Since we have been without work and done with school for some time, we have been wanting to set out and get away from our house for some time. We had to wait for our basement project to be complete… ugh! What started as an eight week project took nearly nine months to complete. Throughout all of this, we had a u-box full of storage things from the basement, another batch of stuff in a good friend’s garage, along with a 1968 Ford Falcon that we picked up in October. We have had a broken down 4Runner in our garage and a set of parts to make the same repairs to our non-broken down 4Runner before it faced a similar fate. We have kept ourselves busy getting the 4Runners repaired and out of the way so we could move the Falcon back home and get all of our possessions back on our property and we finally got things to a place where we could pack up and head to Wyoming for a change of scenery.
The plan was to leave early Tuesday morning. HA! Anyone who knows us knows it is likely we will be late to our own funerals and this was absolutely not going to happen. We must be back in CO the first week in August, but otherwise we were essentially moving into our RV. Not only that, but we were towing a 4Runner on a rented flat bed trailer behind the RV and I was going to drive the other 4Runner towing my minivan on a tow dolly.
I have never towed before. My sweet husband hooked the van up to the 4Runner a few days ago, so I could tow it around the block and not have my first time towing be when we were actually trying to leave. Anyway, things were not going according to plan and I was wound tighter than a garage door spring, John was a pillar of calm and kept telling me, “It’s ok, we leave when we leave! We don’t have any specific place to be at any specific time.”
We finally pulled out at 5pm. This isn’t a 5 o’clock somewhere situation, at this point, it wasn’t “early Tuesday” anywhere, but it was what it was. We pulled away and John needed to make a stop on the other side of town. There are several ways to get there, but of course, John led me and our circus train to the double roundabouts on the other side of town. I was so nervous towing and it felt like my van was fishtailing at 30 mph. We got where we were going and John got what he needed and I looked him dead in the face and said, “I’m not doing this. It is terrifying. I am done. Take me home.”
John asked me to stay with the kids in the RV and he would take it for a quick spin to make sure everything was ok. He took a wrong turn, where he could not easily get back to me and was gone for a very long time. I was so freaked out that I was playing a game on my phone to keep myself freaking myself into a stroke. Let’s just say I scored the highest score on that game that I EVER have, like 3x higher than my previous best. John returned and told me it was fine. He gave me some pointers and promised that if I got to the freeway and felt the same, we would take the next exit and turn back home.
But first, he wanted to stop at the gas station. At. The. Traffic. Circles. We pulled in just fine and gassed up and John reminded me to watch my fender as I pulled out. I did a beautiful job of watching the fender, but that left me needing to make too tight of a turn out of the parking lot and I wedged my van sideways on the tow dolly and couldn’t move another inch. John had to park the RV (on the side of the road), come back and dislodge the van from the tow dolly (which was SUPER fun since I wedged it in such a way that the driver door could not be opened) 😊 I texted my mom at 6pm and said, “We aren’t even out of town yet and I have already effed the whole thing up!” We finally got the van off, pulled both vehicles across the road to an empty parking lot and re-loaded and set off!
We discussed the merits of taking a backroad (lower speeds, less traffic, more stops) or the interstate (failing to consider the gauntlet of road construction). We opted for the interstate and I have never been so scared in my life! Towing our two driving vehicles, with semi-trucks blasting past me over narrow bridges, concrete construction barriers on each side… Yea though I walk, through the valley of the shadow of DEATH…
Once we were through, I called John on the radio and told him I needed to pull off and exhale. We did just that and when he came up to my window I said, “I’d rather wear a MAGA hat to a BLM rally than do that again!”
We made our way into Wyoming, stopped at our favorite rest area in Cheyenne and heated up some leftovers for dinner. We knew we weren’t quite ready to stop, but didn’t have a whole lot left, so we pressed on to Laramie. Along I-80. At Night. With signs saying, “Wind gusts 40+, Watch for wildlife.” We made to the Walmart parking lot in Laramie and settled in for the best night sleep I have had in a long time!
For now let me just say, I raised one heck of a courageous daughter, and PRAISE THE LORD for your safe travels!! You know I would have been done at the very first roundabout, and that’s if I was driving one.single.automatic.small.vehicle….
LOL
I want to add that, from this setting out adventure, I am very proud of John helping you to push on and for you to overcome the anxiety. John is much more calm and rational than when I first met him all those years ago.