The task ends, the play begins!

Colorado Sunset

We spent our first 7 days of this road trip hauling a trailer and pickup truck full of "Stuff" that just wouldn't fit into my Daughter's rented moving van.  Then we passed the next 7 days enjoying the scenic wonders and historical sites along the crooked path home.  This trip marked our 15th and 16th weeks away from home this year, encompassed some 4100 miles, 14 days and 13 states.  We have travelled well over 14,000 highway miles so far this year with a couple of months to go.  I'll date the posts so they will eventually appear in the correct order.

Day 1: Thursday October 14, 2010

We hit the road to North Carolina to see what we had gotten ourselves into - 300 miles and 5 hours later we arrived at Trish's house, hooked up the trailer and began loading.  Jeff and Karissa came to help load and with everyone doing their best, we were loaded by 5pm.  I never would have believed how much we were able to get into the trailer and the truck bed.  A short trip across town to spend the night with friends Jim and Carolyn Hatchell - the rig held together but felt sort of "Soft" - needed air in the new tires.

We stayed up too late visiting, eating Thai food and just enjoying the company - slept like rocks!

Day 2: Friday

After Jim prepared a great breakfast, we aired up the tires and hit the road for home (it is on the way and the bed is confortable.)  The rig felt much better with the tires properly inflated and we had an uneventful trip back to Loudon.  There was a rather loud sucking sound going up the mountain - just the truck letting us know that if we were going to drag an extra 6000 pounds around, we had to feed it lots of fuel on a regular basis.  Arrived in Loudon about 4pm.

Day 3 & 4: Saturday, Sunday

Left home around 7:30am and arrived in Marion, Illinois at 2pm Central Time.  We hooked up with my aunt Ivolene and began the 2 day family reunion - click the link if you want to see more about it.

Day 5, 6 and 7: Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday

Left Marion about 8am and arrived in Kansas City, Missouri to visit and spend the night with Mary's Brother Tom and his wife Maxine.  We arrived about 3pm had a great, though short, visit and met their Son Brent.  Tom & Maxine have become friends (not just relatives) and we lamented that they weren't traveling with us to Colorado.

Tuesday drove across Kansas and stayed the night in Goodland.  Wednesday we arrived at Trish's new home about noon (Mountain time).  We got unloaded and picked up the kids at school, waited for Will to get home from work and hit the road for Colorado Springs (they didn't need us hanging around in the way while they were in the process of moving in) - took the sunset picture above - crashed and burned!

The stuff is in Colorado, the trailer is safely back to U-Haul and we slept in Colorado Springs.  The play part of this adventure begins with the next post.