A Wonderful Trip

We made it back from our trip to WI. We had a wonderful time. I am definitely airplaned and helicoptered out; although Nico says he is not. He had so much fun trying to find particular planes he wanted to see. He had about 15 books he had checked out of the library that he and Luca browsed through on the drive up. He also brought his little back pack with him full of his die cast helicopters and airplanes. Luca and him spent a lot of time playing with these.

Speaking of the drive, the boys did fabulous in the RV. Nico spent a few hours watching some DVD's on the mini player and Luca took a nice nap, as did I. I even took over driving for a while so Mike could stretch his legs. We were able to drive straight through as we had the bathroom to use and made lunch while driving. It brought back so many great memories of when I was a child. (The trip home was a bit different.)

Nico only had one melt down when we wouldn't let him spend all his money on the first day for a big set of airplanes. We hadn't even seen all the tents (which sell all the same stuff). He cried for over an hour as we had to drag him along as we walked back to the camper. It is quite unusual for Nico to throw a fit, especially for so long. He was grounded for a day of not buying anything. Eventually we let him buy his items but he couldn't open them. It drove him crazy. Finally we talked about why he couldn't get them and why he was in trouble so he understood what was going on. I feel like he learned his lesson. He is usually one thrifty spender, but was so excited to buy new planes and be on vacation he wanted it NOW! I can so relate!

Other than that, the trip was without tears and screaming. The boys played around the camper in the evening. One night we went to the outdoor theater and watched part of "Six Nights, Seven Days" with Harrison Ford. We even got to see Harrison Ford as he was there. Unfortunately I did not bring my camera to the event, so have no pictures of him. We were hoping to run into him throughout the week but never did.

Our journey home gave us a little of an event, we had to replace a tire. Mike went to fill up the front tire and a huge bubble came out the side of it. He knew there was no driving on it, so we pulled over to a truck stop and he changed it out with the spare tire. He had filled the spare before we left so it had air in it, but as we were driving it was slowly leaking. We pulled into a little town to get some new tires when he realized the spare was a 16" tire and all the other tires were 16.5"....oops, a problem with two different size tires on the front and of course, the place we stopped at did not have 16.5" tires. So, Mike swapped the spare out with one tire in the back (there is a double axle), so the two front tires were the same size. The tire continued to lose air. We drove a few more hours and then used our handy dandy GPS to locate a Super WalMart and prayed their tire service was still open. It was 6:10pm and I just knew they closed at 6pm....we were lucky, they were open until 8pm and had a 16" tire for the spare (but no 16.5"...apparently not a common size anymore!). Anyway, we replaced that tire and carried on!

When were an hour from home, Mike stepped on the brake and said, "UH-OH!",,,I don't like those words associated with the brakes...He said, "We lost the brakes on one side, but it's okay." Eventually he stopped for gas and found that a brake line was leaking. He tightened it up, added some brake fluid, we bled the brakes, and all was well. Half an hour later we were at home.

For those that know me and my family's wonderful vacation excursions as a kid might find this humorous. We always had a break down on our trips. Mom would get so mad and swore she was not camping again! I am so glad I have a man that knows how to fix these things and I give him the award for the fastest tire changer ever! He had those tires swapped out in no time flat. He got us home safely! I also feel his grandpa was watching over us. The RV is the one his grandpa and grandma used. I am sure his grandpa was smiling down on us and watching our journey. I am sure he is happy it is being used and we are loving it!

I will take RVing over dealing with airports, airplanes and airfare any day! Especially with the kids.

I took 335 pictures of our trip and just downloaded them today. I did not have time to do any resizing or modifications to them so I could post them. I can't do any of that at work so I will make a new post later this week with some of the pictures.