Kansas City, Kansas City here we come!  Sometimes when you are traveling you make quick decisions rather than thought out decisions.  We knew we needed to meet a broker and walk some properties there in Kansas City and that it was a 4 hour drive.  What we did not really think all the way through is where or when we were going to stop for the night.  You see we work in emerging markets which means we are in some neighborhoods that need more help than others to get revitalized.  But these particular areas of town are not the best suited for overnight stays as we found out in Orlando.  You see we came back to the RV after parking in a parking lot for one of their strip malls there and only being gone 30 minutes, only to be welcomed by 6 armed police cars surrounding our RV.  Apparently there was a call made to them stating that someone was running a prostitution ring out of our RV.  Clearly when we showed up and we matched the registration info they had on us, they immediately realized it was not the case.  We then pointed them to the other RV which was extremely run down, aluminum foil covering all the windows, and duct tape holding the bumpers on. It was almost comical to see their faces when they realized on the other side of the parking lot was this RV that definitely fit more of what they were looking for.  

But still having that experience freshly imprinted in our minds, when we came back to the Walmart where we had parked our RV, we realized we would not be staying there for the night.  It was already late and we needed to hit the road. So hindsight being 20/20, we decided from there on out, we would be more proactive about when and where we are stopping for the night along our routes.  

Unfortunately, we did not get to see or spend much time in Kansas City because  we needed to get back to Oregon for our family reunion and we knew we wanted time to spend with our family in Denver, Colorado. So we decided to just push on through and stop at a rest area en route to Denver.  Every time we have been to Denver we have had to pay toll fares on their freeways and they seem to have good roads.  That was all before we were driving through the whole state of Colorado to get to Denver.  We chose to stick to the interstates and even that did not help.  The roads were absolutely atrocious, with pot holes or constant patches in the road so you are constantly getting bounced, jostled and rattled the entire time. Well all this constant jostling is not that great on RVs as we quickly found out.

While we were traveling on the interstate the cover for our awning literally came off.  With a loud bang, it crashed on to the freeway and we were dragging it.  We immediately started looking and realized that it was dragging on the drivers side directly into the other lane of traffic.  That wasn’t the only problem, there really was no shoulder to pull over onto.  So we got over as far as possible and I tried to direct oncoming traffic away from us, while holding the ladder because it was extremely windy as well, while Kurt tried to finish disconnecting the metal cover and retrieve any pins that were there.  Keep in mind this is a 12 ft long curved piece of metal that wants to act like a kite in the windy conditions and now we have to figure out how to even get it into the door of the RV.  I’m sure it was quite eventful for the passerbys, but thankfully another family saw us and quickly pulled over to block traffic with their vehicle while they helped us finish the job as quickly as possible.

After finally getting it loaded, we were able to get off at the next exit and again try to work on this repair in crazy winds, but at least we weren’t in the middle of oncoming traffic on the interstate any more!  Thank you Jesus!  Kurt was able to repair the pins and springs and we were able to hit the road, thankful for God’s hand of protection and others being willing to lend a hand when emergencies arise.  We then spent the next 10 miles thanking God for his protection knowing and realizing how much worse it could have been.  No one got hurt, it was fixable, no other vehicles were damaged, especially with that crazy wind, it was 40 mph gusts.  When you see the pic above, remember it was when we were off the freeway that I was able to snap this.  But you can see how high up and how big of an area we are talking about.

Now to go see our family, Denver here we come!!