I’ve feared for my life twice since being born, last week was one of those times…
It seems like months since I’ve had any motivation to write about our “adventure,” probably because we have been stationary for so long since said adventure started. But yesterday has changed all of that!
We had been counting down the days until we could leave our lakefront space in beautiful Big Bear Lake. Sounds strange right? Who would want to leave such beauty?! Well WE did. Let me just say that living inside a 134 sq ft house that is supposed to move and doesn't is not all it’s cracked up to be. The last couple months have, of course, been filled with lots of love and laughter, meeting new friends, and playing all the fun summer gigs that helped us save up for the big journey, but it has also been stuffy, and smelly (I could write an entire book on all the interesting and lovely smells this thing puts out!) and loud with a side of crying almost daily from at least one member of our family.
After everything, good and bad, that came with being stationary we were ready to take off. We planned for a 9am departure, that turned into 12:30pm. Then on the way down the mountain we had to endure the lovely smell of raw sewage because we didn't have enough AquaKem to last for our trip. I couldn’t take it and ended up driving a half hour out of our way to visit the only Camping World I knew of to fix our smelly problem. By the time we cleared things up and out we reached Hwy 10 around 2pm. We were on our way, finally! About ten minutes later our youngest son Els needed a pit stop and was hoping we had already reached our destination. I’m thinking I heard “Are we there yet” over 100 times on this trip. This has taught us that we will only be driving for three hours max on the trips ahead.
About half way to Prescott our phones received a severe weather alert. We could see clouds and darkness up in the distance but really didn’t think too much of it. I now know to take those alerts seriously especially when driving a giant house (brick wall is more like it) on wheels. It was maybe ten minutes after that alert that the winds started picking up. I slowed down to gain more control of Neck Beard Mc LoveLight (our home’s name) ;) and flicked on the headlights. Literally out of nowhere the rain began I couldn’t see a thing, we were going around 45mph and semi-trucks were zooming past us at 70mph. I turned on the hazards to slow even more cause every time a truck would pass it would send us into a gusty wind tunnel. The last straw was when a gigantic white semi came within inches of side swiping us on the drivers side, causing Els, who was sitting right by the dinette window, to start screaming and crying. I had to pull off to the side quickly as we were on the verge of tipping. We sat there on the side of the two lane Highway 10 wondering how long this powerful storm would last. We were all in tears while the the motorhome was shaking and the rain was beating down from above. After about 15-20 minutes the storm started to let up and we were able to calm down and get to the next exit and eat some dinner.
For a first trip in our new home on wheels it was very scary and it has taken these past two weeks to calm down and realize that that should not be the norm while traveling. My advice, if your phone or eyes warns you of weather up ahead, pull over! It’s better to be safe and arrive late than to never arrive at all.
Now we are settled here in Prescott and it’s such a beautiful area. We are excited for some fun adventures in and around Arizona. Thanks again for coming along on our journey. Until next time, One Story Loves You.
