rv trip

If you missed Part 1 of our RV Trip story yesterday, please click here to read it first…


Part 2
So here we were, 700 miles from home, sick kids, and a vehicle that I did not feel safe driving in, let alone sleeping in.

It is a helpless feeling being so far away. At this point we still had 10 more days until we would meeting up with family in Florida (and staying at a Disney hotel…) and at that point 10 days may as well have been 10 years. I couldn’t imagine going further in the RV.


We called the RV company and told them about the sick kids and the mold smell in the RV. We suspected mold and didn’t feel safe. Far from helpful, they didn’t give us many viable options.

I prayed, I read my Bible, I tried everything. I couldn’t shake the panic feeling. At this point I was out of control. We were staying with relatives for a few days and I went to bed hoping to feel better about things in the morning….

I awoke the next morning feeling the same. Then I turned to my husband and said, “Can’t we just go home and get plane tickets to Florida?” My husband is by far the most patient man in the world. He just looked at me and said,
“We can try.”


I spent several hours on the internet and phone trying to get plane tickets. Finally I was able to do so. Hoping that the RV company would refund at least half of our money if we returned the vehicle early, we went ahead and booked the tickets.


The plan was then to rest a bit in North Carolina, get everyone well, and drive home over the weekend.  Then at home we would rest a week before taking a flight down to Disney. We were to meet up with my family in Disney, a gift from my parents. We had to get there!


This trip had slowly evolved into something I never imagined. I must say, the kids were incredible. They were happy wherever we were. Here I was in a constant panic and they just trusted us with a childlike faith. They never questioned things…they just were happy wherever we went.


{Praise God}

The weekend came and we left at 5 am to drive 12 hours back to New Jersey. The ride went much better than I had anticipated. I wasn’t able to help with the driving because the RV was too big, which meant my husband would do it all alone. He never complained. He never grumbled. He simply said he wanted me to feel safe. And happy.

The trek home was long. We had to take several detours because we couldn’t take the RV through any tunnels in Baltimore. We were about 2 hours from home, and we hit TONS of traffic. Still we pushed through. And made it home in about 14 hours.

Stretching at a rest stop…

Once home we bought a mold test. We wanted to be sure if the RV company gave us grief about giving us our money back  we could prove there was mold in the RV.


Imagine my disgust when those little petri dishes grew all kinds of icky stuff. My poor baby boy had slept in that area and got sick from it. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt.


We finally did resolve things with the RV company and they did refund us our money back from the rest of the trip. With the amount of money saved on remaining campgrounds for 10 days and gas/travel, we actually probably saved money in the long run.


The kicker was today…I saw that there is a tropical storm in Florida.
It is causing flooding, tornadoes, and storms where we would have been staying this week.

God did protect us. He knew. 

Why He had me go through all this, I have yet to understand…

but more on that tomorrow…come back for Part 3 and read about my feelings on this whole trip….

As you all know we had been planning a family RV trip for a very long time. We have always wanted to do it and we were so excited that we were finally having the chance to see it happen. We prayed, we planned, we counted the days. Everything seemed to fall into place.

I never actually drove…the picture was just for effect! 🙂

What didn’t make sense though was last week, the night before we were to leave I had unexplainable feelings. I would describe it as being extremely overwhelmed, worried, and fearful. I hardly slept all night and just felt completely overwhelmed with so many feelings.

By morning it seemed I just needed to get going and I would be fine. It was probably normal jitters…

But was it?


It’s hard to yet wrap my mind around all that happened the past week but I will try to get it into words.  I am still trying to make sense of it myself.


We arrived our first day at Assateague Island in Maryland. Home of the wild ponies. If you or your children have read Misty of Chincoteague then you know about this place. We had read this book together and it was quite surreal to now actually be here. We had a spot over the sand dunes from the beach and the ponies were wandering around all night. Very cool experience….

We left that morning for Chikahominy River Park, right outside of Williamsburg, VA. I had a hard time relaxing in the RV when we were driving. Even though my husband was comfortable and had no problems driving, I was constantly looking ahead feeling anxious. We traveled over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that day which was extraordinary…

We settled in that evening at Chikahominy, there was less panic and we were able to sleep well. The next morning we went to Williamsburg which we absolutely LOVED.

We spent 3 days in Williamsburg…all along I would fight feelings of fear. I prayed, I asked God to take it away…I know fear doesn’t come from God…


but was God trying to tell me all along something…was the fear actually a mother’s instinct?

that, I am still trying to discern….

Anyway, every time I would think about how far away from home we were in the RV, I would panic. When I thought about how much further we had to go, I would panic.


And then, it happened…


Our third night in Williamsburg, my son, who had been sleeping in the loft bed in the RV woke up crying during the night. He came down to sleep in our bed and he was coughing really bad. He had this cough since around the 2nd day and he had commented that every time he went to sleep it started.  But now he was coughing something awful, and wheezing. He fell back asleep but I stared at him as his breathing was really fast and really loud.  Here at 4 am, I started looking up urgent care facilities on my phone. It is not a good feeling being so far from home, in an RV, with a sick child.

The plan was that day to go down to North Carolina to stay with family for a few days. When my son woke up we decided to get down to NC and assess then if he should go to a doctor. At this point 2 more kids were coughing.

The ride down to North Carolina seemed to be eternally long. I was completely consumed with worry at this point. Feeling trapped on the road, so far from home with a sick child.


It only got worse…when we got to North Carolina, I went up to the area where my son was sleeping and the smell hit me so hard. There had always been a “smell” to the RV, but it was clearly coming from his sleeping area and it was awful. We realized there was water damage up in that area. My husband said the place we rented from told him about it the day we picked up the RV but that it had been fixed. This was the first I heard about it.


At this point we suspected mold behind the repaired water damage. The smell was horrendous up there. I can’t believe my son had been sleeping up there, and every cough reminded me of this.


It was here that I hit my breaking point. Uncontrollable crying, fear, and feeling completely helpless…

Be sure to come back for part 2 tomorrow…
To be continued…