Pistachios, Caves and Family....

When I started this blog back in the summer and began logging our adventures, I never intended for this blog to end when we arrived in Texas.  In fact, the blog did not even get us all the way into Texas, ending just across the Arizona border in New Mexico.  In the future, I will try to update our family's progress as we have adapted into our lives in the Lone Star State. 

In the middle of nowhere between Alamogordo and Tularosa, NM, we stopped to see the world's largest pistachio.  The gift shop also sold local wine.

Yes, we did eventually make it to Texas, driving the long way through White Sands and Roswell (Day 28), where we met some aliens, and Carlsbad Caverns (Day 29), where I walked down the Natural Entrance with all five of the children, carrying Jonathan and holding Daniel's hand all the way down.  We met Jenny at the elevator.  She didn't feel comfortable walking through the Natural Entrance because her foot had begun hurting a day or two prior and she didn't know if she could make it.  When we met her at the below-ground gift shop, we started walking around the Big Room.  The older kids walked with me, while I took turns with Rebekah holding Jonathan.  Jenny walked with Daniel around the Big Room, despite seething pain from her left foot.

At the end of a long day, driving through wilderness, we were disappointed by Roswell's few shops that all seemed to sell the same things.

From Carlsbad Caverns, we drove south through the Guadalupe Mountains, stopping for the night in Van Horn (where we unknowingly ate at a Mexican restaurant that is a favorite of John Madden.) When we hit the interstate leaving Van Horn, (Day 30) the speed limit was 80 miles per hour(!!) until we turned northeast, up to Midland/Odessa, then east to San Angelo where we visited our friends the McSpaddens, Kevin and Nancy, who each were instrumental in our wedding.  (Nancy was more instrumental than Kevin since she played the organ while Kevin was only the preacher, twelve and a half years ago.)

The next day (Day 31) was the worst day of the entire trip.  On our way out of San Angelo, we drove to Dublin, Texas to visit the famous Dr. Pepper factory there.  When we got out of the RV, I discovered that my camera was nowhere to be found.  I texted Nancy to see if they had found the camera.  She told me that she would check when she got home from work.  So we toured the Dublin Dr. Pepper factory without my camera.  I took some pictures on my phone, but they were not nearly the same quality as if they had been taken with my Nikon D80.

Leaving the Dr. Pepper factory, we kept driving toward Dallas, but we stopped again after an emergency in Stephenville.  I had to stop pretty quickly at a traffic light when an ear-piercing shriek bolted Jenny upright from the front seat to the middle of the motor home.  The ear-piercing shriek was Ben screaming because Mario, whose cage was unsecured behind the sink, flew forward, glass crashing into the steps.  Mario, it turned out was fine, but we stopped for several minutes to sweep and then vacuum the glass out of the coach.  By this time, we were sure Jenny's foot was injured.

Finally, hitting Fort Worth in the midst of heavy traffic, we drove up to Denton and back down to my mom's house.  Mom took Jenny to the hospital where they confirmed that she did have two broken metatarsals in her left foot, and we parked the RV outside my mom's house for the night, the kids and I sleeping in her living room.  When I picked up Jenny from the hospital, we all wished we had found an RV park to stay in for the night, but the way it turned out, it was a pretty miserable way to end a pretty miserable day.

Then, (Day 32) we spent most of the morning fighting with Tricare.  They wanted us to get a referral from our primary care provider (PCP) before we could visit the specialist clinic, podiatry.  However, it was still the middle of October and I wasn't signing into post until November 10th.  A PCP wouldn't even be assigned to me until after then, at which point we could likely expect a normal two-week delay getting the appointment.  Jenny was only in a poorly-constructed brace from the emergency room.  She needed care and the clinic the emergency room referred her to did not accept Tricare as an insurance provider.

Also, on that day, we found a very nice RV park that is literally just a mile or two from my mom's house and we picked up the van.  We had Mom and Leslie, Kathy and Brian out to the RV park that night, where we'd set it up with the mat outdoor furniture so that everyone could enjoy our home.  Kathy took Rebekah home with her and Mom and Leslie took Ben and Kimi, so we were left with just the babies for the first night.

David's mother, Betsy, sitting outside the RV at Destiny RV in Corinth, TX.

The next day (Day 33), Mom watched the Daniel so that Jenny and I could have a date with just Jonathan.  We ate lunch at Macaroni Grill in Lewisville and then visited Half-Price Books.  In the evening, everyone came back to the RV park and we collected our children.  The best thing about this day was how relaxing most of the day was.

On Day 34, we attended church with Mom.  Leslie, Kathy and Brian all attended, and the music minister, Ed Miller made a point that we were all in attendance.  After lunch, we ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant that Kathy and Brian frequent, followed by the drive down to Killeen.

Since Jenny had a broken foot, Mom and Leslie offered to drive down with us, three vehicles together in caravan, Leslie driving the van, me the RV, and Mom picking up the rear in her sedan.  Aside from frequent potty breaks from Kimberly who rode in the van and had grown accustomed in the RV to going en route, the trip was relatively uneventful until we arrived in Killeen. 

The first RV park we tried to stay at was on a shady side of town.  We didn't feel comfortable, so we kept going, looking for someplace else.  It turned out that most RV parks didn't allow people to stay for only one night and we weren't sure where the park was on Fort Hood.  As it turned out, we turned around and left the Killeen area completely; I knew I'd seen a RV park in Temple that looked nice and I was intent on going back.

On the way back, before we got to Belton, Leslie called and told us she was having some trouble with the van, that it was not responding appropriately when she pressed the gas.  We misunderstood her, thinking she was just having trouble because it is such a big car and it was getting to the end of a long day.  Arriving in Temple, we had taken the lead when we got a call telling us that Leslie did not have any power left in the van and had managed to park it in a parking lot somewhere in town.  We had to drive the RV back in a huge circle and finally found them.  (Mom had followed Leslie off the freeway.)

We had to call a tow-truck and when the driver arrived, he guessed the problem was with the transmission, giving us the contact information for a local transmission repair place.  It turned out that we wound up renting two hotel rooms for the night, one for us and the boys, the other for Mom and Leslie and the girls.  Nowhere in town had two adjoining rooms, but we did get an over-sized handicapped room because of Jenny's broken foot.