Tinsley’s Cross Country RV trip

Does it ever go quite as planned? The answer is, no.

As long as I can remember my life, I remember dreams of wandering around Mother Earth and soaking in all that she has to offer. This never left me. Not to mention, I have last way too many loved ones in the past 20 months. I refuse to sit with the mentality “I’ll wait until…” to do things that make us fulfilled, that bring joy.

For a year now, I have planned a 15 day cross country RV trip. To the letter, literally. I was so over prepared. Now that we are homebound, I realize in some aspects I over packed and over prepared. In others, I just didn’t have the knowledge to know what to expect.

I packed entirely too many clothes for Shiloh and I. However, none of which were really warm enough for the cold weather that we faced! So there was that, but we recycled and lowered our expectations and enjoyed it.

I planned way too many stops, but I also never calculated the immense amount of time I would spend waiting on 3 teen girls to get ready, just to exit the RV. Add in the amount of time Eric and Brian can spend looking at “treasures” and I learned to practice a lot of patience and long suffering!

The first moment I picked up the RV, I was nervous. No one on our trip had ever driven anything this large. We have never been responsible for an RV for two weeks, on our own! What if, what if?

I pushed on. We started off late OF COURSE! True Tinsley trip fashion. Maybe it’s our good luck tradition!

Our first stop was New Orleans, we arrived in the afternoon with no other itinerary than to see NOLA. That was an uneventful 13 hour drive. We saw right off the bat, gas was definitely doing to be a constant need.

Everyone was in good spirits, we were starving so we ate in the RV. The lovely atmosphere and great architecture was a fan favorite.

We stayed the night in a Walmart parking lot. I utilized apps like RVLife, RVParky, GasBuddy, Waze, and google to literally find all free accommodations and services for our RV!

Next stop, Galveston, TX/Stewart Beach. I promised Shiloh a beach and I had heard the words “I want to go to the beach, mommy” more in the past few weeks than I heard my own name. So we got that girl to the beach. She was in love.

Riding down the gulf coast, riding the ferry and seeing dolphins and a coyote were highlights of Galveston.

We headed on over to San Antonio after a quick chick-fil-a stop! The views of the RiverWalk at night were so nice that I was sad everyone was asleep as we rode through.

We stayed in another Walmart parking lot. Started out in the morning at a flea market, then touring The Alamo, RiverWalk, and The Missions. I would like to insert that the girls kept to theirselves, Eric and Shiloh occupied each other, and Brian consistently complained about the bumps and when would we be eating again or where was the next antique mall.

We has to dump the lav and pump more water for the first time, that is a video worth watching 🤣🤣🤣 Eric and I are a good team though, we may sound rough at first but we always accomplish the task well, then laugh.

I started two notable things, one was “Brian’s quotes of the day” and “what fell on the floor this time because we could never remember to secure everything”

We headed on to a short stop in Waco, then through Navajo Nation to explore the breathtaking landscapes and monuments made straight from Gods hands. I can’t speak enough on how not one photo did any justice, how peaceful it all was, how many miles one could go without seeing a shred of civilization, and how absolutely heartbreaking some of the conditions on the reservations were. At the same time there was a power, deep history, proud culture, beauty and feeling of one with the earth that I have never seen before.

I have always been an animal lover. When I was growing up my family would camp in large groups. One of my fondest memories included a conversation between my late Uncle Ray and myself. After I had spotted ANOTHER skunk, my uncle asked how come I was always the one to see the animals and I replied “Because I’m always looking for them Uncle Ray”. This is still true today. I am very sad to report that over 6,000+ miles the only animals I saw in the wild were a field mouse, a coyote, and some form of canyon deer.

I was blessed to see not one, not two, but three shooting stars on separate occasions. They were large and beautiful. They were when everyone else was asleep and I was just driving and listening to my true crime. I like to think it was a little inspiration from the loved ones I’ve lost over the last two years. This whole trip felt very spiritual. Good for my soul, no doubt.

Side note, thousands of miles equated to me listening to hours of True Crime Podcasts this mixed with the vast nothingness, skin walkers, complete darkness, and ghost towns had this girls hair standing on end.

Four Corners monument was our first stop in NN. This was fun, one of Brian’s quotes of the day, as Eric was insisting on taking a rock he found, Brian replied “Haven’t we taken enough from the Indians?“. I had to high five him on that one!

From there, we drove forever to South Rim Grand Canyon. It was late when we arrived so we ate at Dennys then parked in a Cracker Barrel parking lot.

For the first time since we had been on our trip, we saw rain. On one of the few days we were set to be outside solely! I prayed, we ate breakfast and then headed in to the Grand Canyon. Luckily, rain dried up! Nothing disappointed there. It’s breathtaking but also I felt like my heart would stop because I can’t seem to overcome my insane fear of heights. I was literally in fight or flight the whole time, despite my love of the majestic landscapes around me.

We headed to north rim, horseshoe bend area. This was a bit of a hike and everyone was hungry so only Eric, Shiloh, and I made the trek and we were so glad we did. Talk about beauty.

So now our trip got a little hairier. We had Zion park and Kannara Falls hike on our itinerary next. As it was getting late I Wazed a place to eat en route then subsequently a hotel to park in at the bottom of Zion park so that we could get up in the morning early, see the park then go hike. Or so my amateur self thought.

I blindly followed Waze all along, then I see signs that indicated we would in fact be IN Zion if we continued further. I thought to myself “this isn’t possible you have to pay to get in the park and there’s no way the ticket booth is open now”. The road gets more narrow, more curvy and it is PITCH black. Anxiety set in FULL force once I realize I could not stop nor turn around and we were trapped on these roads. the height of the mountain, width of the road, and the fact that in the dead of dark I could still tell that the skimpy guard rail that only covered part of the roads would not keep us from falling way too far down to our certain deaths. I trusted those brakes about as much as I trust any human….little to not at all. I kept calm and we eventually came through it and landed at the hotel. I was more than ready for bed at this point.

So I took a vote and no one wanted to drive back in that park. So we scratched that and head to hike the Kannara Falls. Remember when I said I over planned but then didn’t plan enough? This was an example. I brought my shoes that have small breathing holes all in them because for sure would be best hiking shoes in a desert right? WRONG! It was near freezing and we had to hike through water. I was near hypothermic for sure. The funny thing, I enjoyed it immensely. The kids, Brian and Eric kept on making me laugh and I commented that at least when I peed myself a bit from laughter it warmed me up. Our family killed this 4 mile hike through insane terrain, and we got to see beauty in nature first hand. Brian’s ad libs were the best. We laughed a lot. Eric and I split carrying Shiloh in baby carrier that we did have enough sense to pack! Lifesaver.

The teens were honestly the best. I couldn’t have been happier that they joined us, were helpful, in good spirits, and genuinely seemed to enjoy their selves. I know deep down, they just wanted to go to Vegas and LA 🤣

So, speaking of Vegas…it was up next. We spent the whole day there. Shopping and site seeing mainly but the atmosphere was lively, fun, and entertaining.

This stop, happened to be on Thanksgiving Day. I wanted to make sure no one missed out on a traditional style dinner. So with some planning and help from a dear friend, we made it happen. So in a parking lot off of Vegas Main strip we had a nice family dinner!

We decided to Segway to a Ghost town on the way to Santa Clarita. This wound up being at night. This was certainly some white people crap. I scared myself. What in the wrong turn meets The Haunting type shit was this? We had plenty of laughs but my intuition said “This is the exact scenario you would scoff at someone for putting theirselves in to”

If you know anything about the Tinsley’s, you know we love to scare and prank each other. This trip provided plenty of opportunity.

Surprisingly, this was not the scariest thing that happened that night. Remember me mentioning miles and miles of no civilization to be seen? This happened to be the longest stretch. I didn’t prep gas wise as I had every other day and for the love of God, between the mountains that I knew were just eating our gas, we just drove and drove and drove and I watched the gas gauge go lower. At one point I stopped, dumped our water tank so that we would weigh less. Eric wouldn’t take my offer of leaving his and Brian’s thrift/antique shopping finds on the side of the road. We saw a very strange individual walking roadside in the middle of the desert with nothing for miles either way. I was like well, this may be where we go. It’s been a good ride.

Thank the lord above a random off the road lone gas station crops up out of now where. I felt such a relief to have a full tank. We were able to get to Santa Clarita with no more incidents.

Two days in SC/LA was not enough. We had a wonderful time, relaxing, seeing good sites, and having a bunch of laughs. At this time, we sadly realize our trip was winding down. The ride home was a very long one too, but we were ready to get home at the same time.

We made one stop on the way home at Cadillac Ranch off Route 66. This was a neat experience and we went to a little local bar/restaurant then headed on our way again.

Not to be forgotten, a thought occurred to me over this trip. People in general place a lot of rules for what should and shouldn’t happen in life. They place a lot of structure around what is acceptable or not. I lived by this for a good while as well. However, the more I learned, the more I traveled, the more I saw I have realized the rules are a lot simpler and the list of rules is a lot smaller than we make it to be.

Our focus should be on what truly helps and gives back, all else is some man made narrative that doesn’t need to exist more than likely. For instance, I needed to go to the dr to have my stitches removed but it would have interfered with my trip dates. I removed the stitches myself on that RV. I was a little nauseous but otherwise I realized it wasn’t difficult!

I plan on doing this style trip again in the near future, I pray the kids want to join again. This was such a trip of firsts and quality time!