We’ll have to say that we’ve had a great run of weather for our trip. We’re traveling back in mid-sixties temps with the sun shining in our windows. We didn’t have much choice in our travel days but were extremely lucky in those we got. We could be traveling in snow, sleet, rain, fog or wind. We’re thinking that we have 4 angels up there watching over us as we roll along: my parents and Gary’s.
Some of the territory we’re passing through is spectacular. Here’s a mesa near White Sands National Monument. We took some time to stop at a rest stop to admire the view.
Of course, we’re traveling pretty fast and are passing up terrific tourist opportunities. Oh, maybe not. We’d probably pass on this one anyway.
We finally made it to the central time zone, another hour lost, and we are outside of Oklahoma City in a small town called El Reno. Here we plan to winterize, something we haven’t had to do much in our lives. Whenever an RV goes into storage in a cold climate where the water might freeze, you need to put a special RV and marine antifreeze into all of the pipes, tanks, faucets and appliances which use water: refrigerator ice maker, washing machine, hot water heater, etc. This way no pipes can break when the temps plunge, the water freezes and ice expands.
Since we usually leave before the first frost of the winter and return only after the last frost of the spring, we haven’t winterized much except for our first two years when we left in November. This year we’ll arrive back in Iowa in in the beginning of February and we know that there will be some freezing temps very soon. Thus, we have to winterize this year. And, we need a full hook-up compground to do that.
We’ve been driving til dusk every night on this trip and usually pull into our parking space after dark. Tonight we are staying in an actual campground. We’ve spent 3 nights on the road: one in a dirt parking lot next to a loud truck, another in a visitor center parking lot with other RV’s and trucks though this time none were loud, and the third night in a Walmart parking lot. Tonight we pulled in before dusk. I went into the registration desk and was offered cookies, home-made and fresh. Ummm. This sounds good. We were also told that, since this campground is owned by a motel, that we could have the motel hot breakfast in the morning. This is sounding even better.
We got settled, Gary hooked up the electricity and we had dinner.
Now, it’s Sunday and we had heard that Hilary Clinton and President Obama were going to hold a joint interview on 60 Minutes. But, we pulled in so late that we missed it. Just didn’t think about TV. Several weeks ago, I watched the first episode of the 3rd year of Downton Abbey. I’ve never seen this program before though I’ve heard of it. However the double billing of Shirley MacLaine and Maggie Smith was a terrific draw and I wanted to watch these two great actresses together. I thought it pretty good and planned to watch it the next Sunday. I forgot to watch, of course, and now, I don’t know how many episodes I’m behind. I did remember to turn it on tonight, 5 minutes before the end of the program. Oh, well.
Time for bed and up early again tomorrow.
1300 miles down - 700 to go
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