Wednesday January 11, 2012
We have been packing up the motor home for the past two days preparing to hit the road for another winter in Arizona. The weather in Peoria is so beautiful the past few weeks that I'm asking myself why we are going South! The temperature today is to reach around 60 degrees but when listening to the forecast the past 24 hours it sounds like things are going to change in a drastic way later tonight.
I left this morning at 10:00am for my first of two appointments today. I'm wishing we could have left town this morning but need to keep these appointments and when I tried to change earlier in week, could not change to a different day.
They are forecasting 1-2 inches of snow and the temperature is suppose to drop drastically after midnight. I find the weather forecasters get a little hipped with the mention of snow and tend to exaggerate on the expected accumulations so who knows what will transpire.
I arrived home at 1:00pm and everything I heard about the weather during my running this morning is painting a pretty grim weather picture for tonight.Now they are saying possibly up to 4 inches of snow.I talked to Larry and suggested we step up our packing and leave later this afternoon. My thoughts were if we leave late, we might beat the weather and get far enough South to avoid the worst. He agreed and went over to RV Storage lot and hooked up car dolly and loaded the car. He drove the motor home back to house and we spent the next 4 hours loading the last minute items--which are numerous with personnel items, refrigerator and freezer food. It is a tremendous effort trying to plan for all the needed items. I decided this year to pack the obvious and what I don't have--Walmart does!! It is such a tiring effort hauling these items out and three months later hauling them back into house, so I cut back to the bare essentials.
I talked to Dr. Brown, our Vet, regarding Raven's 'anxiety attacks' every time we put him in the RV to leave. Each time we put him in the motor home, he becomes so evil no one--not even the other two cats--can approach him. He hiss's and growls and foams at the mouth so terribly, that it is all over everything! Dr. Brown suggested rather than trying to give him a pill as a tranquilizer, that it would be easier to give him children's liquid Benedryl about an hour before leaving. He said it should mellow him out and calm him down.At about 3:00 I tried to give him an eye dropper of Benedryl
and he went into a major meltdown the minute it hit his mouth. He ran through the house growling, hissing and yes---foaming at the mouth and it was like he was having a major fit of madness. Trying to approach him is not an option as he has clawed and bit me in the past. I stupidly though that getting it down his throat would be the worst part but after he laid claw marks on my legs getting off my lap, I soon found that getting the med's in his mouth was not the worst part. I'm standing there watching this fit of madness thinking -- and this is better in WHAT way?? I left him to his insanity thinking by the time we were ready to leave he would be mellowed out.The minute I put him in the RV he started all over again with the hissing and growling and--I'm not even sure if he did the foaming thing as no one could get close enough to him to see.
We decided at 4:15 we had the majority of needed items so we took showers and left at 5:00pm.
We drove until 8:00pm and stopped to fuel and eat at a Truck Stop near St Louis. When we left we drove another two hours until we found a Walmart about an hour east of Joplin, Mo. We parked and walked across lot to Walmart and the winds were gusty and the temperature had dropped to about 25 degrees. We came back to RV and started the generator and the furnace. The furnace made a rather funny noise for awhile before we went to bed. We turned on our electric mattress pad and about the time it heated up, the breaker kicked out. Larry tried to reset but nothing was working so decided to look at it in the morning. We went to bed around midnight.
Thursday January 12, 2012
We woke shortly after 4:00am and realized the furnace had quit running and we were freezing. We got up and could hear the wind beating at the motor home and it almost felt like we were standing outside. Larry found the service manual on the furnace and the power and was able to get it all working again. We walked across the parking lot to Steak and Shake for breakfast at 5:30 and when we walked back the wind felt even worse and it was horribly cold with about an inch of snow blowing around.
When we got back to RV we realized that something on the power source was wrong as our house batteries were being drained rather than charging. Larry went outside and found a reset button somewhere in the battery compartment so hopefully our problem will correct itself. The joys of owing a motor home are too numerous to mention. Seems nothing works right when it's hot, cold or raining! If you can find a beautiful sunny warm day to take a spin go for it!!!!
Larry called the Missouri State Police for a highway report. They said there was a terrible accident on outside of Joplin and traffic was stalled. We waited awhile and decided to try driving. The highway was iced in most places and the wind was blowing the snow like a whiteout and at times felt we were being blown off the road! It was very slow driving and we kept seeing semi's jackknifed and cars and pickups off into the median and side of road. I get very anxious driving in bad weather as we are packing a lot of weight with the RV and towing the car. It took us about two hours to drive the distance to the east side of Joplin where the traffic came to a halt. They were still working on clearing the accident site. We sat for about 30 minutes in traffic before we started moving again.
We drove until around 2:00 in the weather mess and suddenly, the sun peaked through and the roads started clearing more. The winds were still pretty gusty but it was getting better. We drove to El Reno, OK and opted for another Walmart lot for the night. When we went to bed the temperature was down to 19 degrees but without the horrible wind gusts, it felt warm compared to the rest of our day.
Friday January 13, 2012
What a change a few hours make in the weather pattern. When we got up this morning it was almost actually warm. Still in the low 20's but without the wind and no snow it looks to be a much better day.
We cannot de-winterize the RV yet so we are using bottled water for everything. This marks day two without a shower. My hair looked like I stuck my finger in a light socket--which is typical when I get out of bed most days! I heated some water and wet down my hair and washed my body. I dried my hair and when I got dressed I felt and almost looked human. This is the worst part of traveling in the winter is not having the comforts of home for a few days.
We left El Reno, OK at 6:30am and stopped in about an hour to refuel and get breakfast. After looking over the selection at the truck stop we opted to drive until we found a real breakfast menu. Basically our choices at the truck stop were fried chicken, pizza and something they called a breakfast sandwich. Looking at the sandwich I wasn't really sure what it was.I feel for the truckers as unless they carry items for their meals, it's going to be some fatty, greasy affair for food.
We got back on the road with our attention toward finding breakfast. We drove another hour or more and finally found a Denny's in Sayre, OK that looked to be an easy area to exit. We pulled in and had breakfast and when walking back to RV we noticed a truck wash across the road. It's hard to tell what color the motor home or car is with all the salt and road grime from yesterday. Larry wanted to do the honors of washing the vehicles. I told him it was too cold so I would not be helping. I'm such a B---- that way! I have been freezing to death since we left home. He pulled into the truck wash and it was basically a VERY over sized do-it-yourself car wash. He got out and sprayed everything down and it actually looked pretty good, considering the windshield and windows were so covered with dirt we couldn't see out before.
Since I stuck him with the dirty work, I guess he figured I could do the driving. I drove about three hours to Tucamcari, NM and let him take the wheel. I don't mind driving and feel confident driving this monster but I would rather set read and relax when I have a choice. He, on the other hand, enjoys driving. In that respect, we make a perfect duo.
We headed to Santa Rosa, NM where we would take RT 54S to Las Cruces, NM. Next thing I knew we were headed east on some deserted blacktop and realized we missed the turn. There was absolutely no place to turn this rig around. We kept driving and finally saw a road sign saying we were on RT 84--differently not the right direction for our destination.
We drove and drove and could still find no place big enough to turn around. Not even a side road that looked like it would hold the weight of the RV. We were well into 25 miles beyond our designated route so decided to continue driving and cut back across to catch 54S again. We drove at least 80 miles in a big 'U' to arrive in Vaughn, NM. To say this is the 'armpit of Hell' would be an understatement! We stopped at a run down dump of a gas station and bought 30 gallon of Diesel at $3.99 a gal. This was at least $.45 higher than anyplace so far. In looking around us, I was happy to get the fuel to assure myself we would not run out in this area. No one except the clerk inside the station spoke anything resembling English. We still were not sure WHERE to catch our route so talked to the clerk and she told us to continue through town and we would catch it on the other side.
We drove on into this poor,filthy, seedy little town and kept looking for our route as we exited the other side. We slowed at the only little road but it had no signs and looked like a cow path. We drove on and decided it was the only possibility so we cut thru a paved strip that was had a dipped area to the other side of pavement. Half way through the most horrible scraping sound occurred. I panicked as it sounded like we hit bottom with RV. Larry kept going and we made it to the other side and headed back to the road we passed. On this side of the pavement there was a sign indicating it was 53S. We turned onto the road and pulled over to check our damages. Lucky for us, we had only drug the extender on the bottom of the dolly hitch. No damage was visible.
We drove FOREVER on this deserted road, through a few mountains and curves and my ears were popping so I knew we were at a pretty high altitude. The roadway began to show drifts of snow from what was probably Thursday's storm and the temperature was getting colder. There was nothing but brown fields with tumbleweed and a few mountains. I prayed we would not have any driving problems as I could envision the Drug Lords coming out of the mountains as the sun began to set. This was worse than BFE!!!
We drove and drove and I tried using the navigator on my phone to find out WHERE we were and how far before we could get off this road. The navigator would just set and grind as I'm sure even the satellites were not hovering above this area! I had no Internet connection--BIG SURPRISE I'm thinking! A while later my phone rang and it was Leslie. I started talking and lost the call. I called Leslie seven(7) times before we could finish our conversation but at least I had a cell phone connection so we must be nearing civilization! We came out of this area into Las Cruces just as though we had been picked up and dropped back to earth.
We had not eaten since breakfast and it was now 8:00. The first McDonald's we saw Larry pulled in and we forced down our fast food setting at a table that had graffiti carved into the top. Again we are the only English speaking patrons in the place. The manager luckily spoke English to us but everyone else he spoke to in Spanish! Taylor, where are you when we need a translator!!! Anyway we were both so hungry all of this rolled off our back and we continued on into Las Cruces to the KOA. We have stayed here several times in the past 3 years. It is a very scenic RV Park and sets high above the city and you can see forever. We stop here each year as the weather is warm enough that we can de-winterize and take a few day of R & R before driving on to Arizona.
Las Cruces is a nice city but like all cities, it has it's 'hood' area. New Mexico must have more poverty than any other state in the US. Lesser people could not exist in the living conditions that the majority of the people live in. The houses throughout the countryside are no more shacks! They look like they would fall in on whoever opened a door! One of the requirements also, is to have at least 5 junk cars parked in the front yard. This state is just an extension of Mexico itself, regardless that it exists within the boundaries of the US.
We arrived at the KOA at about 9:00pm. We called for a reservation earlier in the day and our packet was waiting outside, since the office was closed. We found our site and pulled in, deciding to only connect our power tonight. We will finish hooking up tomorrow morning when it is warmer. It has been a VERY long day of travel. We did not plan to drive to Las Cruces today but with our misfortune of a detour through the 'blackhole of the earth', we had no options of anyplace else that we felt safe enough to stay. I think it is safe to say we drove close to 600 miles since leaving this morning. I think we will kick back for a couple of days to re coupe!
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