Almost There

It has been more than two weeks since my last post so let me get you caught up.  When I last posted we were in Las Vegas to attend the wedding of our friends daughter.  What a beautiful outdoor ceremony and we decided to go the formal route with me wearing a tux and Fran wearing a beautiful black dress.  Here are the “trailer people” all cleaned up.

The big item, literally, that I wrote on in my last post was that we had purchased a new fifth wheel, a 2015 Jayco Pinnacle, and that we had to drive to Joliet, Illinois to pick it up. So, beginning on January 18th our journey began to Joliet with the plan to arrive on March 4th. 

First stop was Winslow, Arizona.  You know, “Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona”  from the Eagles (70’s reference).  Actually we stayed outside of town at an RV park near the Meteor Crater park.  For those of you not familiar with this area there is big hole in the ground near Winslow where a meteor crashed into earth thousands of years ago.  Just off the interstate on the road to the crater is a very nice RV park, so we stopped for the night.  290 miles driven.

Next stop was Albuquerque.  We stayed for two nights here as we had not previously done any sightseeing in this area and we had to do our laundry.  The problem was it was really cold and really, really windy.  The first night there was a wind warning with gusts up to 70 mph.  Fortunately we had no issues.  We did go see the Balloon Museum and walked around Old Town where we had a nice lunch.  Being outside was not fun with the cold wind.  290 miles driven.

Next stop was Amarillo.  This stop was for the entire weekend so I could watch all the NASCAR Daytona races.  The weather was a little nicer during the day, but still only in the 40’s with it getting below freezing at night.  298 miles driven.

As I looked at the weather on our route I decided we needed to speed up as the potential for getting caught in snow and/or ice was a strong possibility.  Our next stop was Checotah, Oklahoma.  We had stayed here back in October on our way west.  This was just an overnight stop and we are now officially into very cold weather.  The days barely are getting to 40 and the nights are always below freezing.  At every stop I have to make sure to keep our water tanks full as we cannot connect up to the park water.  370 Miles driven.

Side note.  The normal route would have been to go north at Oklahoma City to get into the Chicago area but we were taking a little longer route so we could stop in Nashville to visit with our friends, pick up the other two dining table chairs for our trailer that are stored at their house and put some items into storage.

Next stop was our old favorite, West Memphis, Arkansas, Tom Sawyer’s Mississippi River Park.  With the weather so cold nobody was here.  We have never seen the park so deserted.  The river level was up but the barge traffic was minimal and it was so cold you really did not want to venture outside.  We stayed for two nights so we (Fran) could do laundry.  350 miles driven.

Next was Nashville, Tennessee.  We made it in on Thursday afternoon and had planned to stay until Saturday morning.  In fact we paid for the two nights but I continued to monitor the weather and a storm, called Titan, was making its way east and would be hitting our route through Indiana into Illinois just as we were hitting the road on Monday morning.  The potential for ice and accumulated snow was high.  As a result we decided to leave on Friday morning.  We had dinner with our friends and took care of our storage needs and moved on.  232 miles driven. 

The storm was projected to hit Sunday evening into Monday morning and the distance from Nashville to Joliet is about 450 miles so I found a nice park in Indianapolis for us to spend Friday night and then we would go into Joliet on Saturday, two days earlier than our revised plan.  270 miles driven.

As I write this we are in Indianapolis and have spent the last night in our current rig.  The weather looks OK for the drive into Joliet although they are getting some snow there today.  If everything goes as planned we will be in Joliet until Thursday, staying in a hotel, and then will head south in seek of warmer weather.

Here is a picture of our new rig.

Route taken:  From Las Vegas we picked up US 93 which took us to Interstate 40 east.  We followed Interstate 40 all the way into Nashville where we picked up Interstate 65.  From Interstate 65 we will pick up Interstate 80 into Joliet.