Ba-Ba-Baby It’s Cold Outside!

I decided to swing south on my way back to St. Louis, the better to avoid any weather complications. Ha! Silly me.

The people who had forecast the worst winter in 20 years seem to have known what they were talking about. The area of Texas I’m currently stranded in is NOT known for ice and snow. At least not normally, but nothing about this year is normal, apparently.

A couple of days ago the wind was whipping with a vengeance in New Mexico. My sister called to tell me that there was a nasty cold front bearing down from up north that was due to extend all the way to Dallas. There wasn’t much I could do at that point except continue driving.

The front hit as I neared Amarillo, TX. I turned south, hoping to avoid the worst of it, but all I found was snow and ice. After a few hours it began to get really nasty. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of salt trucks or plows on the road yet. So I pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, along with about a dozen semi’s and spent the night. I awoke in the morning to a frozen water line and slick roads. (Unlike my old RV, the water pump and some of the water lines are NOT under the bed. Instead they are in a compartment just behind the front wheel on the passenger’s side. Completely exposed to the cold. Dumb idea.)

Fortunately, the damage is limited to a small leak in one line. The rest were so encased in ice that they couldn’t expand enough to break! The temperature that night had dropped into the teens. I had originally planned to just stay there a couple of hours to allow the plows and salt trucks to get ahead of me. But I fell asleep while reading and didn’t wake up for almost six hours. Oh, well…

I headed out on the road, hoping to get far enough south that I could get into warmer weather. That wasn’t happening either. I did manage to get as far as interstate 20, where I started eastward. Along about 4 PM I realized that I wasn’t going to get anywhere near far enough to escape the cold that was forecast for that night–single digits. So I pulled into a campground on the west side of Abilene (after stopping to buy a utility light and some 40 watt bulbs, for use in heating the compartment with the pump and lines), hooked up to the electricity, had a hot shower and got some sleep.

I had planned to top off my water tank before leaving the next morning, but that was out as the water lines in the campground had frozen solid overnight. I settled for draining my gray and black-water tanks, then hit the road. I had kept the water heater on all night, along with the light and that seemed to solve the freezing problems with my lines. Problem is, for that solution to work when I’m not in a campground, I would have to run my generator all night. Which isn’t something I really want to do.

I was warned that the interstate heading east could be a problem, but was also told that west-bound was much worse. I figured slow and easy would get me where I was going, everything east of Dallas was supposed to be in decent shape.

The first hour was smooth sailing. I kept it at 50 to 55 and had no problems–well aside from idiots who thought they could do 70…on the ice. After the first hour things got bad. Both lanes were dead in the water most of the time. Stoppages were lasting as long as 20 to 30 minutes before we would inch forward again. In almost 5 hours I had traveled about 90 miles. 30 of those miles were in the last 3-4 hours of the trip.

I pulled up campgrounds on my GPS and found one “only” 38 miles away. A lifetime at my current rate of speed. Then I saw a sign for an upcoming off ramp. It advertised a campground that was NOT on my new GPS! I pulled off the highway as soon as I could (another half hour…) and got a site for the night. Good choice on my part. Traffic shut down completely shortly after I got off. Truckers slept in their rigs on the highway. There was nowhere else to go.

lined up on the highway and off

When I awoke in the morning, it looked like it might be safe to go on. But I pulled up a real-time highway map, just to make sure. It showed 0-10 mph all the way to Dallas, after which it was smooth sailing, no more problems. The problem, of course, was getting to Dallas. Using what’s left of my brain, I listened to the little voice that kept saying “pay for another night in the campground”, went to the office and did so.

Right after I got back to my RV, traffic on the interstate, which had been moving slowly along, came to another complete halt. Good call. I went out to take pictures and found good-hearted people from the local community carrying food to the stranded vehicles, which included a busload of high school students who were trying to get back home. Those people deserve a special place in heaven. I know it was a drop in the bucket, considering how many people were stranded, but at least they were doing something.

as far as the eye can see…

It’s now about 12:40 PM and traffic is moving sporadically. But the best news is that the sun is out and the ice is starting to melt. Tomorrow I will head back on the highway with all the truckers trying to reach their destinations. But at least I will have had a day of rest.

Cloudy…with a Chance of Rainbows

The Black Hills are well-known for their beauty.  People pay ridiculous amounts of money for any piece of property up here.  A small house in Spearfish Canyon, nothing  all that special, sells for more than double what my house in St. Louis just sold for.   That’s the price of beauty–or the price of possessiveness.

But the thing that has most captured my attention for the moment are the clouds.  Oh, the clouds, my head’s in them and every afternoon seems to bring some fabulous new creation floating my way.

Like St. Louis, the weather here is extremely changeable.  Don’t like it, wait ten minutes…..more-or-less.   On one drive, I went from sunny and bright to a complete rainbow sparkling up ahead on the road–quickly followed by a sudden deluge replete with golf ball sized hailstones.  Then sun shining again 20 minutes later.  Ah, simple Midwestern joys.

Then, after the sun sets and the clouds have gone their merry way, there comes the inky blackness of the night sky and the plethora of stars that populate the heavens here.  I’m far enough away from a major population center that the light pollution is almost non-existent and the stars hold sway in the dark.  The Milky Way stretches across space and time and the constellations impress themselves upon your brain in ways that I had forgotten they could.  While star-gazing last night,  the Big Dipper came into view as I turned in a circle in order to take in the whole sky.  I had forgotten just how impressive it could be.  I surely remember now.

I’ll end this brief entry with a few photos of some of the clouds I’ve managed to capture in the past few days.

Where Have I Been?

I have been wandering around southern Mississippi and Louisiana, kind of here-and-there and nowhere in particular. But one of the places I wandered to was the Mississippi Sandhill Crane Preserve. I didn’t get to see any cranes, however. It’s mating season, so the do-not-disturb sign is out while they’re raising their young. Something about only a little over 100 of the birds left, they need every one possible to survive and all that jazz. I mean, there’s over 100, so what’s the big deal? Just kidding!

I did get to take a nice stroll on their nature trail. It’s a little early for most of the flowers to be out. Few are in bloom yet and many plants haven’t emerged from their short winter sleep. But there were still plenty of plants around that don’t disappear during the winter and a few early bloomers had made the scene.

One of the most interesting plants I saw was the Spoonleaf Sundew. This is a tiny little plant. I didn’t see a single one that was over two inches across. They are carnivorous little critters. Think Venus Flytrap. They have sticky hairs on their leaves that trap small insects that they then digest. They’re quite pretty little things. I also saw some yellow butterwarts. Apparently they are just starting to bloom and have only come out in the past couple of days.

yellow butterwort

spoonleaf sundew

I also saw several pitcher-plant blossom buds. I’ve seen many pictures of pitcher plants, but I didn’t realize that they had a flower before the pitcher formed. So in amongst the dried pitchers from last years plants there were several buds on long, slender stems, a couple of which were large enough that they probably opened the next day….after I was gone. Sigh. But it was nice to see spring so well sprung down here. I know that won’t be the case once I’m back in St. Louis. I’ll also miss seeing all the azaleas. Down here there are huge. Often more than six feet tall and ten feet across. And completely covered in blossoms. Azalea hedges forming living fences across entire yards. Sure, St. Louis has azaleas. And they will be pretty when they bloom, but I’ve never seen any that reach the size of the ones down here.

just a view from the trail

After Mississippi, I moved on across Louisiana. I didn’t spend much time there unfortunately. I did spend a couple of days in Broussard at Maxie’s Campground. Since I am an Escapees member, full hook-up was only $15 per night. It’s right on the highway, but I thought that it might quiet down in the evening, that maybe traffic would slack off at night. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. It was a nice enough place and located near several interesting places to see, but, like I said, pretty noisy at night. Still, if you don’t mind the traffic noise, it’s a good place to spend a few days. (Full price is $24 if you aren’t a member of something that gives you a discount–there are several.) I had a fibro/chronic fatigue flare-up and ended up sleeping for two days, so I never saw anything but my pillow. Bummer.

After I left there, I headed up toward Shreveport but stopped to gas up in Alexandria, LA and decided to cut across to Natchez, MS and drive north on the Natchez trace. I had driven part of it three years ago and vowed that if I was ever back down this way I would drive the whole thing. Well, I was too close to pass it up. So I left Alexandria, temperature 87 degrees, and drove toward Natchez, less than two hours away. There were some crazy looking clouds on the horizon than got darker as I got closer to them. The exception was a hole in the middle of them that was like a window on some bright white clouds that were obviously higher up than the dark ones. It created a lovely picture. The cars coming towards me all had their lights on, so I figured there might be some rain in my future. Plus the temperature was dropping fast.

I was right. Turned out to be heavy rain, high winds too. I heard that there were also tornado warnings, as well as some hail. Fortunately I didn’t see anything serious. I did, however, see a WalMart parking lot just as the rain got really, really heavy and the wind gusts were really starting to rock the RV. I took the opportunity to call it quits for the night. By then the temperature had already dropped to 67 and was still on the way down. Why push it? The drive to this point had been really, really pretty. No sense in spoiling a nice day. I wasn’t far from Natchez. No problem hitting the trace tomorrow.