We share with you today another post from our “looking back” series, recounting our family’s first cross country adventure. Enjoy!
As I mentioned in a previous post, in 2004 our family embarked on the Great Western Excursion, a 25 day camping trip across the country. It was a fantastic trip which included 17 states, 7 National Parks, and almost 7,000 total miles of travel. Beth, our four kids, and my mother-in-law, left our home in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania in our trusty old Chevrolet conversion van with our Coleman camper in tow, determined to make the most of our time together. We had a very ambitious itinerary, which was designed to maximize our three plus weeks on the road. I was very fortunate to have had the opportunity to take three weeks off from my job at the Borough of State College, a local government in central Pennsylavnia, for the trip, and we headed out with high expectations. Our plan was to travel as far as St. Louis, Missouri the first day, which would be a travel day of over 800 miles, followed up by a 750 mile day to Amarillo, Texas on day two, and then an 550 mile day on day three, with the hopes of reaching Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado in the late evening hours of day three.
Most would consider this cruel and unusual punishment. 2100 miles in three days, spending forty hours in the van, would clearly meet the definition. Our minister and assistant minister at Church at the time were certain there was no way we could keep to that schedule, regardless of what we had planned. Regardless of whether we could or not, we had made arrangements with my sister-in-law and her husband to play a trick on both men. My sister-in-law and her husband were going to be in Las Vegas to visit friends shortly before we were scheduled to arrive there. They agreed to send a post card from Las Vegas before they left for home that was supposedly from Beth and me. The post card would claim that we had made it to Las Vegas in 3 days and were having a wonderful time. Since it would be post marked from Las Vegas, we thought it would seem to be authentic, and dispel any doubts they had about our ability to keep to our schedule. I really laughed when I heard the story of the two men discussing in amazement the fact that we had made it to Las Vegas in three days. My sister-in-law and her husband never let on that the post card was actually from them, and our minister and assistant minister were never the wiser, believing probably to this day, that we had done it.
The Great Western Excursion was a huge success. We had so much fun seeing the western part of our beautiful country. And boy did we make some great memories along the way. We will never forget spending July 4th in Las Vegas. As we traveled down the Las Vegas Strip, we got the funniest looks from pedestrians and other drivers as they gawked at our old van towing our camper among the Mercedes, Porshces, and Cadillacs to our left and right. It was like the Beverly Hillbillies had arrived in Vegas, complete with Granny and Jethro.
I got misdirected on the Strip, and we ended up in the parking garage at Ceaser’s Palace, and not at the Circus Circus campground where we were supposed to be. As we sat there trying to figure out what to do, a very irate Russian cab driver came up yelling at me saying “you are not allowed to be here, this lane is for limousines”. Believe me, I would have rather been most anywhere else at that moment then the limousine lane in the parking garage at Ceaser’s Palace. While I was tempted to tell him that in no uncertain words, I chose instead to ignore him. He kept yelling and kept saying that I could never get my vehicle and camper out of the garage, as I couldn’t make the turn to exit. Faced with either moving forward and attempting to make the hairpin turn at the end of the limousine lane to the exit, or backing the camper out of the garage, I made the wise choice of moving forward. If you have never backed up a trailer before, believe me, it is not the easiest thing to do. I am notorious for having problems backing up, and the mere thought of it makes me start to sweat and to regret I ever bought a camper to begin with. My backing failures have been so epic over the years. One time as I struggled mightily to get our camper into a rather tight spot at a Pennsylvania state park campground, the neighbor beside us took pity on me and actually walked over and asked if he could take care of it for me. I willingly gave up control and watched in amazement as our neighbor, who only had ONE ARM, easily and effortlessly backed our camper in to its spot. Talk about feeling like a failure. Here I had two good arms and I still couldn’t park my camper. A very humbling experience.
You can see now why I chose to move forward and face the hairpin turn. It was bad enough I was in the garage. I did not want to cause more of a scene by backing into a $200,000 limousine or half a dozen pedestrians as I blundered my way out. After saying a quick prayer for help, I put the van in drive and headed to the turn. As I can so often say in moments like this, only by the grace of God was I able to maneuver all 50 feet of the van and camper around a 180 degree turn without crashing into the side walls or hitting anything else. Miraculously, we popped out of the garage and back on to the Strip without further incident, and this time, I made sure I was heading to the Circus Circus campground.
I guess calling the Circus Circus “campground” a campground was not really accurate. It turned out to be a massive asphalt parking lot with no shade anywhere. We parked our van and camper in our spot, and immediately changed in to our swimsuits to hit the “campground” pool. It was about 102 degrees in Las Vegas that day, and we spent the afternoon cooling off in the pool. While we were cooling off, the “campground” was heating up. A bright sun was beating down on the black asphalt, which soaked up the heat like a sponge. The camper and van baked all day in that heat. Fortunately, our camper was equipped with an air conditioning unit, so we were able to get relief from the heat inside. We decided to have dinner at the Circus Circus buffet, and then took a brief stroll along the Strip, before retiring to our camper for the night. We actually slept well there, and all of us fell asleep with the bright lights of Las Vegas beaming outside our camper.
When I woke up the next day and went into the van to get something out of it, I noticed the rear view mirror was missing. It had gotten so hot inside the van that the adhesive holding the rear view mirror in place actually melted enough that the rear view mirror fell off the windshield and lay there on the floor of the van. While I was certainly surprised by that, I was not concerned because I couldn’t see anything but the camper in the mirror anyway, and it was of no use as long as the camper was attached to the van. I tucked it inside a storage console, and decided to deal with it when we got home.
In retrospect, spending July 4th in the asphalt campground at the Circus Circus may not have been the smartest of ideas. But as they say, hindsight is 20/20, and looking back at our time there years removed from the trip, it actually turned out to be a good time, despite the heat. While I’m still not convinced Las Vegas is the place to bring a family, we lived to tell about our experiences there and while we have no plans on returning, it made for an interesting part of the trip. One piece of advice – If you ever do end up in Las Vegas with your children, be sure you do not let them play the slot machines. As we were walking through the Circus Circus casino on our way to their buffet, I gave my youngest daughter, who was ten at the time, a quarter to put in a slot machine as we passed by. Much to our surprise, she won a little jackpot! It was probably only five or ten dollars worth of quarters, but it caught the attention of a casino security guard who promptly berated me for allowing my underage daughter to play a slot machine. To this day, I wonder if he would have said anything if she had not won!