On July 14th, we left Champaign, Illinois after 6 years of living there. Nate drove the big, ole Budget truck that pulled the Ranger and Bladen and I followed in my car.
The 1st day we drove through Illinois, Missouri and boring Kansas (picture above). Nothing eventful but 10 hours on the road. Our 1st night was spent in Topeka, Kansas!
The 2nd day we drove through Kansas and Colorado (pic above). The drive is so boring until you hit Denver and the mountains. Our 2nd night we spent in Frisco, Colorado.
We woke up in Colorado so pumped for our final day of driving. We had about 9 hours left to make it to Cedar City!! And then of course the following happened...
We were going through the Rocky Mountains when Bladen and I started smelling burnt rubber. I was a ways back from Nate so I called him and said are those your brakes we smell or the diesel in front of you. He said that an old couple had just passed in and had pointed to his trailer but from what he could tell nothing was wrong. Well I ended up speeding up to him and there was black smoke just barrelling out the back of the trailer. I told him he had a flat tire and needed to pull off, but coming down the mountain there are NO shoulders to pull off so I sped ahead of him to find the next exit. Thank heavens right around the turn was a rest area so I pulled off and called him to tell him I had found somewhere to pull off. I waited for him off the exit and when I say him stop at the stop sign I saw the tire roll on by haha. We get to the rest area and call Budget and they send a repairman to fix it. We knew there would be nothing he could do as the tire and the lug nuts came completely off the axel. He pulled up 90 minutes later rolled down his window and said there is nothing I can do you need a new trailer... well DUH! So Nate spent the next 5 hours arguing with Budget on the phone. They were telling us that there was nothing they could do for us as it was a Saturday and everywhere would be closed on Sunday and they had no extra trailers. At this point we had been there for over 6 hours, I started freaking out when they told us there was nothing they were going to do for us so I called my parents in a panic who were in SLC for my dad's race. My dad told us to start driving on 3 trailer wheels to Grand Junction where he would have one of his friends waiting for us with a trailer. I'm so grateful for my dad and his connections! So we headed off to Grand Junction going 35 miles an hour over 100 miles. We made it to Grand Junction safely, got hooked up to a new trailer and left Budget's trailer in a parking lot and told them to pick it up! After a disappointing day, we ended up staying in Grand Junction for the night to get some rest... it came out to be a good thing as Nate's grandparents and Uncle and Aunt were also staying the night in Grand Junction so we headed over to the KOA and spent the night chatting with them since we wouldn't be able to see them while we were in Cedar because they were starting a cross-country vacation!
Me and Bladen hanging out at the rest area... thank heavens we were prepared with food and water! And in 100 degree heat we were thankful for SHADE!
Nate arguing on the phone - we ended up getting the trailer for free and they paid for our hotel in Grand Junction! Only inconvience was the wasted time and the cost of my dad having to take his friend's trailer back to CO.
B was such a trooper on our trip! He did not make one peep! He had his DVD player, computer, games and snacks to keep him occupied!
On our 4th day we FINALLY made it HOME to Utah!!
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