Comfort Zones by Jessica Renee Collins

It's good ole Jess, alive and well, coming at you again from Winnemucca, Nevada this time, noteworthy for being mentioned in Johnny Cash's song "I've Been Everywhere," which we actually heard upon exiting Highway 80 to Winnemucca.  Magic, I tell you, pure magic.  Also magic was the girl in what might loosely (very loosely) be called a Winnemucca bikini standing in the parking lot of a Winnemucca brothel alongside our Winnemucca exit smoking a Winnemucca ciggy. Hot. Winnemucca hot.


Speaking of heat, dry heat is a myth and I give you permission to land your knuckles right on the mouth of anyone who tells you that dry heat is better than humid heat--best to keep that lie locked tight inside that liar's mouth, believe me. People don't carry 12oz water bottles around in this part of America; they carry a ONE GALLON JUG of water on their person at all times. People who tell you that dry heat is better than humid heat have a motive and that motive is to motivate you to get your a$$ to Nevada asap but, luckily, you know me and I am telling you the truth when I say that Nevada is not for you. It's not for anyone or anything other than casinos, dirty brown mountains, and low lying scrubby things attempting to be bushes. If you absolutely must visit Nevada in your lifetime (or in your deadtime), visit Lake Mead which is on the way from the Grand Canyon to the Hoover Dam. Lake Mead was drop dead gorgeous and that is literally what may happen to you if you visit it because it's going to be at least 103 degrees out when you see it so bring water dammit.


This leg of the journey, while filled with absolutely breathtaking moments, got all of us out of our comfort zones, most especially me. I am a person who prizes neatness, efficiency, order and I like to anticipate (some say worry about) any problems that may arise before they arise. This strategy helps me keep my life all tucked up and tidy. When a life mess does occur, more often than not I have anticipated its coming and my broom and dust pan are at the ready to set things to rights again without too much disturbance and on I go again. Surprises are a no no; being able to mostly control what happens to me is a yes yes. This past week taught me that while I've done a decent job of anticipating and preparing for what may happen on the road for 35 straight days in an RV with 1 husband, 2 kids, 4 cats, and 2 dogs, I cannot predict everything, especially in Nevada.


Day 8, June 21st: Holbrook, AZ to Grand Canyon, AZ


If you know Bryan then you know that he is a meat eater and if you know me, then you know that I am NOT. Anticipating meat related problems is not in my wheelhouse of "worries" and that is unfortunate for Bryan because he discovered, on day 2 of this trip, that the grill this RV came with did not come with the all important connecting device that attaches the physical grill to the provided grill propane line on the RV. We have made many an unscheduled exit to various stores along our journey with Bryan hoping upon hope that they would carry this coupler device and every time he comes out of the store downtrodden, a meatless Charlie Brown to report the news to carrot munching me that they did not have what he needed.


So, it was with great delight that Bryan found a Camping World in Flagstaff, AZ nearby to our Grand Canyon destination that carried exactly what he needed, or so he thought. We picked up this $35 tube of wonders and pulled into our impeccably clean Grand Canyon Railway RV Park with just enough daylight left for him to attach the tube joining the grill, finally, to the RV's propane source and roast up some tasty animal tissues. Bryan having little to no meat for a solid week is significantly out of his comfort zone. Bryan having little to no luck MacGuyvering things to work is also out of his comfort zone and, sadly, that was the case here because the $35 tube of wonders was utterly useless and would not fit either zone of connection. Furthermore, had we traveled another 100 miles, Bryan would have completely lost his useless grill somewhere in Arizona because it, apparently, was not designed to travel whilst attached to the RV's bumper.


By the time we got to the Grand Canyon, Bryan's brand new grill was clinging to the RV with just barely one weld on its support bar. Bryan's grill, still unused, now travels in our bathroom when we're on the road and is unceremoniously heaved under the RV in a naughty spot to think about its actions (or lack thereof) whenever we camp. He has been able to supplement himself with fried eggs, bacon, weenies, and microwaved Salisbury steaks, and he even managed to wait an agonizing hour or two to charcoal grill a burger up in the mountains of Yosemite, so if you're gnawing on some propaned animal products while reading this, please think of Bryan and send him some juicy vibes.


Day 9, June 22nd: Grand Canyon, AZ


We paid a good chunk of change to ride Coach class in the train that takes tourists on a two hour ride up to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Do not pay for anything other than the basic Pullman class or the slightly upgraded Coach class for this trip because everyone experiences the same thing and those who paid double for the domed cars (with a view!) must have been extremely upset because the only view(!), for the entire trip, was the Arizona landscape consisting of brown grass, dirt, broccoli-sized bushes, and an occasional stumpy tree. The train catches one corner of a glimpse of the Grand Canyon the entire time so do not be bamboozled into thinking that your train rides alongside the actual Grand Canyon and thank goodness it doesn't because that first glimpse of the Grand Canyon is a doozy and you'll want to be standing on your feet in front of it, ready to damn near salute its natural beauty, by God.


The train ride is made shorter by a new entertainer every half hour or so, a Navajo singer/guitar player and a fiddle player were quite good at both their craft and their supply of corny jokes. Where do you send a dog with no tail? To Wal-Mart, the largest re-tailer in town, of course! What do you call a deer that has no eyes? No idear. What do you call the same deer with no legs? Still no idear. What do you call a fish with no eye? Fsh. Har de har, guffaw, guffaw and, oh my, has two hours passed already? No, but here comes your own personal train car assistant to explain to you what you're about to experience and also to encourage you, rather aggressively, to drink some damn water.
Our assistant was really very nice but we either all had a problem hearing her or she had an undetectable speech impediment because what we thought she said was that we could hike down to the bottom of the canyon in about 6 to 8 minutes. Not so, my friends. So, not so.


Released from the train, we climbed about 400 feet of staircase to see the Grand Canyon for the first time, all of us. Bryan and I at 37 and the girls at 10 & 8, lucky kids. I had to wait nearly four times as long to see what they saw! We all had the same reaction though and it was instant: stunning. That word most accurately describes your first sighting of the Grand Canyon so don't let me catch you using it for just any old thing like a diamond crusted Oscar dress or a molded over baloney sandwich because stunning is reserved solely for Mother Nature's grandest feat. The Grand Canyon literally looks like a picture, the most perfect picture ever, a calendar picture, a screensaver picture, and your brain cannot comprehend that what you are seeing is really what you are seeing and your brain, my brain, any brain, cannot swallow the vastness of it and express it to you through your synapses that it is actually real, reality, there, right in front of you, for a good solid minute or two and that is something that I have never experienced before and probably will never feel again.  It's groovy, Baby, and you should do it (because everyone is.)


Bryan and I stumbled along the path in absolute awe, unable to take our eyes off the Grand Canyon or to stop taking pictures of it. Luckily, the girls were paying attention to more than just that vastness and they discovered a quiet little pathway where just against the wall, nearly out of sight, two deer lay quietly observing the canyon themselves and it just added to the unreality because the five hundred other tourists milling about there missed that moment that was right there in front of them. It was grand.


We found our way to the path leading down into the canyon and walked along it quite perkily. It wasn't until we had gone about 15 minutes (not the 6 to 8 minutes our train car assistant had said) that I realized that we were not progressing very far down into the canyon and, in fact, there were an awful lot of able bodied people huffing and puffing their way back up the canyon, moaning and just looking completely exhausted. We went aways further, me all the time pretty terrified that the girls might fall off the path and into the nothingness below even though the path was safely wide, and then, besides the rumble in my belly, I noticed even more fit looking people pass us going back up just sucking for dear life on tubes connected to backpacks full of water, out of breath and looking like they did not belong inside their tanned, toned bodies. We went still further because we wanted to get to the bottom of that canyon, dammit, but when we came to another clearing and saw little ants of people trekking further and further out of sight below us, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we were not going to make it to the bottom of the canyon and it's a damn good thing we came to that decision because the first three steps I took back up the canyon were perhaps the most brutal steps I've ever taken in my life and I had about 3,000 more to go as did my little legged girls and my Mr. Cozy Office Chair 40 Hours-a-Week husband, Bryan. Walking up something that big, at that height, in that heat, is like nothing you've ever done before so drink some water, dammit!


(We later learned that it was 6 to 8 miles to the bottom of the canyon, not minutes. Egads.)


We made it out with lots of "pausing for picture taking" AKA allowing our hearts and entire circulatory systems to catch their freakin' breaths and take in some water dammit and double-timed it to the El Tovar hotel where we inhaled, perhaps even through our nostrils, enough calories to sustain a Triple-Crown winning horse mid-race, including a chocolate taco dessert that my mother was still raving about after her trip to the Grand Canyon several years ago. It was rave-worthy indeed. We walked along another sightseeing path after lunch and reluctantly got back onto the train at the appointed time, but we all wished we had been able to stay longer, especially to see the sunset. Booking a hotel or camping spot that is actually on the Grand Canyon is a good idea, so try it now, while you still have ten years because it may take that long to find an opening.


I must now speak for Storm and Trooper, our dogs, who informed me, through various foul and crude gestures, that they did not like the pebbled/rocky grounds of either New Mexico or Arizona and that I had better get them back into their grassy comfort zones asap. Too bad for them that our next state, Nevada, offered the exact same landscape only in gray. Overjoyed they were not.


Speaking of overjoyed they were not, that is exactly what Scout (the geriatric diabetic cat) was that night when she released her entire bladder onto our bed, right between Bryan and I, at about 3am. Perhaps we looked like we needed more water dammit or perhaps the rapidly changing time zones had screwed with her insulin dosages or perhaps her kidneys suddenly realized that they were 16 years old or perhaps she was ruining our comfort zone because we had ruined her comfort zone by bringing her on this trip, but, whatever the cause, the campground laundry machine was the answer and I fixed that life mess up with a few quarters and an apology to Bryan.


Day 10, June 23rd: Grand Canyon, AZ to Las Vegas, Nevada


As previously mentioned, the only thing you need to know about Las Vegas is that it is unbearably hot. So much so, that the only thing we did for nearly three hours after arriving there was to lie in our RV soaking up cold a/c through pores we didn't even know we had. We had visited the Hoover Dam on the way to Vegas and that trip, while both beautiful and interesting, is sort of like throwing oneself into a Crock Pot that is plugged into a desert.


While I was lying prone in my recently laundered bed, Scout decided to purr herself on up to me and then do a bit of a dribble, dribble right onto my bed again that I had luckily anticipated that I should cover with beach towels and wee wee pads because nothing says romance like wee wee pads. The damage to the bed was nil but the damage to Scout was irrevocable because, be forewarned all ye, you get to pee on my bed only once in life. I'll forgive you. Once. You do it again and you're cut off because I own all 3 Godfather movies and that's how we Italians do.


Scout narrowly escaped a trip to the vet because I could not in good conscious allow her to be put to sleep in that awful Las Vegas heat, so she instead earned a solitary confinement storage cubby with her very own litter box where she has remained ever since rather contentedly. Perhaps that was her aim all along. Well played, geriatric diabetic Scout, well played.


Las Vegas was a disappointment to me because I had envisioned a street filled with those huge lighted bulbs in every color. While our RV park at the Circus Circus fulfilled my expectations, the rest of Vegas was too trashy glitzy for my taste. I wanted mid-century modern glitzy I guess. It was okay to walk around seeing everything, and I made sure that we saw everything because I knew that I had no desire to come back to Vegas ever again, but it was all really just a let down except for the Bellagio fountain which was truly fantastic, especially during our third go around watching it when they played Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." The thunderous rush of all that water is something to behold and I'm glad I beheld.


Day 11, June 24th: Las Vegas, Nevada to Yosemite, California


Well this is the day that efficient, ordered, tidy Jessica completely lost it. We got up and immediately set about leaving the heat of Vegas which is pointless because the heat is Vegas, at all hours, and I happened to notice a strange ticking sound coming from our truck. Tic-tic-tic-tic, subtle but clear enough to me. I mentioned it to Bryan and he couldn't hear it, so I figured that maybe the truck was just a little overworked from all of our daily travels so off we went. Little did I know that we were going to spend the next twelve hours traversing the blazing heat of Nevada, passing two (just two!) gas stations along the way on roads populated with no one and nothing, just mountains staring down at us, daring us to break down right there, 94 miles between civilizations. I also didn't know that we would not have functioning cell phones for 3 whole days, nor did I know that up ahead loomed the Tioga Pass, a death-defying road into Yosemite with few guard rails located a merry 9500 feet straight up. Just one of those factors removes me pretty handily away from my comfort zone, but you multiply them all together, one after the other, after the other, and I panic in an increasingly frenzied manner until it is no longer calm, fore-thinking Jessica sitting there, but split second decision Jessica who should not be trusted.


As we drove through Nevada, a picture of the state does appear in the dictionary under "desolate," the tic-tic-tic noise on our truck got more pronounced, loud enough for Bryan to hear finally. It didn't matter that he could hear it because we were literally in the middle of nowhere and the landscape had looked so similar for about 250 miles that we might as well have just been sitting there in the same place for all those hours rather than moving along and, suddenly, we weren't moving along. The truck's speed fell to 40mph and when I asked Bryan if he was doing that, he looked confused and said no. I know from previous experience that when Bryan doesn't know the answer to something mechanical, I am already in deep $hit and past the point of being able to anticipate what might happen next other than doom. The truck kept getting slower and slower and finally Bryan decided, brilliantly, that we must be driving against a strong headwind. I looked at the broccoli bushes, no help there because they weren't even tall enough to quiver behind a tooting cow, so I opened my window and stuck my hand out; the force of the wind immediately shot my hand nearly into the back seat and I felt better because answers always make you feel better.


We were eighteen miles away from the next town at that point, so I told Bryan to try to keep us going for at least another two miles because it would only take me 4 hours to walk for help if we broke down then. He then reminded me that we had bicycles and once again that made me feel better because I could bike for help in an hour or so, while my entire family shriveled to ash on the side of the road in the Nevada heat.


When we made it to the second of the two gas stations, the wind had died down and we felt renewed vigor because Yosemite was only about an hour or so away and surely we could make it. Besides, the tic-tic-tic just tic-tic-tic-ed and didn't seem to want to do anything more and there was the rather large problem of being out in the hot boonies with not even a mirage resembling an auto repair shop so we went for it. Idiots.


The first section of road was a wonder and a delight to Bryan and the children because it contained five straight miles of "hills." These hills are mountains to a Floridian, straight up, straight down with the added bonus of not being able to see over them so you have no idea if some drunk Yosemitian is heading straight at you from the other side for a nice and quick head on collision that you don't see coming until your head is located in the trunk of the Yosemitian's car. Up and down, giggles, laughter, up and down, tee hee ha ha, look at mom trying not to vomit, ho ho oh, Mom, bracing herself for an impact at every crest for five freakin' miles. Adventurous I am not, not in the middle of the desert with no way to call for help and no one to even come for help in a tic-tic-ing truck hauling 8,000 lbs. No.


We left the roller coaster road behind and traveled along okay for awhile until we came, hooray, to the signs for Yosemite. Nearly there. We paid to enter the park and followed along behind the other cars and I noticed a sign out of the corner of my eye that read, "Difficult for Trailers." I turned to Bryan and asked him what that meant and he shrugged, replying, "Well, there is nothing we can do about it now" and he was right because, coming from the area that we did, there is only one way through Yosemite and it is called Tioga Pass. It might as well be called "Take Your Freakin' Chances." We climbed, climbed, curved, climbed, curved, curved, climbed, at one point Bryan had his foot on the gas pedal to the floor and our truck was going up, up, up at 20 mph. Drop offs to the left, drop offs to the right, experienced drivers ahead and behind, guard rails nowhere and there we are, a family of Florida flat landers driving the most difficult road ever, in the most difficult manner possible, with a tic-tic-tic-ing truck with no breakdown lanes in sight. I tried to busy myself taking pictures of the gorgeous (not terrifying) views that we were surrounded by but all the time I was wondering if we would slide backward down 9500 ft to death, be sideswiped by a stranger off the side of the road and down 9500 ft to our deaths, lose the trailer off a curve and be pulled down 9500 ft...well, you get the picture and it was not pretty.


This went on and on and on until finally we reached the end of Tioga Pass and by that time it was dark, nearing 9pm and we still had another 30 minutes to go to reach our campsite. I thought that once we exited Yosemite, we would find civilization and flat land. I was wrong. Continued nothingness, continued mountains, continued curves, this time with bonus signs reading 8% grade. Tic-tic-tic, it was no longer the sound of the truck, but the sound of my mental abilities. I continuously looked at our GPS, at the miles to go, at the minutes to go, and I swear that it was not changing. We must have had 20 miles to go for a good 2 hours and I started counting to 60 and then looking at the GPS to see if a mile had ticked off yet. When it hadn't, I counted to 360 and looked again.  Aha, 3 miles had ticked off in that time so I counted to 3000 and looked again. Still 8 freakin' miles to go so I just kept counting and counting and willing us not to fly off the side of a mountain in the dark and had Bryan looked over at me right then, I am quite sure that I looked very much like a drooling zombie because I know that my mouth was hanging open and that there was nothing going on in my head other than counting and counting again. Rational thought, gone; want to get there safely now, its replacement.


I nearly cried when the GPS announced that we had arrived at our destination and we went bumbling along a completely black road and I'm looking at all these RVs to the right of us and Bryan just keeps bumbling along going straight and I completely lost it because he had driven right past the campground, right past safety and sanity and now we were stuck in Podunk land with no place to turn around and dirt driveways every few feet. Instead of stopping and consulting our GPS (which would have told me that we could have continued on that road and eventually looped around back to where we belonged) I immediately commanded Bryan to get us the hell back to the campground NOW by pulling forward into the nearest driveway and backing us up. Well, he tried. The left side tires of our truck fell off a mini cliff while the trailer threatened to back into a tree and then fall off its own mini-cliff and by that point Riley is screaming and wanting out of the vehicle.


After spinning the truck tires in the air for a few more seconds, Bryan pulled the truck forward onto land again and I got out into the blackness to help him even though he could not see me back there in the least. Mind you, as I'm out there in the Yosemite wilderness, the pamphlets they had given us at the Yosemite fee booth are ringing in my mind because, besides identifying the sites we could see, they also had numerous warnings about mountain lions and bears nestled amongst other death warnings like hidden waterfalls, hiking exhaustion, falling rocks, and hypothermia. Bears can smell cars full of food over 3 miles away and we had quite a smorgasbord going on in the truck alone not to mention the RV. Bears also enjoy roaming in the dark and they very much like people who are alone and there I was, alone, in the dark. My other choice was a truck, or an RV, both of which were soon sure to fall off a cliff. Great times. 


Bryan magically got that tic-ing truck and the RV set on the right path again after perhaps a 21-point turn and the screams of Riley subsided. We pulled into the RV park at around 10pm and a man on a golf cart led us to our sight in the darkness.  Lo and behold, our spot was a nice pitch-black area with a steep drop off to the rear and a steep drop off to the side. Oh, Joy! And, just about that time, as Bryan was trying to figure out how to wriggle us in there, our worn out, been driving twelve hours in the friggin' mountains and headwinds truck starts slipping and sliding in the gravel down yet another "hill." I politely asked the golf cart man if he, perhaps, had another site that would not threaten our lives for the umpteenth time that evening and he immediately took off in his golf cart for flatter grounds, correctly sensing my sliver of remaining sanity. 


Day 12, June 25th: Yosemite, California


This day didn't start out much better for me because I was dreading the meandering and steep drive back to Yosemite and then the terrifying drive within Yosemite itself. It also didn't help to learn that the area we wanted to see in Yosemite, Wawona/Mariposa Grove, was 1.5 hours from the entrance to Yosemite and our campground was .5 hours away from that and oh, if you'd kindly recall, our truck was tic-tic-tic-ing! Bryan agreed to take the truck to a mechanic in nearby Groveland even though he was eager to see Yosemite, perhaps also sensing my sliver of sanity. Groveland is tiny, teensy-tiny, and the one mechanic we found who was open was already busy enough for the entire day even though it was only the morning, but he looked at the truck, heard the tic-ing, added some oil, and told us that Ford's engines shift all the oil to the back when going up inclines so that was probably what had happened. He told us to find the Ford dealership 45 minutes away in Oakdale when we were heading out and to just baby it for our time in Yosemite. I immediately wanted to drive right then to the Ford dealership because the tic-tic-tic-ing and the threat of breaking down in a mountainous, cell tower-free, bear-filled region was making me batty, but Bryan convinced me that all would be well, that it just needed an oil change, and that we should just enjoy our time in Yosemite and go to the Ford on our way out.


Yosemite is overwhelming, at first, to navigate, but once you've stared at the maps long enough and meandered around, it is quite easy, except that you should, under no circumstances, stare at the map while your husband is driving around and around and back and forth and over and up and down and through, and no guardrails there, and straight down there, and oy! I have never experienced car sickness before but the Yosemite roads got me this first day and I had to clamp my hands on both sides of my head to keep my brains in. We eventually got to Mariposa Grove, where the giant Sequoias are, and oh my gosh are they amazing. Trees, up, up, up and thick, thick, thick all throughout the forest, silent and sturdy and thrilling to see. We paid for a tram tour and thank goodness we did because we were able to see all of them and hear their history and stories. Truly a wonder to see something that has been there nearly 1800 years and will still be there another 1,000 years more. My favorite was the Faithful Couple--two sequoias that had grown so long and so close together for so many years that they became one whole tree. Majestic.


Day 13, June 26th: Yosemite, California


This time, I looked forward to going to Yosemite. Bryan had a handle on the curvy, mountainous roads and was, in fact, driving on them like James Bond, Bryan James Bond; I knew how to navigate the entire park without looking at the map and the truck was going to live to tic another day, so Bryan packed our bikes onto the truck and we headed for Yosemite Valley, only about an hour away this time. There are paved, traffic-free bike paths all over Yosemite Valley and it was easy for the girls to keep up with us on their bikes because there were a lot of downhill breathers which they loved coasting down. We went first to Mirror Lake, an absolutely enthralling bit of lake that is precisely a mirror, perfectly reflecting Glacier Point mountain and all the scenery surrounding it, even the tiniest of leaves. Truly mesmerizing. We did a bit of hiking and rock climbing from there; Bryan and the girls made "rock snowmen" in an area where there were already hundreds of snowmen precariously balanced all over the place and, even though it was man-made, it was quirky enough to grab your attention for awhile.


The girls enjoyed pushing my limits by straying from marked paths to crawl along rocks near (as I had been warned in my Yosemite pamphlets) swift-moving, cold water or climbing up huge boulders that may or may not have housed mountain lions and bears eager for a sweet treat walking alone.


We finished exploring that area after a couple hours and the girls had enough energy remaining to bike to the Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, beautiful! Water sounds like the Bellagio only much more peaceful. We also biked to a swinging bridge over a large swimming lake located next to a meadow bordered on three sides by mountains. You could not take a bad picture anywhere in Yosemite Valley and it was a great family day spent in nature. Definitely either bring bikes or plan on renting them if you go. The other tourists walking around (with their gallon jugs of water) didn't see a third of what we did because everything is very spread out.


Day 14, June 27th: Yosemite, California to Folsom, California


I was mighty pleased to leave the Yosemite area and that terrifying Tioga Pass because I anticipated  traveling down a mountain for just a bit to flat ground. Wrong again. Leaving Yosemite is just about as terrifying as arriving in Yosemite except that the curves are bigger and there are more of them. Down and around and down and around the mountains you go and Bryan deserves a sainthood for handling all of that and me at the same time. It took us three hours to reach Folsom where Bryan's college roommate, Jeff, lives with his wife, Lisa, and their adorable girls Sydney & Caitlyn.


We utilized the Folsom Ford dealership straight away (we also had squeaking brakes at the point--can I get an amen?!) but were told that we had to wait three days for a specialist so we zipped over to a Goodyear service center instead. The diagnosis for the tic-ing truck ended up being a build up of carbon in the engine and there is not much we can do about that except to stop driving so much in the freakin' mountains.  Right-o. They gave us an oil change and instructed us to pick up some fuel injector and to buy the highest grade of gasoline for awhile at Chevron which includes Techron. (The timing couldn't be better--buy the most expensive gas in one of the most expensively gassed states, California? Right-o! Kill me now.) The brakes were also a result of mountain driving and there wasn't much we could do about that except to stop driving so much in the freakin' mountains. Right-o, 10-4, I got you, Babe.


Jeff and Lisa made a home-cooked meal for us that included tri-tips, Bryan was in meat heaven! and Riley really enjoyed them too. That girl looks like me but eats like him--traitor! Our girls were especially thankful to be playing with girls, in a two-story house full of toys, just like theirs back home in their comfort zone and the adults talked and caught up from the years between sightings and it was just good times and nice to feel normal again. Folsom is also a beautiful, family-oriented town with tons of bike trails as well as a road called "Riley St." Perfection!


Day 15th, June 28th: Folsom, California to Winnemucca, Nevada


The astute reader, and Johnny Cash fan, will note that we went from Folsom, of Folsom Prison fame, directly to Winnemucca of "I've Been Everywhere" Man fame. Winnemucca is fun to say but that is about all I can tell you about it because we have been cozied up in the RV since arriving at the campground a few hours ago. Bryan is asleep on the couch in front of the TV, which is on, the girls are in their room playing happily together, and I'm writing this at the dinette table while all the animals snooze comfortably. It seems that we have unconsciously returned to our normal comfort zones. Woot!


I'm not sure what lies ahead for us, but I know that it will be memorable and that we will face it together. It better not include mountains.

Days 11-14

Day 11 (Vegas to Yosemite)
The only drive more boring and plain than west Texas is the Sierra Nevada.
We didn't break down.
We didn't run out of gas.
Driving the Tioga Pass at night across the Yosemite National Forest is amazing, scary, slow, and stressful.
There is no cell coverage or Wi-Fi which I think is by design.
Towing a trailer up the mountain is very hard.
Coasting a trailer back down the mountain is scary.
I found out that I can do a 7 point turn on a 2 lane road with a side of gravel road pulling a 35ft trailer without getting stuck.
I don't want to do any more 7 point turns on 2 lane roads. Ever!

Day 12 (Yosemite day 1)
The giant seqouas of the Mariposa Grove are amazing.
The park is humongous!
It is a 2 hours to get to the grove.
(Tip) Gas is 50 cents more expensive in the middle of the park.
Parking fills up fast, but they have free shuttles, not to be confused with paid for tour trams.
The open roof tour was pretty awesome especially since that would have been about 3 hours of walking.

Day 13 (Yosemite day 2)
Biking through the Valley is probably the most fun I've had on this trip so far.
Mirror lake is low on water, someone should really fill that thing up.
El Capitan is really high, especially from the ground.
I said I could hike up.
It would take me a week :)
This place brings a new meaning to the term Big Rocks.
My kids like climbing on rocks.
Jessica doesn't like the idea of our kids liking climbing on rocks.

Day 14 (Yosemite to Folsom, CA)
Nice drive.
Nice city.
Nice people.
Nice Wal-Mart.
Nice college friends to visit.

On to the famous town of Winnemucca... "I was traveling down a dusty Winnemucca road... I've been everywhere man, across the deserts there man..."

Days 8-10

Day 8 (Petrified Forest to Williams, AZ)
There is as lot of desert in Arizona.
Williams is a nice little town.
The Camping World in Flagstaff has no parking for RVs.
We saw a tumbleweed, it was tiny.

Day 9 (The Grand Canyon)
There are no words to describe the Grand Canyon.
I took over 140 pictures.
It looks different every few feet.
Squirrels are very tame here.
Hiking down is worth it, the canyon looks better from inside.
I can't imagine riding a donkey down.
I can imagine Jessica looking at me like I was crazy if I suggested a donkey ride anywhere.
"The Train" was cool. It took us from Williams to The Grand Canyon National Park.

Day 10 (Williams to Las Vegas)
The town of Seligman was said to inspire the movie Cars. I think it was the concept only because it really didn't look like the movie at all.
The Hoover dam is huge.
It is 103 degrees.
They don't let you park RVs close.
Riley and me walked down to see. The way back up was harder.
It is 103 degrees.
Jessica finally saw Vegas.
We were all out until 1am to see stuff.
The Bellagio fountain is cool.

Yes, Day 7 is missing.
Not sure what happened with that.
I had to think for about 3 minutes to figure out today was Tuesday.

The "Go Everywhere Trip" by Jessica Renee Collins

Hello again, my friends.  It's Jessica, located 5000 feet above and 3 hours behind where I normally dwell, so don't blame me for wherever this goes. 


I'm in our RV at a KOA campground in Holbrook, AZ and the nicest thing I can say about this area, besides the fact that I haven't yet run into any rattlesnakes, is that they have a phenomenal radio station: KSNX 105.5 if you ever find yourself here. They've played more Michael Jackson songs in 3 hours than I've heard in 13 years in Jacksonville, FL.  (In fact, I bet you $3000 that 95.1 WAPE is playing "Talk Dirty to Me" right now in Jax, at whatever time you're reading this.  Just donate my winnings to St. Jude's, thank you.) 


KSNX played Marvin Gaye's "Got to Give It Up" while I was cooking dinner and let me tell you, spaghetti has never been so steamy.  I cannot hear that song without picturing Sam Rockwell dancing to it in Charlie's Angels at the precise moment when you realize that he's actually a bad guy...a very, very bad guy.  Men, if you don't do anything else in life, make sure that you dance when the opportunity arises.  Nothing you do is sexier, believe me...unless you're also cleaning or putting the kids to bed or grocery shopping while dancing and, if you can dance like Sam Rockwell does in that scene, well then...


I digress! We have veered far, far away from my present here in the Holbrook KOA and its various sizes of pebbles that make up the entire campground topography, but now I do have to mention that it is 10pm here on Friday, June 20th, and KSNX just played the National Anthem and went silent.  Silent!  Astounding. We may have actually driven back to 1983 this week which is okay by me because, as far as I know, that is when I started having some semblance of a bucket list containing my desire to see all of the 50 states before I die. I was 6 years old and either on my way to or from Disney World when I saw an RV painted with one of those black outlined maps of the United States and all the states those lucky people had visited were filled in, solid and unchanging: purple, orange, green, turquoise; it was beautiful and I wanted a map of my own someday and wouldn't you know, 17 years later I married a guy with his own bucket list dream to own an RV and 14 years pass and now we've got two dreams justa melding into one with a coupla kids, 4 cats, and 2 dogs along for the ride. This is our "Go Everywhere" trip according to Jordyn Collins, recently 8, and she couldn't be more right. I've been more places in one week on this trip than I've been in 37 years and I am very, very thankful.


 Day 1, June 14th: Jacksonville, FL to Lillian, AL


This leg of the trip was noteworthy because we were still packing the RV until 2:30pm on the day of departure...apparently packing for a 5 week trip takes a while, who knew?  Also noteworthy, Riley's 2 year old cat, Thunder Princess, hates, with a passion, Scout, the 16 year old geriatric diabetic feline who was doing her best to be a good passenger by sleeping the hours away. Not good enough for Thunder Princess, no. Thunder Princess was pissed that Scout had the audacity to sleep, ever so calmly, right by her own ticked off countenance so Thunder Princess smacked Scout, repeatedly, out of a dead sleep. The resulting caterwauls that occurred between the two of them for the next 20 minutes or so added a pleasant ambience to an already stressed out Bryan who had determined on this first leg, that the top speed for dragging a house behind your vehicle containing everything you need for 5 weeks, is around 55 mph and oh, by the by, you get around 10mph for gas mileage. Can I get a Woot! on that news? Anyone, anyone?


Day 2, June 15th: Lillian, AL to Ruston, LA


Ah, Father's Day! Sure to be a delightful day because here we are on Bryan's dream excursion in his dream RV with his dreamy wife and children and pets.  Nope.  The day started at 7:30am with Bryan repeatedly slamming the door to the RV, hard. Slam, slam, SLam, SLAm, SLAM, SLAM, SLAM! The noise, shockingly, wakes Jessica up and the words that stream out of her mouth are nowhere near close to, "Good morning, my love. Happy Father's Day and do you, perhaps, need a little help with the door there?" Nope.  Her actual words are too filthy for your eyes so we'll skip that part and move on to the fact that Bryan is slamming the door because we arrived at the campground late the night before, in the dark, and he did not have time to level the RV properly so the door tongue is not lining up correctly with the door hole and, oh, by the way, while Bryan was trying to exit the door at 7:30 in the morning, both dogs thought they were accompanying him on his task so they bolted, leash-less, out the door and out of sight. Grand times.


Let's just skip ahead an hour or two to our departure because surely things got better for Bryan, right?  No.  We got everything loaded and unhooked, all 10 hearts accounted for, and slowly pulled away from a campsite we hoped never to return to. As we're bumbling along the exit street, we hear our neighbor, a shirtless, jean-shorted, permanent camper, scream out, "Whoa! WHoa! WHOa! WHOA!" We felt nothing, we saw nothing, but still we stopped and Bryan got out to find that he had hit the tree next to our campsite with the back left corner of the RV and narrowly avoided ripping our bikes right off the bike rack. Happy Father's Day, Bryan! I, unfortunately, could not get a picture of the wounded tree or the two bare-chested permanent camper guys yacking over Bryan's shoulders as he tried to rectify this situation, but there is a pic of the RV's damage and, although it is sad, it is a badge that every single RV bears as near as I can tell and its a wound that Bryan won't ever forget or ever repeat.


His Father's Day continued along that same train with more caterwauling from Scout again being abused by Thunder Princess and then, in Jackson, Mississippi, after the most horribly bumpy roads we've ever encountered, a frantic passerby just honking and hoNKing and HONKING at us, pointing at the rear of our RV. So, Bryan pulled over (at an exit! not on the side of the highway!) and we found that our bikes had just about bumped off the bike rack right onto I-20W. 


Day 3, June 16th: Ruston, LA to Dallas, TX


We spent a wonderful (fabulous! stupendous!) time camping at Lincoln Parish Park in Ruston, LA which consists of a gorgeous lake surrounded by a 1.5 mile bike/walking trail and a swimming beach & this seemed to be when we transitioned from "we really don't know what the hell we're doing" rookies to "we've got this $hit" confident campers. We had lunch in Shreveport with Bryan's family and we left the pretty state of Louisiana intact, no incidents or mishaps for an entire state!


Day 4, June 17th: Dallas, TX


Our entire family liked our time in Texas the most so far on this trip, one week in.  I could not get over the continuous breeze we felt while there. All day long, it felt like the Florida sea breeze and I was absolutely shocked to find that feeling in a place that contained no beach. It was wonderful and I could have stayed outside feeling it for all time. I later learned from an employee at the Dallas Arboretum that we were apparently in Dallas on a freakishly gusty day because, he said, their usual weather is hot and still. So, I'm thankful that we were there when we were and I am choosing not to believe him that Dallas isn't windy at all times on all days.


I had read about the Rory Meyers Children's Adventure Garden, part of the Dallas Arboretum, in Family Fun magazine and I knew that it was a place we needed to check out on this trip. We were not disappointed. We seriously could have spent the entire day there and still not done everything in the children's portion of the arboretum and we only caught glimpses of the rest of the arboretum but what we did see was seriously impressive. Gorgeous and well-kept flowers, trees, grounds, fountains, waterfalls...I need to go back and spend two days just to see and experience everything and I am not even a flower person. This place has got it going on and you should get yourself going on to get there. The children's area is very focused on hands-on learning--plant growth, alternative energies, math & patterns in nature, it was nice to experience a city investing so much in the future of America and, speaking of America, all over Dallas, there are American flags flying large, high and proud and damn they looked good in all that wind.


In Dallas, Bryan got some firsthand knowledge of what the girls and I are really like in his first full day traipsing around with us instead of being cooped up safely away with his codes and his computers. We sing songs, the girls and I. Not just any songs either, these are homegrown songs. A current favorite goes like this: "Seven-eleven, seven-eleven, seven-eleven, SLURPEE STORE!" This one must be sung 18 times in a row because, you see, 7 plus 11 is 18. Another favorite goes: "Fif-ty states in the Uni-ted States, fif-ty states in the Uni-ted States..." and this one must be sung 50 times in a row because you see, well you know, and you can imagine the horror on Bryan's face after an hour or two of us singing these.  Apparently there is a select audience of 3 for these tunes.


We visited Dealey Plaza after the Dallas Arboretum and I can't really describe exactly how I felt seeing the podium where Zapruder took his film of Kennedy's assassination, the grassy knoll, the book depository, the two x's on the road marking precisely where JFK was shot, the closeness of the overpass where he would have been home-free had he only made it there, the other two roads they could have taken to reach that plaza. It was sadness and anger and black and white made real. Definitely a place I would recommend that all Americans experience.


We also visited the JFK Memorial Plaza, a 30-foot high, four-walled open tomb, and the Belo Garden in the downtown area where the girls played in spray fountains for a few hours, having a blast with two "little while" friends. All around us people worked in office buildings; I would have absolutely hated us if I had been looking at our scene through those office windows. Hours to spend doing absolutely nothing but enjoying life.  Grand indeed.


Day 5, June 18th: Dallas, TX to Amarillo, TX


The northwestern part of Texas is definitely nowhere near as nice as Dallas. Fort Worth was downright ugly to drive through and I would not spend any time at all visiting there if I were you...unless it is to dance with Sam Rockwell.


Amarillo was quirky, with a great KOA, and I got the feeling that no one took themselves too seriously there, especially when I saw the shuttles taking people to the "World Famous Big Texan Steak Ranch." The shuttles were limousines from back in my day--big, boxy, and bad a$$ made even more so by the longhorns attached to the front. Killer!  We had to check out this Steak Ranch where people can eat a 72 oz steak plus sides and a drink for free if they complete the task within the hour. We saw three people attempt the feat, but none of them made it past 48 oz of steak ingestion.  The restaurant was kitsch to the hilt and we loved it. The girls got free cowboy hats with their meals and Riley had her milk delivered in a blue plastic souvenir boot. Our drinks were served in plastic cups that described the history of the place and the current record holder for the steak-eat, a 120 lb woman who consumed two of the steaks in one sitting--her first only took 4 minutes and she got both down in 14. Incredible...you tube that $hit; it's for real.


An oddly cold rain fell on us in big droplets as we left the restaurant and it later hailed with whooshing winds and crazy lightning in the middle of the night, so Amarillo definitely knows how to keep you entertained.


Beware that all of the exit ramps on Texas interstates are also entrance ramps, maddeningly frustrating even when not pulling a giant house behind one's vehicle.


Day 6, June 19th: Amarillo, TX to Albuquerque, NM


We picked up a few cans of spray paint from our Amarillo KOA gift shop and headed to exit 60 on I-40W, previously known as Route 66 (where you get your kicks, if you recall,) to a roadside attraction known as Cadillac Ranch--10 Cadillacs aged between 1949-1963 buried halfway in the ground at the same angle as the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. America at its finest, I tell you. We were thrilled to see it and I can't explain why other than it felt like we became interlinked with American history.


Due to the aforementioned hail storm during our night's slumber, the Cadillacs were disappointedly all submerged in calf-height mud and virtually unreachable. Riley's Nikes quickly turned to adobe bricks and I, being a clean freak, was rather horrified and spent much of my time there trying to figure out how we were not going to permanently scar the RV or my car with Cadillac Ranch American History mud. Riley, inexplicably, cried when I said that we were just going to throw her shoes into a nearby dumpster and buy her new ones. (She won that argument and is now wearing faintly brown and odiferous Nikes cleaned by Dad with a campground garden hose.)


Jordyn managed to cross the mud moat on a small board leading to the most westward Cadillac and she nestled inside its belly there painting green happily with Riley following up in red. Bryan eventually made his way in there as well and painted "Crazy Collins RV" in green letters on a red background. The dude is cool. I painted a quick streak of green from a safe distance away and then we expelled the rest of our paint drawing our names and random pictures on the dry part of the ground, in a field, in the middle of a highway, in Texas. It doesn't get much better. 


Day 7, June 20th: Albuquerque, NM to Holbrook, AZ


Upon entering New Mexico, I couldn't believe that I was actually in New Mexico when less than a week ago I had been in Florida where I had spent a big 35 year chunk of my life living life away. Every rock formation we came across, a butte? a mesa? a mountain? a mazing! just looked like it had been sitting there waiting patiently for me to finally get my booty in gear to come and see it. The landscape is nothing I've ever seen before in my life and while it's interesting and a novelty, it's not something I would crave to live amongst. Trees, bushes, grass and other greenery are hard to come by and the plants they do have here and in Arizona look harsh, pokey, frazzled, dry, and just plain scraggly. Not happy trees.


We had just a short amount of time to look around Albuquerque and since one of my all time favorite television shows, Breaking Bad, was filmed there, I knew I had to see a piece of Walter White for myself. I consulted my secret source (code name Google) and found the actual address to Walter White's house which features prominently in the show. I could not believe that I was driving the same streets that he did, especially when I went down the road he so often went down and stopped in the place where he and so many others stopped to survey his house. Unfortunately, the current owner of the house was standing there in the garage, under a bank of security cameras, so my plans to grab a pic of myself in front of the house looking all blue-meth-like were thwarted. It was still so very cool to see in person and if you're a fan and in Albuquerque for longer than I was and among other Breaking Bad fans (Bryan referred to it as Ron White's house and I almost had to axe him), I would recommend taking the Breaking Bad trolley tour which takes you all around Albuquerque to the major sites from the show, including Los Pollos Hermanos and the car wash.  Good stuff.


My secret source also informed me that there was a kick-a$$ roadside attraction in Albuquerque called Rock Snake. It's a 400-foot long diamondback rattlesnake sculpted from rocks and it's just about the coolest thing ever.


And so, my friends, here I am again in the Holbrook KOA with a silent radio and nine of the ten hearts sleeping cozily in our RV and more stories and memories to come starting tomorrow. I feel like we've already had a full vacation everyday of this trip so far and we still have four weeks to go!  Unbelievable.  We are so very lucky and the memories the girls are going to carry with them of their crazy Collins family...makes a mama tear up a little or that could just be road dust or animal fur.


Tonight, Riley and Jordyn played with seven other random children at the Holbrook KOA playground, going down a steep metal slide into a pile of pebbles over and over and then just spinning and spinning on a rusty old-time merry go round, playing a game where they tried to retrieve flung flip flops from the ground as they spun and they all just laughed together and had a ball and I wish life could always be like that for all of us.  Keep dancing, my friends!

Days 4-6

Day 4 (Dallas to Amarillo, TX)
The roads in Texas are beautiful, if only it was easy to get or stay in the proper lane without being forced somewhere else with little to no warning.
There is a whole lot of nothingness west of Fort Worth.
Hay rides with the family are still fun.
The Big Texas Steakhouse 72 oz steak is ginormous.

Day 5 (Amarillo to Albuquerque)
The Cadillac Ranch gets muddy after an all night downpour.
New Mexico is very mountainous.
I wish there was a way to stop and see the big rock snake.

Day 6 (Albuquerque to Petrified Forest,  Arizona)
Arizona doesn't celebrate daylight savings, so it is actually the same as Pacific time right now.
I'm amazed my family let me play Monopoly with them.
The bikes are still secure :)
No more trees were damaged.
This trip has been so much fun and i can't wait to see the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

The first few days

Day 1 (Jacksonville to Pensacola)
It's hard to pack for 34 days!
There is no such thing as leaving on time for long road trips.
It isn't easy setting up camp in the dark.

Day 2 (Pensacola to Rustin, Louisiana)
Resident campers like to give you their unsolicited "wisdom".
Dogs like to run around without leashes.
RV parks don't like it when dogs are not on leashes.
Trailers have a tail swing when you turn and new drivers may hit small trees on the way out.
Trees can withstand impacts pretty well.
The road quality in Mississippi sucks!
Bikes like to jump around on crappy highways.
It is smart to lock bikes to racks so they don't fall of.
I am pretty smart.

Day 3 (Rustin to Dallas)
There are some places in the world that don't have cell coverage or wifi.
Living "disconnected" is nice as well as stange/helpless feeling.
I remember little of life without smart phones.
I thought my memory was pretty good.
People are generally extremely stingy when it comes to letting people in during a forced lane closure.
You are dependent on the few courteous people in the world when you drive a house around.
Everything looks pretty much the same size in Texas as it does anywhere else.

We are having a blast. Jessica will post the stories later, these are just a few observations from me the last few days.
Until next time
...  Bryan