The Disastrous Conclusion of our West Coast National Parks Trip (National Parks Trip #3)

This post represents the FINAL installment in the series documenting our West Coast National Parks trip in the summer of 2017.  Alan and I, along with our 18 year old daughter, Kyra, logged a total of 8,513 memorable miles of adventure over the course of five and a half weeks during the months of July and August.

Those of you who are long time readers may remember that, on our first day out on this West Coast National Parks trip, the transmission on our GMC Sierra failed, necessitating the purchase of a new 2017 truck over the phone with our local dealer and a quick trip back home to drop off the old truck (still under warranty!) and pick up the new one.  Luckily, we were just one day from home and this grand fiasco cost us only two days out of our five and a half week trip.  Well, go big or go home.  Why not bookend the trip with equally disastrous catastrophes to make it especially memorable?

Theodore Roosevelt National Park was our last official tourist stop.  From that point on, we planned to travel four full days to home.  Early on Day #36, we left Cottonwood Campground in the National Park, and headed east across North Dakota.  Lake Carlos State Park in Carlos, Minnesota, was our destination for a quick one night stop.  Coincidentally, the sales rep at our GMC dealership who handled the telephone purchase of our new truck earlier in the trip was none other than Carlos.  So, of course, we sent him a postcard from Lake Carlos.  But, I digress.  As we traveled through North Dakota, we were completely taken aback by the acres and acres of sunflowers we were passing along the highways.   Some quick research led to the discovery that North Dakota is #1 among the 50 states in the cultivation of sunflowers – to the tune of 518 MILLION POUNDS of them last year, alone!  Wow!  Who knew?!

Acres and acres of gorgeous sunflowers in North Dakota!

Day #36 went smoothly.  Day #37 did not.  We had driven through Minnesota, crossed the state line into Wisconsin, and were a little more than10 miles down the road when a passing motorist signaled that we had a problem with the travel trailer.  When Alan pulled off to the side of the interstate, we discovered that one of the wheel bearings had failed, damaging both the tire and the axle but, incredibly and thankfully, not the travel trailer.  YIKES!  That was a lot of smoke!  And it was very apparent that we weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.  A quick call to Coach-Net (think AAA for RVers) had them searching for a tow truck and repair shop for us.  Several hours later (are we having fun yet?), a truck from Jerry’s Truck and Trailer Repair in Roberts, Wisconsin, arrived on the scene.  The driver determined that he wasn’t going to be able to tow the trailer due to the damage to the axle, and he quickly devised a plan to get us back to their repair facility at Exit 10 - conveniently just over the state line from the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.  He strapped up the bad axle, and had us limp down to Exit 16 (luckily, a very short distance away), swing back around to head west again and get off at Exit 10.  Jerry’s was literally right at the exit.  Thank heaven for small favors.

Jerry's Truck and Trailer Repair - Roberts, Wisconsin

By this time, we were closing in on late afternoon, and any thoughts of making our reservation at a State Park in Illinois were long forgotten.  Despite the fact that Jerry’s was a busy service station with a full calendar, the kind and helpful staff there took a look at our trailer right away.  At first, talk turned to somehow procuring a new axle – which probably would have taken at least two weeks, requiring us to leave the trailer in Wisconsin and return for it once the repairs were completed.   Then, someone suggested contacting “the axle whisperer” in the Twin Cities.  Seriously, that’s what they called him.  Apparently, repairing an axle is quite a specialty, and this guy had the gift.  However, due to his excellent workmanship, he was in high demand, and we were told he probably wouldn’t be able to fit us in anytime soon.  But the staff offered to give him a call.  In a scene right out of a Christmas miracle movie, he agreed to help out the poor, stranded travelers if the staff at Jerry’s could get the axle to him the first thing in the morning.  We even offered to drive the axle there ourselves, if it would help, but the staff at Jerry’s said, “No way!”  Apparently, “the axle whisperer” worked in a sketchy part of town, and they didn’t want their customers to be wandering around in that area unsupervised.  The staff formed a plan: We could spend the night in our trailer in the lot there at Jerry’s.  At 6:00 a.m. sharp the next morning (Day #38), Alan was to pull the trailer into one of their service bays and leave the trailer there.  They would remove the axle and run it into Minneapolis, pick it up when it was repaired, and bring it back to their shop to reinstall it.  Based on the schedules for the two shops, the staff was pretty sure they could have us fixed up as good as new and back on the road by 5:00 p.m.  Wow!  (Couldn’t wait to see that bill!)

You’ll notice that the state of Wisconsin is colored in on our map of the United States, indicating that we had spent at least one night in Wisconsin in our travel trailer.  Family rules regarding the map dictate only that we have to sleep somewhere in the state – not necessarily in a campground.  It could be a Walmart, Cracker Barrel or Cabela’s parking lot or even just a highway rest area.  As long as we sleep in the trailer, it counts for the map.  We have never spent one single night in Wisconsin (yet), except for the night we stayed at Jerry’s Truck and Trailer Repair, but we did sleep in our trailer in Wisconsin and you can bet that we colored in the map lickity-split. 

Our stunning view of Interstate 94 from our "campsite" at Jerry's

After getting up at o’dark-thirty to be sure our trailer was in the shop at 6:00 a.m., we had the rest of the day free.  The staff at Jerry’s promised to keep in touch, so that we’d know when to head back to the shop to pick up the trailer.  Life handed us lemons.  Did we make lemonade?  No – we went shopping!

The Mall of America - One. BIG. Mall.

The Mall of America in Minneapolis was less than 45 minutes away from Jerry’s.  We had visited two years earlier during our tour of Minnesota and Michigan, and we knew from that experience that it would be an entertaining place to pass the time – no shopping necessary.  Beyond the many stores and restaurants, there is much fun to be found at this mall, including the Nickelodeon amusement park, a miniature golf course, the Crayola experience, the Museum of Illusions, the Sea Life Aquarium – and much, much more!  The waiting, waiting, waiting in situations like this is dreadful, but at least the excitement and entertainment at the Mall of America distracted us until we got a call from Jerry’s saying the plan was running on schedule.  Late in the afternoon, we headed over to the Flying J near Jerry's, and spent the remaining hour or so in the lounge there, watching TV and catching up on emails.  True to their word, the staff at Jerry's had our beloved Jayco travel trailer all fixed up and ready to roll by 5:00 p.m.    

That was pretty much a 24 hour turn around on a major repair – and it only happened because everyone involved was working hard on our behalf.  I’m sure some folks might think this was an elaborate scheme to soak a traveling family for a couple of thousand dollars.  To those people, I would simply say, “You weren’t there, watching the staff brainstorming to come up with a solution, making calls to locate an axle and connect with “the axle whisperer.”  They went above and beyond to solve our problem - and we were ever so grateful!

I can only tell you two things about the drive home from that unplanned stop in Roberts, Wisconsin: 1) We overnighted at one of the rest areas on the Ohio Turnpike with RV parking spaces.  2) We stopped for a meal in the same town in which our other truck broke down at the beginning of this trip.  Beyond that, the last two days of our five and a half week trip (Days #39 and 40) were pretty much a blur.  I think I must have been so traumatized that I blocked it all out.  Even my camera had no story to tell.

Despite the fact that we had bookended our West Coast National Parks trip with expensive mechanical disasters, we lost a total of only two days out of our original itinerary and arrived home only one day later than initially planned.  The expedition itself was a spectacular journey through some of our country’s most beautiful and iconic National Parks.  Our son had already aged out of traveling with us due to his full time employment.  The west coast trip was our last chance to travel with our daughter before she moved on to college and the responsibilities of adulthood.  The three cross-country National Parks trips we took with our kids can be credited with creating some of the most enjoyable experiences and absolute best memories of our lives.  This last trip was a bittersweet journey – and one that will warm my heart forever. 

Kyra capturing the last of the sun's rays one evening on the Oregon coast

 

“Adventure, yeah. I guess that’s what you call it

when everybody comes back alive.”

(Mercedes Lackey)