Flexibility is the key to winter travel

We made it to Oklahoma City without any more weather-related issues. We had planned on staying two nights to see family and do some last minute shopping, but the weather gods didn’t agree. It turns out there is a huge storm bringing lots of snow heading to southwestern Texas right along I-10, our original planned route. There is another weather system with lots of snow heading through Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa. However I-40 runs through the middle of those, and it is clear! We haven’t ever been to travel this route at this time of year because it is usually stormy, but we re-routed to travel along that instead of I-10. You have to be flexible when traveling in the winter in a 32,000 pound motorhome! I just won’t travel in the snow, though rain and cold don’t bother me.

With the storm coming in, we cut our planned two day trip short and spent just a few minutes with my sister. I dropped off her presents and that was about it. We have both been isolating seriously, she because her son is special needs and there isn’t a safe alternate caregiver, us because we are heading into what is effectively a medical desert as well as a physical desert. I am pretty pleased with the towels. They are actually from one of my sons, but I did the embroidery. My son has a cabin on Lake Volney in Minnesota, and my sister and nephew have spent time there. Of course she got some of my standard hand made presents this year – bowl cozies. I posted pictures of those two posts back.

We spent the night at Mustang Run RV Park. It is great as a simple overnight stop because the sites are long enough, the roads are wide enough, and they have full hookups available in the winter. Not exactly a garden spot, but it is an easily accessed spot. We were heading west by 6:30 this morning in a heavy fog. Basically I-40 followed the same path as the front, and we stayed in a heavy fog for 300 miles! The advantage of fog is that there is no wind, so I was able to drive at a steady 62 mph the entire day unless we were going through construction zones. I like 62 because that is the sweet spot for our rig in efficiency. After all, we are retired so why hurry!

As we closed in on the New Mexico border, we finally left the fog to find brilliant sun gleaming in partly cloudy skies. It was a very abrupt change and let us get the first glimpses of the lovely mess country. Tonight we are in Tucumcari, NM at a KOA. Nice place with some long sites and easy access. As you have probably noticed by now, we value convenience over beauty when traveling to a destination. How do you like this picture of a scary tree?

We are less than 200 miles from our planned next spot in Albuquerque. We intend on staying there a couple of nights, buying some last minute things we didn’t have time to get before we left. I need some coordinating fabric for some quilt tops I have planned, and Kevin is replacing our busted water softener. Arizona has such hard water, we really need a softener. We will do our last big grocery shopping trip before hitting the desert too.

A few posts ago I mentioned our new slide toppers, but I didn’t have pictures. Here are a couple showing the color. After all, slide toppers are not terribly photogenic.