The Journey Begins pt 3

Nothing But the Road Ahead of Us

Our experience to this point was that hotels and motels are both expensive, costing as much as $80 - $100/night or more, and many have mold or allergans from previous tenants from smoking, colognes or fragrances, and numerous other issues.  So we decided to start our RV living early, using our portable living quarters that was neatly packed in the back of our van.  We hadn't been to any campgrounds, we were new at this.  We knew nothing about state park campgrounds, we knew nothing about rates, the extent of our knowledge was limited to the vast expanse of KOA signs along the highway.  So we checked our map and found a KOA campground on the 70 just northeast of Lawrence, Kansas.

We called the campground ahead of time to make sure we could get a tent site with electricity and would have wireless Internet.  They had the accommodations we needed so we asked him the price to discover it was under $30 per night, since they were just off the 70 and in the general direction we were headed we decided to give them a try.  I need to tell you at this point that until we stopped at that KOA neither of us had any idea what campground camping was like, but it was one third the cost of staying in a hotel.  The campground was nice, it was quiet and peaceful and for the first time in maybe seven years, we felt at ease.

After camping overnight, we enjoyed it so much we decided we would stay another night.  After all everything leading up to this point was very stressful and we were tired and exhausted.  Now here we were in a nice quiet campground with an Internet connection so we can get a little work done and also explore the maps and discuss our destination.

This might be a good time to discuss our intended destination.  We had thought this over during the entire year that we lived in that previous home, of course our hopes were that we would be able to get an RV to live and while we traveled, but things just did not work out the way we had hoped.  In all our talks about where we wanted to go, or where we thought we needed to be, our primary focus was New Mexico.  We took into consideration Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Southern California, but for selective reasonings of our own including the cost of living, we had our sights set on New Mexico.  However, for some reason the Colorado Springs area kept popping into our heads, as if destiny had highlighted Colorado Springs on the map.  Even though Colorado Springs seemed to call out to us, we felt New Mexico was still where we needed to be so we chose to take the 70 to Denver, then take 25 South through Colorado Springs on our way to New Mexico.  Again bear in mind our thinking was New Mexico would be our new home, not Colorado Springs.

So now you know as we knew then what our general destination was along with a well thought out flight plan, but destiny, fate, God, however you choose to see it, had different plans for us.  Ironic plans at that.

We enjoyed the KOA Lawrence, Kansas so much we actually spent three days there, after all we could take three days of R&R to regain our focus and our thoughts at the cost of one night in a hotel.  During the late afternoon of day two we received a phone call from our daughter informing us that a friend of the family really wanted us to stop by to say hi.  We talked about it that evening and really felt like we should go visit him, but the problem is he lived just outside Wichita, Kansas, which was not anywhere near the 70.  Stop by and visit him meant we would have to travel several hours back up to the 70, or scratch our entire plan to go through Denver and Colorado Springs and just head south from Wichita to Oklahoma and across to New Mexico from there.

This really created a dilemma for us because we really wanted to go through Denver and we really felt drawn to Colorado Springs and yet our intention was in thoughts of where we needed to be was in New Mexico.  So as much as we wanted to drive by and visit our friend, we really did not want to because we did not have confidence that our van with nearly 200000 miles would make the trip from New Mexico north into Colorado and back again.

By the end of our three days in Lawrence, Kansas we decided it would probably be better to go ahead and visit our friend and take the route south into Oklahoma, across the top of Texas, and into New Mexico.  We would leave Colorado behind as a destination that maybe someday once we get on our feet, we will be able to move up that way and see what it is like.  Little did we know that God's guiding hand was leading us to where we thought we needed to be first to save us the heart ache of making the trip down to New Mexico.  Only to have to turn around and go back.  We knew we felt drawn to the Colorado Springs area, but we were convinced that the dry your southwest would be our refuge from mold, but that's another day.  Right now, we are leaving Kansas.

To be continued...