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!