Friday December 17, 2010
We were up early doing last minute packing and trying to think of what we hadn't thought of before. It was kind of a chore packing our clothes in the trailer since the temperature was about 10F, and I didn't dare put out the slide-outs for fear of breaking something. Each time I put something in the closet I had to climb over the bed and putting clothes into the dresser was also a challenge since the top two drawers would only open about 4 inches with the bed in the way. We only took a few grocery items since we didn't know how long we would be dealing with freezing temperatures. I even left the Linenkuegels behind; I figured they have beer in Texas too.
I thought I had all the outdoor stuff done but once the trailer was hooked up I decided I had better put more air in the rear tires of the truck. The electric cable was frozen stiff and made for a tough job to get it shoved into its storage compartment. Then there was the auxillary mirrors; I learned, in 2009 that they don't work well in cold temperatures, so I heated the truck mirrors with a hair dryer and warmed up the suction pads. The left one stayed on the second try but the right one, after multiple tries, only stayed on for about 5 minutes.
Finally we pulled out at about 10:30, not quite the crack of dawn but not bad for us. It was 17F when we left and the truck thermometer didn't vary by more than one or two degrees all the way to St Louis, where we spent the first night. They had had snow in northern IL on Thursday but there was no evidence of it on the roads by the time we got there. All the highways were clear and dry, with a little salt blowing around. We got to St Louis about 9pm and stayed at a motel near the junction of I-55 and I-255.
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