Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Texas

"This is a long post"
We decided to take off for Texas a week an a half ago, to attend a home school conference. You can read about it here www.ati.iblp.org. 
 Dad found an...alright RV he bought just for this trip. We could fit in it for traveling, but there wasn't enough sleeping room, so we hooked a trailer on it and put mattresses in the trailer.
Here we are, ready to take off!
But there was a problem...we just made it out of our driveway and it died. With just flipping a little reset switch it started back up!
And away we went! 
Sonya eating some yummy cookies a kind friend made for us. Thanks Wendy! They were great! : )
Nevin
We are nearing Cincinnati Ohio...

Cincinnati
Entering in to Kentucky.
I guess there wasn't any pictures taken in Kentucky. But the RV did die on us a number of times...
Now crossing the line into Arkansas
Nevin taking up the wheel..
Enspite of the irritating problem of the motor just dying on us while rolling down the highway, Mom drove through half the first night, and then pulled off into a truck stop and we slept, got up around 5 AM and Dad told Nevin to fire it up and start rolling...Nev went to do so, but he just put his hand up to turn the key and he looked down to realize he was holding half the key, and the other half was still in the ignition! It just topped it all off! We couldn't do much but laugh, and figure out what we do next.
Dad dug out the other end of the key, and Nev ran in the station to see if they could make up a new key..No, they don't do that here, but there is a Lowe's about 10 miles down yonder that can...Next question. How do we get there? We have no key! Well, Dad just tore out the ignition and made so he can start it with his Leatherman. How clever! 
So away we went...Until the motor died again...here we are sitting along side the highway, and dad is trying to start it back up.
The girls coloring...
It gets kinda boring traveling, so you gotta make it fun some how...Kelvin.
Kurtis got his own sunglasses to! Only he forgot about them when the sun was shining... : )
We was almost to the TX line, and we stopped at Wally World and Dad got some chicken...
TEXAS!!! Notice at the bottom of the sign it says, "Drive friendly-The Texas way"? Well, due to our problems of the motor, it appear to be a electrical problem...So we couldn't use the turning signals or else the motor would die. Sounds weird right? Yeah, and you know its not to friendly when you don't use your turning signals.
Nevin and Samantha
Samantha, Kelvin, and Serena
Big Sandy Creek! That means we are almost there!
Alert Academy means, WE ARE THERE!!!
We arrived on the day of Kurtis's 3rd Birthday. He loved all that sand.
 The kids went and got some fire wood that they have there for folks like us that forget to bring our own. Ha.
 
 We set up camp, and dad built us a nice camp fire to roast hotdogs over, for supper.
This is the sunset the first night. :)

Since we got there a day early (surprisingly) we had a whole day of fun!
Sonya swinging on a rope
And Serena swinging on it too
Kurt, Sylvia, and Sue on a walk around the campground.
Mom and Dad walking the long walk to the Convention Center to register.
Registering.
This is the path we walked along ever day about a dozen times or more.
They had big bike racks for people that was smart and brought a bike along. (We weren't any of those smart peoples). Sigh.

Between sessions, they gave us a 15 to 20 minute break, in one of those breaks, Kenny and some other guys decided to play some wild game. Kenny became the victim, and had a bad crash, he scraped his shoulder, face, left arm, and both hands. And broke his left pinky finger.
Dad is a pretty good doctor. : )
We all had to wear name tags.
They had where children of different age groups are on different teams or classes. Kelvin and Keith was in Alert Cadet.
Can you spot Kelvin in there?
Susanna and Sheila were in Commit. This is them and their teacher and another girl on their team.
Sylvia, Sandra, Nevin and Kendal just went to what they called 'Student sessions'. In the afternoon, Sue and Sheila would join them at the last session...
In the evening, the whole family would be together for a session.
This is a little cute girl with Sandra. Her name is Emily. : )
Kelvin and Keith on their team in the morning.
Sylvia, Susanna, and Sheila
Kenny with his broken pinky, Bible, and Dr. Pepper.
Eating supper.
Sonya, Samantha, and Serena went to Children Institute (CI).
The last day of the event, they had each class go up and sing and quote verses they learned together that week in class. Here are all the CI children going up on stage. 
(Samantha is the one in the white and blue, and Serena is the one on the right end of the picture, in the green).
There they all are!
They did hand motions to the songs and verses they sang and quoted.
Now the Commit girls went up and sang.
Here the Alert Cadet guys are lined up at the back, and with a shout from their leader, they shouted back and ran to the front, and all the sleeping babies...well, lets just say they was no longer sleeping.
They also sang and quoted verses.
Nevin :)
This here is the Bate family, they have 20 children. They sang some songs...(Don't be confused, that's the choir behind them)
Now for the trip home! We left right after the last session on Friday evening. We was driving for only 1hour and Dad realized the motor was getting really hot, we pulled of the road out in the middle of no where. And found that the fan belt was totally shredded. Oh great. So we sat there trying to see if there was any stores open that was close by. Nope! There was nothing open at 8:00PM in TX except for the rodeo. Well, this kind cowboy stopped and offered some help. He called up a buddy that had a buddy that had a such store we could get a belt. It was very kind of that guy to open up his store at 10 pm and get us a belt. Till they got it delivered to us and on, it was 11:50 pm till we was rolling down the road again.

But that wasn't the only problem. Driving all through the night we made it to TN. Nevin was driving and mom ask him why he was going so slow. Nevin said, its losing power it won't go any faster...he was going 40mph and the speed limit was 70mph. Wow. So then dad said the fuel filter must be plugged.
So we drove till we found this Napa store. and got a fuel filter...
The next thing was, we needed to find a place out in the country to change it. So we drove a few miles and got off another exit that went out in the country...There stood a church, and a nice parking lot. and so we parked and went to work. At 8:00Am. Saturday morning. It was a Baptist church, but The Seventh Day Adventist rented it on Saturday. So now what!? Yup. they sat some of us in church that morning. While Dad and Kenny worked, and tried to get the motor home to start back up. We sat there for a hunk of hours. Till finally they got it started and we was on our way...
The church
In the church parking lot.
Dad cross starting it.
 
Cincinnati Ohio.

Well, the fuel filter wasn't the whole problem. We still could only go 40 to 50mph. So instead of it taking 17 hours to get home. It took us 22hours.

We are happy to be home at last! It was a unforgettable vacation trip.

2 comments:

Maria said...

LOVED all of the pictures!!! And the story was grand. The kindhearted cowboy was pretty cool. Some adventure!!!

Audrey said...

That was a great post!!!