Day 5 of the trip

This is the big one!! The day we will arrive at the HILTON!!! Too scary for me...Hills, and 4 lanes/5 lanes of traffic (on each side of the road!!)just about did me in. I drove because I am a control freak like that. In case you wondered. So, when we finally made it close to our destination, we just went...zoom, zoom, zoom. One interchange after the other. Not thinking, just driving. Well, that was a bad thing. 1695 miles we traveled thus far...fanny was fine. Our stuff was fine. Zooming up and down the freeway, on bad roads must have made things jar around just enough to make our ties loose. We are happily (NOT) driving down the road when suddenly people are honking and waving. We pull over, and discover that we have lost some of our load. In RUSH HOUR traffic. A kind gentleman pulls up behind us and says that some maintenance guys pulled it to the side and it should be fine. WHEW we think. Tony and Austin walk the half a mile journey, and discover that ha ha...no one pulled it anywhere. It was smushed beyond recognition. "IT" was our tent poles, our camp chairs, and a stroller. HA HA HA HA HA. Right?? Well, whatever. We retie what was left down, try to understand why this had to happen to us 5 MILES from our destination!!? Get there with no more incident, and proceed to empty the van into the Hilton!