Monday 13 February 2017

The Road Trip from Hell.

Or why on earth should it take 11 days to drive cross country.
     Remember back a page or so when we mentioned snow. Yes, it snowed. And then it snowed harder. And when we didn't think it could snow any harder, it did. And we are driving a F250, pulling a wildly overloaded 30" 5th wheel trailer. With two dogs, one a somewhat flatulent boxer, and an old cat who hates travel, in the back seat. He insists on expressing his displeasure in an amazingly piercing voice. The exact definition of Caterwauling.
The first day on the road lasted six hours and covered one hundred and eighty seven point 2 miles. Most of that time Bruce was white knuckling the steering wheel as I typed frantic goodbye notes to all of our friends and relatives. I just knew we were going to die. We ended in a vacant lot next to the glowing Golden Arches of a friendly neighborhood McDonald's just outside of Ogden, Ut. We were going to live to see another day! And we did! And that day dawned, wait, no it didn't. It was snowing so hard that it was really difficult to tell if it was dawn or not. The vacant lot was covered in 8 inches of new powder and I was thinking that it looked like a pretty good place to stay. Until spring.
    Not so my adventurous husband. A quick Micky D's breakfast and we hit the road. Yesterday was dark, snowy, semi flat driving. Not so today. Today its gray, snowy and the roads have turned to ice. Oh yeah! And we are facing our first big city. Salt Lake City, morning rush hour, on ice. Of course we are. We are really going to make some miles today.  And we did. Eighty one point two miles to Provo, Ut. Its amazing how slow time passes when you are terrified. Even more so when you have been terrified for days. And we get to do it again tomorrow.
Day three. Lets throw some good, steep, western hills into the mix. The things they call the Appalachians back in the east. Not to be compared with real western mountains.  Now lets cover them with rapidly accumulating snow, ice, and..........wind. Yeah, now we need some wind. As anyone who has ever pulled a great big slab sided trailer through the snow on icy roads through great big western hills will tell you, it just isn't a real challenge without the wind. And just to spice it up a bit, those great big hills swirl the wind around so that one minute its right in your face causing your fuel consumption to go through the roof, and then it kicks you in the side of the trailer again and tries to throw you off the highway.
Yup, Bruce, white knuckles. Me, typing our last will and testaments.
Going through the Fish Lake National Forrest the snow is coming down so hard that we are crawling along in single file behind a snow plow. God bless that plow driver.  The driver leaves the highway just after the pass south of Scipio, Ut. Soon after a car pulls up next to us. Honking the horn, flashing the headlights and the driver making all kinds of odd gestures. We lower our window as little as possible to hear what he is yelling. Something that sounds strangely similar to "your trailer is dragging!"  Now how could that possibly be. Our trailer is up on tires. It is not leaning precipitously to either side so the tires must still be inflated. But this poor man was so stressed we figured we would stop at the next exit and check it out. And we did. And the trailer was dragging. A very large portion of the underside of the trailer has let go at the front edge and was dragging merrily along the highway acting just like a mini snow plow. But pushing all of the snow up into the underside of the trailer instead of off the road. And adding completely unnecessary extra weight.  Besides looking very tacky. Break time. Lets hit a garage. Holden, Ut. A large and reputable looking tire shop. Sweet folk offer to use a bit of baling wire to tie up the bottom of the trailer until we can find an RV repair. That's open during a blizzard. In December. Three days before Christmas. And Oh, by the way. Did you know that your trailer tires are shot? Yup, four new tires, a free bottom wiring job and $600 later we are on the road again. Now we have spent half of our spending money. We are three days in on driving time on what should have been a four day trip. And we are bordering on complete nervous breakdowns. Cedar City, Ut. KOA campground. We have made it another 208.7 miles. Our first 10 hour day. A celebration is called for and we ask at the check in desk if there is a good restaurant in town where we can have a glass of wine and a good steak. The clerk looks slightly sad for us as he sends us off to the only place in town that will sell us an alcoholic beverage. Sigh. Still in Utah. And the decor is all done in dead animals. It is a taxidermist dream and I still have nightmares. I so wish that the cloud with these pictures hadn't evaporated. We ate, we drank and we slept the sleep of the dead. Or people who know that they may not make it through the next day.

6 comments:

  1. I snorted coffee more than once, LOL

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  2. But...but...you're still married! Bwahahahahaha

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  3. Any more blogging??
    Interesting story.

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  4. Sorry, i took a break and next thing i know im in Belize. Being ild i doubt that i could remember wnough to continue. But im glad you reminded me that the blog exhisted. I got a great laugh out of it.

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