As I expected, there wasn't enough going on yesterday to write about, so I'm condensing it into this post too. We spent the morning at the Emery's doing church, the afternoon at our trailer taking naps (I enjoyed a two hour one myself...), and back to their house for dinner and s'mores in their backyard. We said our goodbyes that night because our plans were to leave early in the morning on Monday. More on that later. We are incredibly grateful to have such good friends like Travis and Lindsay. They put up with all five of us raiding their house for three days, fed us numerous times, and had lots of laughs along the way. It was great seeing them and sad to leave.
Our original plan was to get up, packed, hooked up, and leave by 8:00 for our next stop in Albuquerque, NM. The scout office usually opens at 8:30 and we wanted to be out of there before we got in anyone's way. That plan partially changed when we found out the new COVID restrictions for the state of New Mexico. The governor recently issued a 'law' that visitors to the state must quarantine in state for 14 days after arrival, assuming they are staying the night and not just driving through. Anyone violating this can be subjected to monetary fines and potential jail time. Oh boy...
We had already booked the KOA for the night, and the one in Arizona for the following two nights. We were out of the refund window, so we are on the hook for the nightly charge no matter what we decided. I did some online research to see what the details of all this were and found conflicting reports. I called the KOA to get the insider scoop. The nice gentleman that answered the phone clarified that as long as we 'quarantined' inside our trailer and the adjoining picnic table that is part of our campsite, we would be fine to stay just the one night and move on the next day. This was great to hear while also being a gut punch. If we left by 8:00, it would take about 6 1/2 hours to get there. That put us around 2:30. The kids haven't been taking nightly showers until around 8:00, and haven't been getting to bed until around 8:30. That would mean a solid 6 HOUR span of time with all 5 of us trapped in a 192 sq. foot trailer. Travis had to get back to work and Lindsay was packing and preparing for a trip to her parent's house in Ohio the following day, so we couldn't hang out with them at all. This left us in a sticky situation. We decided we needed a few things at Walmart to stock the trailer for the rest of the trip, so we wasted some time there. By 10:30, we had what we needed, were fueled up, and decided to hit the road. We figured leaving then would put us in Albuquerque by dinner time, and we could put on a movie until bedtime.
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| Carrie with her 'Happy Camper' mumu... |
...and that's how the day turned out. We drove the 319 miles over 6 hours 45 minutes (this included two gas stops, one potty break, and lunch at a rest stop) and pulled in around 5:15. We got dinner on (barbecue chicken on the grill) and put Trolls World Tour on the laptop for the kids to watch. We don't have any electronics in the car outside a leapfrog book and some boogie boards (LOVE these for road trips and church), so we felt like the kids could have a bit of screen time after the long drive.
Tomorrow is another long day of driving, this time just west of Flagstaff, AZ. We'll camp there for two nights and see the Grand Canyon in between. Then it's the three day trip back home to Kuna. Until then, thanks for reading!!!
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