Day 36, 37, & 38 - Made it to Colorado!

 We packed up Friday night and left Saturday morning. I'm posting pictures of what it entails to get ready to travel. Everything that was put up, must come down. We have a toy hauler for the motorcycle, so that needs to all be arranged to fit the bike. We keep a lot of overflow items in bins under the RV when we are stationary, so those also have to come into the RV garage area. All of the shower items need to be placed on the floor, the bathroom doors need to be strapped open, and the shower door needs to be latched. We can generally break down in under two hours, and then set up in under two hours. The day between destinations is just a little jumbled.

It's hard to tell when packing if everything is secure and will be where you put it during the drive. There are other factors, besides us, that play into how everything is during the ride. Like if you have to have a hard stop, or sharp turn. When we arrived at our spot in Colorado, some items fell off the beds and landed on my plants. I wasn't the happiest, but things could have been worse. 

We stopped overnight in Kansas at a KOA. The place was very nice for our one-night stay. While we were driving from Oklahoma to Kansas Shakira let us know she needed an oil change. She also let us know we were low on DEF (Deisel Exhaust Fluid) and would be reducing our speed in a certain number of miles. So, we did what we thought was right and filled it up. That is evidently the WRONG thing to do. Silly us, right? The way the system works is you have to wait until it tells you to fill it up, otherwise it doesn't reset and will continue with the error message. We googled everything and found out that you can clear the code by hooking it up to a computer. After the oil change (at 7am) Brandon went to O'Reily to buy a computer and do just that. Except it didn't work, and the more expensive one didn't work, and nothing worked. Brandon being Brandon, started chatting with a tow truck driver who had a friend that knew all about this. His solution? Keep pouring DEF in and it will have to reset itself. Brandon filled it up even more and came back to the KOA so we can hook up and go. At this point the truck gave us essentially the exact number of miles, give or take 40, we needed to get to Colorado before it would reduce our speed. So, we risked it for the biscuit! While driving we kept seeing the miles go down (on the dash warning you cannot clear so you just have to keep looking at it) and we just nervous laughed. We stopped to get gas and Brandon once again overflowed the DEF and then the most amazing thing happened. It cleared! We were back on track with our DEF level being "OK". Onward and Westward, we went!

Due to the oil change and computer searching we left Kansas much later than anticipated. This put us as getting to Colorado around 3pm, but that was fine, at least we will get there! 

Yesterday's drive was a big day for another reason. I finally put on my big girl pants and drove! We pulled off at a rest stop because that is the easiest and most direct way (as in no turns). I got in that driver's seat, Alanna fearful that I was going to be terrible, and drove that rig like miles per gallon don't matter. I was chasing the time I guess and adjusting to paying attention to so many things while driving. I dropped our average all the way down to 6mpg in the hour and half I drove. Brandon got back in to finish our trip and fixed it really quick; back up to 9mpg. But, hey, I drove! I went forward and made two left turns into a gas station. Excuse my unwashed hair and travel look.

We arrived, quickly set up, and Dana come over! We are close enough for my sister to come over! It is great! Dana's friend from high school lives 25 minutes away from where we are staying and invited us over for dinner. It was a really great evening, with great people! I love seeing Alanna interact with her Aunts. They all seem to get on the same level, and just have so much fun. There is truly something magical about the bond between Aunt and Niece. 

Today's agenda is to get ourselves set up for the week by grocery shopping and settling in a bit more. The area we are in, Loveland, is expected to be around 100 degrees today, so we are going to check out a local lake this afternoon. We are going to have to get used to being in a high desert; it is very dry here. The swing of temperature is also going to be an adjustment for a bit. Although it will reach 100 today, it started out in the 50's and will go back down into the 50's. Great sleeping temperatures!

Things we learned:

• The person(s) that designed the DEF system could have spent more time thinking it through
• Colorado is HOT, and yet cold?
• Don't store things on the happy jack beds while traveling if they are not strapped down
• Socks will try to defend us before Bruce does

Much Love and Happy Times,

The Blackshire's

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