BIG Rig Travel Days, Quartzsite Road trip. Big Dollars. We Have NO Truck. RV Fulltime. RV Lifestyle

So how far do we have to go? So um a total of about 1850 miles. Just like you're dragging a dead body. Looks like he got a phone call. I feel like Mrs. Kravitz. Oh that doesn't look good. Is that it may be almost night tonight before we can get our truck. Oh no. Let's get this. Survival mode for the rest of tonight. And we have virtually no fuel Got the invoice. I'm not sure Sandra's going to be any too happy about this one. I just started looking at it. Man. Yeah it's not pretty. It's really ugly. This is the big one. We've got these 50 mile an hour winds that are coming through Texas. We got to shut it all down. Our 2024 road trip starts now. Let's roll the intro. Well it has been eight weeks and one day since Orion and Voyager have been reunited. And I'm trying to think what in the world have we done in the eight weeks. I don't know where the time has gone. It has flown by. And we're gonna head on up to Huntsville to spend Christmas with Jordan and the grandkids and our son-in-law. And then we will start 2024. That'll be exciting. Yeah that's right. We're gonna head west. Time for our three-point turn. You've gotten pretty good at doing that. Yeah done it a few times. Yeah so we have to turn in here and then just back down this hill to get to our daughter's house because we have no way of turning around down there. All right here we go. Ready to back it in one more time. One more time. You're really curious to see how those tandems work going on over this little dip here. You're good. You're lined up. Yeah. She's straightening it out. Yeah. Yay. Okay start turning. Man you know it's been almost a year since we've done this. Oh I know. So actually I think we're... We're good? Pretty good. Okay. Jordan had to do it. Whoa. Oh he's got two swords. Yeah what's Kaka doing? I don't know. He's making a lot of noise though. What's he doing? Poke on him. Poke on him. He might not be able to hear you. Poke on him harder. What a burger. What a burger. What a burger. Whoa. Oh so you want me to throw you like this. Yeah. Okay. So who's enjoying this park more? The girls or you? Just got curiosity back from the spa and looks really nice. Brian here in Huntsville did a phenomenal job. Got the scratches out and applied ceramic coating to it. So should keep it nice and new looking for a while. I guess until our next big trip. David just picked up curiosity and brought him home. All nice and sparkly and clean from the day spa. Well David is outside getting everything buttoned up and looks like he got a phone call hopefully from the Volvo service center and the truck is ready today. I feel like Mrs. Kravitz. Oh that doesn't look good. Yeah you would be videoing. Well I've been watching you outside. You've been running around and then all of a sudden I saw you and the girls and then I saw the girls disperse and then I saw you on the phone. Yeah so I decided to call Volvo. Oh you called them? I called them. They did not call me because I was getting a little worried because it's almost four. Almost four o'clock and so the good news is that they're gonna have someone there till nine tonight. Yay! The bad news is is that it may be almost nine tonight before we can get our truck. Oh no. Yeah so they found what was causing some of our lights to come on with the traction control sensor which was a wheel speed sensor. They've got one in stock so yay and they're gonna put some guy on it tonight and hopefully in a few hours we'll get it. So it's gonna be later. That means we gotta load the smart in the dark in the cold. In the dark in the cold. Hopefully we can beat the rain. Oh that's right it's supposed to rain. Yes. Yikes. The Volvo gods do not want us apparently. Oh the grandkids. The grandkids don't want us leaving. Yeah so anyhow a couple hours. Oh man. Got the invoice. I'm not sure Sandra's gonna be any too happy about this one. This is this is the big one. Oh man. One of the things I always do is I check for critters. The other thing we do is a tug test to make sure that we are connected properly and we do it every single time that we disconnect and that is a good test. Didn't drop the trailer. Nothing popped out. Yeah I like that. Heading to Quartzsite and it's always exciting starting our our trip the beginning of the year. It's kind of bittersweet. You know we had a great time with the kids and everything but so that so it's sad to leave but man we've almost gone three months just stationary. Yes. And you know after hitting the road pretty hard with our big Alaska road trip and then sitting for three months now it's it's exciting to be on our next road trip out to Quartzsite. Yeah and back in Voyager and Orion. Yeah. Yeah so that's really uh that's really nice. So how far do we have to go? A total of about 1,850 miles. That's a lot shorter to Quartzsite than it is to Tuktoyaktuk in the Arctic. That's right Arctic you glad that we're not going up there again? Yes. Oh. Couldn't help myself. Couldn't could you? We're going to do it a little differently this year going to Quartzsite. We're going to stop after a couple of days uh for a couple of days uh at a campground. Let us get a little caught up. Very different than what we normally do. Normally we just start and go but we've got some catching up to do after you know three weeks of the grandkids. Now it's time to get some cleaning done and just get caught up on some chores. Yep. Every time we leave our daughters it is bittersweet but it is always a process. Oh my goodness it's exhausting. I mean absolutely exhausting. I think we've got it down. Oh yeah. Pretty good. Yeah. I mean the process kind of flows. Right but it's shuffling. I mean you know we're you know we got to get you know Orion out. We got to get all the cars out of the parking out of the parking lot out of you know their driveways as big as a parking lot but get all the cars out and then so you position Curiosity this time where we didn't have to pull Curiosity out in the beginning. That's right. To take up the whole cul-de-sac but um but yeah just getting the truck hooked up to the trailer and then doing all that and then pulling it out and then pulling the Curious Jeep out and then pulling Curiosity out turning it around. Yeah and and before all of that you know we have to get rid of the smart so we've got a position Voyager to load the smart car you know and luckily it's a cul-de-sac yeah and it was early in the morning so there was no traffic which is great and I don't know if the grandchildren actually helped us. Well they didn't. They were spectators. They were spectators and they did really well not wanting to just like clamber all around us but once we got everything pretty much done and picked up the grandson because our grandson John he loves the truck. Yeah he does. And that was really hard to keep him away from the truck but he did really good. Yeah he did good. So we got everything settled and everything put back in its rightful place and um but yeah but it was two days later. Yeah we uh we were supposed to leave a couple of days ago but that didn't happen and normally we just so every year we take the truck to get the maintenance done on it and you know the oil change filters and that sort of thing and we just say here take it because you know we don't need it right away. Yep and that and we tell them you know fit us in you know if you've got some emergency uh services you do those first. Yeah because I mean we really respect the commercial truck drivers and they they have a schedule to keep so we don't want to interfere with that. Exactly we've got time so but this time I think they literally um took us at at face value. I mean because you called them. I did. I called them like a week before we were getting ready to leave and they said oh yeah we're getting ready to pull it into the shop and it'd been there like a week about five days later and they go well you know your your batteries uh they died they died again they always seem to die there yeah I know it's the third set of batteries we've gotten at this at this service center but we think we've got it fixed we think oh and I called them back again for the third time and they said yeah we're you know we should have a part that we need for this diagnostic that we were doing and oh my goodness and they said it might be ready Thursday and we were getting ready we were wanting to leave pick it up Thursday yeah sort of picked it up on Wednesday and then called him back on Thursday and they're like oh yeah it's not happening it's gonna be Friday and not just Friday afternoon it's Friday night and they said the techs leave at nine o'clock at night so yeah and it kept getting later and later finally it was about 7 45 last night and I called him I talked to the guy that actually did the test drive and he said yeah we we got it and it's it's you know all the lights no lights uh came on and no leaks he says your guys are good we have a really short drive today just to kind of acclimate ourselves since we haven't been really traveling in three months well and that and also too we don't want to feel rushed getting out of our daughters we know it it it takes a little bit of time to get out of there and position everything kids want to come you know help and they want to say goodbye you know for the bad news on this whole thing was the bill yeah yeah so I just started looking at it and oh man yeah it's not pretty it's oh man it is the good really ugly is this is the first time that we've really spent money on repairs so voyager is eight and a half years old and how many miles 150 000 miles 148 000 miles okay yeah so I mean every year we we get the oil change and and they we inspect them so and we actually we we challenge the service centers please find stuff wrong because we don't want to be stuck on the side of the road we like to do a lot of preventive maintenance yeah oh they found some stuff all right oh they sure did they made up for the last eight years yeah yeah but it was big time it was but we budgeted for it and we'll probably go through all that when we do our expenses for 23 for 23 yeah all the whole year of 20 yeah but technically this happened in 24 so this yeah we paid it in 24 yeah we paid it in 24 but it was for 23 repairs that's right anyhow i'll stick at 23 voyagers running great yes and no leaks uh we used to get a warning when we turned it on on our transmission was losing air and it never gave us any problems but it would lose air overnight this morning man the gauges were still tight that was no warnings it was fantastic they had replaced four fittings so not only the transmission fittings but some other fittings they just went ahead and we just said just replace them just get it done nice way to to start our road trip yes so our more in 24 our road trip heading out west we'll see what happens to us i believe you said that hopefully it goes very smoothly it should so anyhow we'll check you guys later so no chesters but that's okay because i still have about i don't know 15 16 tenders left yeah which is kind of pathetic yeah i kind got a little carried away last year when i bought that sounds so long ago it really wasn't i bought 32 tenders but they're so yummy they are good we brought our own lunch today we're just gonna make a quick stop here but i noticed there's an rv stop for campers yeah probably a an actual park rv park but we shall avail ourselves of the truck area for a quick lunch yeah sometimes on these i don't want to say secondary highways but on these highways they don't have an actual rest area so we'll use the truck stop for a quick lunch break normally we don't like doing that only because you know truckers need these spots yeah but midday they're usually always available so yeah we don't mind and besides we're hungry we're gonna have our inaugural lunch oh yeah not what a burger no unfortunately we have our whataburger soda it's been so long so you still got it pressure oh that was a piece of cake you didn't even need to straighten out we are a little long so sometimes our nose will stick out yes all right lunch lunch definitely feeling like a road trip now crossing our first of six states heading out west all right you feeling like a road trip i am yeah okay so if that looked familiar it was yeah you said we were gonna do things differently this year this is what like the fifth time we've gone through memphis i think it's like the sixth time we've gone through memphis yeah really so that's why it looked familiar because it was memphis again yeah we're just not putting the same video on over and over exactly sort of on in a loop you know it makes it easier to edit broken record yeah but so we're getting close to our first stop we are going to do things differently but maybe just not in the very beginning of the trip it might take us a day or two to get something different but yeah traffic was light yeah it was nice and smooth going through memphis so it was good still road construction but yeah no problems yeah so getting ready for our first stop and then tomorrow we'll do it again now are we gonna fuel tonight or tomorrow i think we'll do a little bit of fueling tonight because we're less than half a tank about a third of a tank yeah she might get a little nervous i'm already nervous so there's some cheap inexpensive fuel here in just outside of memphis and west memphis arkansas and then we'll also then fuel up on the other side of dallas and weatherford that looks like it's less than three dollars yay yeah so the tsd app that i've got for uh for big trucks really for anyone that uses diesel is fantastic it lets you know the pricing at that moment for the station so we're gonna get that probably day after tomorrow but today we'll get a little bit of fuel yeah i'll be good make her feel a little better yeah and we have to fill the generator and we got to put some fuel in the generator we got plenty we got like a quarter of a tank no all right we're getting close so get us there safely we have arrived at our destination and i don't remember all this truck parking here last time i don't either i think they've expanded yeah because last time we drove down there and this doesn't have near the potholes in it as last time no it does not but i thought you said we were going to do things differently this year so far it's remarkably similar yeah we just got fuel at the same spot we normally do well so baby steps right on change oh yeah so i think the change might occur a little bit later on in the trip oh okay oh yeah they've really expanded it way down there yeah opened it up literally truck parking yeah so they have rv parking but there's a 12 foot six inch limit yeah so they want certain types of rvs yeah not our type well not even motorhomes for that matter well this is nice man they paved it and they did good yeah they did really nice all right so i want to see how much room we've got you want me to get out and see yeah okay oh man he's got plenty of oh that's not good definitely don't want to run into that thing i'm assuming he can see me stop stop stop stop oh that's close so last night at the casino had a little surprise for you last night we we had a symphony yeah it was two trucks parked on each side of us both were running their engines and generators and stuff we had a symphony of truck engines but the good news is that they were both very constant last night it was almost like white noise and we decided to chime in that's right good job you've been rubbing off on me yeah we turned on the generator for a little bit to turn on the heat pumps and the heated floors because it was pretty cold last night yeah so we were very comfortable yeah truck parking but you know it was quiet it was level well wasn't quiet but it was like say calm but it was a white noise so actually was it was pretty nice and uh and then a little massage with the train uh tracks yeah we felt that is crazy felt the rv move a little bit when it was passing i mean when that's weird can produce has that much power and can rumble the ground that much that you can feel it like a tenth or so a mile away that's that's pretty wild i was wondering what he was doing i thought he was flapping his foot or something like thumper i know i know now we we stayed in the truck parking area of the casino because the rv side yeah has a height restriction they've got a height barrier yeah and six yeah 12-6 so we can't get into there because we're just a tad over 12-6 but that's okay we were level and it was nice so it's a beautiful morning today oh it's gorgeous we we're just talking about we haven't seen the sun in i don't know like a week seems like a week yeah yeah so about 330 miles uh we're gonna get to texas today and so you know what that means no that means probably what a burger for dinner tonight oh my goodness isn't that are we staying by a whataburger tonight oh i don't know you said we're gonna be staying at a walmart it's texas it might be a whataburger i don't know oh man i love being the trip planner new kinds of crops going up this is a solar farm i really like that solar farm yeah solar are you happy about that oh my i feel like we just completed a slalom course they're always weird rest areas exiting to the left this is busy psych wow they are full house yeah oh is this a spot you're gonna be able to make that inches a mile close lunchtime well in case you're wondering why david is holding the gps because it fell because of the heat but it fell down and then it said you're going down the wrong way and now it's reminding us yes not to go the wrong way yeah we will try not to go the wrong way lunch break is over we had a light lunch in light of the upcoming stop tonight that might have a whataburger welcome home we are in our home state of texas yeah now you said that we were going to stop tonight by a whataburger did we stop here once before overnight at this rest area and go to a whataburger uh we did i can't remember how we got there uh we took the truck we unhooked we uh unhooked because that's when we were driving down to uh take the truck to get our bed put on the first time oh that's right yeah so we just had the truck with us cars buses and rvs to the right trucks to the left so we're not staying here tonight not going to stay here tonight no no we're going to stay in a much nicer place tonight so not only did i get some really nice stickers for my journal but in looking at my journal and looking at our big travel forecast we are going to be doing route 66 next fall and look what i found i found this really cool route 66 map which is going to fit nicely in my journal are you sure we put the gps coordinates in right it was the address it doesn't look like nuclear it doesn't look like there's anything near this area it does not oh yeah i i don't know why but i remember this it's funny the little things you remember yes why i would remember this i don't know okay so our second stop for the night we're doing something different since i recognize this place we're staying at a place we've already been before well okay now that is true we've actually stayed here twice before yeah but we're getting in a little earlier than normal okay which is good because i have to do shopping yes i mean i've got some serious high dollar ticket items to get and since this is a low tax rate state i'm okay with that so that's a good thing yeah that's exactly right and this one is very friendly towards us well that's good yeah no barriers or well that and the people at the whataburger in the parking lot that would have let us stay there the night the first time we were here oh that's right that's right yeah we talked you wanted to stay in the whataburger parking lot just so he can say he stayed at a whataburger exactly he went he actually asked him if we could park there that's right the night supervisor and she said yes but then walmart said that it was fine we could stay there so we ended up staying at walmart and plus the the parking lot's not that level this is coming back to me now yes yeah the walmart was more level than whataburger was yeah hey our home for the night i'm going shopping i might run across the street for aldi and then way over there is dinner dinner you ready ready let's do it off across the street about convenience yes let's get us some what a dinner i don't think we ever eat out when we're on the road because we always eat at home but in circumstances like this this is a very special circumstance yes i don't know what the special is but because it's our first day back in texas okay yeah so that calls for celebration and what better way to celebrate than at whataburger oh no he's found more cheerios yes yes well has spinach carrots and sweet potatoes 31 32 33 new flavors oh wait what's this one minis minis well there's still honey nut that's true that could be 34 oh now you're educating everybody on it they're out of control cheerios is out of control and i'm here to document it so now david is texting this to to our daughter his little rant must be known you ready man it's a good thing our home is in the parking lot because i don't know if this would have fit in no i don't think so either unless it was just one of us and um some of it got in the front seat but really so yes i've been saving up to come here because apparently eight and a quarter percent so i saved a couple of percent versus being in alabama and there's no sales tax on food so okay three hundred and thirty seven dollars oh ouch yeah but significantly reduced sales tax and no sales tax on food and at least it was less than the truck no kidding really i'm still not happy about that now this is nice door-to-door delivery can't beat that oh man all right now we just got to lug it up these stairs and then you got to find a place for it oh i already know all the empty spots so we are now completely recovered from alaska yes yes only took three months yeah so a nice stop last night here at the walmart we don't use walmart as a go-to for overnights anymore just when sondra has to do some shopping and boy she did some shopping texas doesn't have any taxes on grocery items so sondra made use of that no doubt about it so what's different on this trip is that we're starting uh stopping excuse me midway out west we're going to stop for a couple nights at a thousand trails near fort worth so we're heading on uh this is a nice stop here not only for the walmart to do some shopping but also because there's a whataburger right across the parking lot that was a good dinner all right we're gonna head on see you guys down the road this was not in the forecast well at least it's not raining or it's not windy that's true it's just very wet at least we're getting all the dust cleaned off yes we are and a bit of a jet wash on the top too so voyager needs that well obviously it is raining outside there's a storm front coming through dallas we're just um just on the east side of dallas so we thought we'd take this opportunity and come to this truck stop and have lunch because it is almost lunchtime let's eat i'm hungry so one of the things that i like to do is i like to make a big pot of meatballs in sauce and then i divide it out into meal sizes and then i'm going to warm this up and then put it on the bun with proglon i forgot i need to put some moths but anyhow so we're going to warm this up and so we'll have a nice hot lunch on this rainy day well this is actually pretty exciting to see 635 all this construction on 635 and the improvements they're making they uh dallas used to focus on the toll roads and 635 is the free road my boss used to say this was the democratic road and the tollway was the republican road wow this is really nice we're right through the heart of dallas here and there's like no one on the road well i mean there's people on there's people on the road but i can't believe how light the traffic is today what time is it nice yeah so we finished our lunch it's what what time is it so 10 after one just past lunch hour and i guess no one wanted to go out for lunch or something but with all the rain yeah but this this is fantastic high five that while we lived here we never got a chance to enjoy it because it was all under construction that's right this is just i just think this is the coolest the high five and we normally come in on 75 so we're on the bottom it'd be pretty creepy to be way up top there on the very top yeah i used to work five miles up the road there and they have the best donut shop there the best first time staying here yes first time and oh my it's not ditches completely on the way well if you look at the map and if we had taken a straight shot it would have been on the way that's true yes last night kahanamoku what kahanamoku okay if you would pull off the side sure coming through thank you oh watch out for this dip right here yeah oh my i don't want to put our rear axles in that oh we can now oh we can we can't oh you should do it just for fun just to do it yeah all right we got our marching orders and uh the process of trying to find a campsite at thousand trails and oh my goodness that is deep can we get a spot got it well do they assign sites no drive around this is a like a normal thousand trails first come first serve uh-huh they only have a small section of full hookup sites yeah so he says he thinks there might be one of those available and then we will 50 amp in the green okay and then these are hollywood boulevard and those are the full hookups might be one available there okay so we just cruise around and see yep so he said this road here really bad take your time and then once you get past here then you're good cool all right let's go find us a spot we definitely need to go through and do a check before opening any cabinets or slides or refrigerator refrigerator anything else so fortunately nothing no glass fell and broke just a plastic bottle there so so before we pull the slide out for the kitchen sondra always checks in the back to make sure there is nothing in the way of the slide and to answer that question that we had can we get front to back with the slides in yes we can a little more difficult after the holiday season it'll be much easier come the springtime well as you can see we have no shore power um david just ran outside to see what's going on we think we might have popped a breaker might have had too many things going on um i'm in the middle of getting all my 24 trackers put together and david's busy watching or he was watching the football game national championship and over the last half an hour so all the appliances were just like beeping and going like crazy oh and i made some brownies too okay you're supposed to we not flip the breaker what's going on no breakers on we didn't trip it there's no power like what anywhere to the whole campground it's dark out there oh well we better we don't see any power like in the distance oh my goodness is that why our everything's been freaking out yes oh wow we don't have any power coming in oh my good well we got to get off the battery oh geez yeah you've been running the dryer the dryer's still on we got to show all the floors are on heat pumps are on let's get this survival mode for the rest of tonight and we have virtually no fuel on the generator yeah and the reason i guess because we've got these 50 mile an hour winds that are coming through texas yeah yikes okay we got to shut it all down okay