Wyoming Road Trip with the Koch Family

Day 1 – Wyoming Road Trip                                                                       June 9, 2012

This road trip has been planned for many months.   David and Chelsea wanted the family to visit them in Cheyenne.   Larianne’s children want to travel so I helped them get outfitted with a travel trailer that would fit their family.   They found the perfect RV, a room with 3 bunk beds for the kids, a large space for the kitchen and lounge area, and a large master bed that expands out the rear of the trailer so when it is closed the trailer is a small size to go on the road.   Since we planned to go as a family (5 Koch’s and 1 Old Guy) we decided to tow the trailer with the Motor Home rather than use 2 vehicles.   The kids looked forward to traveling in the motor home and Larianne looked forward to having her “own place” for the rest of the road trip.   

So the plan was in place.   I went to Larianne’s on Thursday June 8, hooked up the trailer and checked everything out.   I stayed that night in the motor home and the next morning at 7:30 am we were off on the Wyoming road trip.   I had tried to plan ahead for the route to Cheyenne and where we would be staying each night.  Plans do not always work out in reality.   The plan was to drive across California, Nevada, Arizona, and stop at St George Utah the first day.   12 hours on the road including stops (traveling at 55 to 60 MPH).   Robert helped me drive and learned a lot about towing a trailer.   The first part of the drive went well until we got to Las Vegas.   Robert was driving and we found ourselves on a freeway that was like LA Traffic during commuter hours.   Robert learned how to handle a motor home towing a trailer in commuter traffic !   I did not take any pictures during the first day because the route was nothing to write home about.  

 

Here is a picture of the “rig” so you can see what we looked like going down the road.  The kids really did like traveling in the Motor Home.

Now here is what really happened on the first day !

Larianne had a really good idea for preparing meals on the trip.   We both brought our electric crock pots.   Lari prepared a roast meal complete with potatoes; we put it in the motor home bath tub, connected it to the AC inverter in the motor home and drove off.   With the crock pot on low it used only about 150 watts of power and would slow cook all day long.   We planned to stop at a rest stop on the way about 6:00 pm and dinner would be ready.   Then a little drive more and we would be stopping for the night.    Good plan – right !!!

About 2:00 pm we were driving along with the crock pot cooking, Lari’s and Spencer’s computer plugged into the AC inverter and the batteries in the motor home and the trailer being charged as we drove.   The low voltage alarm went off on the AC inverter.   I checked out the problem and found the motor home was not supplying any power to the inverter or the RV batteries.   As we were moving I could do nothing but turn off the AC inverter and hope the dinner was done enough.   The RV batteries were a different concern.   About an hour later after trying to think of a solution I checked the charging circuit again and found everything working.   It looks like we overloaded the power from the motor home, tripped a reset able circuit breaker and after it cooled down power was restored.   At that point we plugged in the crock pot only and it all stayed working.   We stopped about 6:00 pm and had a very good dinner.

The next part of the plan was to stay at a Pilot Travel Center in St George Utah where they have RV parking for travelers.   First of all the travel time did not work out exactly as planned.   We pulled into the Pilot Travel Center at 9:00 pm.   Everyone was ready for a nights sleep.   The travel center had been changed and no longer had RV parking.   The alternative was a Walmart parking lot at that time of the night.   The closest Supercenter said the city would not let people stay overnight.  The next Walmart was several miles up the road so with anticipation we drove on.   This Supercenter was receptive to travelers so we parked, set up the trailer (pushed the bed extension out the back) and all got to bed about 10:30 pm.   A very long and adventurous first day, but we were on our way and on plan for the first day travel distance.

Are you ready for the “reality” of the second travel day !!!