tour2004pg1

The 2004 Adventure

January 16, 2004

The weather is frightful, 3 degrees above zero. No wind, for which we are thankful, sunny, for which we are also thankful.

As usual the trip actually begins several weeks before the moment of departure. Actually began stacking required items before Christmas. The parlor is our “staging” area. The piles of required items grew day by day.

The weather can make or break ya. We had several snow storms in the weeks before we hoped to leave. We wanted as much snow as possible moved as far as possible away from the rig and truck. Makes trailer loading easier, as well as hooking up. And, who wants ice all over the drive, ice skating is fine for limber youngsters with ice skates; it is not so wonderful for loading heavy items into the rig. So, every time it snowed we scraped, blew it, swept it, shoveled it. Kept the drive pretty clean and dry.

For several months we had been getting doctor visits, and vet visits for the 4 yorks out of the way. We have all 4 yorks on special diets, so we purchased a LOT of dog food to take with us, thankfully yorkshire terriers are small dogs. We figure we have loaded about 75 pounds or more dog food for the trip. We have been unable to purchase prescription dog food before during our travels, so take what we need with us.

On Monday the 12th, we put the slides out on the rig, turn the heat on and start loading. Al installs the new door to cover his Autoformer installation. He also works on installing the new clothes dryer he purchased which mounts on the ladder on the rear of the rig. We start loading, dog food, people food, clothes, my research books and files, CD’s, DVD’s, books, craft projects, and so forth. We have 4 boxes of gear/freezables from the rig that we take to the basement each fall; these are brought back up; taken to the rig and loaded.

The loading and organizing continue through Tuesday and Wednesday. No, it does not take us that many days to load the rig, we had other commitments to fulfill several of those days. Thursday, we finish loading, and start cleaning the house. Thursday evening late we winterize the house, drain the water, turn off the water heater. We leave one toilet to use and winterize that early Friday AM before we leave. Dishes are done, house is sorta cleaned, plants watered, cats fed and watered. We are as ready as we can get.

Friday AM we have breakfast; empty the few food items still left in the frig, turn it off, stuff it with newspaper; and get ready to hook up the trailer.

Now, comes the moment of truth, will those slides REALLY go in at 3 degrees above zero?? There was a little snow on them, we have been told it will roll right off as the slides go in. We have had the heat on in the rig for several days now, and turn it up to about 70 degrees to try and warm up the slide mechanisms (heated basement) as much as possible. Still the slides run very slowly. The bedroom slide goes in without a burp, a little slow, but it goes in. The kitchen and front room slides start coming in at the same time (usually the kitchen moves first, when it is in, the front room comes in). When both rooms are about half way in, they basically stop moving. So as to not damage anything, I stop the process. Go out to talk to Al, who watches from outside while I am inside pushing the “button”. He tells me to go back and push that button again. So, I do, and much to our delight both slides start moving again and after a few more tense moments they are in and we are sighing!! OK, we are doing little happy dances! <G>

We hook up the rig, it is so cold the electrical plug from trailer to truck is frozen, barely will straighten out. Al has trouble even getting it to “plug” in. After a lot of fussing, pushing and pulling, he accomplishes that. Load the computer gear, camera gear and dogs in the truck and before 9:30 AM we are ready to pull out.

The trip out was as could be expected, we drive slow on the snow and ice covered gravel roads we live on, take the path of least hills, and off we go.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful, we hit a few snow squalls around Coldwater Michigan, but the roads were not slippery. By the end of the day we have seen the temperature climb to 44 degrees. It took a while for the snow to melt off the trailer and truck, it was well after Indianapolis before we lost it all.

We drove 380 miles by the time we pulled into the KOA south of Louisville and we are beat. We have a pull through site, so we have little set up to do, we turn on the heat, have a drink, have some dinner and collapse. No water on board yet, so we do picnic style camping.

January 17, 2004

Breakfast at the Waffle House, yum, Carol gets grits!! <G> We both have southern country salty ham. More YUM!

It is rainy a lot of today, the drive is pretty uneventful (that is a good thing), except for the occasional idiot driver. We run across one interesting thing. We got off the expressway, we were contemplating a short side trip to the Jim Beam distillery in southern Tennessee. When we got off we discover that there is no indication of how far we might have to drive, so decide this is not the time to go on a “jaunt”. So, we look around for food. It is rather late in the afternoon and we have not had any lunch. Imagine our surprise to find that the entrance to every restaurant at this expressway exit blocked for tall rigs. Unless your total heights were less than 9 foot 6 inches, you could not get in, or out. Only thing we can figure is they had had considerable trouble with big rig drivers???? Seeing that we were not welcome, we made a U turn on the 4 lane highway and got back on I 65 and left!

Arrived Huntsville Alabama about 5 PM, we finished setting up in the dark and drizzle. We are very tired again, but we think it is marginally warm enough to have water. This is always a good thing!! Bob and Pat deHilster had suggested the campground, Ditto Landing, and we find it to be quite charming and it suits us just fine!

We hear that the temps below freezing, so, we fill the fresh water tank and drain the hoses. This turned out to be a good decision, as it just keeps getting colder and colder.

January 18, 2004

We spend a very very nice day visiting with Al’s cousins, Bob and Pat deHilster. Pat fixed us a wonderful one dish breakfast and a great one dish dinner. YUM. Such good eats! We tell stories, share photos, Carol got the scanner running and copied a number of photos and documents for her family history project. We watched part of the old movies Bob and Pat had converted from 8mm to video. Bob’s mother had voiced over a part of the total project, what fun, listening to Hilda tell about her children and family vacations and family get togethers. We enjoyed this so much!

Temps dropping, the rain finally stops, but it is collllddddddd!!! We run the propane heat and two electric heaters, and have the electric blankets running too. Brrrrr outside, toasty inside.

January 19, 2004

Spend another day with Bob and Pat. We go to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center Museum in Huntsville. What a nice museum. We spend several hours examining the displays. It was great being inside because outside it was nasty! Cold, and a wind, combined to make bitterness. We went out to look over the mock up space shuttle and rockets, and could not stay long. Hurt your body cold. Brrrr, we figure we are not far enough south yet!

Dinner is at a bar-g-que. Very good food! VERY GOOD!

Tonight it got colder yet. They say the low in Huntsville was 19 degrees. There is a lot of frost on the pumpkin Tuesday morning, and most ponds and puddles are glazed with ice.

Iowa caucus vote today provides a surprise winner, Kerry! Interesting.

Space Shuttle and rockets, WOW!

Space clothing?? very neat stuff

A little power and Al could fly like the dude above him!!

We are laughing, but we are freezing!!

January 20, 2004

We are gonna start heading further south and west. Destination is Jackson Mississippi. I can do a little research there and hopefully it will be warmer.

It is about 23 degrees on our thermometer. BUT, no wind chill and it is sunny and the skies are a beautiful blue. Today will be a day of thrills, not always so welcome, but so fun to tell about!

First thrill was putting the slides in. We did not realize they were filled with water, NOW ICE! When the kitchen slide was about half way in, the ice on top came crashing down! Luckily we were not standing below when it came rolling off that slide topper! Al thought that a window had blown out on the slide. That ice was at least 1.5 inches thick!

Next thrill was when we were supposed to get off US 65 at Birmingham Alabama and get on 20/59 west to Mississippi. They were cleaning the exit ramp with a street cleaner, but had not posted any warning. Basically all they did was block the entire ramp with state work vehicles and all their blinking lights. We were almost into the ramp when we discovered we could not enter! With a lot of fast reactions, a few purple words of horror and angst, and some fast map reading we continued on I 65 yo 459 west (which connected us back with 20/59 west).

On 459, I ask Al, “What is that noise?”. I look in the rear view mirrors to see if the step on the trailer has fallen open, NOPE. That was good. Then I thought maybe the landing gear on the front of the trailer had dropped. Could not see that. I turned around to look out the rear window of the truck to discover the source of the sound. The cover for the truck has a piece that is designed to come off so that you can clean. One of the screws had come loose and that piece was flopping around. We pulled off to the side of the expressway and fixed it.

Enough thrills for one day. Whew. The rest of the drive was pleasant and uneventful. We had lunch in a truck stop, easy on, easy off, easy gas fill up, good food, great service.

We arrive in Jackson Mississippi about 5:30, having driven 353 miles, we are again exhausted. We prefer to drive about 275 miles per day, and every drive day this trip, so far, we have done well over that. We can tell the difference in that extra 50 or more miles we have been doing.

This campground is a new experience for us, it is entirely paved with black top. It is part of a mobile home park, very clean and well kept. We have cable TV, full hookups, and the most beautiful holly bushes we have ever seen. We are working in the dark setting up, but there are a number of lights and we have the old trusty flashlight. We have a quick dinner, a drink and turn up the heat, find the weather channel and RELAX! We also watch part of the State of the Union address by Bush.

We have decided the research day can be delayed a day, tomorrow we are going to lick the wounds, do laundry, lay around, do a little cleaning and collect our thoughts and plan the next couple of weeks. It is supposed to go below freezing, so we leave the cold water running in the bathroom sink, very slowly, just to keep the hoses from freezing.

Here is the ice!! YIKES!

Click here for the second installation of the Adventure of 2004.