Stevens: Our family tale: Four Days Six States!

After Bobby was released from the hospital Colt “brought the car around” and by car I mean 37ft RV.

We were back on the road. We left Cleveland in the early afternoon. We dove for a few hours and stayed the night in another Walmart parking lot. We could have driven further but we were planning on making a special stop before the hospital and still wanted to make that stop.

Helloooo……Goshen, Indiana! We are sure you are thinking, WHAT IN THE WORLD IS SO COOL ABOUT GOSHEN, INDIADNA? Well in that small little town lived a young man with a very big heart. Gen’s cousin Joseph. We stayed the night and woke up bright and early and had breakfast with Joe at IHOP on June 24th! Our visit was short because we had to get going to make up for all the time we had spent in Cleveland.

We drove 360 miles after breakfast. We made it to Nauvoo, IL just in time to do a few things before it closed. Colt had been there before so he knew what to pick for the kids since we only had time for two things. We first went to the visitors’ center then to see the temple, finally just in the nick of time we made it to the wagon maker shop and the black smith shop. We really wish we could have stayed longer but we had to move along.

Another 134 miles were put in that day before we finally stopped for the night. It was late and we were tired.

June 25^th…..We woke up to weather alerts buzzing on our phones. The wind was howling and the rain was crashing on the roof. We were worried because we were still new to the RV thing and didn’t know how it would handle in the coming storm. We decided we should head out before it go too bad. We made it to Independence, MO at 10:30 am. We stopped at the visitors’ center and had a great time. The kids really loved the pioneer play area they had.

We were back on the road and we stopped for the night somewhere in Kansas about half way to Denver. We slept at a rest area. We were very excited about what was on the plan for the next day. The kids had no idea that we were going to see our best friends!! THE BESS FAMILY!!!

June 26^th……We woke bright and early to finish the 4 hours to Denver. The kids kept asking if there was anyway the Bess Family could meet us in Denver for lunch. We told them it was too late to ask them and that they were probably very busy. They sadly accepted the reasons and moved on.

Unfortunately when the GPS said we had 30 miles to go until our designated meeting spot the RV lost power in the engine and we had to stop. Here we were on the side of the freeway with no exit for miles, we had no idea what to do and our friends were waiting for us only 30 miles away!

We started driving after looking on line for what could be going wrong and searching for a mobile RV mechanic. 40mph is crazy slow after you were doing 70mph especially when you are so close to where you want to be and what should have taken 20 minutes is now going to take at least double that time.

We finally made it to our meeting place and we got a hold of a repair person to come and meet us. Most importantly our friends pulled up and the look on the kid’s faces, the joy in their voices and the running into each other’s arms (the Bess kids had no idea either) will forever be a great memory for us. We just wish we would have gotten it on video, next time for sure.

Engine trouble to be continued…….