RV Trip Day 11: Tucson

We got up early and went for a walk to the edge of Joshua Tree National Park before school. It was prettier at night when you could just see the shapes of things. During the day it just seemed like a desert with a lot of dry brown poky things. I know some people love the desert, but I don't understand the appeal.

Today online schooling begins for Lucy and Sonya, so we have a lot less flexibility in our schedule. After our walk, we turned on the generator to charge all the computers, and the kids called in to their morning classes:

We had some technical difficulties with signal going in and out, and spent a lot of time toggling hot spots, but they mostly managed to successfully attend class today. I thought maybe I would be able to do a little work while the kids were in school, but I have no ability to focus on work while hurtling down the freeway with everything shaking, so I spend my time while the kids are in school troubleshooting their internet problems, planning where to stop next, blogging, checking Facebook, and searching the internet for ideas about how to organize the chaos that is all of our crap exploding all over this tiny house.

We tried to stop at some hot springs, but apparently we were supposed to make reservations two weeks in advance, which we didn't, so that didn't work out.

At 4pm, Michael was surprised that we were only an hour from our destination, and said, "Wait, I thought today was supposed to be a long driving day." I pointed out that we'd been driving since 9:30 and hadn't really stopped all day. I think he jinxed us by saying the day seemed too easy.

Shortly after that we stopped to get gas, and soon after we pulled away from the gas station, the engine gave out, along with the power steering, and Michael had to maneuver quickly to get us to the side of the road. After that the car wouldn't start, even with our now-standard screwdriver trick. A woman stopped and asked if we needed help, gave us a bunch of advice, and then came back with her truck and towed us into a hotel parking lot so we were safely out of traffic. I made sure to point out to the kids how this awesome woman was helping us and knew way more about cars than Michael. She recommended a mechanic, and we called the mechanic and he said he could come out tomorrow morning. I googled for mobile mechanics and called 6 of them, but none of them answered their phones or returned my calls. I thought about getting the RV towed, since I now know our insurance will do that, but it seemed unlikely that we could get it towed anywhere that could look at it before the mechanic who had already said he could come out in the morning. Michael did more internet research, bought some oil and poured into "probably the right place", and when that didn't work he decided that this was beyond his ability to fix and we settled in for the night. I had really been looking forward to a night at a place with hookups and a shower after 2 nights of dry camping, and we were almost out of water, but we had enough. Since we had just gotten gas we had plenty available to run the generator, which was still working fine. Arizona is hot, so we tried running the AC for the first time, and it worked great. I guess I should have checked that it worked before we left, but it didn't occur to me that we would need it in February. I made dinner and we played computer games.

Michael and I are lamenting that we are falling into traditional gender roles on this trip, with him fixing the car and me cooking, but also I have no interest in trying to fix the car. We try to break those roles as much as possible by him washing dishes and me fixing stuff on the inside of the RV.

Our planned route for today:

Our actual route: