The Recharging…Planning anew!

The weather here in Northern New Hampshire has moderated a little today and I was able to finally wash the tons of white salt encrusted on my pickup truck. I also gave the two mountain bikes a bath. The camper remains in the shop. There isn't as much salt on it, but I would love to also give it a good rinse.

Blackhawks landing!

All is well on the home front. My pulled leg muscle is getting better, my mother-in-law seems to have stabilized. Just maybe, in a couple of weeks, we may possibly head out and salvage some of this winter getaway. We now are rethinking our destination. Plan “B” was flying to Los Angeles and renting a car and touring the Southwest for a  month or so. The thing that bothers me about this plan is that the weather in the Southwest has been cooler than normal. If there is one thing that I want this winter, it is to get warm! Here comes plan “C” Key West, Florida. The temperature there is always in the mid-seventies... my kind of weather! There are a couple military RV Campgrounds that I have been eyeing ever since we visited Key West a few years back. NASKW Campground [Naval Air Station Key West] and Marathon Recreation Cottages & campgrounds; RV Park [Coast Guard Station Marathon]. Both of these excellent parks may be full, but I am betting that their overflow will handle us for a few days until we can get a full hookup site.

That is what we are thinking and planning!

The Aborted Road Trip

Erie to Buffalo ~ "The Lake Effect"

Is this what Polar means"

We left Erie, PA around 8 am for a return trip back home. The weather outside was terrible. The lake effect snow and wind were rightly named. It was nearly a whiteout with 30 to 40 mile an hour cross wind. The snow was blinding. The highway was plowed, but many sections had hard packed snow on the roadway. There was a  seven car pileup near our location. We did see a tractor trailer jackknife on the Interstate. I followed a TT (tractor trailer) with his fourway blinkers on, I was talking to him on the CB (citizen band radio) when another TT came barreling down the interstate at 60 mph or so. I couldn't see the TT ahead. I said over the CB "What a bonehead passing us at that rate of speed" The TT driver said he actually had to look out of his passenger side window to see if he was still on the road. This bad road experience only lasted about an hour and a half. (Erie to Buffalo) Once we headed East and actually just a few miles down the road there wasn't even a trace of snow. I had been warned about this route (the lake effect), but I was figuring that I could beat the weather and be pass all of that. The rest of the trip home was sunny, cold and windy. We arrived home at 9:15 pm. I had driven 630 miles. I had called home earlier to have our daughter Christy turn on the furnace switch in the shop. This would enable me to start the dump truck and drive the camper into a warm spot to unload items that would freeze.
This trip to Arizona didn't turnout as expected, but that's part of the adventure. A few days have passed and my mother-in-law is doing better. The game plan now is to wait a few weeks to see if everyone is stabilized with all of us and go to plan "B"
Plan "B" might go something like this; Fly to Los Angeles, visit a friend and start a road tour from there towards the Southwest. We have done this before and enjoyed it. I am sure that I can find a route with people, places and things that I haven't explored before. We really haven't explored much of Utah. Zion and Bryce Canyon were marvelous and maybe a starting point for this unique state.

That is what we did and saw

The Road Trip Has Begun

Last Day before leaving

It was cold this morning… about three below zero and. we finished loading all of the last minute items in the camper. It felt like an ice box inside, but I knew that would change as soon as we got rolling along. It was 7:02 when we left the house. We drove pass Pleasant Street Convenience Store and waived to Stump and some of the guys in the store. I usually stop in for a coffee, but time was a wasting and I wanted to travel at least 365 miles to get out of the next storm heading for New Hampshire.

Doesn't that look  like a cozy snow cave!

The sky was blue and the temperature never climbed much above 6 degrees above zero. Some of our soft drinks (stored outside the camper shell) froze, but did not split. We temporally stored them inside in the shower. The new slider window finally worked better after we plugged some air leaks in the donut area. (That is the part that seals between the truck cab and camper. This was a homemade item that I didn’t have time to road test before the actual trip.)

In late afternoon, the sky became milky white and soon the snow started falling. We pulled into a Wal-Mart  in Utica, NY about an hour short of our intended goal. The snow increased to nearly a white out. We were here for the night.

So far on this trip, I was looking around for what was of interest to view and see. The one major thing was the Erie Canal that parallels I-90 to Lake Erie. There are many locks for shipping barges to navigate the waterways. I don’t exactly know how long the canal is, but it is very long.

It's not a bridge to nowhere, but part of the Erie Canal 

Now for an update; the first morning just before leaving home I was tightening my shoe lace when I felt a sharp pain in my back. I pushed off with my left leg to relieve the pain. I was sore, but we proceeded to leave Berlin. My leg got progressively worse. The first night we stayed in the camper. The furnace ran about 14 minutes every hour. The next morning, we left very early and drove as far as Erie, PA. It was now 2pm and my leg was really bothering me. I had been taking 1000mg of Acetaminophen with no results. It was time to find a hotel! The Econo Lodge was it. I was in bed at 3pm and stayed there until 5:30 the next morning.

My leg was still tender but better. Helen got a call from her sister. Her mother took a turn for the worse and may be hospitalized on this day. It was a sign for us to head back home.

That is what we did and saw

Up Coming Winter Getaway!

Well as you can see we are still alive after the winter solstice yesterday the 21^st of December. The holidays will soon be behind us and the time has come to continue planning our journey to Arizona. The truck camper sits under a lean-to in back of my shop. I have been plowing the snow away to provide access to it. When the time comes it should be easy to load and ready for a quick departure sometime in late January.  I’ve been thinking of upgrading a few things on the truck to make the camper easier to acclimate to a quicker temperature. My truck does not have a slider window in the rear. I want to change that and replace it. It will enable the truck cab heater and air-conditioner to either pre-heat or cool the camper. The furnace in the camper works fine, but preheating will warm things right up while we are driving. 

Break.........................

   This morning December 24th the sun is shining, the Holiday music is playing on the laptop. I am waiting for the Christmas festivities to start later this afternoon at our daughters house. I am pushing myself  to start writing the blog again. The planning of our road trip goes something like this; first I spend a couple of months studying everything that I need to know about the road trip, our destination in Arizona and all of the surroundings areas. When I have all of this familiar in my head I'll probably disregard everything and not follow a schedule or plan. This way I don't feel obligated to do anything or be somewhere at a certain time. The whole idea of studying is to have options stored or at least have a resources available in my head. An example of this is the weather. My navigation software directs us nearly in a diagonal  path across the US from New Hampshire to Arizona. If the January/February weather is to severe a swing to the South might be more practical.


Break.........................