The next morning we were up early. I’d decided to put the van back into storage early so we could get an earlier flight. I booked our flight from Las Vegas to LAX for 1.30pm and a hotel at LAX that night. It was just a 2.5 hour drive to Las Vegas. 

We arrived at the storage unit right on the dot of 10am and were able to get Rodger stored away. Then we caught an uber to the airport, queued up for about a hour to get through security. Mike tried to take his laptop out of his bag, but it was stuck. He couldn’t get it out without taking all his clothes out. Thankfully the TSA agent said laptops could stay in our bags. Finally we got through, and had to catch a train to the terminal as we were flying with Delta. There were just people everywhere and it was a little overwhelming.

We got through, had a much needed coffee, and a sandwich. Our flight to LAX was only 42 minutes, and we took off and landed early.

As we were taxiing at LAX I saw a Qantas plane, and behind it the familiar tail with the Koru on it. An AirNZ plane was in. Then a crazy idea jumped at me. “Shall we try and get on tonights flight?” I said to Mike. It seems I’m always mucking with the system. “Nah, let’s just leave it as it is.”

We got off the plane and almost exited the airport when I thought of the hassle. Catching a bus to our hotel. Eating an overpriced meal at the hotel. Hanging around all the next day waiting for our 10pm flight. We could maybe avoid all that with just a phone call…

So instead of exiting the airport, we walked to the terminal where air NZ leaves from while I rang them. We got a girl who said there were two seats, but not together. And it was too late to apply our recognition upgrade. She said we could go to the ticket counter and see about getting seats together. We said we’d get back to her.

To go to the ticket counter we could have had to exit the airport and come through security again. Mike said just leave our flights as they were. We might get our upgrade if we wait until tomorrow night.

But I would’nt be deterred. I wondered if we booked it online whether we could just stay in the airport and avoid all the fuss. We asked a security guard. He said if we had tickets, there was no need to exit. At this point, even Mike agreed this was a good thing.

So I rang Air New Zealand back, and this time I got a guy. He had to make a call to the airport and got us two seats together. He also was able to put in our upgrade request. Yay.

So once the flights were changed, I checked in online and once we’d got our boarding passes, we breathed a sigh of relief. We wouldn’t need to exit the airport and deal with the madness of security!

Then I rang Jenny to see if she could pick us up a day earlier. She could! Yay! Finally able to relax, we went and had a meal, then went to the gate to wait for our flight, many hours early.

Then Mike got the call. “Congratulations sir, you got your upgrade.”

“What about me?” I said. “Are you together? Let me see your passport.”

Tense moment. 

“Oh, you got your upgrade too!” Yay. So business class for both of us. 

More about that in the next blog.

We’d been umming and aahing about staying a few days near Moab, which was 2.5 hours drive away, but we both woke up this morning and decided to drive the 6-7 hours to Cedar City, where we would try and change to an earlier flight.

We arrived at the Cedar city campground just after 5pm (the same one as our first night here, and also where we spent a week with covid last year). It’s not that it’s a particularly nice campground, more that it’s familiar, and Cedar city is a nice town, not too big, but with everything you need.

The plan was to change our flight to Thursday (it was currently Monday), and that would give us a full day in Cedar city to clean the van out, vacuum and wash it. But when I tried to change the flights, Thursday was all booked out. The next available flight was Saturday. I had it in my mind I just wanted to get home now, and didn’t want to wait until Sat. The agent said there was also a flight on Wednesday, but we thought that would be too early. Plus she said it was too late to apply our recognition upgrade. I told her we’d think about it and get back to them.

Mike said there was no way we would make it for Wed night, not if we wanted to give Rodger needed a good clean. I disagreed. We still have an hour of daylight to clean Rodger out and pack out bags, and leave early in the morning. I rang our storage unit to see if we could put Rodger back tomorrow. She said they normally needed 23-48 hours notice. Bugger. But she said it should be ok, just to let her know when.

So I rang Air New Zealand back, got a different agent and he changed our flights, and also applied our recognition upgrade. Now all we had to do was get back to storage, find flights to LAX, and book a hotel in LAX. Oh, and empty the fuel from the generator. That could wait until the morning.

Today was another long driving day. It was a gorgeous drive through the San Juan mountains, and we climbed up over a couple of mountain passes, the highest being the Wolfs pass which was just under 11,000 feet. 

There were a few places we wanted to stop, but we just weren’t feeling it. We were going to stop in and visit Melanie in Durango, but she had covid, so we decided to steer clear. Instead, we continued driving and ended up at an expensive RV place opposite Mesa Verde. But it was quite nice and the people were all travellers (rather than permanents) and it had a good vibe. And the showers were nice

We’ve decided to try and change our flights to head home early. Five months of travel has worn us out!

WE made it through the night… just. I didn’t want to leave too early, due to seeing creepy things crossing the road, so left around 8am. It was a Saturday and a few other people were out and about, so I hoped they’d scare any critters off the roads.

It was another long drive and we crossed into Texas today. It was long, straight, boring and hot. We stopped in Amarillo for a Bucc-ees fix. This is a Texas chain of services, which have a bit of a cult following, with a beaver as its mascot. We didn’t really “get” it, but we had a bbq briskett sandwich here once, and it was really nice. So we decided to treat ourselves. It wasn’t quite like we remembered, and was really sweet. But it was a good place to break up the monotonous journey.

We are now heading for the mountains of Colorado, as apparently tarantula activity will be less at altitude. They’ll still be there, but hopefully not as many.

We pulled into the town of Raton in New Mexico after almost 700 kms. We decided to stop in a camping ground so we could have showers.

We were up early today as we wanted an early start to avoid the heat. We were on our way by 7.30am which is unheard of for us. It was a pretty boring drive. Mike drove. I read my book. We crossed from Arkansas into Oklahoma and headed for the Wichita mountains, which is probably the only thing of interest in Oklahoma.

After driving all day we arrived at a state forest campground, surrounded by trees. Not my ideal setting, but it was late and we had no choice. It was only possible to book online, and there was no internet in the park. So we had to get our our starlink to find the free spots. 

There were only two powered sites left, but we decided it was necessary because of the heat. After a lot of faffing, we finally managed to book one. It didn’t have “the vibe” but I didn’t know where else to go. As we were hooking up a power, a giant centipede scurried towards our van. It was bright yellow with a striking red tail pointing up like a scorpions, ready to strike. It looked extremely poisonous, so I steered it away from the van. It scurried into a tree, and I hoped that would be the last I’d see of it.

Mike said he was feeling stir crazy after the drive, so we went for a walk. This was a BIG mistake.

About 15 minutes into our walk, a GIANT tarantula strolled across the road in front of us. I screamed and Mike jumped, not sure whether from the critter or my scream. Either way, he looked pretty shaken by the size of it with its big hairy legs and its sinister gait as it carried on walking.

I turned quick smart and said I was heading back, and put on a very quick pace. We met some people on the way back and they said they saw one at their camp too. They said they are everywhere this time of year as they go on the hunt for mates. They also said they are mostly harmless, and steer clear of humans. Still, it doesn’t stop my mind ticking over full speed, knowing they will be coming out and night and walking under and around our van.

Back at the van, I taped up all the vents with duck tape and closed all the blinds so I coudn’t see what was going on outside, and had an internal meltdown. I didn’t want to be there but I couldn’t leave. We were in the middle of nowhere. We tried to play Phase 10 to take my mind off things, and Mike kept leaving me with a handful of cards. I threw them down in a huff, and decided to go to bed and read my book. I think I’m done with America.

Today we decided to stay put. I needed to get my video finished and I’m just not finding time with all the long driving days. And it’s a nice spot, and it’s good to have a break.

I actually spent all day on my video, racing to get it done before the library closed at 5pm. I didn’t quite make it, but we were able to get the library internet from outside in the van. Just as well too, as it didn’t finish uploading until 6.30pm. 

While we were sitting there, we had a terrible thunderstorm. Lighning cracked overhead so loud we both jumped. But it soon passed over.

We did a quick shop, and headed back to our campsite. The plan is to get up early and make up some miles tomorrow.

Today we left our camp nice and early to avoid the heat. We had a few things lined up to do in the Ozark forest, but none of them really happened.

Our first stop was a walk to some rocks. But it was too hot, so we aborted that. Then I think there was some more rocks and maybe a mountain to see, but we had forgotten to fuel up and there were no gas stations in the wop wops. We continued driving but all we saw was trees. All day. Every now and then we’d see a glimpse of a nice view of the mountains through the trees, but most of the time it was just trees.

Eventually, near the end of the day there was a lookout. This was very exciting for me, as I was getting so sick of seeing trees. And it was an incredible view over the trees. We met a couple of guys from Mississippi and they also mentioned how sick they were of trees.

We turned off to have a look at a campground. It was only $5 to camp, but you guessed it. It was in the trees, and by this stage I’d had enough.

We continued on to  the town of Ozark and made our way to a nice campsite overlooking a large river. Thankfully there are fewer trees here and it is a gorgeous spot.

This morning we went for a walk before it got too hot. I had a walk lined up but as soon as I walked into a spider web I quickly aborted that one. So we did another one which wasn’t so much in the trees. The walk took us on a wider road with trees either side, then around the edge of the lake, which was very picturesque. We stopped and admired a small turtle crossing the road. It was very cute.

By the time we got back to camp it was already hot. We scurried back into the air-conditioning to have our breakfast and coffee. Then decided we should probably move. The van was nice and cool from the AC so we should be good for ten minutes. But first stop, showers. We drove there as otherwise we’d be a sweaty hot mess walking back. Only problem was, Rodger was now sat in the sun. After a quick check for spiders in the shower block, we had a nice shower, and feeling refreshed, climbed back into the hot car. Instantly we were a sweaty hot mess again. Oh well.

We drove for 1.5 hours to the Ozark folk centre, which apparently was pretty cool, with bands and crafts and stuff. But there was nothing happening on a Tuesday. Oh well. So we continued on until we found a place to camp in a national forest. It’s $10 a night but no power, so we quickly fired up the generator and sat inside, enjoying the cool.

Mike cooked up another vegetable and noodle stir fry and it was equally yummy. We finished off the night with a game of Phase 10. I won.

Today we were up bright and early to avoid the heat and were on the road by 8am. It was still hot!

As we were drive out from the campsite, something appeared on the road in front of us. I started screaming thinking it was a tarantula. It was a small turtle. But I am totally in edge now!

We drove for the most of the day and crossed in Missouri, then Arkansas, where we plan to spend a few days.  We arrived at Lake Charles state park around 2pm. It’s a gorgeous spot overlooking a lake and best of all, has electrical hookup, and showers! So we cranked up the airconditioning, then sat outside. I know! But I think we are acclimatising a bit and it’s nice knowing we can escape from the heat if we want to.

It was so pleasant sitting outside, overlooking the lake, enjoying our zero beer and listening to the birds. Woodpeckers pecked in the tree in front of us, and  squirrels darted back and forth. One dared to venture onto our campsite, but we shooed him away. Stupid people have probably been feeding them. 

Mike cooked us a delicious pork and vegetable noodle stir fry. After dinner we went for an evening stroll (it was dusk) and saw an armadillo, so that was neat. Thankfully no spiders or snakes so that is a bonus. Overall a quiet and relaxing day. 

We spent 4 nights in Greensburg, Kentucky and were feeling well rested, but now it was time to leave. We’d planned to get away early to avoid the heat, but these things never go as planned. 

I forgot to mention that yesterday Mike fixed the problem with the battery draining when he forgot to flick the isolator switch. He found a fuse that was on with the ignition on and the engine cranking, but off when the ignition was off. He then put piggyback fuse on this and wired it into the coil. This meant we no longer needed to switch the isolator switch. This was all working well until we drove away.

Now, suddenly the petrol gauge and speedo weren’t working. I make Mike to back to our camp, just in case there were other problems. I didn’t want to get stranded on a Sunday needing a tow. Back at camp he quickly found the problem. The other fuse had blown. Thankfully it was a quick fix and we were on our way.

As I mentioned, we also bought a generator, but it only had a fabric cover and I was worried about the generator getting ruined if it rained or was dusty. So we stopped at Home Depot (Mitre 10 equivalent even down to the orange!) and bought a plastic outdoor storage box to put on our rack.

Mike put it together in the carpark and it was hot already! The storage box wasn’t cheap and it was pretty flimsy to put together, but hopefully it won’t fall apart. We put other bits and pieces in there too, like power cables, fuel containers etc.

Then we were on the road again and it was so hot. We are heading west now, and the sun is coming straight in at us and we are both getting very grumpy with the heat. We eventually made it to our camp at Land Between the Lakes, the same spot as we camped on the way up. It’s gorgeous spot overlooking the lake, but no time to enjoy the view. We collapsed out of the car, it being no cooler outside. First thing we did was dragged our generator out, fired it up, and got our AC running. And thankfully it powered it ok! So we sat inside in the cool until the thunderstorms and torrential rain came. 

Then it was a mad panic to get the generator undercover as it’s not supposed to get wet. But I must admit, standing out in the rain was so pleasantly cooling, I just stood there and raised my arms to the sky like I was praying to the rain gods. Okay, maybe I’ve been in Kentucky too long!

It stopped raining long enough to cook some dinner and pack up the generator properly, then the real show happened. Thunder and lightning, hail, heavy rain, Rodger leaking. It was all kinda exciting and scary at the same time. Then we settled down, played a few games of Monopoly deal, and went to bed.