We got out of Independence, MO on December 29 after 8 1/2 hours trying to get out of there. It's a long horror story and I won't go into the whole thing in this thread.
However, there is one thing I want to mention and that has to do with what you should NOT do when trying to get out of the cold, ice and snow.
When you put 1.5 inch foam boards on the sides, bottom, and roof of the slides to help hold in the warmth during the winter, it's probably best to leave it there until the thaw. Otherwise, the foam gets trapped on the slide roof when the freezing rain forms ice on the slide toppers. That topped with five inches of snow causes the ice-laden toppers to sag, trapping the rooftop foam under up to four inches of ice, in the center, and two inches on each side, in our case. That ice is HEAVY!
It required hooking up a hose to the outdoor shower and running both hot and cold water onto the ice on the toppers to thaw it enough so the ice could be slid off the end.
Now, on to what you probably should NOT do... Once that ice starts to break up it is possible to get a snow shovel under parts of it so you can get your arms under it and slide large chunks, say 50 to 100 pounds each, off the ends of the slides. It is probably best to close one's eyes when sliding it off the edge. Otherwise one might see that big chunk of ice crash into and break off an open locker door.
Yep, smashed it clean off the hinge and smacked it into the ground. After thinking "that's it, we're not getting out of here today since it's already late afternoon," I was able to repair the door and get it attached to the rig enough it would hold until we reached warmer weather. Fortunately the hinge was intact and it had just pulled out the pop rivets holding the door to the hinge. And bent the hinge a little and pulled the door's frame out and bent it. All repairable.
This is already too long a story and I've hardly begun telling about our adventures getting out of Dodge (Independence, MO). No need to mention my nice three-high stacks of blocks that were screwed together and had nice handles are still on that concrete pad in Independence because no amount of hot water would free them up from being stuck to the concrete by the ice.
Oh, did I mention when I began getting the outside ready to leave it was 17 degrees and the high for the day was 22?
Anyhow, we finally left Independence at 9:40 p.m. and headed south on I-35 out of KC. We got a total of 42 miles before the snow that wasn't supposed to get there until morning hit the area and started accumulating on the highway. We pulled into a truck stop near Gardner, KS, just 42 miles from where we started, and set the furnace at 55 and hoped the battery would last the night (no generator). It did and a trucker told me next morning we're fine to go despite the couple of inches of snow all over everything. One lane was clear (partially to mostly) and as we got another 75 or 80 miles farther south the second lane cleared. Once the truck showed 33 degrees outside and the road was clear I relaxed a little and set the cruise. Except on bridges. I shut off the cruise on bridges until considerably warmer. We did almost 500 miles that day, a very long day for us, landing in Sanger, TX. We stayed three nights there just to get rested up.
Oh, I didn't mention that while overnighting in that truck stop with no hookups we had no onboard water because the lines were frozen. Not the Montana's fault. It was the fault of the shoddy work done by a mobile repair service who replaced our black tank. Another long horror story for another time. Suffice it to say they did not ascertain that they adequately buttoned things up to keep the lines from freezing.
As for telling the story of our getting out of Independence, I have barely begun. But the rest is for another time. By the way, I knew the landing gear is protected by a fuse but did you know there's also a breaker on the breaker panel that's involved? Another story, another time.
We like walking the beach much better than the ice, snow, and freezing temperatures. Here's a couple of pictures from the beach. The first is a quarter mile walk from our site. The other is 10 miles down the road on a section where you can drive legally on the beach. That second one expresses my dislike for seagulls. I'll disrupt their leisure any chance I get.
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