Finally we're connected with the real world again!

Well folks, it's been one heck of an adventure. We are here to tell you that we made it with a few hick-ups but we survived! We would like to thank everyone back in Minnie-soda for all of your gracious help in packing, loading the trailer and clearing out the house. Without your help, we would not be here, we'd still be in MN wondering how the heck do we pull this off! Oh and a SPECIAL thank you to Dale who decided he would check the brakes on the trailer and pulled a hub off only to find the brake pads fell to the ground. DH went and bought all new brake pads for all 4 tires & Dale did a complete brake job for us on Sunday morning. Thank you ALL of you who helped us. Let me start by saying that the first day of our travels went pretty well. DH had a heck of a time traversing the trailer down the road. Every big Semi that passed created a vacuum that had him startled every time one would pass. Let's just say that this is an understatement about the roads from Minnesota to Arizona. They are HORRIBLE!!!!!! The last time we stopped on our first day of travels was to get fuel in Olathe, KS. DH noticed as he was making a turn that a tire looked like it was pretty low in his drivers side mirror. Upon further inspection we noticed a nail sticking out of the sidewall. We were pulled into a gas pump stall when Sheri got the attention of a tow-truck driver in the next bay who was fueling & she worked her magic to get him to at least inflate the tire so we could pull over on a flat spot to change the tire. Sherri got her way and the tire was inflated allowing us to move the trailer to a spot where we could actually change the tire. Sheri said she came along as the pit crew & she wasn't lying. She yanked out the jack & had the trailer off the ground in no time. We managed to change the tire and made the decision to spend the night in KS. The next morning DH & DW brought the tire to a repair shop to have a plug installed for $14.00. It was repaired and we returned to the hotel to find Sheri had removed the spare tire off the trailer and was waiting patiently for the repaired tire. Traveling earlier on Monday the GMC Envoy had a service engine light come on but all the gauges were reading normal and the transmission was working as it should. We all decided we should run it to the local GMC dealer and at least have them check out the error code.

The engine fan was stuck on low. The shop technician said if you're heading to the Kansas City Turnpike, you SHOULD replace it or you will definitely overheat. They told us it would take a few hours & cost us $880.00 (OUCH!) We had wandered out into the parking lot while the Envoy was in the repair stall & a sales person had greeted us and asked if we were looking? We explained our situation and had a nice chat with him for about 20 minutes.We found that this was a SMART decision. We shook his hand and headed back to the bay where the Envoy sat. We watched the salesperson we had just finished chatting with enter the bay and had a brief conversation with the technician & within minutes 2 technicians were working on the Envoy. In about 35 minutes the truck was fixed and put back together and we were on the road. They went far and above anything we had expected. We went back and picked up Sheri and we were on the road again and not looking back. The next two days of traveling went smoothly as far as vehicles go. DH however had rough roads for what seemed to be eternity. Just when he thought things were smoothing out, things got progressively worse. A few times you could hear him saying some expletives over the hand held walkie talkies we had purchased for communicating between the two vehicles. These proved to be life savers as we went through the big cities. DH would turn on the blinker for which lane he wanted and DW would pull out in the Envoy and block traffic for him. We got it down to a pretty good science. Here is a photo of one of the stops we made after some pretty tough roads.

We left on Monday morning and had hoped we would be in Phoenix by Wednesday afternoon. Due to the hick-up in the early evening on Monday we eventually made it to Holbrook, AZ Wednesday late evening and decided to spend the night there and finish our travels on Thursday morning. Here is us leaving Holbrook, AZ.

We made the final trek into Flagstaff and headed south to Phoenix. We thought again how wonderful it was that Dale had checked the trailer brakes because it is pretty much a 6% downgrade on the roads from Flagstaff to Phoenix. If Dale hadn't repaired the trailer brakes, who knows what would have happened. I know with the brakes working it didn't take long for the 11,350lbs in our trailer to get me motoring down the mountain. But all said and done we would never attempt this kind of trip again. We will hire someone to come pack, haul and unload for us. But we have lots of memories to look back upon with this endeavor. Thanks again Sheri for riding along and putting up with the dogs. I'm not elaborating on them because they traveled like troopers. At least that's what I heard. So we would like to show you how our new home looked after the trailer was unpacked. Our pit crew gal Sheri worked her Butt off for us & our local friend Tony arrived to help DH move the big stuff and in about 8 hours we had the whole trailer unloaded. "WOW" Did we tell you it's HOT here? Guess everyone wanted stuff out & in as fast as we could get it done. Lots of water was drank to complete the task, but for the most part it went without problems. Nothing was broken.

In the last few days while DW has been at work, DH has been trying to get things to a more normal state in the house. He has made some strides in making the house livable for all of us. It is monsoon season here in AZ right now & last night when the sun was going down there were some impressive storms that had formed earlier in the day & they looked so beautiful from our back yard last night.

DW loves her new job & DH has a meeting tomorrow to discuss doing some drawings for a rental company here in Phoenix who has connections to Barrett Jackson Automobile Auction Company. He will try to sell his talents tomorrow & he hopes to make a great impression with his talents & hopes to be working full time very soon. We have stored the trailer at a self storage company as we can't have it parked in front of our house. We are thinking that we'll probably want to sell it, but we aren't sure as of yet. Here is a photo showing it in storage. DH was relieved when he pulled away as to not have the wart "trailer" attached to his ass. Too funny!