With a Couple of False Starts (Part 4)

If you missed them, Part 1 is here; Part 2 is here; Part 3 is here

My husband had gotten the RV almost fully packed the night before, however, so there was that. We were pretty much ready to go once we returned to the RV. Just a few finishing touches, then the rest in a laundry basket in the trunk of the car to be dealt with later. 

Just one thing: the food supply was getting low. I hadn't had the things I needed to make proper smoothies to go, and we didn't have much fruit left for snacks, nor could we take the time to shop for anything. We had some leftover curry in the Instant Pot but not much. Our snacks for the road were smoothies left over from the night before, some carrots, apples and mandarins.

But we needed to soldier on. We hadn't gone anywhere yet and no way could I do another night in that awful hotel. So we went for it and got on the road. My husband driving the RV. My son, the animals and myself in the car behind him. It was raining and windy. Every time I looked in the rearview mirror, I could see the bikes bouncing on the bike rack on the trunk, and my adrenaline would shoot up.

Here's the funny thing about eating a whole foods, plant-based mostly raw diet. For the first time in your life, you are actually hydrated. And if you are actually hydrated, you're peeing about once every hour. Had we been riding in the RV, this wouldn't be an issue, because usually I can just get up while we're on the highway and go pee in the toilet in the RV. But when I'm driving the car, this means pulling the RV over once and hour so I can go pee in the toilet in the RV. And each stop takes about 20 minutes with slowing down, finding a place to park, going into the RV and some of us taking turns to pee. 

We were stopping about every 45 minutes - I think because of the stress and my bladder just got a bit overactive too - but also yay for my keeping myself hydrated anyway, because if ever one needed hydration and lots of glucose and mineral salts, it's when under so much stress with the adrenaline running. And loss of sleep to boot. 

Because of these frequent stops, we made what according to G00gle should have been about a 2.5 hour stretch of the drive in about 4 hours. And at one of our stops I noticed a Comfort Inn just off the highway across the street from where we'd pulled over and I said to my husband, "I want to go to there and sleep now." 

Looked them up, called, got their best rate, found out when we got there there was a $25 pet fee. Didn't care, wanted a bed and rest. Done and done. Immediately noticed: bigger lobby, wider hallways, better luggage carts (hooks on both sides for carrying bags, as they SHOULD be, also larger).

Upon entering the room, we were delighted: a whole sink with counter space in a separate space to the toilet, bigger better fridge, more outlets, bigger room, higher ceilings, so much less chemical smell. Still faintly one but not sweet and sticky and gross, more manageable.  I was amused at how times had changed:

This will do, Rabbit. This will do. 

 The beds didn't stink of chemicals or bleach either, and of course we again took off the bedding and replaced it with our own. Because we had the RV parked right outside. this time we were better equipped with VitaMix, juicer, IQAir, and all of the frozen fruit we had left for more smoothies the next day. I also ended up making another curry just because it's quick and easy and we had all of the ingredients. We were all a bit sick of curry but who cares, it's nourishing food and our tummies were hungry.

Okay, so I need to take a minute and say #victorycheck on me. Because sleep deprived, exhausted from driving, just wiped out to the core, still doing a thousand times better than at my sickest chronically ill when I wouldn't have been able to do even a fraction of ONE of these things. I mean. Because even with all of that going on, I whipped up dinner in the Instant Pot. We brought in the cutting board, knife, spices, can opener, the whole bit. We brought in the celery for juices the next day. Lemons and honey for lemon water. Fiji water to drink and mix.

And this hotel experience was SO much better then the previous night. I slept well. No stinky chemical odor getting stronger and stronger. No doors slamming all over the hotel all night long. No weird noises. My IQAir running in the background. The only thing that woke me up was Pendleton the Cat, but this time we brought the crate in and crated him. He still made noise, but he wasn't walking all over everyone and driving us mad. I wasn't too hot or too cold and I slept more deeply. 

The next morning I was able to make us lemon water, juices, smoothies made with melted frozen fruit from the night before. We had lemon water, water, the leftover curry, a couple of carrots, grape tomatoes, and an apple left for food and hydration on the road. I also had the jar of honey to take swigs from while driving if I needed to (I did). And I made myself an extra celery juice for later because I knew I'd need it.

Now. Now we were finally ready to drive the (according to G00gle) last 4 hours to visit our families for a month.

(to be continued)