Get Us Out of Here!

We are officially done.

We left early today because we had kind of a long journey ahead of us. Also, I wanted to get some laundry done. Also, I wanted to ship some things back so we didn't need to carry 400 things with us all around Vegas, and through the airport, and through baggage, etc. It sounded like such a good plan.

I got up at 8 a.m., prepped the RV, put Bryce in bed with Teresa, left Sam sleeping on the couch, and started the RV. As I drove to the dump station to empty our tanks I heard a sickening gurgle from behind me. It was loud and worrisome. I quickly stopped — I was only ten feet from our site — and walked back to see what that sound could have been. I was now also interested in that curious aroma that seemed to be getting stronger the further back I went. Familiar with this scent I first checked the bathroom envisioning walls coated with fluids and semi-solids collected over the past few days. 

Nothing.

But that smell...I turned around and the shower basin was half-full of a brownish water, not unlike what you might find in the creek behind your home, if your home was built on a sewage treatment plant.

It took a few beats before what I was seeing clicked in my brain. We had so filled up the waste tanks that as I moved the RV the motion pushed the water up through the shower drain. A foggy memory of this fact being explained to me during the "Intro to RV'ing" talk I received on Day One came back to me. Fortunately this was the gray water, only sink and shower water, not the water-that-shall-not-be-named water. Unfortunately due to the premium on space in an RV, we had kept our dirty laundry sack in the shower basin. This meant a sack full of dirty laundry that was now dirtier. And wetter.

OK, not a problem. We had planned on doing the laundry as we left this camp so we could ship some of it back home. We'll dump the waste tanks, head to the laundry 100 yards away, do some laundry while the kids tour the visitor's center, and be on our way. 

I returned to the drivers seat and slowly drove to the dump station. I dumped the tanks without incident. The earlier commotion woke up Teresa so she cleaned up the mess in the shower and we drove to the laundry. Oh wait, the entire complex lost power and will not reopen until 3:30 p.m! And we have bags of wet smelly laundry just waiting for the day's heat to ripen them into a big ole stink bomb. How lovely.

Where is the next nearest laundry? There is one on the way out of the park but it takes us about 15 miles out of our way. We decide to go there because I don't want this stench to go any further.

Bad decision #1. GO TO OTHER LAUNDRY.
After driving through a set of harrowing switchbacks on our way to this other campsite with a laundry, we enter a road not meant for a vehicle of this size. I continue down because I can't turn around. We scare some drivers coming up the road and arrive at our destination, Lake Hume Christian Camp. Hmm, no mention of that little tidbit on our park map. No problem, we can handle a few hundred teenage Christians performing syncopated clapping and walking around with acoustic guitars at 9 in the morning. We will just do a few loads of blessed laundry and be on our way.

No we won't. Apparently young Christians don't wear many clothes at camp because the washers hold one bathing suit and a t-shirt. Back in the RV to head up this tiny, twisty road to where we left the main road on our way to Barstow. That was an hour wasted.

Our trip today takes us through many towns. There will be a laundromat in one of those. We drive to Visalia, a town just at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, NOT an onion. There is a laundromat and UPS store here. Great! After an hour of baking in the parking lot while the washers eat our money the nasty clothes are clean again. Hooray! Off to the UPS store.

Bad decision #2. DON'T CALL AHEAD TO THE UPS STORE.
We drive to the UPS store. I climb out and find that the store is closed. Locked up. It is 3:30 on a Friday. The sign says they close at 5:30. And this isn't "Moving my car so I don't get a ticket" closed. This is locked up, lights out, gates drawn, closed.

Okaaaay. Let's drive to Bakersfield, a larger city, which also has a UPS store that we have called, and is open. We enter Bakersfield and find the UPS store easily. We pack our things and walk them into have them shipped.

Bad decision #3. EXPECT TO SHIP THINGS FROM COAST TO COAST FOR RELATIVELY LITTLE MONEY.
I own a business. I ship things. I am not a total idiot. TOTAL idiot, I said. I expect to incur some charges for shipping the items and clothes we will not be using in Vegas for the next two days. I do not expect that delivery from CA to VA will cost $220.00. GROUND delivery. Just for ONE SUITCASE! Holy crap! We decide toting a bag or two through the airport will be fine if it saves us about $500. We do ship a few things that we really can't fit into our luggage, so that is a relief.

We hit a local ice cream store that is supposed to be fabulous and the kids really enjoy getting out for a little while.

Bad decision #4. SKIP AHEAD ON THE DIRECTIONS.
We head out on Route 99 South looking for I-15. This is a fool's errand. You see Rte. 99 and I-15 don't intersect. Never have, never will. As we drive out of Bakersfield towards LA (we are now only 90 miles from the City of Angels) we realize we have missed an exit. We have missed all of Route 89 that eventually leads to I-15 in Barstow. Another hour lost. Did I mention that gas out here in lovely CA is running about $4.29 a gallon for mid-grade? And that we are beyond our prepaid mileage by about 100 miles?

Bad decision #5. MISREAD DAILY MILEAGE FOR DAY"S JOURNEY.
And did I also mention that I thought I only had to drive ONE hundred and eighty miles today, when in fact, I need to drive TWO hundred and eighty miles, and I have just gone about 100 hundred miles out of my way today, and its 6 p.m., and I am still 150 miles from my destination? No? I didn't mention any of that? Never mind then, it really isn't important.

What also isn't important is my boorish behavior after all these bad decisions. Let's just say the miles driving through the desert at night were peaceful and quiet.Very quiet.

So here I am at 4 a.m. We have found our KOA site right alongside of I-15. We have cleaned the RV. We have packed all our belongings. We have thrown out all our food. We have done this because we need to get to Las Vegas and return the RV by 10 a.m. I am thinking we will leave here around 6 in the morning. I really don't want to sleep because I know I will wake up more tired than I am now. I wish now we hadn't shipped all the DVDs earlier today.

Bad decision #6....