Goodbye Thelma

Through no fault of our own, after 8000 miles of travel from the coast of Florida to the coast of California, and beyond, poor Thelma had to go in for repairs due to a faulty oil filter. The ford services could not repair her immediately so Cruise America had to provide us with a new vehicle, as per our contract. However, all their 25 ft motor homes were already out on rental, so they had to upgrade us to a 30ft motorhome. The kids were excited at the prospect of a new, bigger vehicle, but to us it was a terrible hassle. Firstly, it is longer. 5 ft may not seem a lot, but when going round corners, parking, reversing into tight spaces, it makes a big difference. Secondly, the entire contents of Thelma I, had to be moved into Thelma II. It was quite some hassle. A tow truck came to our RV park on the Las Vegas strip and towed poor Thelma (and all our worldy possessions away) - not a good advert for Cruise America, I must say. Then we had to get a taxi to the ford service centre. Then we found out she couldnt be fixed so we had to get a taxi to the Cruise America office where we spent well over an hour signing paper work and waiting for our new vehicle. Then we had to drive Thelma II back to the ford service station to fill her up with the contents of Thelma I.

Now consider, we have been living in Thelma I for three months, so we were well and truly moved in. It took us a good three hours of solid work to unpack Thelma I and pack Thelma II. Because we were in the service car park we had no hookups, and it was a blisteringly hot day, but we could not put on any air conditioning. All 5 of us were in a hot sweat and I started to feel quite ill by the end of it. Finally at 3pm we were able to drive away. We were supposed to be spending the day driving to the Grand Canyon. But instead we drove to Lake Mead, about 25 miles away from where we were in Vegas.

By the time we got to Lake Mead I was quite unwell with another migraine attack. I went to bed at 5pm and didnt get out till the next morning. My head was thumping and I had a terrible fever, on such a hot sticky night anyway. In the middle of the night I started violent sneezing attacks, and by this morning I had a full on cold ... I'm talking constant streaming noise, big puffy purple eyes, constant sneezing. Oh joy.

On the bright side, Lake Mead was beautiful and we drove across the Hoover Dam on our journey towards the Grand Canyon (which we still havent reached yet, but will do tomorrow morning). Themla II is lovely, and such luxury compared to poor old Themla I. Jimmie says its like an apartment, and he is right. We have a sofa now (such luxury!) which turns into a sofa bed. Which means we have an extra bed now, and so the kids can all have their own bed. Dan and I now have our own proper walk in bedroom! Complete with 3 large windows, a bigger bed, and loads of cupboards. Before our bed was a sort of climb-on, claustrophobic attachment to the kitchen. Now we have privacy! The shower is seperate to the toilet, and it has a power shower, which is such a change. And over all we have half as much cupboard space again, as we had before. Now we just have to get used to driving her.

There are some photos of Lake Mead and our stop in Kingman in Nevada Album 2. We are now 60 miles south of the Grand Canyon after a full day of driving, so should be there tomorrow morning, all being well.