Returning to Texas
From Healdsburg, California to Fernley, Nevada made up the first leg of our journey east on Saturday, September 12. The 275 miles up Interstate 80 took about 6 hours including a couple of stops. Our cargo trailer, with the weight distribution hitch, towed behind the truck with no issues. We got just enough diesel in California to make it across the border where we fueled up in Nevada at about a dollar less per gallon. We spent the night at the Fernley Comfort Suites before departing on Sunday.
Stopped in Winnemucca, Nevada to attend church at their Calvary Chapel. This would be the longest driving day to Salt Lake City, Utah. We lost an hour when we crossed into Utah and didn't arrive until nearly 7 PM. It took over seven hours of driving to travel the 489 miles and we were both pretty exhausted by the time we got to our room. We were surprised that this hotel cost us less than the Comfort Suites the night before. This was nicer accommodations and offered a wonderful breakfast with made to order eggs available.
Monday morning we fueled up with breakfast and more diesel in the truck with the goal of making it all the way to Laramie, Wyoming some 390 miles further east. This would put us two hours away from our son's house in Thornton, Colorado and arriving one day earlier then we originally planned. We left Tuesday morning, September 15 and arrived by the early afternoon at Erik and Tori's home.
Erik and Tori asked us to watch the grandchildren so they could attend a wedding in Oregon, so we proceeded in getting up to speed on their busy schedule of school, soccer and flag football. By the time I drove them to the Denver airport on Thursday, we had it figured out. Erik let us drive his Toyota Forerunner as the people mover for the five days we had all three of the kiddos.
Thursday night Emery had soccer practice and on Friday and Saturday she had games. The games were about an hour away from home base so I took her to the Friday game while Karen stayed home with the boys. We switched on Saturday and she drove south an hour with her and I had the boy duty. Sunday Karen and Emery went to church and I took both the boys to their first flag football practice and games. Arley is on the Texans and Mattis is a Seahawk. For their first time playing flag football they both looked pretty good. Arley definitely has the "game face" for the sport. We got to the fields for practice at 7:45 AM and didn't leave to return home until after Mattis's game ended at noon. I had a great time watching these two experience playing football.
Erik and Tori returned on Sunday: I picked them up and we had a nice dinner and celebration of Erik's birthday with the family all together. By Tuesday morning Karen and I were ready to hit the road again and get back to Texas with the cargo trailer. Because Tori and the kids were out of the house by 7:15 AM for school, we made a point of getting on the road early too. Our original plan was to take three days to drive the fifteen hours back to Smithville, but I got a little too ambitious and we ended up driving the 576 miles in 12 hours from Thorton, CO on the way to Lubbuck, TX. On Wednesday, September 23 we drove the remaining 441 miles back to Smithville and arrived before it got dark. Eighteen hours of driving in two days was too much and a definite mistake. I paid for it the next day and hope I learned a good lesson about too much driving.
Bottom line, the cargo trailer that we have had in California since November 2021 is now on our lot in the RVICS Village. We can now begin, at our leisure, sorting through all the items we so hastily packed from our home in Santa Rosa and figure out what to keep, give away or throw away.
Some of the items will be transferred into the storage shed on the property. There are things that Karen would like access to periodically but not in the fifth wheel all the time. A large kitchen mixer, sewing machine and ice cream maker constitute many of those particulars. Some of our diving gear, including weights and a 66 cubic foot air tank were moved to the shed as well.
We still have many of the CD/DVDs we got from my dad in multiple boxes that we couldn't sell at our last garage sale before moving. Those will go to the local thrift store along with clothing we don't wear anymore. It's a time consuming process, but we now have the time that we didn't have back then.
Things like our dining room table and chairs, end tables and recliner will stay in the trailer for now. Kitchen utensils, dishes and the like, along with memorabilia like photo albums, will stay in the trailer as well. Once we have gone through it to our liking we will move it over the the trailer storage area on the southeast corner of the village property. That will be its new home in the interim until we eventually get another house sometime in the future.
We are here until our next 2026 RVICS project in November. We will leave for Camp of the Hills, about two hours away in Marble Falls, TX on October 28th to arrive early enough to meet with the Camp Director before our team shows up. The project officially runs from November 2 until November 20th. We are enjoying hanging out with our "village people" and laying low.
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