Must See Stops 1: Kansas City, KS Day 2 of 83

Introduction: John and I had plans to travel. We had plans to find a way to become full-time RVers, but in reality we knew that this would probably have to wait for retirement due to his medical conditions. When he was diagnosed with angiosarcoma cancer in May 2017, he ended up being trapped in a hospital room for 83 days. He was admitted for six different hospitalizations in four different hospitals in three different cities before unexpectedly dying in the hospital on Oct. 5, 2017. You can read about the day he died Part 1 and Part 2. I then made Big Plans to take a trip to the places we had wanted to go and see together. For months I planned the trip: an 83 day trip in my RV with my two youngest daughters, almost 14,000 miles around the United States in 83 days! Each day would take back a day that was stolen from John in the hospital. This is one of 10 stories from my “Must See” destinations.

I woke up to my first morning in the camper! The day before, my two young daughters (the “littles”) and I had left home early in the morning. This was my first morning inside of the motorhome on this trip. Trucks were driving past, setting out on their 13 hour-long day of driving, pulling out of the Pilot truck stop in Clear Lake, Iowa. The girls were still sleeping as I shimmied past the bicycle that was parked in the kitchen of my motorhome to make my morning coffee. I flipped the light switch over the stove and…. nothing. I flipped it back and forth a few times, still nothing. I tried a different light switch in the camper, and once again there was no light. Finally, feeling frustrated, I shimmied past the bicycle once again to check CeeCee’s battery level. Yes, my camper has a name! When John and I bought this camper, we had so much fun coming up with goofy

names for her, and also coming up for a name for our blog, and for our “mission statement.” All of the names were devised in an attempt to put a positive spin on the nasty cancer that he had been diagnosed with. We knew that it was unlikely for him to live more than a couple of years, but we had held hope that he could go into remission if the treatments were effective. We decided upon the name “CeeCee” for our Class C motorhome, which was purchased so that John could go camping and fight chemo while being classy and doing the things he loved. Things like caching and cooking… everything that started with C. CeeCee was the perfect name! John had only been able to spend  few nights sleeping in the camper, while getting treatment at Mayo Hospital in Rochester, MN and also when he got treatment in Marshfield, WI. I had also taken him on a few day trips, and he loved being in nature, even if it was only for a few hours. So did I.

So on this morning, as my route took me away from all things familiar, I found that I had no power. CeeCee has a charging system where the batteries charge as you drive. After a few hours of driving, they should have been fully charged and a full charge should have lasted me several days of use, not only a few overnight hours. I pushed the little black button to check the battery level and it blinked E. E for Empty. I was already feeling pretty defeated. On the first morning!

Here I was, stuck with a motorhome that wasn’t charging as it should, and I would have to find a place that could repair it fast because the next several days involved a lot of time on the road and I needed the battery to run the furnace. It was still pretty chilly at night, even in late May. Before searching for a truck repair shop, I decided to check under the hood myself to see if I could find a wiring problem.  Did I know what I was doing? Of course not! But I had watched three YouTube videos,  so I felt confident that I could handle it! Three YouTube videos made me almost an electrical engineer, right? I crawled behind the steering wheel and pulled the lever to release the hood.  Once I was outside, I reached under the hood to release the latch and lift the hood. It was jammed! I had just opened it a few weeks earlier to jump the engine battery and drive it to the shop so that they could install a new battery for the engine, the hood should have been fine, but it wasn’t. No amount of prying or swearing could convince CeeCee to open her mouth for me. Feeling defeated, I went back inside, pulled the release lever again and popped outside to try one more time. Nothing. Great, now there wee two things wrong with the camper. Three if you counted the bicycle parked in my kitchen. The girls were beginning to stir from the noise I was making. Cooing them back to sleep, I decided to make a cup of coffee and figure out how I would handle the growing list of broken items. All which had occurred in 24 hours.

The littles had started the trip without any bikes, so last night we visited WalMart and found a bike for Alena, but nothing for Kady, my youngest daughter. We took Alena’s bike outside and I lifted it up to put it on the bike rack that I had installed on CeeCee’s hitch. I struggled for 30 minutes, sweating as I tried to find an

appropriate angle to slip the bike onto the rack. It wouldn’t fit. I went inside the camper and the girls had pulled the shade down to cover the window, causing it to snap off and leaving us without any privacy as it was starting to get dark. I spent what felt like an hour contorting my body so that I could see and reach under the window valance and temporarily snap the blind back into place. “Don’t touch it.” I warned. “Don’t even look at it!”  I was then too exhausted to do any more, so I brought the bicycle inside to be traded at the store in the morning, and now I found myself sashaying around it as I moved from one end of the camper to another, piling up a list of five items that I needed to be repaired after only one day of the trip. The clock I had stuck to the wall above the door had fallen during the night. The sound of shattering glass jarred me awake and scared me. My first thought was that someone had smashed a window and was breaking in. I got up to check, and found shards of glass in front of the door, from the broken clock. That made four issues to deal with (bike, windowshade, hood release, broken glass). Problem number five was that the storage door on the outside of CeeCee wouldn’t open unless I swore in at least five different languages while jamming the door with my left elbow. Oh, and I hadn’t been able to find a place to fill the water tanks yet, so we were still using water jugs. Things were looking bleak

Maybe I was nuts. Maybe I had taken on too much. Maybe I WAS as crazy as everyone thought I was to take on a trip so big. I cried for a bit, feeling sorry for myself, and then my coffee was ready, so I poured myself a cup, added some cream, and sat down next to the bicycle to search for truck repair shops. Luckily, I had picked an overnight truck stop that had a truck repair shop just across the street. As soon as they opened I called them and they agreed to take at look at CeeCee.

While we sat in the waiting room of the repair shop, waiting for the mechanic to come and give me the diagnosis, I felt as though I were back in the hospital when John was being diagnosed. In fact, I almost giggled as the mechanic told me that he had good news and bad news. Bad news, I thought? He had no idea that I had already received

the worst news anyone could ever imagine. Your spouse is dead. Yeah… nothing that was wrong with CeeCee could compare to that! It turned out that the batteries for the motorhome were old and needed to be replaced. They could also fix the latch for the hood. Over three hours and $600 later, we were off to exchange Alena’s bicycle. The new bicycle fit and we were finally on our way to Kansas City, KS. Thank goodness this happened on a short travel day, so that I wouldn’t arrive overly late for the person I would be meeting in Kansas City. The person I had never met before!

LACK OF SMILING EYES!!!!

Crystal and I met online through Our ClassCee Life’s Instagram account. She found me because of the hashtags I was using and quickly sent me a message. Crystal lost her infant daughter several years ago, and because of her grief, had just founded a company called Sharing Solace to help others as they go through their own grieving process. She had noticed that the map of my trip looked like I would be near Kansas City, where she lived. She sent me a message asking if I would like to meet her! I instantly said, “Yes!” and we made plans to meet at the Must Do destination in Kansas City: Joe’s Kansas City Bar-B-Que. John and I were foodies. We watched Food Network and the Travel Channel often, spending hours watching different cooking shows. Anthony Bourdain was one of our favorite, and I remember the day that John called me into the living room to see an episode on barbeque restaurants. Anthony was at a gas station in Kansas City that served arguably the best barbeque in the city. Each day, the line would form and quickly extend out the door, often wrapping around the building. Many of the people were in line for the same thing: burnt ends. Joe’s was famous for them, and they were almost always sold out early in the afternoon. “We need to go THERE!” John said, pointing to the television. “Get going, girl! Start planning a trip so that we can try those burnt ends!” For several years we tried to plan that trip.

Except I was never able to. We had thought about swinging through Kansas City on our way south for two different trips, one to the Grand Canyon and the other to Galveston, Texas, but each of those trips had to be cancelled for the medical problems of my mother and John. So, I had decided that Kansas City would be my first Must Do stop on the trip. I would go there, sit in the same place that Anthony Bourdain had sat, and eat burnt ends for John.

The navigation system on my phone gave me directions to exit the highway and go into a busy neighborhood of Kansas City. Soon I had arrived, and I convinced CeeCee, with her wide girth, to squeak into the small parking lot. I shut off the power and put John’s urn in my backpack.

He would be coming inside with me. The girls were a little surprised, but they had gotten used to John’s hand turned wooden urn being strapped into the passenger seat already, and said nothing about it. We went outside to meet Crystal. Crystal and I seemed to  instantly become friends. There was nothing awkward, just two people who knew each other at a level that few people do. We shared our struggles of grief with one another, and found comfort in our shared experiences.  As we walked up to the gas station, I noticed that there was no line. I had arrived several hours later than I had hoped to, but it was 5:30pm, which should have still been a busy time. Crystal made a comment as we walked right up to the counter to place our orders. “I’ve never been able to walk right up and order,” she said, “There is ALWAYS a line!” The man behind the counter welcomed us and asked us for our order. Crystal had already warned me that there wouldn’t be any burnt ends left, but I thought… why not ask? So, I swallowed hard and firmly planted both of my feet on the ground as I asked, “I”d like some burnt ends if you have any?”
“Oh, we don’t have those at this time of the day anymore,” he replied, taking the wind out of my sails, “but I’ll ask.” He shouted through the window to the kitchen, “Burnt Ends?”

The reply came very quickly, “Sure! For some reason I still have two orders here. That’s odd! They are normally gone by 2:30pm!” I smiled. I was sure it was John. I had felt his presence growing stronger the closer we got to Kansas City,

and now I could almost feel him smiling with excitement. “I’ll take them!” I almost yelled with joy. We got our food and found a large table to sit at. Before Crystal could sit down, she had to call her husband. “He’s never going to believe this,” she giggled, “This NEVER happens. We went right up to order, they had burnt ends at 5:30pm AND we got a table to sit down at right away! Your husband must have really wanted you to come here!” Yes, I assured her. Yes,  he did.

We sat down and talked. She shared stories about the grief she continues to suffer years after her daughter’s death and I shared stories of John and the others I had lost during those 26 months. There was an instant, undeniable bond between the two of us, and our time together came to an end too quickly.

I warned her that I would be taking pictures with John’s urn to mark the importance of this stop on my trip, and she didn’t shudder or seem disgusted by the idea at all. In fact, she seemed to think that this was a completely natural thing and told me that it was a beautiful idea. The ladies at the table next to us didn’t share those thoughts, but it didn’t bother me as we rearranged the table to get a picture complete with the burnt ends, all the sauces, the famous metal wall that John and I had seen on TV, AND John. I ignored the women’s questioning glances and judging stares at first, but finally, I couldn’t take it any more and when we next made eye contact I told them, “Yes, this is EXACTLY what you think it is!” They left shortly afterwards!

Crystal and I hugged one another good bye, promising that we would see each other again, and I know that we will! The littles and I climbed into CeeCee and I did my first 74 point Y turn to get her out of the tiny parking lot in the middle of a heavily populated Kansas City neighborhood.

A few hours later, we were all cozy and warm, set up for the night in another truck stop, this time in St. Joseph, MO. As I looked over the pictures from the day, I ran into something surprising. During the months that John was sick, and after his death, I had noticed that although I was smiling in pictures, my eyes were dead. The smile on my mouth didn’t reach up to my eyes at all. I wasn’t surprised by this, but wondered when the day would come that I would see the smile in my eyes again. I knew that when I say it….. it would mean that I had taken a good step towards living again.

As I looked at the pictures in the restaurant, I saw it. I saw my eyes. They smiled. For the first time in a very long time, they were smiling. This trip was already turning out to give me challenges, but to also give me life. I thank Crystal for being a part of that!

Crystal,

I know that even though you may not be able to hold Madelyn and be with her, she has many wonderful souls watching over her as she grows up in a world we cannot touch. I’m confident that one of those wonderful souls now includes my husband, John. After all, he grew up surrounded by women all of his life, and he would now need a little girl to look after. Our meeting online may have been by chance, but it was destined to be and I am forever grateful to have met you and become your friend.

Your grief sister,

Kristyn

If you would like to go RVing, here’s Everything You Need To Know!

If you, or someone you care about is dealing with grief, here are some tips for coping with grief from people who are dealing with it themselves!

Did you see the urn on the table in the restaurant? John picked it out himself AFTER he died. Honestly! You can read about his Hand Turned Wooden Urn!

• Must See Stops Series
• Stop 1: Kansas City – Day 2 of 83
• Stop 2: Taylorsville, CA – Days 9 – 13 of 83
• Stop 3: Seattle, WA – Day 21 of 83
• Stop 4: Zion National Park – Day 36 of 83
• Stop 5: Grand Canyon South Rim – Day 42 of 83
• Stop 6: Albuquerque, NM – Day 49 of 83
• Stop 7: Philmont Boy Scout Ranch – Day 51 of 83
• Stop 8: Galveston, TX – Days 55 – 58 of 83
• Stop 9: Exeter, NH – Day 73 of 83
• Stop 10: Acadia National Park – Day 75 of 83