Road Trip Updates- A Rocky Start

Happy Travel Tuesday!! Don’t forget to link up today at the bottom of this post with all your travel tales!
If you missed last weeks post, I’m currently on Road Trip with my parents (and my dog) through some of my own country’s beautiful National Parks. I’ve haven’t explored much of this part of the US yet and it’s been on my bucket list for a really long time, so all of this is pretty exciting!
It’s been a crazy few days, service has been spotty and time is racing by, so my updates are going to be pretty sporadic. We’ve been in one park after the next, covering crazy miles and making a new stop everyday. We’re all also living in pretty damn close quarters and the start to this trip certainly hasn’t been the smoothest, but we’re all hanging in there…. for now.
Since I’m pretty much feeling like a kid again, on the road alone, traveling with my parents, I thought I’d resort to my childhood ways and try something new. I’m going to update you all on my trip so far journal-style.
I’ve been writing little notes down of what’s been happening each day, and thought it could be fun to give you guys a little inside look at the RV life.  
Day 1- The Journey begins … slowly
Today we embarked on our two and a half-week road trip beginning in Portland, Oregon and ending in Denver, Colorado. We packed up our last odds and ends into the RV, had a farewell breakfast with Tom, Kim [ my uncle and aunt] and Grandma and hit the road.
Thirty minutes later, Dad realized he still had Uncle Tom’s garage keys in his pocket. After a few minutes spent contemplating, a bit of thrown in arguing, blaming and fussing, we decided to turn around and head back.
One hour later, we left Portland, again. Take 2.
After about 40 more minutes of driving, it was time for delay number 2. The week before I arrived in Portland, my parents brought the RV into a shop to have a brand new “tire pressure monitoring system” installed. Well for the entirety of our trip so far, this system was beeping and throwing off all types of warning signals. Finally, it was time to pull over.
Turns out that this very expensive, yet completely “necessary” accessory was actually causing our tire valves to leak and lose air pressure. Yeah I know, IRONIC. How a BRAND NEW system that costs HUNDREDS of dollars to install and is designed specifically for tires causes those very same tires to leak is beyond me.
Long story short- we found a mechanic, had the system removed, the valve covers replaced and a few hours later, we were finally on our way. Again.
Considering we were off to a late start and it was starting to get dark, we decided to call it a night. We set up camp right in a Walmart parking lot (because apparently that’s a thing) alongside about 8 other RVS.
First night on my US National Parks road trip spent sleeping at a Walmart? … A bit strange I’ll admit.
Well I guess we had to take advantage of it! We head into Walmart, stocked up on groceries and other supplies, made a quick dinner and put on a movie. It had been a long day and it was time to rest.
 
Day 2- The Road to Grand Teton  
This morning we got an early start, hoping to make up for lost time. We really wanted to get to Grand Teton before nightfall. We eagerly hustled along while gawking at the surrounding scenery, completely oblivious to what was happening in the meantime.
Even though we had remedied the tire situation (or so we thought), the damage had already been done. We had arrived to the park and settled into our campsite before realizing that one of our tires had been severly damaged during the journey….. seriously completely destroyed. I got put my finger right through it.
It was 6PM on a Friday and we were in the middle of nowhere. Nothing could be done at the moment and we were already set up for the night, so we decided to go for a walk, relieve some stress and stretch our legs a bit after a long day of driving.
Colter Bay’s Lakeshore Trail was just around the corner from our campsite and absolutely stunning right at dusk. As we meandered along, we admired the cotton candy sky reflecting in the crystal clear bay and even spotted an adorable doe indulging in her nightly meal.
I’ll have a post coming on this soon, but for now a sneak peak:
 After our walk, we came back washed up and prepared a delicious shrimp stir-fry, (what I thought was pretty impressive for an RV meal) watched a show and hit the hay. We’d figure out the tire tomorrow…  
Day 3- Just another Bump in the Road
Two hours after I peacefully drifted off to dreamland I was abruptly awakened by a pain in my stomach. Seriously? Now? Yep. Sick. All night. No one else got sick, so it wasn’t the food. Just my body giving me one more hassle to deal with I guess. Let’s just say if one person happens to get sick in a motorhome, there’s really no hiding it. And FORGET about privacy. My poor parents had to listen to me [for lack of a pleasant way to describe this] barfing into a bowl all night long.
Needless to say, our day started painfully slowly.
We were finally up and moving around 12 and I was actually starting to feel a whole lot better! Thank god. After a few phone calls, we eventually found someone to come all the way into the depths of the park to change our tire. The weather was absolutely perfect! Things were definitely looking up!
I decided to leave the RV to go take a shower, get some air and freshen up a bit! I wasn’t going to let this day slip by and frankly I just needed some space!
Well, 30 minutes later I came back to a wee bit of a disaster. Apparently while I was gone, my father had taken it upon himself to change the water filter and that didn’t exactly go as planned. Another long story short- the RV bathroom sink was leaking everywhere. My parents were able to get the water to stop leaking, but they told me water would be out of commission in the RV for the next few days until we could find another mechanic. Not a total catastrophe. I mean at least I had just showered right?
At this point this was all becoming a bit comical. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the phrase “we’ve never had this problem before” in the last few days!
My father looked like he was about to have a bit of a breakdown (understandably), so my mother suggested we go for a bike ride and blow of some steam. We rode from our campsite at Colter Bay to another a few miles down the road, Jackson Lodge.


By the time we got back, my mother had the grill going and we were all giggling about the events of the past few days. All of these things were out of our control and we realized we had to try to keep a sense of humor about them. After all, we re all pretty damn lucky and we had to remember that. Tomorrow we’d be on the road again.
 
Well friends, these past few days have been my introduction to RV life and it’s definitely been in adventure!
Have you ever spent time in an RV? How was it? If you haven’t, would you like to?