It is hard to believe we are beginning our fifth great
adventure with our trailer. Heading out this morning we anticipated a fairly
easy, if long drive on our first day heading toward Tucson, Arizona.
With a long drive ahead of us we decided to hit the road
early and that turned out to be a mixed blessing. Although the air temperature
(via the car’s thermometer) read 37 degrees we started to worry when we saw one
road commission truck after another spreading salt on the roads.
It became more concerning when we saw cars overturned in the
median along I-69 in a couple places in Genesee, Shiawassee, Ingham and Eaton
counties. Traffic slowed to a crawl in a couple places and to a complete stop
south of Charlotte.
The fatal accident on I-69 south of Charlotte had traffic on
I-69 completely closed and we were diverted off the freeway and through Olivet
before we could get back on the freeway south of the accident. There was a long
line of cars and trucks that we could see from the access road that were
trapped on the freeway by the wreck which took three hours to clear.
In all, the various ice incidents probably cost us an hour,
but sadly it cost one man his life, so we are thankful that we got through all
the ice without any further incidents.
It was a day that I was glad I was not pulling the trailer.
High winds and ice do not make for fun towing. One of our first adventures south to Florida involved an all day and all night
drive through Atlanta because of the poor road conditions. In the years since,
at the urging and suggestion of my wife, we have always positioned the trailer
in the south so we shorten the effort of getting the trailer to our final
destination.
Right now, our trailer is in Amarillo and we will pick it up
Friday and then make a stop in Roswell, New Mexico for a couple days before
heading onto Tucson.
Not sure if this was related to the early morning weather,
but as we prepared to cross from Illinois into Missouri at St. Louis we saw a
large overturned semi-truck and trailer with a large crew of men transferring
the goods from the trailer into another rig.
At a rest stop along I-44 in Missouri Joan and I were amused
to find some high tech sinks that invited you to stick your hands in a hole in
the wall where they were lathered with soap, rinsed and then dried with one of
those high speed dryers. We are easily amused.
After checking into our hotel we took the desk clerk’s
advice (and a 10 percent off coupon) and headed to Luigi’s Italian Restaurant
for a fine dinner. Joan had Chicken Florentine (which I found out means
spinach, which further means I will never eat anything with the name Florentine)
and I had “The Works” which was a spaghetti dinner with Italian sausage,
meatballs and meat sauce. All very good.
See you tomorrow.
Mileage out: 35625
Time out: 6:42 a.m. (Eastern Standard Time)
Mileage in: 36339
Time in: 5:10 p.m. (Central Standard Time)
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