Since I have an awesome husband he volunteered to fly out and drive it home with me! Thanks Dre your the best. Well here is the story:
Drayton flew in on Friday the 3rd of July. We decided since we had a long drive ahead of us we better leave right from the airport. So we packed up all the stuff that we had taken on our trip and I headed out to get Dre! I am surprised I found the airport by myself we all know how good I am at directions. I picked up Dre about 30 minutes late ....sorry! He wasn't too mad but made me drive back to our apartment which took us about 8 hours. We arrived there around 12:30 a.m. We needed snacks so we ran to Walmart. Since we are on the kids diets now I had to get lots of fruit to eat while we drove. So I stocked up on my fruit and Dre got his snacks, we figured we better get a tarp in case it rains. So we got the tarp and headed to the apartment.
Poor Dre hadn't seen the amount of stuff we were supposed to fit in the van:)
We walked in the apartment and Dre looked at the stuff and said THERE IS NO WAY!!!!!
That got me nervous because he is pretty good at packing and if he thought it wasn't going to fit then I had my doubts! It was now almost 2 in the morning...but we decided to start packing and see how much we could fit in and what we should start eliminating... Well lets just say at 4 am we put the last thing in! Yeah can you believe it we did it we got every last thing in the van! Tam had bought some tie downs online so we could strap the stuff to the top. When we opened them Dre looked at me and said are you serious? They had ordered the straps that you had to tighten yourself. There was no way we could tighten them tight enough to go 2034 miles! So we decided to run back to Walmart and get the ratchet tie downs. But we now had the whole van filled to the top with 6 suitcases, 2 bikes and a slide. We tied them down the best we could. We got back to Walmart and got the tie downs and decided against the tarp because Dre said he checked the weather there wasn't supposed to be any rain. I said you checked the weather in every state and there is going to be no rain in any of the states!!!!??? He said yeah no rain. We tried to return it and the customer service was closed so we kept it and went out to put the new straps on. Got it all strapped up and got back to the house at 4:30 am.
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| Good Packing Drayton! |
We woke up at 9 and got ready to leave. The van we so packed that the tires were about 1 inch from the frame of the car. This was scary but we didn't really have a choice but to try it out. Dre had to be back for work on Tuesday and he travels 5 hours. So we had to be back home by Monday at 3 for him to get straight into another car and travel to work. Which means Dre is really nice to come out and help me! Anyways we left the apartment and had to go about 60 miles an hour most of the way and had to stop and check tires every hundred miles. This made the trip even longer.
It was fun to get to talk with Dre and catch up since we hadn't been together for 3 months. Dre might say that I slept most of the way but I only slept some of it;) Anyways the first day we drove for 16 hours. We made it all the way to Oklahoma City. Then we realized that we had all that stuff on the top of the van and we weren't about to take off all of it and haul it into the hotel at 2 in the morning. So we parked it in a well lite area and hoped no one would steal anything! Luckily everything was there when we woke up. We slept till about 8 and headed to breakfast since we hadn't really had a meal the last 2 days. We had only snacked in the car. We ate at Denny's and planned out the rest of our trip. We decided to try and make it to Flag Staff, AZ. This would be a 12 hour drive. We took off and the next thing I know...... Drayton hadn't done a very good job predicting the weather! It started sprinkling so we pulled over to a gas station so the stuff was out of the rain. We went into the bathroom and when we came out it was pouring! Luckily, we hadn't been able to return the tarp. So we tried to put the tarp on but we only had two straps. So we did the best we could and headed back on the road. About 4 miles later we pulled off cause the tarp was flying all over the place. I am glad Dre was with me or I would of just sat in the van until it stopped raining or someone helped me! He fixed the tarp and we were on our way yet again. Not for too long and we had to pull over again at the rest area! Luckily, a couple strangers helped us tie it down and gave us some rope and bungees. I for sure thought it was on there good this time....NOPE it ended up coming off again, so Dre (totally not frustrated at this point) got out and fixed it again. He did awesome and it worked and stayed the rest of the way.
Lets just say that I might have slept a little bit on the trip but I also drove a few times. We stopped to get Dre some books on tape. He said if he has those he can drive all night! Well I fell asleep and woke up around 1, we were supposed to arrive at Flag Staff around 12 so I was confused. Freakin Dre had just kept Driving and we ended up to our destination at about 4 am! He did so good, he didn't get hardly any sleep and he drove for about 18 hours! What, I couldn't believe it! Anyways we took the van to Tam's and unloaded the top so it could fit in the garage and we went home!
It was a long and crazy trip, but so fun to be with my husband and so glad he came out to help me! I might owe him! That's our trip in a nutshell. Hope we don't have to travel anywhere, anytime soon!
Night(:
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