 doe and 4-5 fawn were a great way to break our dejection and frustration. Actually, one side benefit of the delay was that Denver rush hour was long gone by the time we drove through.

The rest of Colorado and the first half of Nebraska were smooth sailing. Luckily we were concerned enough about our delay that we made hotal reservations in Omaho knowing Dew Moines would be tough to reach not even considering we'd have to put up the tent at our camp site there. We realized how smart that call was not far from Lincoln, NE. The rain started coming down in sheets and I took the opportunity to tempt fake by joking how it would be wild to have Tornados and snowstorms on the same day.

Cars and semis started pulling over under the overpasses. But as long I could follow semis and see they weren't hitting deep water, I kept ok. It got so dark about this time (at around 5pm when it should have been sunny) that we switched to the local radio. That was when Becky and the boys got really nervous. Reports of flooded roads, tornados touching down and warnings to pull off all roads made for some stressful driving. Just past Lincoln I finally decided to pull over and see about stopping for the night. Even with only 20-30 miles to go until Omaho, I was getting worried. The first gas station and hotel off the interstate looked flooded so we headed to the other side of the overpass. There was a huge crowd in the station with a police officer making recommendations. I thought to myself how unprepared I was as a newly graduated doctor for any kind of disaster.

We stuck around for awhile until the rain lesseded a bit and we thought we'd try for a hotel nearby for the night. However, as we got started I realized the weather have improved significantly and the truck drivers were pulling out and hitting the road again. Not to ignore the Police Officer's recommendations, but the professional drives in CB contact with other truckers around the state seemed to be the safer bet. Becky kept in almost constant with her family through the whole thing and I still don't whether that helped calm or stress her out more. But in the end she didn't protest my decision too badly. We had little trouble following one semi the half hour to our reservation in Omaho.

Showers and beds were a nice way to start one of our shorter days. My cousins, aunts and uncles in Chicago were dealing with a lot of their own surprises so we drove straight through Illinois to Southbend, IN where Tucker and his family had just moved into their new house for residency. Their truck had just unloaded all of their belongings earlier in the day so, it was a bit chaotic but Tucker would never pass up an opportunity to help a friend. Not only did we get a nice dry place to stay for the night, we had a great time watching the kids and dogs play in their huge yard while we had a chance to talk as couple starting a similar big new adventure.

It was hard to leave the next day. We stayed way past the time I had hoped to get rolling, but the kids had a great time running around and playing. It was hard to separate them. Once we got rolling I realized the trip to Wellsburg, WV was pretty short.

We arrived at Great Aunt Gerry's 1911 mansion, Morningside, around 3pm or so. The boys and dogs had a great time exploring the huge place and settling into their own 1950's styled rooms. We all went for a swim at Gerry's son's house, the orginal housestead on the compound built in the 1850's. Then we went to dinner on the Ohio River. The rain followed us, but it was still a wonderful evening spending time with relatives we hadn't seen in a long time. Aunt Gerry had hosted a family reunion 12 years ago, when Connor was only five months old. That was the last time we had been out to Morningside.

Day six started slow as usual for us. We hit the road around 10am, pretty average for us. But we had a great time with Gerry and her daughter Tina over breakfast. The day's drive to West Hartford was pretty uneventful except for the almost constant rain and a close call. Becky drove most of the day so I study for my upcoming ATLS class. In hte afternoon she noticed a newly rolled over SUV alongside the road with several good samaritans trying to help out. I agreed we should stop and ran over to see if I, the barely graduated doctoc, could lend a hand. I located the driver and found him to be fine, walking around the vehicle and impatiently waitin for EMS to show. He politely refused my offer of assistance.

We arrived at our new house in West Hartford late on Saturday evening. After a nice 8-9pm dinner at Olive Garden to celebrete our arrival we camped out on the 1940's hardwoods of our new Cape Cod home.