Pachwork Adventures: Western Adventure #1-We're On Our Way!!

The morning we left home (with our sitters Jerry and Anna Marie Martinez, our daughter and son-in-law)
Driving out the driveway. We'll see you in two months!

Day 1- 8/3/2024

First of all, you've got to know that we've been planning this adventure for over a year. It was the brainchild of our friends, Laurie and Ron Buskirk. I'm so glad that they invited us along on this big trip. We are looking forward to it.

Some of things we've done to our 2003 Tiffin Phaeton are purchasing an EcoFlow with solar panels, a trip to Red Bay AL for a thorough looking-over, and some repair work on our generator. In our travels, we are going to be boondocking, or going without electric, water, and/or sewer. So we need to be prepared to live off grid. Hence, why all the work and expense on our rig beforehand.

We also needed to book some of our campsites a year in advance. Most of them were 6 months in advance, but we want to be able to camp in the national parks that we'll be visiting. So we had to book those campsites early.

Faye is the white RV, second from the left

There are four families going altogether. As I mentioned, the Buskirks, us, Gloria and David Roth, and Linda and David Craft. Everyone has around 35 ft rigs, towing either a car, a pickup truck, or Jeeps. We are towing a little TJ Jeep Wrangler, and the Crafts have a Jeep Gladiator. The Roths have a Ford Ranger, and the Buskirks have a Toyota Corolla.

From the left, David and Gloria Roth, Vince and Katrina Pachel, Laurie and Ron Buskirk, and David and Linda Craft

We all gathered at Crosspoint Church to get a picture of our rigs and our families as we started on our trek across the country toward Glacier National Park. We are excited for our trip! unfortunately, Linda Craft is feeling poorly.

Our first stop is Tom Sawyer’s RV Park in West Memphis Arkansas. We have never camped in Arkansas before, so we were able to put another state sticker on our camping map. The park is very large, and our site was right on the river. We enjoyed time walking along the river in the campground after dinner. We are only here overnight as we are not tired of traveling yet. We will be heading to Gulpha Gorge Campground in Hot Springs National Park tomorrow. Did I tell you that Vince and I are rebels? We are going to break from the group on occasion, and at the end of our trip, we will leave them and travel home alone.