A Cross-Country Journey and How We Survived

For some reason I found myself thinking back to when almost my entire family moved from Reading, Pennsylvania to Phoenix, Arizona. When the trip was over and we finally, finally reached our destination I think we all agreed we could call it the trip from Hell.

I'll set the scene. My mother's parents, my mother's brother's family (including two adult children and a baby grandchild), my mother, father, little brother and myself all driving in a caravan across the country. We had three huge moving trucks, the biggest ones they had, each with a car tower, my mother's Plymouth Sundance (the piece of sh*t), my Nana's old Dodge Ram pickup with a camper trailer attached, and I think my aunt's vehicle. I'm riding with my mom, my brother is riding with my dad in the moving truck, my cousin with the baby is in the moving truck with her husband, my uncle is driving their moving truck with my other cousin riding shotgun, my aunt is driving her car, and my Nana is driving the Dodge Ram with the camper.

The first attempt we make to break out of Penn State is foiled by a vehicle fire. My uncle was the first one to notice this. My Nana is in the lead with the pickup and camper, and my uncle is driving behind her. My uncle notices smoke coming from inside the camper and instantly pulls into the hammer lane next to my Nana. Nana has no idea what's going on but finally pulls over to the side of the road after my uncle waves frantically for a minute or two. Someone had the brilliant idea to use short band walkie talkies between us for better communications within the caravan. Which was a great idea except we were short by one radio. Nana didn't have a radio. Hence, the yelling and waving by my uncle. We all make a mad dash for the side of the road and my uncle gets the small fire put out before it can do any major damage to the camper. With that potential catastrophy handled we set out on the road again.

A short while later, we are on the side of the road again. This time it's a fan belt in the Dodge that has stopped us. My Nana had noticed this time because smoke had come barreling out of the hood when the belt snapped. Unfortunately the next town was 30 or so miles away and the Dodge was out of commission until we could get it fixed. It was already late in the afternoon and we were all hungry and tired. My uncle and aunt drive to the next town to find a fan belt for the truck while the rest of us wait on the side of the road like a broken down carnival troupe. A while later my uncle and aunt are back and my uncle gets the truck fixed and we start out again. Keep in mind we are still in Penn State and not even close to the state line.

We drove for a little while longer and everyone decided that it was time to call it quits for the night. Which was a great idea except it took us two hours and three towns to find a motel that had any vacancy. It took us two days to get out of Pennsylvania, when it should have only taken 6-8 hours tops. I knew then it was going to be a rough trip.

Somewhere along the way, we stopped to eat at a McDonalds. This had to be the worst McDonalds I've ever eaten at. Here's the things that went wrong at this particular establishment:
-It took forever to get our food
-My PopPop had ordered cheeseburgers and gotten hamburgers
-When PopPop took the food back to the counter he got back cheeseburgers with no meat
-My brother had ordered chicken nuggets and gotten a hamburger
-I had ordered a cheeseburger and gotten a chicken sandwich
-My mom had ordered one of their specialty burgers and gotten a double cheeseburger
-My dad got us kids little ice cream cups and the expiration date on the bottom was already past
-Of course we had already eaten the ice cream when I discovered the expiration date

Another time we stopped, this time for gas, turned into the worst fuel stop I've ever seen. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie RV with Robin Williams, but there is a scene in there where he drives around the block of the gas station time and time again because he doesn't really know how to back a RV up. That was us with the moving trucks. Someone had the brilliant idea to stop at a small gas station instead of trying to find a larger place like a truck stop or something. It was rather funny to watch my dad, my uncle, and cousin driving around the block again and again because they couldn't back up to the fuel islands. What wasn't funny was when my dad tried to back up the moving truck with attached car tower and ended up catching the front bumper on one of those concrete barrier posts by the gas pumps. They don't give. The bumper ended up being pulled halfway off the truck and my uncle and dad had to spend a while trying to push the bumper back.

We had to take several detours. One was in Missouri because there was a flood. I remember driving by the big arch and the water was halfway up the thing. Another detour was in Oklahoma.

All together the move took 12 days from start to finish. It was long, tiring, and when we finally got to Phoenix and crashed at my aunt's house I told my mom that we should never move again. I don't know how all of us survived that ordeal without taking each other out. Maybe it was the collective determination to get to the destination. Maybe it was my PopPop yelling that we were going to get to Phoenix no matter what! Maybe it was the horrifically funny ordeal we all endured at the McDonalds on the way.